MACARTHUR'S CAREER

Born: Jan. 26, 1880, at Fort Little Rock, Ark.

Family Background: His father, General Arthur MacArthur, was a Civil War colonel ("the Boy Colonel of the West") who earned a Congressional Medal, became an Indian fighter in the '70s, a hero of the Spanish-American war, and Military Governor of the Philippines. He died dramatically of a heart attack while addressing a reunion of his old regiment in Milwaukee in 1912. Douglas MacArthur grew up at a succession of Army posts and, as a child at Fort Little Rock, was almost killed by an arrow during the last of the western Indian uprisings.

Education: Graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1903. Ranked. first in his class, with one of the highest grade averages ever earned at West Point He was also chosen cadet captain, earned his "A" in baseball.

Marriage: MacArthur was married in 1922 at the age of 42 to Mrs. Louise Cromwell Brooks, the daughter of Philadelphia's wealthy socialite Mrs. Edward Stotesbury. The marriage ended in divorce in 1929. In 1937, he married lean Marie Faircloth of Murfreesboro, Tenn., a quiet, dark-haired woman 19 years his junior. The MacArthurs have one son, 13-year-old Arthur MacArthur.

Military Career: Served in the Philippines after graduation from West Point, and saw his first battle action in brushes with the Moros. Spent a year as an aide to his father's good friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1907. He went on the U.S. expedition which seized Veracruz, Mexico in 1914, and scouted inland disguised as a hobo. When the U.S. entered World War I, MacArthur, then a major on staff duty, conceived the idea of a "Rainbow Division of National Guard troops from different states; though his superiors were hesitant to send National Guardsmen to France, he went over their heads, sold the idea to War Secretary Newton D. Baker and went with the division to France.

His reckless bravery (he was twice wounded, once gassed) won him 13 medals (plus seven citations and 24 foreign decorations), a brigadier general's star and, eventually, command of the division. Back in the U.S., he became superintendent of West Point (at 39), history's youngest Chief of Staff (at 50). In 1932, he incurred political unpopularity by personally commanding, under Herbert Hoover's orders, the troops which drove the veterans' Bonus Army from Washington's Anacostia Flats.

He retired from the Army in 1937; but he had a showy new title: Field Marshal of the new Philippine Army. In 1941, six months before Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt restored MacArthur to duty as a full general with the title of Commander of U.S. Forces in the Far East. By V-J day, when he took the Japanese surrender aboard U.S.S. Missouri, Douglas MacArthur had made himself one of the most famous commanders in U.S. history. He became Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan 5 1/2 years ago, Commander of U N Forces in Korea within 13 days after the invasion last June.

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