A Uniform Story

Few biographers of General Douglas MacArthur have failed to mention the pompous field marshal's uniform he designed for himself as Philippine military adviser in the 1930s. This "uniform story" has become symbolic of the wide gulf that separated MacArthur's grand rhetoric from the paucity of his achievement. But the story is fake, the creation of a poorly informed journalist in 1937 who mistook a recently introduced U.S. Army white dress uniform for a distinctive field marshal's attire.