Douglas and Jean MacArthur spent their last years together in the penthouse of the Waldorf Towers, a part of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He was elected chairman of the board of Remington Rand. In that year, he earned a salary of $68,000 (equivalent to $612,000 in 2016), as well as $20,000 pay and allowances as a General of the Army. The Waldorf became the setting for an annual birthday party on 26 January thrown by the general's former deputy chief engineer, Major General Leif J. Sverdrup. At the 1960 celebration for MacArthur's 80th birthday, many of his friends were startled by the general's obviously deteriorating health. The next day, he collapsed and was rushed into surgery at St. Luke's Hospital to control a severely swollen prostate. In June 1960, he was decorated by the Japanese government with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers, the highest Japanese order which may be conferred on an individual who is not a head of state. In his statement upon receiving the honor, MacArthur said: