Dwight D. Eisenhower: Douglas MacArthur’s Aide in the 1930s

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Even so, Eisenhower’s shouting matches and his defiance verged on outright insubordination. ‘Probably no one had tougher fights with a senior man than I did with MacArthur. I told him time and time again: `Why in the hell don’t you fire me? Goddammit, you do things I don’t agree with and you know damn well I don’t.” That MacArthur could have ruined his career at the stroke of a pen does not seem to have bothered Eisenhower nor, he said, did it occur to him to worry about the possible consequences.

His stormy encounters with MacArthur undoubtedly toughened Eisenhower for the enormous pressures and demands that he would face during World War II. Nevertheless, their deteriorating relations took a heavy toll on Eisenhower who, at times, wished MacArthur had actually sacked him. MacArthur, however, was too shrewd to deprive himself of Eisenhower’s services and ignored their differences.

Jimmy Ord was sent to Washington in 1937 to beg for the loan of field artillery, patrol boats, and other armaments and war materiel for the Philippines from an indifferent War Department. By this time, however, a growing awareness in Washington that Japanese aggression might well lead to war produced an unwillingness by the army to part with any of its meager supplies, and few were sent.

With Ord away, the full workload fell upon Eisenhower, who longed for his friend’s return: ‘The sooner he comes the better for me, I’m tired,’ he later recalled thinking. ‘Over a year and a half at this slavery in this climate and no leave!’

When the position of U.S. high commissioner of the Philippines was created in 1935, Roosevelt selected a powerful political ally, Frank Murphy, to fill it. Relations between the commission and MacArthur’s headquarters grew frosty. Murphy not only disliked MacArthur but also was thought to have been behind an attempt to force the closure of the military mission and MacArthur’s recall to the United States. Eisenhower became fed up with the intrigues. Murphy, he wrote in his diary in July 1937, was’supposed to have written letters home to the President and the Secretary of War demanding relief of mission. O.K. by me!! I’m ready to go. No one seems to realize how much energy and slavery Jim and I put into this d– job.’

The most stressful year of Eisenhower’s service in the Philippines was 1938. The pressures on him worsened, as he became the butt of MacArthur’s frustrations. ‘I’m worn out,’ he wrote. ‘Every time one of these `tempests in a teapot’ sweeps the office I find myself, sooner or later, bearing the brunt of the General’s displeasure. . . .I could be the fair-haired boy if I’d only yes, yes, yes!! That would be so easy too!!’ Ord and Eisenhower again clashed with MacArthur, this time over the latter’s insistence that a number of Filipino army units be assembled for a national parade through the streets of Manila as a means of invigorating public morale. MacArthur had not discussed, much less cleared, his idea with Quezon, and when Ord and Eisenhower informed him that their budget could not possibly stand such a hit without sacrificing funds needed to carry out more important projects, the pair was summarily overruled. When Quezon learned of the plan, he conveyed his displeasure to MacArthur. Embarrassed by the matter, MacArthur lamely denied he had ever ordered his staff to proceed. The chief scapegoats were Ord and Eisenhower. The parade was duly canceled, but the bad feelings between MacArthur and his two assistants were heightened. ‘Never again were we on the same warm and cordial terms,’ recalled Eisenhower.

Eisenhower believed that by failing to back his own staff MacArthur had been disloyal. He was furious at MacArthur for in effect branding him a liar to Quezon, an act he deemed the ultimate disloyalty. ‘I am not a liar,’ he challenged, ‘and so I’d like to go back to the United States right away.’ Realizing that for once he had gone too far, MacArthur placed an arm around Eisenhower’s shoulder and turned on all of his considerable charm, brushing their clash aside with the comment: ‘Ike, it’s just fun to see that damn Dutch temper. . . .It’s just a misunderstanding, and let’s let it go at that.’ In fact, the incident irreparably damaged their relationship. Although Eisenhower restricted voicing his resentments to a small circle of intimate friends, he never forgave MacArthur and later related to his friend Robert L. Eichelberger that the incident had been the last straw in their deteriorating relationship.

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