General of The Armies - Douglas MacArthur and The Renewed Effort

Douglas MacArthur and The Renewed Effort

In the early 1950s, supporters of Douglas MacArthur began to petition the United States government to authorize a "promotion" to the rank of General of the Armies. MacArthur was at this time a retired five-star general and, with the movement to promote him, it was clear that (Army regulations notwithstanding) the general public felt that the rank of General of the Armies was a six-star position.

In 1955, the United States Congress considered a bill authorizing President Dwight D. Eisenhower to promote MacArthur to the rank of General of the Armies. The language used in the bill states that the rank was to be "re-activated" and that MacArthur was to be "promoted" to the position. With such terms, the Congressional legislation all but confirmed that General of the Armies was a senior rank to that of General of the Army. However, the Army itself still did not declare that General of the Armies was a six-star rank, and Congress did not actually pass, or even vote on, the proposed legislation.

Had Douglas MacArthur actually been promoted, much of the confusion regarding the status of General of the Armies would in all likelihood have been resolved. This would have been the case due to the number of five-star generals still on the Army rolls, and to introduce a rank of General of the Armies would have required some type of formal regulation by the Army dealing with seniority and insignia. However, the Army Judge Advocate General warned that, should MacArthur accept promotion to rank of General of the Armies, he would lose a large amount of retirement pay and benefits associated with the much more firmly established rank of five-star General of the Army. The Army General Staff was also concerned because George C. Marshall was senior to MacArthur and that, should MacArthur be made a General of the Armies, a similar measure would have to be passed promoting Marshall as well.

Because of the various complications, MacArthur advised Dwight Eisenhower that he wished to decline promotion and the bill to promote MacArthur was dropped. Supporters of MacArthur continued with further petitions, however, and the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia possesses numerous letters from 1962 through 1964 attempting to obtain MacArthur a "six-star promotion". In the letters, as well as a congressional record appendix from February 1962 (pages A864-A865), this promotion was referred to as both "six-star general" and "general of the armies."

Proponents for MacArthur's promotion even obtained a vote of neutral support from Harry Truman (meaning he would neither support nor attempt to scuttle the promotion). The promotion attempts were ultimately scuttled by the John F. Kennedy assassination and then MacArthur's death in 1964.