[His] headquarters was shaped to his needs and personality, made up of men whose principal qualification was fidelity and who were united by little else than their determination to “protect” [him] against adversaries real and imagined…As a rule…”[he] did not select the brightest, most capable, and most promising [people] to serve under him.”
…”[I]t is frequently (and largely truthfully) said that they share several characteristics–each carries a chip on both shoulders, is highly and sometimes childishly sensitive, and is convinced that [the boss] is the greatest man who ever lived,” not to be judged as an ordinary mortal…but as if he existed in some perfect idealistic vacuum.” Anyone who refused to accept the concept of a flawless [boss] was an enemy; “everyone in the world is either ‘for’ or ‘against’ the [boss].
…
He had the need to disturb the universe, which is a great gift, but too often he ended by disturbing other people, whose needs and achievements he seemed not to recognize. He had no generosity in sharing the stage of history, no easiness in the presence of other actors. Always there was the inability to leave history alone: the record must be rewritten–at whatever cost to truth–until there was only one major figure, one guiding genius, one hero. He had the hunger that can never be satisfied: always to have been right, always perfect, always admired. There is a hollowness here, a lack of centrality, of commitment and conviction beyond the self that could have redeemed what is otherwise empty posturing. As a human being he was a shell of tarnished magnificence, a false giant attended by real pygmies.
Took my breath away, this character analysis, both because of the eloquent passion with which it is written and because the man Eric Larrabee is referring to in Commander in Chief could be the one we’re forced to stare at every day of this horror.
Larrabee was describing Douglas MacArthur, whom F.D.R. called one of the two most dangerous men in the country. (The other was Louisiana’s Huey Long.)
MacArthur lied, exaggerated events and claimed victories hard-won by other people as his own. So once again, I’m tempted to believe that everything that is happening has happened before.
I forget to note the final exchange Roosevelt had with his luncheon companions on that day, months before he became president: “We must tame these fellows,” said Roosevelt, “and make them useful to us.”