Yet it is characteristic of all wars, and especially of the greatest in human history, that events and personalities acquire a momentum of their own. MacArthur existed. He held a grand title, and had been exalted by propaganda into the most famous of American warlords. His public-relations machine was the most effective branch of his headquarters. Though Roosevelt and his associates, together with most of the nation’s military leaders, thought him a charlatan, when a 1945 poll asked Americans whom they considered their greatest general, 43 percent replied MacArthur against 31 percent for
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