If it is true that a fish rots from the head down, then MacArthur did not know it. His organization in Tokyo, which had put so many American troops in harm’s way, was a nearly perfect reflection of himself. Yet the man was incapable of accepting blame, or assuming responsibility, for the mistakes that had been made. Already he was beginning to cover his tracks, to write his own posterity papers. He had started to formulate a defense for himself, a counter-narrative that, in many ways, would appear to be delusional. He would argue that he had known all along that the Chinese were going to
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