Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  Despite the apparent dissimilarity, Marshall and Eisenhower were also very much alike. For twenty years the Army had been the center of each man’s existence—a twenty-four-hour job, seven days a week, that made heavy demands on normal family life. Marshall’s only diversion was his horses. He rode for an hour each morning before reveille. It was recreation as well as exercise, and it cleared his head for the day’s work. Ike’s recourse was to bridge and golf, a convivial contrast that served the same purpose.

  Both men were exacting taskmasters. “General Eisenhower was not the easiest person in the world to work for,” said Lucius D. Clay. “He would give you a job, and when you completed it he would give you another. The more you did, the more he asked. And if you did not measure up, you were gone. He had no tolerance for failure.”18 The same could be said for General Marshall, who was even more demanding. With Ike, there was the occasional burst of humor to lighten the load; with Marshall it was all business, all the time.

  The men were also similar in bearing and appearance. They wore neatly tailored uniforms with a minimum of ornamentation. Both were six feet tall, slender but muscular, with the loping stride of former athletes. Both were chain smokers. Both knew how to delegate. When they assigned a task, they stepped aside. Subordinates were free to follow whatever course they wished to get the job done. It was the old Army at its best. General Grant would tell a division commander what he wanted done. He would not tell him how to do it. Both Marshall and Eisenhower demanded team players, rejected exhibitionists, and preferred people who could solve problems rather than create them. They expected subordinates to take responsibility, and then backed them to the hilt when they did.

  From the beginning, Marshall and Eisenhower developed a father-son relationship. But it was a very formal one. They were never “pals.” To Eisenhower, Marshall was always “General.” Marshall never addressed anyone by his first name.b Nevertheless, they shared enormous respect for each other. Eisenhower saw Marshall as remote and austere but said he was also “quick, tough, tireless, and decisive. He accepts responsibility automatically and never goes back on a subordinate.”19 Marshall’s opinion of Eisenhower is reflected in the increasing responsibility he assigned to him.

  For the first two months in Washington, Eisenhower lived out of a suitcase. Fortunately his brother Milton, who was head of the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Land Use Coordination, had a house just outside Washington in Falls Church, Virginia, and Ike boarded with him and his wife, Helen. “Every night when I reached their house, something around midnight, both would be waiting up for me with a snack of midnight supper and a pot of coffee. I cannot remember ever seeing their house in daylight during all the months in Washington.”20

  Back in San Antonio, Mamie waited anxiously. She spent Christmas with John at West Point, and in late December received word that Ike’s stint in Washington would be permanent. After only six months at Fort Sam Houston, it was another change of station. Harry Butcher, who still ran the CBS affiliate in Washington, found a one-bedroom apartment for them at the Wardman Park Hotel—no easy task in wartime Washington, which had mushroomed to twice its size almost overnight. “I can’t tell you how I hate to dismantle this lovely house you and I fixed up so lovingly,” Mamie wrote her mother on January 15, 1942. “Every time I go onto the little porch room I could weep.”21

  Packing the accumulated household treasures of twenty-five years of marriage—including more than sixty crates of china—was an arduous process. Several boxes were sent to the Wardman Park, but most were put in storage and would not be retrieved until Ike and Mamie bought their farm in Gettysburg almost fifteen years later. “I feel like a football—kicked from place to place,” Mamie said in February when she moved into their new apartment. “Now that the break is made, I am glad to be here, and poor Ike seems so pleased to have me—even if the apartment is small.”22

  When Eisenhower learned his assignment in Washington would be permanent, he wrote General Krueger. “Up to yesterday,” said Ike, “I was determinedly clinging to the hope that I could return to your headquarters at a reasonably early date. That hope went glimmering when I found out last night that my transfer had been made permanent. I was not consulted and naturally I have never been asked as to any personal preference. This, of course, is exactly as it should be, but it does not prevent my telling you how bitterly disappointed I am to have to leave you, particularly at this time.”23

  Krueger replied instantly. “I had little hope of keeping you with the Third Army for long, but scarcely expected that you would be taken away this early in the game. However, I am sure that your new position offers a wider field for your abilities, and is in the best interests of the service.”24

  Eisenhower excelled under the pressure of wartime Washington. “Every day is the same—7:45 a.m. to 11:45 p.m.,” he noted in his diary. To LeRoy Lutes, the logistics specialist from the Louisiana maneuvers whom Marshall was also about to pluck from Third Army, Ike wrote:

  Dear Roy:

  Just to give you an inkling of the kind of mad house you are getting into—it is now eight o’clock New Year’s Eve. I have a couple hours’ work ahead of me, and tomorrow will be no different from today. I have been here about three weeks and this noon I had my first luncheon outside of the office. Usually it is a hot dog sandwich and a glass of milk. I have had one evening meal the whole period.25

  As point man for the War Department’s oversight of the war in the Philippines, Eisenhower handled a variety of tasks. When former secretary Patrick J. Hurley (a colonel in the reserves) offered his services to FDR, Roosevelt sent him to Marshall, who sent him to Ike.c “At that moment we were in search of a man to invigorate our filibustering attempts out of Australia,” said Eisenhower. “We needed someone to organize blockade runners for MacArthur, and Hurley was perfect for the job.” An old-fashioned buccaneer in politics, the former secretary had the energy and decisiveness the War Department needed. And having originally appointed MacArthur chief of staff, he was devoted to the cause of saving the Philippines.26

  “When can you report for duty?” asked Ike.

  “Now,” Hurley replied.

  Eisenhower told him to return at midnight prepared for extended field duty. Hurley was promoted to brigadier general on the spot. Ike and Leonard Gerow, who headed War Plans, each donated a star for the ex-secretary’s epaulets, and Hurley boarded the night flight to Australia armed with $10 million in cash (slightly more than $120 million currently) to buy whatever supplies and charter as many ships as he could to run the Japanese blockade.27

  In late December 1941, Prime Minister Churchill, accompanied by the British military leadership, arrived in Washington for their first wartime conference with FDR and the American chiefs of staff.d Christened ARCADIA by Churchill, the three-week Washington conference (December 22, 1941–January 14, 1942) proved to be the most important of the war in framing Allied strategy. Roosevelt and Churchill created the Combined Chiefs of Staff—a joint Anglo-American undertaking—to direct Allied military efforts; established the Combined Munitions Assignment Board (another joint undertaking) to allocate supplies among the Allies; agreed to the invasion of North Africa (GYMNAST) in the autumn of 1942; and reaffirmed the decision FDR and Churchill had taken at the Atlantic conference in August to defeat Hitler before turning to Japan. Eisenhower was too junior to participate in the discussions, but he attended various meetings of the military chiefs as Marshall’s assistant, and accompanied Secretary Stimson when he met privately with Churchill to discuss the situation in the Philippines.28

  The establishment of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) was an unprecedented achievement in coalition warfare, and reflected the extraordinary ability of Roosevelt and Churchill to find common ground. Composed of the three British chiefs of staff—General Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the imperial general staff; Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, first sea lord; and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal—and their American counterparts, George C. Marshall, Admiral Ernest R.
King, and General H. H. (“Hap”) Arnold, the CCS became the final military authority for the conduct of the war. At FDR’s insistence, the CCS was headquartered in Washington, where its work was directed by Field Marshal Sir John Dill, who was Churchill’s personal representative. In July, Dill was joined by Admiral William D. Leahy, who had been recalled from retirement by FDR and who became, in effect, the chairman of the American chiefs of staff.e

  After the top-level command structure was established, Marshall insisted that the war in each theater be fought under a single supreme commander. This was an even greater breakthrough since the Army and Navy, not only in the United States, but in Great Britain as well, jealously guarded their command prerogatives and had never before taken orders from a different service. Marshall presented his proposal when the Combined Chiefs met on the afternoon of Christmas Day. “I am convinced,” he said, “that there must be one man in command of the entire theater—air, ground, and ships. We cannot manage by cooperation. Human frailties are such that there would be emphatic unwillingness to place portions of troops under another service. If we can make a plan for unified command now, it will solve nine-tenths of our troubles.… I favor one man being in control, but operating under a directive from here.”29

  To secure British approval, Marshall suggested that the first combined command be established in the southwest Pacific, and that General Sir Archibald Wavell, the British commander in chief in India and Burma, be appointed supreme commander. But there was no immediate agreement. When the CCS meeting ended at 5:20 p.m., Marshall turned to Ike: “Eisenhower, draft a letter of instruction for a supreme commander in the Southwest Pacific.”30 Although it was the evening of Christmas Day, Ike returned to his desk at the War Department and hammered out a five-page draft. He finished shortly before midnight. The document specified the mission, defined the authority of the supreme commander, and provided safeguards for each nation in matters affecting national sovereignty. Eisenhower was writing on a blank slate. There were no precedents.

  Marshall read Ike’s draft the following morning, made one minor change,31 and gave it to Secretary Stimson. Stimson was delighted. At 10 a.m. he and Marshall presented Eisenhower’s draft to the president, who was also enthusiastic.32 Bringing the British chiefs on board proved to be easier than convincing the U.S. Navy, but Admiral King eventually agreed. That left Churchill. On December 28, 1941, Marshall met with the prime minister, who initially resisted the concept. Secretary Stimson credited Marshall with gaining Churchill’s approval, and it was Stimson who suggested that the example of a supreme commander in the southwest Pacific be followed elsewhere.33 Eisenhower’s draft, which established the principle of unity of command, became the model for the instructions issued to each supreme commander throughout the war—including Ike himself less than six months later.

  Eisenhower’s ability to draft the first set of orders for a supreme commander convinced Marshall that Ike was ready to take over War Plans (G-3). Leonard Gerow was eased out. On February 14, 1942, Gerow was promoted to major general and given command of the 29th Division. Ike moved up two days later. Both men were delighted. “Well,” said Gerow, “I got Pearl Harbor on the books; lost the Philippines, Singapore, Sumatra, and all of the Dutch East Indies north of the barrier. Let’s see what you can do.”34

  One of the perquisites of the director of War Plans was to sit behind the desk General Philip H. Sheridan used when he was the Army’s commanding general in the 1880s. Sheridan’s desk, a massive walnut behemoth, was known throughout the War Department as “Sheridan’s throne.”35 In Sheridan’s day it was adorned with a horseshoe from the great Morgan horse Winchester (née Rienzi) that carried Little Phil on his famous 1864 ride to save the day at Cedar Creek. Sheridan used the horseshoe as a paperweight. Winchester, stuffed and mounted, is on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, but the horseshoe has gone missing.

  In addition to Sheridan’s desk, Ike was issued new quarters on generals’ row at Fort Myer. As the Army’s G-3, Eisenhower fell heir to Quarters 7, a handsome redbrick mansion with a panoramic view of Washington, just down the street from Marshall’s home at Quarters 1. It was a huge house, built at a time when servants were plentiful and general officers (or their wives) were independently wealthy. Ike and Mamie were thrilled at the move, but Eisenhower’s schedule left little time to appreciate their new quarters.

  Eisenhower’s promotion to head War Plans coincided with General Marshall’s reorganization of the War Department. Many of the Army’s institutions dated from the Civil War. The general staff had been created in 1903, but in the intervening years had become bloated and calcified—poorly organized to provide timely response to the problems of global war. At least sixty officers, including the various branch and bureau chiefs, had access to the chief of staff, and thirty major commands reported directly to him. Marshall called the War Department “the poorest command post in the Army.”36

  General Marshall unveiled the changes on March 2, 1942. Instead of the numerous bureaus and commands that had previously reported to the chief of staff, the Army was reorganized into three commands: Army Air Forces, under General Hap Arnold; Army Ground Forces, under General Leslie McNair; and the Services of Supply, under General Brehon Somervell. That freed Marshall to concentrate on fighting the war. The old chiefs of infantry, cavalry, and artillery were abolished; the general staff was drastically reduced in size; and the War Plans Division, rechristened the Operations Division (OPD), became Marshall’s command post. As chief of OPD, Eisenhower was not just the War Department’s chief planner. He became Marshall’s deputy for the day-to-day conduct of the war.

  Three weeks later Marshall promoted Ike to major general, catapulting him ahead of 162 brigadiers more senior.37 Eisenhower was “not really a staff officer,” Marshall told FDR, but rather his “subordinate commander” who was responsible for “all dispositions of Army forces on a global scale.” Marshall said that Ike “had to be able to function without constantly referring problems to him.”38

  “I was made a major general yesterday,” Ike wrote in his diary on March 28. “Still a lieutenant colonel [in the Regular Army] but the promotion is just as satisfactory as if a permanent one.f This should assure that when I finally get back to troops, I’ll get a division.”39

  Two weeks before Eisenhower was promoted, his father, David, died in Abilene. Mamie received the message at home. “One of the hardest things I had to do was telephone Ike and tell him. He is a wonder. People said he worked right on and no one could have known. Guess it was his salvation (work). Poor fellow. I’ve felt so sorry for him.”40

  Ike’s stoicism masked his feelings. “I have felt terribly,” he recorded on his office notepad that evening. “I should like so much to be with my Mother these few days, but we are at war, and war is not soft. It was no time to indulge even in the deepest and most sacred emotions. I’m quitting work now, 7:30 p.m. I haven’t the heart to go on tonight.”41

  David Eisenhower was buried in Abilene on March 12, 1942, and Ike and Mamie ordered a blanket of red roses and Easter lilies for the casket. At the War Department, Eisenhower closed his door for half an hour to reflect upon his father. “He was not quite 79 years old, but for the last year he had been extremely old physically. Hardened arteries, kidney trouble, etc. He was undemonstrative, quiet, modest, and of exemplary habits—he never used alcohol or tobacco.… My only regret is that it was always so difficult to let him know the great depth of my affection for him.”42

  As chief of OPD, it fell to Eisenhower to translate FDR’s “Hitler first” strategy into a battle plan. The prevailing wisdom—on both sides of the Atlantic—was that a cross-Channel attack would be sheer madness. “Even among those who thought a direct assault by land forces would eventually become necessary,” said Ike, “the majority believed that definite signs of cracking German morale would have to appear before it would be practicable to attempt such an enterprise.”43

  As Eisenhower recalled
, he was one of the “very few, initially a very, very few,” who thought otherwise.44 As Ike saw it, all other possibilities offered scant hope of success. To deploy American forces on the Russian front was out of the question; an attack through Norway or the Iberian Peninsula would merely nibble at the edges of Nazi power; and to move against Germany from the Mediterranean would involve enormous problems of logistics and terrain. Shipping difficulties alone would make such an endeavor unfeasible, to say nothing of the distance between the Balkans or the boot of Italy and Berlin. In Eisenhower’s view, the only scheme that made sense was to attack the Continent from across the Channel. American and British forces could be massed there more easily; the transatlantic journey from New York was the shortest; and there was no natural barrier between the coast of northwest Europe and Germany itself.

  Eisenhower made four assumptions crucial to a successful cross-Channel attack. First, the Allies must have overwhelming air superiority. This was essential not only to protect the invasion force, but to isolate the battlefield and prevent the Germans from sending reinforcements. Second, the U-boat menace would have to be eliminated. Convoys crossing the Atlantic must have clear sailing. Third, supporting naval vessels should be present in sufficient strength to batter down coastal defenses; and fourth, specialized landing craft must be available in such numbers that a large army could be poured ashore rapidly, exploiting any initial breach in enemy defenses.45