Douglas MacArthur II

Douglas MacArthur II (July 5, 1909 – November 15, 1997) was an American diplomat. During his diplomatic career, he served as United States ambassador to Japan, Belgium, Austria, and Iran, as well as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. He was a nephew of the U.S. general Douglas MacArthur.

MacArthur's parents were Captain Arthur H. MacArthur, III and Mary McCalla MacArthur. Through his mother, he was a grandson of Bowman H. McCalla, great-grandson of Colonel Horace Binney Sargent, and great-great-grandson of Lucius Manlius Sargent. Named for his uncle, General Douglas MacArthur, he was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1909.

MacArthur graduated from Milton Academy in Milton, Mass., and from Yale College, Class of 1932.

He married Laura Louise Barkley on August 21, 1934; she was the daughter of future U.S. Vice President Alben Barkley. They had a daughter named Laura MacArthur, two grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. Douglas's daughter married Henry Goditiabois-Deacon, a Belgian man with whom she had a daughter. President Johnson signed a special bill conferring U.S. citizenship to Laura's daughter in 1965.

In the mid 1930s, MacArthur served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve, Field Artillery Branch. He also worked as an assistant to the sub-district supervisor in the Washington D.C. Army headquarters of sub-district 17.

After serving as an Army officer, MacArthur began his Foreign Service career in 1935 with a post in Vancouver. He was assigned to Vichy France during the early years of World War II, served as secretary of the U.S. Embassy there from 1940 to 1942, and was interned in Baden Baden, Germany with other U.S. diplomatic staff and civilians for two years after the U.S. broke relations with the Vichy government. Following an internee exchange in March 1944, he served as part of General Dwight Eisenhower's political staff and then led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Paris until 1948. He went on to become chief of the State Department's Division of Western European Affairs in 1949, where he assisted in the formation of NATO, and served as Counselor of the State Department from 1953 to 1956, where he led the U.S. negotiations for the SEATO treaty.

MacArthur was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Japan in December 1956 and presented his credentials in February 1957.

During his four years in Tokyo, MacArthur oversaw the re-negotiation of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, known as "Anpo" in Japanese. MacArthur appeared on the cover of the June 27, 1960, issue of Time magazine, in which he was characterized as "the principal architect of present-day U.S. policy toward Japan."