Whether competent or capable, he remained an icon, one with a vast store of political capital.

From The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam.  Page 62.  A very pertinent recount of concerns about the physical and mental health of a prominent leader.  Nearly seventy-five years ago.

His admirers and his staff were unanimous in describing his vigor and energy, rare for a man of seventy. Yet among those who were not part of his inner group, there were serious concerns about his age and health. Even as Japan’s defeat became apparent in 1945, some senior military men had already begun to worry about him. General Joseph Stilwell, watching MacArthur accept the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay that September, had been struck by how badly his hands shook. At first, Stilwell thought it was nerves, but General Walter Krueger, one of MacArthur’s senior officers, had assured him it was Parkinson’s. Still, thought Stilwell, “it looked like hell.” There were other signs that his health might be failing. His attention span seemed limited and sometimes there were significant lapses in it, and he was slow to understand the seriousness of a new challenge. His hearing was known to have slipped badly, and knowledgeable staff aides believed that the supreme commander did not readily hold staff meetings for just that reason. Others believed it was the reason that when visitors were granted audiences with him he tended toward monologues, because he could not hear what others were saying and could not easily engage in two-sided conversations. But older or not, able to work at the level demanded of a combat commander or not, he remained an icon, one with a vast store of political capital. There were all kinds of glitches in his long and often distinguished career, moments when he had been far less than a brilliant commander and his lesser, more vainglorious self had shown too readily, and others had paid a price for his failings, but he was in 1950 still a formidable figure, someone who had been a famous and daring commander as far back as World War I, had conducted his campaign against the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II with shrewd, careful use of his limited forces, and was, on the occasion of the outbreak of the Korean War, doing an admirable job of modernizing Japan.