page_title: Douglas MacArthur
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Douglas MacArthur / Later life
context_page_description: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American five-star general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the US Army, and the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army.
  Raised in a military family in the American Old West, MacArthur was valedictorian at the West Texas Military Academy where he finished high school, and First Captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated top of the class of 1903. During the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission, for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd Division.
context_section_description: A day after his arrival in San Francisco from Korea on 18 April 1951, MacArthur flew with his family to Washington, D.C. where he was scheduled to address a joint session of Congress.  It was his and Jean's first visit to the continental United States since 1937, when they had been married; Arthur IV, now aged 13, had never been to the U.S. On 19 April, MacArthur made his last official appearance in a farewell address to the U.S. Congress presenting and defending his side of his disagreement with Truman over the conduct of the Korean War. During his speech, he was interrupted by fifty ovations. MacArthur ended the address saying:
  I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away".
  And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.
  
  Good Bye.
  MacArthur received public adulation, which aroused expectations that he would run for president, but he was not a candidate. MacArthur carried out a speaking tour in 1951–52 attacking the Truman administration for "appeasement in Asia" and for mismanaging the economy. Initially attracting large crowds, by early 1952 MacArthur's speeches were attracting smaller and smaller numbers of people as many complained that MacArthur seemed more interested in settling scores with Truman and praising himself than in offering up a constructive vision for the nation. MacArthur felt uncomfortable campaigning for the Republican nomination, and hoped that at the Republican convention, a deadlock would ensue between Senator Robert Taft and General Eisenhower, which would end with the GOP nominating him as the best compromise. MacArthur's unwillingness to campaign for the presidency seriously hurt his ability to win the nomination. In the end, MacArthur endorsed Senator Robert A. Taft, and was keynote speaker at the 1952 Republican National Convention. Taft lost the nomination to Eisenhower, who went on to win the 1952 election by a landslide. Once elected, Eisenhower consulted with MacArthur about ending the war in Korea.
  Douglas and Jean MacArthur spent their last years together in the penthouse of the Waldorf Towers, a part of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He was elected chairman of the board of Remington Rand. In that year, he earned a salary of $68,000 (equivalent to $612,000 in 2016), as well as $20,000 pay and allowances as a General of the Army. The Waldorf became the setting for an annual birthday party on 26 January thrown by the general's former deputy chief engineer, Major General Leif J. Sverdrup. At the 1960 celebration for MacArthur's 80th birthday, many of his friends were startled by the general's obviously deteriorating health. The next day, he collapsed and was rushed into surgery at St. Luke's Hospital to control a severely swollen prostate. In June 1960, he was decorated by the Japanese government with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers, the highest Japanese order which may be conferred on an individual who is not a head of state. In his statement upon receiving the honor, MacArthur said:
  No honor I have ever received moves me more deeply than this one. Perhaps this is because I can recall no parallel in the history of the world where a great nation recently at war has so distinguished its former enemy commander. What makes it even more poignant is my own firm disbelief in the usefulness of military occupations with their corresponding displacement of civil control."
  After his recovery, MacArthur methodically began to carry out the closing acts of his life. He visited the White House for a final reunion with Ei
caption: Douglas MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia. The statue is a duplicate of the one at West Point. The base houses a time capsule which contains various MacArthur, Norfolk and MacArthur Foundation memorabilia.[358]
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