Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  Immediately after testifying, Ike and Mamie visited Mamie’s relatives in Boone, Iowa. Both had come down with severe cases of bronchial pneumonia, and were hospitalized until early December. Eisenhower did not assume his duties as chief of staff until December 3, 1945. And he did so reluctantly. “The job I am taking now represents nothing but straight duty,” he wrote his childhood friend Swede Hazlett from the hospital.68

  On his third day in office, Eisenhower penned a personal letter to Zhukov expressing his appreciation for the marshal’s friendship and cooperation. “I hope you will always permit me to call you ‘friend,’ ” Ike wrote.

  I truly feel that if the same type of association that you and I have experienced over the past several months could be established and maintained between large numbers of Soviet and American personnel, we would do much in promoting mutual understanding, confidence, and faith between our two peoples.…

  I should like to request that at any time you feel that I might do anything for you personally or that I might be helpful in promoting the friendships that I feel are so valuable to the world, I will be more than glad to respond to your suggestions, so far as it is in my power to do so.69 o

  For Ike and Mamie, Eisenhower’s tour as chief of staff was a period of adjustment. They had been separated for three and a half years. They moved into Quarters 1 at Fort Myer, not necessarily as strangers, but as people who had become independent of each other. Eisenhower was surrounded by a military entourage that catered to his every need: a valet, a cook, and a chauffeur, plus a full assortment of military aides and secretaries. They tended to freeze Mamie out, said John’s wife, Barbara. “Mamie could feel herself being nudged to the periphery, and she had to fight for her place.”70 Ike had also changed. He was no longer the Army field-grade officer who came home every evening to share life with his family. The loneliness of command had made Eisenhower emotionally self-sufficient. He was accustomed to issuing orders and having those orders obeyed. He was more abrupt and less tolerant of frivolity and small talk. Grant as the Army’s commanding general after the Civil War found the transition from war to peace challenging, but his wife, Julia, had accompanied him during the last two years of the conflict and there was no personal adjustment required. Nor would there have been for MacArthur, whose wife, Jean, was always at his side. But for Eisenhower, he was not just becoming chief of staff of a peacetime Army, his entire pattern of living was changing as well.

  Mamie had also become set in her ways. She had lived in the limelight in Washington, making her own social and financial decisions. She would now be required to defer to Ike, and that was difficult. Leaving aside the legacy of Ike’s affair with Kay Summersby, it was not easy for two dominating personalities to meld themselves into a married couple again.71 According to Major General Howard Snyder, the Eisenhower family physician, Mamie was reluctant to move into Quarters 1. The Wardman Park apartment had been her sheet anchor during the war, and she was reluctant to give it up. “We almost had to take her physically and transport her to Fort Myer before we could persuade her that she could be happy in the home.”72

  Quarters 1 at Fort Myer aided the transition. The most storied residence in the Army, it had been the home of chiefs of staff since 1910, and its twenty-one rooms easily accommodated the furniture the Eisenhowers had accumulated over the years. Pershing had lived there. So, too, had MacArthur and Marshall. Built in 1899 by the Corps of Engineers as a residence for the commander of Fort Myer, its large formal rooms provided ample space for entertaining, while there was an abundance of family space on the second and third floors. Marshall had kept a flock of chickens in the backyard; Ike turned to raising corn and tomatoes.

  Fort Myer itself was a military treasure. Situated on a high ridge with a majestic view of Washington, Arlington Cemetery, and the Potomac, the post had been established during the early days of the Civil War and was considered one of the strongest fortifications protecting the nation’s capital. The land had been owned by Martha Washington’s family, and descended through marriage to Robert E. Lee, who lost title in a sheriff’s foreclosure sale in 1864 for failure to pay property taxes. (The government had previously confiscated it for military purposes.) The post was named for Brigadier General Albert J. Myer, who was the Army’s first chief signal officer, and since the time of Phil Sheridan it had been home to the 3rd Cavalry—the Army’s showpiece ceremonial regiment. George Patton had commanded the 3rd Cavalry before the war, and the 1,500 horses that were stabled at Fort Myer were an integral part of official life in Washington.p

  Except for formal dinners and receptions, Ike and Mamie lived mostly on the second floor. The family living room was a glassed-in sunporch in the rear of the house furnished with Mamie’s rattan furniture purchased in the Philippines. There was no television in those days, but Ike had a movie projector and screen set up, and enjoyed evenings watching Westerns and detective whodunits. Hopalong Cassidy was a favorite. (William Boyd, who played Cassidy, looked remarkably like Ike.) Next to the sunroom was a small library where Mamie displayed Ike’s medals and decorations. On one wall his 1915 commission as a second lieutenant of infantry hung alongside his commission thirty years later as General of the Army.73 There were two master bedrooms, each with a bath en suite, another small bedroom with bath, and five closets. There was also an elevator, a three-car garage, three stoves, and five refrigerators.74 At 10,111 square feet, Quarters 1 was large enough for Ike and Mamie to resume their life together without getting on each other’s nerves.

  Eisenhower had little enthusiasm for presiding over the demobilization of the Army. “This job is as bad as I always thought it would be,” Ike wrote in his diary on December 15, 1945. “I’m astounded and appalled at the size and scope of plans the staff sees as necessary to maintain our security position now and in the future. The cost is terrific. We’ll be merely tilting at windmills unless we can develop something more in line with financial possibilities.”75

  Having served as MacArthur’s senior military assistant when MacArthur was chief of staff, Eisenhower understood the necessity to acquaint Congress and the public with the Army’s needs. He delegated most administrative matters to the staff George Marshall had assembled, and took advantage of his enormous popularity to make the case for the Army at home and abroad. Ike disliked the term “public relations,” but that quickly became his primary concern.q During his first year as chief of staff, Eisenhower made forty-six major speeches to national audiences, often on university campuses; testified before Congress on fourteen occasions; and visited thirteen foreign countries. In his second year, 1947, he made thirty public speeches, and testified on the Hill twelve times—all of which were heavily covered in the press. By the time he left office in 1948, Eisenhower had spoken in every state of the Union at least once, and his name was as familiar to the American public as any political organizer might have hoped for.76

  Ike was a keen observer on his trips abroad, and recorded his observations in his diary. “Trouble everywhere,” he wrote on his return from Brazil near the end of 1946. “So far as South America is concerned, I feel we’re very shortsighted,” a reference to the attitude of tutelage that prevailed in administration circles. After stopping in Panama and taking his measure of the political situation, he noted the changes taking place. Ike had been stationed in the Canal Zone for three years in the early 1920s, and was clear-sighted about the future. “Personally I think we ought to get out of Panama, lock, stock, and barrel so far as the military is concerned, and have so recommended.”77

  Eisenhower’s relations with President Truman were cordial and correct, but the two were never close. Truman worshipped George Marshall, and Ike may have seemed a pale substitute. The president was also intently aware of Eisenhower’s public appeal, and it would have been natural for him to be resentful. When the 35th Division, President Truman’s old World War I outfit, held a D-Day anniversary celebration in Kansas City in June 1947, the two flew out on the presidential plane. When the plane landed
, reporters mobbed Ike and ignored Truman. It was also Eisenhower who delivered the principal address.78

  Nevertheless, the president relied on Ike, had confidence in his judgment, and entrusted him with one of the most delicate missions during Truman’s first year in office. By the beginning of 1946, President Truman had become disenchanted with James Byrnes as his secretary of state. Byrnes, he felt, was not only too cozy with the Soviets, but failed to show proper deference to the presidency.r To replace Byrnes, Truman wanted George Marshall. But Marshall was in China attempting to make peace between the government of Chiang Kai-shek and Chairman Mao’s Communist movement. (The day after Marshall stepped down as chief of staff, Patrick Hurley resigned as American ambassador to China, and President Truman had tapped Marshall to replace him.) Truman wanted to know if Marshall would accept the job. He could not inquire through normal diplomatic channels because Byrnes would have been tipped off. So he entrusted the query to Ike. “Tell Marshall that my secretary of state had stomach trouble and I wanted to know if he would take the job when it became vacant.”79

  Eisenhower, ostensibly on an inspection tour of the Far East, arrived in Nanking on May 9, 1946. He lunched with Generalissimo and Madame Chiang, and then met privately with Marshall. When he explained the president’s proposal, Marshall broke into a rare smile. “Eisenhower,” he said, “I would do almost anything to get out of this place. I’d even enlist in the Army.”80 When Ike informed Truman of Marshall’s response, the president was delighted. Although Truman wanted to be rid of Byrnes, he was wary of the South Carolinian’s support on Capitol Hill. “This gives me a wonderful ace in the hole,” he told Ike.81 Byrnes submitted his resignation in December, and Marshall’s appointment was announced by the White House on January 8, 1947.82

  Eisenhower’s speaking engagements brought him into contact with the leaders of American industry, banking, and commerce. On April 2, 1946, Ike was the featured speaker at ceremonies marking the Diamond Jubilee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Thomas J. Watson, the chief executive officer of IBM, was chairman of the board at the Met and Ike’s host for the occasion. Watson was also on the board of trustees of Columbia University. Columbia’s president of forty-four years, the legendary Nicholas Murray Butler (“Nicholas Miraculous”), was in failing health and on the verge of retirement. Over drinks that evening in Ike’s suite at the Waldorf-Astoria, Watson asked Eisenhower if he would consider taking the job. Ike demurred. If Columbia wanted a president, he told Watson, they should consider his brother Milton. No, said Watson. Columbia needed a president of international stature, someone who could step into the shoes of the redoubtable Butler. They did not need an educator. The faculty ran the university. Columbia needed the prestige that Eisenhower would bring to the post. Ike did not turn Watson down. He said that given his responsibilities as chief of staff, he would not be available for two years, and therefore could not consider the possibility at the present time.83

  Ike’s answer was what Watson was hoping for. Butler was still very much a presence in Morningside Heights; various search committees were beating the bushes for a successor, and the time was not ripe. But as Watson recognized, Eisenhower had signaled his availability. Ike, for his part, discussed Watson’s suggestion with Milton, but thought no more about it. Thirteen months later the search at Columbia had failed to produce a suitable candidate.s At this point, Watson approached Eisenhower again. Ike was in New York filling in for President Truman as guest speaker at a banquet for insurance underwriters, and Watson again met him for drinks at the Waldorf. “To my chagrin,” Eisenhower wrote Milton, “his proposal was that I seriously consider committing myself to take over the job [at Columbia] once I have been relieved as Chief of Staff. He urged the importance of the public service I could perform in that spot.”84 Watson had evidently canvassed his fellow board members, and as Ike told Milton, he was speaking with somewhat more authority than in their earlier conversation. “Mr. Watson pressed me pretty hard to give them an early answer. Actually, I am going to stall along until I see you next week but my final answer is going to be a refusal to tie myself down.”85

  For Eisenhower, the Columbia offer was something he had never contemplated. For the past thirty-six years his assignments had been dictated by the Army. He now faced a monumental career choice with absolutely no experience in making career choices, and he was temporarily at a loss.t How would Mamie react? Could they live in New York? Could he run a great university? Would a lot of entertaining be required? Was he expected to raise money, as Nicholas Murray Butler had done so effectively? These were all questions that bothered Ike. When they met, Milton encouraged him to take the post. Columbia, he told Ike, wanted a symbolic leader, and that would work to Eisenhower’s advantage. He would have a national platform from which to speak out on major issues. The appointment would be mutually beneficial. And administering a great university like Columbia, said Milton, was like administering any successful corporation, and certainly less difficult than what Ike had experienced in Europe.

  A week later, on June 2, 1947, Eisenhower was the commencement speaker at West Point. Watson and Thomas I. Parkinson, president of Equitable Life and the chairman of the Columbia search committee, drove up from the city to tender an official offer to Ike. They met in the home of the academy’s superintendent, General Maxwell D. Taylor. Watson and Parkinson repeated their promise that Eisenhower would not have to concern himself with curriculum or faculty. Ike asked for more time. Watson and Parkinson gave him three weeks.

  When Ike returned to Washington, he went to the White House to discuss the Columbia offer with President Truman. Truman urged him to accept, and said he could release Eisenhower as chief of staff in early 1948.86 In the meantime, Watson assured Eisenhower that the entertaining would be minimal, that he would not have to bother with academic matters, and that fund-raising would be handled by the trustees—all of whom were gratified that Ike was considering accepting the post.87

  On June 23, 1947, three weeks to the day after the offer had been made, Eisenhower wrote Thomas Parkinson to indicate his acceptance.

  I am anxious that before the Board meets tomorrow, all its members understand very clearly the general picture that you, Mr. Watson and the others have painted to me of the basic purpose lying behind my selection; to devote my energies in providing internal leadership on broad and liberal lines for the University itself and to promote the basic concepts of education in a democracy with particular emphasis upon the American system of democracy.… I earnestly hope that you will not be disappointed in your choice.88

  The following day, June 24, 1947, the board of trustees of Columbia University unanimously elected Eisenhower the thirteenth president of the university.

  * * *

  a “I am profoundly concerned about the European situation,” said Churchill. The Western Allies were demobilizing and withdrawing. “Meanwhile what is to happen about Russia?…An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind. There seems to be little doubt that the whole of the regions east of the line Lübeck-Trieste-Corfu will soon be completely in their hands. To this must be added the further enormous area conquered by the American armies between Eisenach and the Elbe, which will, I suppose, in a few weeks be occupied, when the Americans retreat, by the Russian power.” Churchill to Truman, May 12, 1945, in Winston S. Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy 572–74 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1953). Emphasis added.

  Churchill is generally credited for the origin of the term “iron curtain,” but as David Reynolds points out, he “probably took the phrase … from Nazi propaganda in the dying days of the Third Reich.”

  Joseph Goebbels, in his diary entry of March 13, 1945, wrote about the Kremlin letting “fall an iron curtain” in Romania “so that they can carry on their fearful bloody work behind it.” On March 14, Goebbels wrote, “Storm signals are visible over Finland. Having let down their iron curtain the Soviets are now at work bringing the country ruthlessly under
their thumb.” And on March 17, “The iron curtain has descended on the fate of Rumania.” Goebbels was Nazi propaganda minister at the time.

  David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War 479 (New York: Random House, 2005); Final Entries, 1945: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels 122, 133, 160, Hugh Trevor-Roper, ed., and Richard Barry, trans. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978).

  b “Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the Assumption of Supreme Authority.” For text, see Beate Ruhm von Oppen, ed., Documents on Germany Under Occupation, 1945–1954 29–37 (London: Oxford University Press, 1955).

  c I am indebted to Professor Henry F. Graff of Columbia for relating Garrett Mattingly’s observation.

  d “Loads of love,” Ike wrote Mamie on May 18, 1945. “How I miss you—and it gets worse every day. Don’t worry, for Lord’s sake, about ‘decisions’ about our future life. Let’s just try to keep a bit of tolerance for fixed habits and a sense of humor and then try to have some fun together. I love you.” Letters to Mamie 254–55.

  e Ike never apologized for having Kay Summersby on his staff, wrote Susan Eisenhower. He simply “expected everyone to accept his version of events.” Susan Eisenhower, Mrs. Ike 235.

  f A month or so later, while stationed in Germany, Eisenhower presented the cigarette case to Kay. “I’d like you to have it, Kay,” said Ike. “I’ll never be able to give you anything like this, and I’d like to think of you having it. The sapphires match your eyes.”

  Summersby declined. “Ike, I can’t take it. Please. I just can’t. I wouldn’t be right. I’d love it. But I can’t.”

  When Eisenhower returned to the United States he gave the case to Mamie, who was a heavy smoker. It is on display among Mamie’s jewelry at the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene. Morgan, Past Forgetting 235.