INSIDE MacARTHUR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 657, 8 February 1952, Page 13

INSIDE MacARTHUR

THE RIDDLE OF MacARTHUR, hy John Gunther; Hamish Hamilton. En§lish price, 12/6. S a boy I remember a comic song, each verse of which ended with the line-"And yet you can’t help liking him." This, I should explain, was funny because the "him" in question was a person of unpleasant ways and flagrant vices. Derogatory. statements followed closely by assurances that the individual

concerned has, in reality, a lovable char-acter-the pattern appears to have been copied by Mr. Gunther in his book, The Riddle of MacArthur. The impression conveyed is that of an ambitious, egotistical Caesar-one of the most dangerous of all God’s creatures, a superb military commander with a disastrous propensity for meddling in high politics. General MacArthur thinks "of himself and the Pope as the two leading representatives of Christianity in the world today." When the American Office of War Information proposed to drop leaflets printed with the slogan, "We will return," on Japanese-held areas, "MacArthur fought for months to keep it, ‘I will return.’" In the Philippines he was caught unprepared by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour day, and he failed to anticipate Chinese intervention in Korea. In face of his own considerable body of evidence to the contrary, Mr. Gunther’s periodical assurances that MacArthur is really a very great man are not entirely convincing. Indeed, I am not quite certain whether they are meant to be. Mr. Gunther may be consciously Satirical or unconsciously naive. It scarcely matters which when the effect produced is the same in either case.

R. M.

Burdon