Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Muggeridge meets MacArthur in Tokyo

On Nov. 30, 1947, the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, passing through Tokyo, interviewed General Douglas MacArthur.

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Screen Shot 2015-11-10 at 10.21.07 AM

 

 

On Nov. 30, 1947, the British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, passing through Tokyo, interviewed General Douglas MacArthur.

He was not impressed. He wrote in his diary that the general “talked at me nearly an hour…He spoke of the Sermon on the Mount, producing exceptionally large number of cliches (‘Freedom is heady wine,’ etc.). I was bored and embarrassed. He seemed to me like broken-down actor of the type one meet in railway trains or boarding houses in England.”

Photo Credit: Naval Historical Center/Wikimedia Commons

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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