Free The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur by Mark Perry Page A

masses of infantry would make the difference. But neither was right. The next war would be a war of maneuver and devastating speed—and of air attacks.
    Writing in the
London Times
, military theorist B. H. Liddell Hart reflected on the MacArthur report. There is an almost palpable sense of relief in Hart’s words: Someone in America had finally noticed that a war was coming, and was thinking about how to fight it. Citing MacArthur’s reputation as a combat commander, Hart focused on the general’s newthinking: “In the war he [MacArthur] made his reputation as a commander in the historic tradition: one who pushed right forward himself in order to keep his finger on the pulse of the battle and seize opportunities. General MacArthur’s present report shows that in the field of military theory he is no less forward in ideas. No more progressive summary of modern military conditions, and the changes now developing, has appeared from the authoritative quarters of any army.” This was high praise, though MacArthur was not alone in seeing the outlines of the next conflict. Fox Conner, Dwight Eisenhower, and George Marshall saw it, as did George Patton, Benny Foulois, and Frank Andrews. So too did Franklin Roosevelt.
     
    A s Douglas MacArthur was struggling to find a new strategy for the American army, Franklin Roosevelt continued his battle against the Great Depression. The battle was not going well: In mid-May 1934, a two-day storm in the Great Plains had inaugurated the nation’s Dust Bowl era, displacing tens of thousands of farmers and taking millions of acres out of agricultural production. Soil from as far away as Kansas was deposited on the streets of Chicago, as a long drought settled in from Texas to South Dakota. Unemployment still hovered at just over 21 percent, tens of thousands of businesses were still closed, and productive capacity remained at a standstill. But while 1934 is remembered as one of America’s darker years, it also marks an unrecognized turning point in history. In early 1934, Japan annexed Manchuria, which the Japanese had conquered in 1931, and renamed it Manchukuo. On May 1, Austria became a fascist state, and one month later, the new German government opened its first concentration camp. In August, Adolf Hitler was named führer of Germany. And during the waning months of 1934, Franklin Roosevelt allowed Dern and MacArthur to submit to Congress an increase in army spending for 1936. In so doing, Roosevelt began America’s slow but certain pivot to war. MacArthur was surprised by Roosevelt’s decision, but he prepared himself for what he knew would come next: an attempt by officials in the Bureau of the Budget to cut by $30 million the president’s $361 million proposal. But Roosevelt’s silence on the issue was a clear signal to MacArthur that if the army chief couldsell the proposed increases to Congress, the president was willing to go along.
    Even with Roosevelt on the sidelines, MacArthur had to tread carefully. Ross Collins was still in charge of the House Subcommittee on Military Appropriations and still intent on giving the chief of staff his comeuppance. But MacArthur had his own card to play; he was willing to allow officer billets to remain at their current levels, he told Collins, as long as the army gained a significant increase in enlisted strength. MacArthur’s proposal would increase the size of the army from 119,000 to 165,000 men, and like a number of MacArthur’s previous initiatives, it had the support of veterans’ groups. This was not news to Collins, who had learned that playing the Bonus March card had its limitations. Consequently, the Mississippi Democrat offered a compromise, telling MacArthur that he would agree to the increase if it were left to the discretion of the president. MacArthur turned him down. He didn’t want the anti-MacArthur lobby in the administration to press the president on the issue, and neither did he want to give the Bureau of the