MacArthur

[Rever]

beneath MacArthur's arrogance and fortitude lay a deep-seated self-doubt and self-torture. What tormented MacArthur was his overly doting mother, Pinkie MacArthur, whose utter folly was undeniable. She believed her husband, a Civil War general and hero, had never received the honors he deserved (despite numerous accolades, including the Medal of Honor). For years, she represented him in her struggles with the Army until the poor fellow's death. Then she transferred her affections to "Little Douglas," first helping him secure his admission to West Point, and then following him there (she lived in the Thayer Hotel on campus, his quarters within her sight). Throughout his career, she harassed and pressured him to achieve "greater success," writing to senior officials urging promotions and relentlessly following him from one mundane post to another. In the 1920s, MacArthur attempted to escape her by marrying a slender, divorced woman from a café social circle who nearly succeeded in persuading him to leave the army for banking. MacArthur's mother refused to attend their wedding. When gossip columnists reported that MacArthur's wife continued her pleasure-seeking social life (with other men) while he was abroad, MacArthur rushed to divorce court.

This happened in 1929, a scene that stung MacArthur. Only because of journalistic taste and libel laws was the much-hyped general not publicly revealed as a cuckolded and abandoned husband—how could a commander lead an army if he couldn't manage his family?

As Army Chief of Staff, he had an elegant residence at Fort Meyer, a tree-lined Virginia village across the Potomac River from Washington. But now MacArthur craved privacy, not the goldfish bowl life of his military post. He was thinking about some unusual pleasures.

Through the arrangements of a trusted adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Jefferson Davis, he rented an apartment on Carolamar Road in Northwest Washington, a secluded place known only to a few close friends. MacArthur entertained waves of prostitutes here, sometimes two, three, or even four at a time, but only as a condescending, appreciative man, not a sexual partner. Davis, in his memoirs about his time with MacArthur, wrote that

  his idea of ​​a good time was bringing them in for the night. He never slept with them; he simply sat in an armchair and let the girls marvel at how great he was.

  He also had sadistic tendencies. We would go to a brothel in Baltimore, where MacArthur would choose a particularly beautiful prostitute and treat her exceptionally well—taking her to dinner, reciting poetry, buying her flowers, basically pampering her until she was completely infatuated with him. And when she first uttered any pressure-inducing words, seemingly trying to get something permanent from him, he would berate her as nothing more than a "little whore" and leave. On the drive back to Washington, he would mock her.

  Another of MacArthur's quirks was quite severe. On many nights, he would call Davis to the living room. He sat, a loaded revolver in his hand, recounting the unspeakable hardships of being one of America's finest soldiers. To his fellow officers and the American public, he was the pride of the military, but did he truly deserve such accolades? Hours before dawn, MacArthur would bitterly declare himself an undeserving hero, a figure "a man of glory, a combination of Apollo, Roland, and George Washington" only because of his mother's insistence. He felt overrated, both as a man and as a general. He feared that at some point in his life he would face an insurmountable test, followed by defeat. But a death of his own choosing—and at this point he would sometimes point the pistol to his temple—would spare him the shame of failure and bring him peace of mind.

  Davis's role was to gently persuade MacArthur to put down his gun, saying he was such a valuable soldier that the nation could not do without him. MacArthur would continue, saying he would feel "comfortable and relieved" to die with such a friend, but he agreed to lay down his weapon. Throughout the 1930s, he repeatedly reenacted this scenario.