Speeches of MacArthur
Speeches of MacArthur
Speeches of U.S. Army General Douglas A. MacArthur: Keynote Address at 1952 Republican National Convention and the "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech to Congress, April 19, 1951.
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing tie and business suit while delivering the keynote address speech at the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois: "Never before has a soldier been called to a rostrum such as this to participate in the deliberations of a great political party. I approach the task in a spirit of humility... but fortified by so solemn an obligation. In this unusual assignment, I feel a deep consciousness of the nature and gravity of the crusade upon which we now embark... Only thus can out beloved country restore its spiritual and temporal strength and regain once again the universal respect." Applause. "I speak with a sense of pride that all of my long life I have been a member of the Republican party." Applause. "As before me was my father, an ardent support of Abraham Lincoln." Applause. "I have an abiding faith that this party-- that if it remains true to its great tradition-- can provide the country with a leadership... will bring us back to peace and tranquility."
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech: "There are those who claim our strength is inadequate to protect on both fronts, that we cannot divide our effort. I can think of no greater expression of defeatism." Applause. "If a potential enemy can divide his strength on two fronts, it is for us to counter his effort. The Communist threat is a global one. Its successful advance in one sector threatens the destruction of every other sector." C/As Red Chinese Army soldiers marching in street during military parade, many Communist Chinese flags and large banner portraits of Mao Tse-Tung (Mao Zedong) on display; crowds lining street, young women dancing and waving sticks as military personnel carriers pass. You can not appease or otherwise surrender to communism in Asia without simultaneously undermining our efforts to halt its advance in Europe." MS General Douglas A. MacArthur speaking: "Beyond pointing out these general truisms, I shall confine my discussion to the general areas of Asia. Before one may objectively assess the situation now existing there, he must comprehend something of Asia's past and the revolutionary changes which have marked her course up to the present." C/As Chinese peasants eating on street, extremely poor family cooking on street, children clamoring for dole. "Long exploited by the so-called colonial powers, with little opportunity to achieve any degree of social justice, individual dignity or a higher standard life such as guided our own noble administration in the Philippines, the people of Asia found their opportunity in the war just past to throw off the shackles of colonialism and now see the dawn of new opportunity and heretofore unfelt dignity, and the self-respect of political freedom."
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "Mustering half of the earth's population, and 60 percent of its natural resources these peoples are rapidly consolidating a new force, both moral and material, with which to raise the living standard and erect adaptations of the design of modern progress to their own distinct cultural environments. Whether one adheres to the concept of colonialization or not, this is the direction of Asian progress and it may not be stopped. It is a corollary to the shift of the world economic frontiers as the whole epicenter of world affairs rotates back toward the area whence it started. In this situation, it becomes vital that our own country orient its policies in consonance with this basic evolutionary condition rather than pursue a course blind to reality that the colonial era is now past and the Asian peoples covet the right to shape their own free destiny. What they seek now is friendly guidance, understanding and support, not imperious direction, the dignity of equality and not the shame of subjugation. Their pre-war standard of life, pitifully low, is infinitely lower now in the devastation left in war's wake. World ideologies play little part in Asian thinking and are little understood. What the people strive for is the opportunity for a little more food in their stomachs, a little better clothing on their backs and a little firmer roof over their heads, and the realization of the normal nationalist urge for political freedom. These political-social conditions have but an indirect bearing upon our own national security, but do form a backdrop to contemporary planning which must be thoughtfully considered if we are to avoid the pitfalls of unrealism."
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "Of more direct and immediately bearing upon our national security are the changes wrought in the strategic potential of the Pacific Ocean in the course of the past war. Prior thereto the western strategic frontier of the United States lay on the literal line of the Americas, with an exposed island salient extending out through Hawaii, Midway and Guam to the Philippines. That salient proved not an outpost of strength but an avenue of weakness along which the enemy could and did attack. The Pacific was a potential area of, advance for any predatory force intent upon striking at the bordering land areas. All this was changed by our Pacific victory. Our strategic frontier then shifted to embrace the entire Pacific Ocean, which became a vast moat to protect us as long as we held it. Indeed, it acts as a protective shield for all of the Americas and all free lands of the Pacific Ocean area, We control it to the shores of Asia by a chain of islands extending in an arc from the Aleutians to the Mariannas held by us and our free allies. From this island chain we can dominate with sea and air power every Asiatic port from Vladivostok to Singapore -- with sea and air power every port, as I said, from Vladivostok to Singapore -- and prevent any hostile movement into the Pacific. Any predatory attack from Asia must be an amphibious effort. No amphibious force can be successful without control of the sea lanes and the air over those lanes in its avenue of advance. With naval and air supremacy and modest ground elements to defend bases, any maj . or attack from continental Asia toward us or our friends in the Pacific would be doomed to failure. Under such conditions, the Pacific no longer represents menacing avenues of approach for a prospective invader. It assumes, instead, the friendly aspect of a peaceful lake."
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "Our line of defense is a natural one and can be maintained with a minimum of military effort and expense. It envisions no attack against anyone, nor does it provide the bastions essential for offensive operations, but properly maintained, would be an invincible defense against aggression. The holding of this defense line in the western Pacific is entirely dependent upon holding all segments thereof, for any major breach of that line by an unfriendly power would render vulnerable to determine attack every other major segment. This is a military estimate as to which I have yet to find a military leader who will take exception." Applause. "For that reason, I have strongly recommended in the past. as a matter of military urgency, that under no circumstances must Formosa fall under Communist control." Applause. "Such an eventuality would at once threaten the freedom of the Philippines and the loss of Japan and might well force our western frontier back to the coast of California, Oregon and Washington." Applause.
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "To understand the changes which now appear upon the Chinese mainland, one must understand the changes in Chinese character & culture over the past 50 years. China up to 50 years ago was completely non-homogenous, being compartmented into groups divided against each other." C/As China circa 1920s: landscapes, scenics, peasants, rice farming, street scenes, British occupational forces, rickshaws, General Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-Tung (Zedong) and communist leaders, etc. The war-making tendency was almost non-existent as they still followed the tenets of the Confucian ideal of pacifist culture. At the turn of the century under the regime of Chang Tso Lin efforts toward greater homogeneity produced the start of a nationalist urge. This was further and more successfully developed under the leadership of Chiang Kai-Shek, but has been brought to its greatest fruition under the present regime to the point that it has now taken on the character of a united nationalism of increasingly dominant aggressive tendencies." MS Gen. Douglas MacArthur speaking: "Through these past 50 years the Chinese people have thus become militarize in their concepts and in their ideals. They now constitute excellent soldiers, with competent staffs, and commanders. This has produced a new and dominant power in Asia, which, for its own purposes, is allied with Soviet Russia but which in its own concepts and methods has become aggressively imperialistic, with a lust for expansions and increased power normal to this type of imperialism. There is little of the ideological concept either one way or another in the Chinese make-up. The standard of living is so low & the capital accumulation has been so thoroughly dissipated by war that the masses are desperate & eager to follow any leadership which seems to promise the alleviation of woeful stringencies."
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "I have from the beginning believed that the Chinese Communists' support of the North Koreans was the dominant one." C/As U.S. and U.N. forces engaged in combat with North Korean Army (KPA) soldiers, infantry units (Korean War). "Their interests are at present parallel with those of the Soviet, but I believe that the aggressiveness recently displayed not only in Korea but also in Indo-China arid Tibet and pointing potentially toward the South reflects predominantly the same lust for the expansion of power which has animated every would-be conqueror since the beginning of time." Applause.
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "The Japanese people since the war have undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history, With a commendable will, eagerness to learn, and marked capacity to understand, they have from the ashes left in war's wake erected in Japan an edifice dedicated to the supremacy of individual liberty & personal dignity and in the ensuing process there has been created a truly representative government committed to the advance of political morality, freedom of economic enterprise, and social justice." Applause. "Politically, economically, and socially Japan is now abreast of many free nations of the earth and will not again fail the universal trust. That it may be counted upon to wield a profoundly beneficial influence over the course of events in Asia is attested by the magnificent manner in which the Japanese people have met the recent challenge of war, unrest & confusion surrounding them from the outside and checked communism within their own frontiers without the slightest slackening in their forward progress. I sent all four of our occupation divisions to the Korean battlefront, without the slightest qualms as to the effect of the resulting power vacuum upon Japan. The results fully justified my faith." Applause. "I know of no nation more serene, orderly & industrious, nor in which higher hopes can be entertained for future constructive service in the advance of the human race."
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "Of our former ward, the Philippines, we can look forward in confidence that the existing unrest will be corrected & a strong & healthy nation will grow in the longer aftermath of war's terrible destructiveness We must be patient & understanding & never fail them. As in our hour of need, they did not fail us." Applause. "A Christian nation, the Philippines stand as a mighty bulwark of Christianity in the Far East, and its capacity for high moral leadership in Asia is unlimited. On Formosa the government of the Republic of China has had the opportunity to refute by action much of the malicious gossip which so undermined the strength of its leadership on the Chinese mainland. The Formosan people are receiving a just and enlightened administration with majority representation in the organs of government, and politically, economically and socially they appear to be advancing along sound and constructive lines."
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "With this brief insight into the surrounding areas, I now turn to the Korean conflict." C/As Korean War footage: naval salvos during beach landing (possibly Inchon), U.S. Marines debarking pontoons, M4 Sherman tanks wading ashore, infantry units advancing, mortars being fired, KPA soldiers surrendering. "While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision from a military standpoint, proved a sound one. As I said, it proved to be a sound one, as we hurled back the invader and decimated his forces." MS Douglas MacArthur speaking: "Our victory was complete, and our objectives within reach, when Red China intervened with numerically superior ground forces. This created a new war and an entirely new situation, a situation not contemplated when our forces were committed against the North Korean invaders; a situation which called for new decisions in the diplomatic sphere to permit the realistic adjustment of military strategy. Such decisions have not been forthcoming." Applause.
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "While no man in his right mind would advocate sending our ground forces into continental China, and such was never given a thought, the new situation did urgently demand a drastic revision of strategic planning if our political aim was to defeat this new enemy as we had defeated the old one. Apart from the military need, as I saw it, to neutralize sanctuary protection given the enemy north of the Yalu, I felt that military necessity in the conduct of the war made necessary the intensification of our economic blockade against China, the imposition of a naval blockade against the China coast, removal of restrictions on air reconnaissance of China's coastal area and of Manchuria, removal of restrictions on the forces of the Republic of China on Formosa, with logistical support to contribution to-their effective operations against the Chinese mainland. For entertaining these views, all professionally designed to support our forces in Korea and to bring hostilities to an end with the least possible delay and at a saving of countless American arid allied lives, I have been severely criticized in lay circles, principally abroad, despite my understanding that from a military standpoint the above views have been fully shared in the past by practically every military leader concerned with the Korean campaign, including our own Joint Chiefs of Staff." Enthusiastic applause, standing ovation.
Speeches of MacArthur
MS U.S. Army General DOUGLAS A. MACARTHUR wearing stripped military uniform while speaking to Joint Session of U.S. Congress, delivering famous "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech (continued): "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 at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have all since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks 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." Applause