An old man climbed aboard United Air Lines flight 709 in New York last week to fly to Los Angeles and celebrate his 75th birthday. His famous stride had become a careful step, his hands looked transparent and his skin like parchment, but his back was West Point-straight, his manner commanding. When the stewardess saw that General Douglas MacArthur had not fastened his safety belt (he never does), she made the best of it and said nothing.
A head wind delayed the flight an hour and 14 minutes, and the plane landed in a fog so dense that an American Legion color guard ceremoniously marched into a fence. The general at first failed to see the crowd, and got into his car. But then he spotted his admirers and climbed out to give Los Angeles a MacArthurian accolade. Its conclusion: "There are no lost horizons here except in the matchless imagery of your studios."
Next morning Douglas MacArthur and his wife motored to MacArthur Park for the dedication of a war memorial that includes a statue of the general and a pool containing replicas of the islands he conquered in the Pacific. He was pleased and genial, but when a local architect rushed up to him at the dedication ceremonies and burbled, "I'm going to wish you a happy birthday as I want you to wish me one, because today is my birthday, too." General MacArthur looked at him, through him and away from him.
"I Am of Caesar." When his time to speak came, MacArthur, with emotion, made a defense of patriotism as opposed to fuzzy internationalism. Said the general who won a military campaign as the agent of a worldwide organization of governments: "Seductive murmurs are arising that [patriotism] is now outmoded by some more comprehensive and all-embracing philosophy, that we are provincial and immature or reactionary and stupid when we idealize our own country." General MacArthur called for a return to the simple philosophy of Stephen Decatur. for "it is fine to be called patriots or nationalists...if it means you love your country above all else."
After the dedication he whirled off to a luncheon of the 60th annual convention of the Episcopal diocese, where he reminded the audience: "Although I am of Caesar. I did try to render unto God that which was His."