'She's So Sweet'

Since Mrs. MacArthur mostly watched her husband during the visit, reporters had to trample their pride to fill up long articles about her. A detective was quoted, describing her eyes, "They are so intense, so animated that you can't catch the exact color." The Globe ran a headline: " 'She's So Sweet,' They Said as Mrs. MacArthur Rode By." An eight column headline in the Traveler read: "Mrs. MacArthur Quickly Uses Gift Handbag."

Except for a passing mention in the Globe, the papers declined to discuss MacArthur's big blunder. Someone must have mumbled to the general that the truce agenda had been agreed upon in Korea, for when he visited a hospital a few minutes later he told more than one soldier, "You'll be interested to know that a truce was signed this morning."

Nothing to Say

By Friday the morning papers had nothing to say, as his departure from the state had been fully reported by the papers of the afternoon before. The Herald remedied that situation:

Largely due to a State House speech that rang more strikingly in millions of American ears than the far-off splashing of the Boston tea party, Gen. and Mrs. MacArthur received a tumultuous greeting from too to heel of Massachusetts...

Young and old somehow seemed to sense the renewal of faith in a hero

who had for so long seemed remote. Who had yet captured their fancy in battle and who now had dared to rail against waste, hyprocrisy and folly in our current administration...

Gold Star mothers cried along the route from Boston to Springfield. Dignitaries became tongue-tied with admiration. Children waved and will boast forever as people boasted at the turn of the century about seeing Teddy Roosevelt.

As the visit drew to a close, MacArthur grew more and more emotional. He seems to have a special tie to most of the 48 states--such as Arkansas, where he was born; Tennessee, his wife's state; and Wisconsin, his legal residence. But the Massachusetts papers reported his "eyes again misted and his voice became so choked with emotion he was seen to swallow and choke back his words." "I feel at last that I have indeed come home...This was the greatest ever."

But in the background the general's aide, Major General Courtney Whitney, was saying that this was one of many visits General MacArthur will make in the near future. "He's been invited to visit almost every state of the Union.