A General Portrait -- National Hero Or Flawed Egotist?

----------------------------------------------------------------- "Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur"by Geoffrey Perret Random House, $32.50 -----------------------------------------------------------------

He was brilliant, eccentric, manipulative, petty, self-centered, shy, aloof, dashing, vain, foolish, worldly, naive, stubborn, gracious - just about everything but humble.

He led "the most adventurous and dramatic life in American history" and became a great national hero, only to fall from grace in the eyes of some modern historians. That's how World War II historian Geoffrey Perret, author of the award-winning "Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph," sizes up Douglas MacArthur in his massive new 590-page biography.

Born on a frontier army outpost and dressed in skirts by his mother until he was 8, MacArthur went on to graduate first in his class at West Point, served as an aide to President Theodore Roosevelt, and emerged from World War I as the nation's most decorated officer. Subsequently, he became superintendent of West Point, headed the U.S. committee for the 1928 Olympics, and he rose to become Army chief of staff by the age of 50.

And always, Perret observes, he cut a figure that managed to be both dashing and eccentric.

"There had never been such a glamorous general in the history of the War Department," he writes. "To the amazement of other officers, (MacArthur) sometimes wore a silk kimono over his uniform and, clutching a Japanese fan in one hand, puffed relentlessly on a Lucky Strike wedged into a jeweled cigarette holder that he brandished in the other."

And Perret adds: "As he stood on the summit of his profession, the rarefied atmosphere of success made him more eccentric than ever, more charismatic and more openly egotistical."

The outbreak of World War II found MacArthur commanding U.S. forces in the Philippines. Ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt to escape from Corregidor, MacArthur made his famous vow to return. When he did, Perret says it was more than just fulfillment of a promise: He "had to liberate (the Philippines) to be a free man himself, the exorcist at last over his failures, his ghosts and his guilt."

One battle stands out

MacArthur's acceptance of the Japanese surrender ending World War II made him a great national hero, but there was still more to come. Perret notes that in the careers of all great commanders, "there is one battle that stands out above all the rest, the supreme test of generalship that places him among the other military immortals."

For Douglas MacArthur, that was Inchon, in the Korean War, a battle that magnified his legend "beyond even his florid imaginings."

Later, however, after MacArthur ignored warnings the Chinese were about to enter the war and openly defied President Truman's efforts to negotiate a cease-fire, Truman sacked him. MacArthur returned to a triumphal welcome in the United States and delivered his famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech to Congress, but soon his legend began to unravel.

"MacArthur cared profoundly about his reputation, so it is probably as well (now) that he is dead," observes Perret, noting that in recent years some scholars and journalists have excoriated MacArthur as a military blunderer and charlatan, while "he also continues to be revered as a great soldier and patriot."

What motivated him?

"MacArthur's most obvious trait was his vanity, which is often seized on as if it were the key to the man," says Perret, but noting that despite his egotism, "he was not in the deepest sense ego-driven." Rather, "his amazing will power" was the "motor that powered his ascent."

Perret defends MacArthur vigorously against many of the charges made by other biographers, but he is equally candid in appraising the general's faults: "He could not laugh at himself. The sense of destiny, of God's hand gripping his shoulder got in the way. He could never see himself as being ridiculous, never openly acknowledge the absurdities in his own attitudes and behavior. . ."

Few outside interests

In some respects, MacArthur was a severely limited man, with few interests outside his military career except for West Point football and cowboy movies. There was, Perret notes, "no interest in art, literature or music; no physical activity, such as tennis or golf; a vast range of interesting acquaintances, but not one real friend with whom he could talk freely and openly."

Perret also examines the odd personal relationships in MacArthur's life, including his first marriage (at age 41) to Louise Cromwell Brooks, a divorcee who was "no great beauty and not particularly bright (but) simply radiated sexual excitement," as well as his later affair with a 16-year-old Eurasian girl he kept as his mistress while he was Army chief of staff.

MacArthur subsequently married the much younger Jean Faircloth, who gave birth to the general's only child, his son Arthur. Though MacArthur died in 1964, his widow still survives in her 90s, a resident of Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, while Arthur, who saw very little of his famous, busy father while growing up, lives under a pseudonym and pursues a musical career.

Perret's narrative is fast-paced, and his judgments are clearly drawn, but his account is not entirely free of errors. There are mistakes in his recital of the Civil War exploits of MacArthur's father, his description of Corregidor's topography is badly confused, and he reverses the movements of Japanese forces in the Battle for Leyte Gulf. These lapses make one cautious in accepting other statements whose accuracy is less easily determined.

But with that single caveat, this is a fascinating, highly readable biography of a complex man who ranks as one of America's greatest heroes or one of its greatest pretenders. Or both.

Seattle writer Steve Raymond's next book, "The Estuary Flyfisher," will be published this summer.