Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  Eisenhower had arranged for Marshall and Admiral King to stay at his cottage in Carthage, where he joined them before dinner. King began talking about OVERLORD. He said he had urgently and persistently advised Roosevelt to keep Marshall in Washington, but he had lost. “I hate to lose General Marshall as Chief of Staff,” King told Eisenhower, “but my loss is consoled by the knowledge that I will have you to work in his job.” Both Eisenhower and Marshall were embarrassed, but Eisenhower took King’s statement as “almost official notice that I would soon be giving up field command to return to Washington.”20

  On the evening of November 21, Roosevelt, Marshall, King, and the remainder of the American delegation flew to Cairo. There they argued with the British about operations in 1944 and future command structure. The Americans held out for the strongest cross-Channel attack possible, with an over-all commander for the forces of the Allies throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Mideast. As had happened so often before, the British did not flatly reject OVERLORD; rather they wanted to center the discussion on increasing operations in the eastern Mediterranean. They did make it clear that they would never allow Marshall or any other American to have as much power as the JCS proposal envisioned.21

  Eisenhower went to Cairo on November 24 to testify before the CCS on his theater. He talked briefly and to the point. The most important land objective in Italy, he contended, was the Po Valley, because land forces there threatened the Balkans, southern France, and even the Reich itself, while air forces in the Po were “closer to the vitals of the German industries.” Eisenhower told the Chiefs that in order to get to the Po by spring he would need more assets than he had been given, but he warned that if the CCS were to provide the assets they would have to delay OVERLORD by sixty or ninety days. The CCS would have to make the decision. If the Chiefs gave him the material—especially landing craft—he could make a rapid descent upon the Dodecanese and destroy the German position in the Aegean Sea. This opened the question of Turkish entry into the war, a subject on which Eisenhower refused to make any statement “because I know nothing about it.”

  If the CCS decided that AFHQ would have to operate with its current assets, the Allies would have to content themselves with taking Rome and then establishing a defensive line in Italy. AFHQ could carry on active minor operations “but the general attitude would … be defensive.” When Eisenhower concluded the Chiefs asked him a number of questions about the situation in Italy. His answers were straightforward. He again refused to be drawn into a discussion about Turkey, and especially would not comment on the political desirability of bringing Turkey into the war.

  In response to a question from Brooke, Eisenhower stressed the vital importance of continuing the maximum possible operations in an established theater. Much valuable time was invariably lost, he said, when the scene of action was changed, for it necessitated the arduous task of building up from a fresh base. He also constantly emphasized that what AFHQ needed was landing craft, not more men. He could barely maintain the number of divisions he had now in Italy and there was no good port north of Naples until Leghorn was reached. But he did need landing craft, both to bring in supplies on open beaches and to mount amphibious operations.

  Brooke also wanted to know what AFHQ was doing to support the Yugoslavian guerrillas. Eisenhower said he had put an officer in charge of supplying equipment to them, and arms captured in North Africa and Sicily were being sent in. He felt that all available equipment should go to Tito, leader of the Communist guerrillas, since he was doing so much more to fight the Germans than Mihailovic, leader of the government-sponsored guerrillas. Mihailovic, in fact, was only interested in fighting Tito.22

  The Chiefs were impressed with Eisenhower’s presentation. He had demonstrated a firm grasp of the military situation, shown himself to be realistic about the possibilities, and in general added to the good impression he had previously made because of his conduct of affairs in the Mediterranean. All four of the American Chiefs had a high opinion of him in any case. On the British side, Ismay remained the good friend he had been during the summer of 1942; Portal respected Eisenhower and, more important, respected Tedder, who himself had nothing but praise for Eisenhower; and Cunningham was, after Marshall, Eisenhower’s strongest supporter. That left Brooke, who had his doubts about Eisenhower’s strategic sense but who did appreciate the way Eisenhower had made the alliance work in the Mediterranean.

  Following Eisenhower’s appearance before them, the Chiefs broke up the Cairo meeting. They had been unable to reach agreement on the major points, but it was time to move on to Teheran to confer with the Russians. The night before they left Marshall gave a huge dinner party. The menu included turkey, cranberry, stuffing, and all the trimmings. When one of the guests was leaving he said to Marshall, “Thank you very much for a fine Thanksgiving dinner.” Eisenhower, astonished, turned and said, “Well, that shows what war does to a man. I had no idea this was Thanksgiving Day.”23 Marshall decided he had been working too hard and suggested that he take some time off. Eisenhower said he had too much work to do. Marshall made the suggestion an order. “Just let someone else run that war up there for a couple of days,” the Chief said. “If your subordinates can’t do it for you, you haven’t organized them properly.” So Eisenhower traveled briefly to Luxor, site of the ancient city of Thebes, and to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.24

  At Teheran, meanwhile, Stalin was putting the pressure on the British and Americans. He made it clear that he wanted OVERLORD to be the largest possible operation, which had the effect of being the deciding vote in the Allied split on what to emphasize in 1944. He then asked who was going to command OVERLORD. When told that no one had been appointed, Stalin said he could not believe the British and Americans were serious about the operation. Nothing would come of it, he believed, until a commander was appointed. Roosevelt whispered to Leahy, “That old Bolshevik is trying to force me to give him the name of our Supreme Commander. I just can’t tell him because I have not yet made up my mind.”25 Churchill informed Stalin that the British had indicated their willingness to serve under an American, but the selection could not be made until other decisions had been reached. What the Prime Minister had in mind was the power of the OVERLORD commander—the British remained unwilling to allow him to sit on the CCS and have command of areas outside western Europe. Roosevelt told Stalin that he would make the selection in three or four days.26 The Western Allies then returned to Cairo to continue their conference.

  Sometime between the end of the Teheran meeting and the beginning of the second Cairo conference, the Americans dropped their proposal to appoint an over-all commander for all Allied forces fighting Germany. In so doing they were merely recognizing that they could never get British agreement to such a command arrangement. This put tremendous institutional pressure on Roosevelt to by-pass Marshall. Most accounts of the President’s decision to deny Marshall the OVERLORD command emphasize the personal side, the most famous and frequently quoted statement being Roosevelt’s remark that he could not sleep at night with George Marshall out of the country. The implication is that Marshall did not get OVERLORD because he was too valuable as Chief of Staff.

  That, however, may have been only a part of Roosevelt’s reasoning. It was true that the President felt Marshall could handle MacArthur better than Eisenhower could, and probably would have better relations with members of Congress. But the War Department was running smoothly, the Army had been created, and the key job now was to utilize it. A large part of the Chief of Staff’s responsibilities had become administrative, and Eisenhower would have been satisfactory in the role. But if Marshall went to OVERLORD he would be taking a demotion. He would take his orders from the CCS, a body that would have two of his hand-picked subordinates on it (Arnold and Eisenhower). Marshall would have been senior in rank and experience—not to mention ability—to almost all his superiors. Most of all, Roosevelt realized, putting Marshall on OVERLORD would mean losing his services as the advocate of the Americ
an case in CCS sessions.

  In short, when the Americans decided to drop their over-all commander proposal, Marshall dropped out of the running for OVERLORD. Roosevelt, however, shrank from the distasteful task of making the decision, and on December 4 he sent Hopkins to Marshall to ask if he would express a personal preference. Marshall replied that he would accept any decision the President might make. Not satisfied, the next day the President himself asked Marshall to make the decision. But Marshall refused to be the judge in his own case.27

  If the commander were not going to be Marshall, it still had to be an American. This made Eisenhower the only choice. He had excellent relations with the CCS, and Churchill had already indicated to Roosevelt that Eisenhower was completely acceptable to him.

  None of what was going on at Cairo was known to Eisenhower. He still assumed that he was about to return to Washington. The American officers at AFHQ had even asked him whom he was going to take home with him to serve on his staff at the War Department. Eisenhower laughed and said he thought he had better leave them all in the Mediterranean, as he would be carried up to Arlington Cemetery six months after assuming his responsibilities anyway. Nevertheless, he was resigned to going.

  With the announcement expected any day, Eisenhower fell into a thoughtful mood. He hated to leave the Mediterranean, especially when his forces were still short of Rome. To keep his spirits up, he tried to concentrate on the bright side and reminded himself of how lucky he had been. At a meal with his staff on December 4, he expressed his gratitude to Marshall, Roosevelt, and the country for the opportunity he had been given. He thought of himself as a “fortunate beneficiary of circumstances.” Looking back, he felt that the crucial day had come when he was still in OPD and told Marshall that he hated to serve in Washington but that he expected to be stuck there for the war, had no expectation of a promotion, and did not give a damn. He thought this outburst, as much as his day-to-day performance, led to Marshall’s putting him in command of SLEDGEHAMMER and ROUNDUP. That brought him to Europe where, because of his familiarity with War Department thinking as well as his position as commander of ETO, he was immediately accepted as an equal by the top British leaders. When SLEDGEHAMMER gave way to TORCH, and an American was needed for Allied commander, Eisenhower was on the spot. He was thus the logical, yet “lucky,” choice. Looking around at the familiar faces of his staff, Eisenhower said he had a lot to be thankful for.28

  He was a soldier and he was prepared to do his duty. He expected that Marshall would want to take command of OVERLORD immediately, so he planned to depart for Washington in the near future. He thought he would go by a round-the-world route, stopping off to visit MacArthur and Mountbatten. Such a trip would give him firsthand information on conditions in their theaters, information he could use as Chief of Staff.29

  While Eisenhower was making these plans Roosevelt, “against the almost impassioned advice of Hopkins and Stimson, against the known preference of both Stalin and Churchill, against his own proclaimed inclination to give to George Marshall the historic opportunity which he so greatly desired and so amply deserved,” made his decision.30 As the last meeting at Cairo was breaking up, Roosevelt asked Marshall to write a message to Stalin for him. As Roosevelt dictated, Marshall wrote. “From the President to Marshal Stalin,” it began. “The immediate appointment of General Eisenhower to command of Overlord operation has been decided upon.” Roosevelt then signed it.*

  It was, perhaps, a thoughtless and cruel way to inform Marshall, but then there was no way the President could have done it easily. It put Marshall’s Roman severity and sense of duty to the ultimate test. Of course he passed. Neither then nor later did he ever express the slightest disappointment, and he never complained. The next morning, in fact, after the message had been encoded and sent, he retrieved his original handwritten draft from the code room. At the bottom, Marshall scribbled, “Dear Eisenhower. I thought you might like to have this as a memento,” and sent it to Eisenhower.31

  An intimate associate of Roosevelt’s felt it was “one of the most difficult and one of the loneliest decisions he [Roosevelt] ever had to make.”32 In the field of appointments, it was also one of his best.33**

  Eisenhower got his first hint of the appointment on December 7, when he received a cryptic radiogram from Marshall. The Chief assumed that someone had already told Eisenhower of the decision, and merely said, “In view of the impending appointment of a British officer as your successor … in the Mediterranean, please submit to me … your recommendations in brief as to the best arrangement for handling the administration, discipline, training and supply of American troops assigned to Allied Force under the new command.”34 It left Eisenhower puzzled, but he had little time to worry about it, as he had to fly to Tunis to meet Roosevelt, who was stopping there on his way back to Washington.

  Roosevelt was taken off the plane and put in Eisenhower’s car. Eisenhower joined him. As soon as the automobile began to drive off, the President turned to the general and said, “Well, Ike, you are going to command Overlord.”35

  * Roosevelt did tell Churchill beforehand. Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 418. Roosevelt gave as his reason that he could not spare Marshall, and asked for Churchill’s reaction to Eisenhower. Churchill said he would be delighted to have Eisenhower head OVERLORD.

  ** Brooke thought so. “The selection of Eisenhower instead of Marshall was a good one,” he wrote. “Eisenhower had now had a certain amount of experience as a commander and was beginning to find his feet. The combination of Eisenhower and Bedell Smith had much to be said for it.” Arthur Bryant, Triumph in the West (New York, 1959), p. 74.

  CHAPTER 22

  Preparing for OVERLORD

  The news of Eisenhower’s appointment electrified him and his AFHQ associates. They had not realized it, but their morale had declined as they prepared for Eisenhower’s departure for Washington. They had all wanted to be in on the kill, where the action was, not in a secondary theater or in Washington where they would wither on the vine. No one had any spark. “We now feel,” an aide wrote after the word of Eisenhower’s appointment to OVERLORD, “that we have a definite and concrete mission. This adds zest to living and interest in pursuing the objective. It has already made a remarkable difference in Ike. Now he is back to his old system of incessant planning and thinking out loud of qualifications of this or that man for certain jobs.”1

  Eisenhower threw himself into the task of robbing the Mediterranean of key personnel for OVERLORD. Churchill wanted him to leave Smith to help his successor in Algiers, who would be Wilson, but from the first Eisenhower insisted that Smith had to come to England with him. He thought that during the assault there should be a single ground commander for OVERLORD, and he wanted Alexander for that job. After enough troops had gotten ashore to justify organizing two army groups, Alexander would take command of the British army group. Because of the narrow front on which the attack would be made, Eisenhower also wanted a single tactical air force, with the commander setting up his headquarters alongside Alexander’s. Spaatz could take command of the American strategic air forces operating out of the United Kingdom. But Eisenhower wanted Tedder as his chief airman.

  Bradley had already been selected to command the U. S. First Army, which of course delighted Eisenhower. He thought that when the forces increased Bradley should move up to army group command, with Patton taking one of the American armies. The other army commander could be either Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges of U. S. Third Army or Lieutenant General William H. Simpson of Fourth Army. Whichever of these two got the appointment should come to England immediately to serve as Bradley’s deputy and familiarize himself with the plans. Eisenhower planned to deal personally with each of the army group commanders, which would put him in actual charge of operations, a shift from the practice in the Mediterranean, where Alexander ran the ground war. For his successor as American theater commander in the Mediterranean, Eisenhower recommended Devers, who “will be superfluous in the U.K.”
after Eisenhower took up his duties as the commander of ETO. At the appropriate moment, Clark could take command of Seventh Army, which would make the invasion of southern France, with Lucas replacing Clark at Fifth Army.2

  Two things stood out. First, Eisenhower was taking the best men out of the Mediterranean, a policy which he had no difficulty justifying since Italy was now a secondary theater. Second, he was willing to keep Patton.

  Eisenhower made his decision to retain Patton in the face of one of the most sensational press outbursts of the war. In late November radio commentator Drew Pearson had learned of the Patton slapping incident. Newsmen in the Mediterranean, at Eisenhower’s request, had kept silent about the affair, but Pearson gave it full, if somewhat garbled and exaggerated, treatment. He made much of the fact that Eisenhower had not reprimanded Patton. Pearson delivered his broadcast at a time when there was a lull on the various battlefronts and it received front-page treatment everywhere. Eisenhower, the War Department, and the White House all received hundreds of letters, most demanding that any general who would strike a private in a hospital be summarily dismissed from the service. The correspondents were especially upset because Eisenhower apparently had done nothing to censor Patton. The pressure was so great that Marshall wired Eisenhower, demanding a full statement of the facts of the case with an account of what Eisenhower had done about the matter.3

  Eisenhower’s reply ran to four pages. He described what had happened, told Marshall that he had personally reprimanded Patton but had put nothing official in Patton’s 201 file, had forced Patton to apologize to the privates, nurses, and doctors involved, and concluded: “I decided that the corrective action as described above was adequate and suitable in the circumstances. I still believe that this decision is sound.”4 Smith meanwhile held a press conference Unfortunately, Smith confirmed Pearson’s charge that Eisenhower had not reprimanded Patton, and the storm grew. Eisenhower decided the best thing to do now was remain silent. Smith, he thought, had made a “bad mistake” (Smith may not have known about Eisenhower’s private letter to Patton), but, Eisenhower told Marshall, Smith was “my ablest and finest officer” and he had “no intention of throwing valuable men to the wolves merely because of one mistake.” He thought the best thing to do was “to keep still and take the brunt of the affair myself.”5