With few backers to look after his interests in Washington and with no power, MacArthur had gone from a high-profile player to an also-ran. By becoming closely identified with MacArthur’s falling star, Eisenhower also put his own future squarely on the line. Then in his mid-forties and still a lowly major after more than fifteen years in grade, Eisenhower’s prospects were bleak. He entertained no illusions that he was destined for anything more than a modest rank as perhaps a junior general officer in the event of war. ‘He was tying his kite to an officer whose career was finished,’ noted historian Robert H. Ferrell.

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MacArthur’s mission was to create and train a Philippine defense force to safeguard a virtually indefensible island nation. By 1936, the urgency faced by the American mission increased with each new act of Japanese aggression in Southeast Asia. Hardly anyone in Washington, however, cared about the Philippines, which were seen as not only extremely hard to defend but of no strategic importance.

MacArthur’s plan for defense of the islands was predicated on the presence of an American battle fleet to discourage a would-be Japanese invasion, yet the War Department’s Plan Orange contained no such provision. MacArthur thus became the architect of a noble but ultimately unachievable undertaking.

Eisenhower and Ord shared the duties of satisfying the divergent demands of MacArthur and Quezon. Eisenhower was already well versed in Philippine problems from his service under MacArthur in Washington. However, it became virtually impossible to persuade Washington to increase the miniscule Philippine budget. Although MacArthur never accepted the premise, it was soon evident to Eisenhower that theirs was a hopeless mission.

One of MacArthur’s conditions for accepting the job was that Quezon promote him to the rank of field marshal in the Philippine army. MacArthur’s willing acceptance of an ersatz field marshal’s commission contradicted American military tradition and appalled Eisenhower. It became one of the primary reasons for their later estrangement. MacArthur thought that such an exalted rank was quite necessary to enhance the prestige of his position. He not only accepted the title, but the extra pay of $3,980 per month, making him the highest paid military officer in the world.

When Quezon formally presented MacArthur with a gold baton as a symbol of his new position, Eisenhower nearly gagged with disgust, terming the ceremony ‘rather fantastic.’ He thought it ‘pompous and rather ridiculous’ for MacArthur ‘to be the field marshal of a virtually nonexisting army.’

Eisenhower adamantly refused to accept Quezon’s attempt to promote him to the rank of brigadier general in the Philippine army. In 1967 Eisenhower recalled to biographer Peter Lyon his furious arguments with MacArthur over what he believed was his superior’s disloyalty to the U.S. Army. ‘You have been a four-star general,’ he told him. ‘This is a proud thing. . . .Why in the hell do you want a banana country giving you a field-marshalship?’ MacArthur not only rejected his pleas but, recalled Eisenhower, ‘Oh, Jesus, he just gave me hell!’

MacArthur’s relations with the Philippine president eventually deteriorated so badly that it was Eisenhower and Ord, not MacArthur, to whom Quezon most often turned for advice. The longer MacArthur remained in Manila the more distant he became from Quezon.

Despite his status as a junior officer, Eisenhower never backed down from confronting MacArthur over policy issues he deemed impractical or impossible to carry out. The Philippine army had no workable logistical system and few qualified officers. Ord and Eisenhower repeatedly urged MacArthur to visit Washington to lobby for his program in person, which he reluctantly did in 1937.

How did Eisenhower manage to challenge one of the U.S. Army’s most autocratic soldiers with virtual impunity? Few officers of any rank ever dared to defy MacArthur, much less with Eisenhower’s vehemence. During MacArthur’s forty-eight-year military career no one ever stood up to him more forcefully than Eisenhower. The reasons had as much to do with Eisenhower’s increasing confidence in his own professional ability as with his belief that MacArthur needed him more than he needed MacArthur. Eisenhower’s flaming temper and his own considerable ego made him a match for MacArthur’s imperiousness. Each was far too stubborn to give in to the other. John Eisenhower believes that both were at fault: ‘Faced with plenty of other frustrations in the job they were trying to perform, neither man seems to have made much effort to realize what the other was going through.’

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