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Friday, June 2, 1939

Meeting at MacArthur’s Office. Present. His staff and the general staff.

Macarthur talks at length on the history of scattered camps, trying to justify their establishment. He recognizes however the fact that in as much as the president relieves him of the political phase of the national defense, he (MacArthur) has no more alternative. He appointed a preparatory committee consisting of Eisenhower, Southerland and myself to present recommendation in a month. MacArthur insinuated that the subject of concentration was brought to the president’s attention not thru him. This was a wrong procedure, he says as when a subject is presented to the president, there should be combined agreements and opinion of all the military men concerned. Divided opinions of military men on military subject always destroys the effectiveness. At the end of the conference, Lim said that when the president calls for the information direct from us, we don’t have the alternative but give the information to him, insinuating thereby that the question of concentration was asked by the president himself. This insinuation of Lim is false as Lim himself used the concentration issue as one of the causes of his resignation by claiming that on this vital issue, he would not agree with the military advisers office. (On our way to Malacañan, Lim made a remark to me in which he implied that he was the author of the concentration. This is more of Lims habitual lies. I wrote the study originally without consultation with Lim. There are several other cases where Lim tried to steal credit for original ideas.