Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  9. Drew Middleton, interview by Merle Miller, quoted in Miller, Ike the Soldier 394. George Patton, who had to work with Smith, considered him “an s.o.b. of the finest type: selfish, dishonest, and very swell-headed.” GSP diary, November 11, 1943, Library of Congress.

  10. Merle Miller, Ike the Soldier 393.

  11. Quoted in ibid. 394. According to Smith’s biographer, “Although their relationship remained friendly, their personalities were not compatible.” Crosswell, Chief of Staff 139.

  12. DDE to GCM, June 26, 1942, 1 War Years 359–61.

  13. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 12.

  14. DDE diary, June 27, 1942, in DDE, Eisenhower Diaries 67. The reference is presumably to Colonel Iverson B. Summers, Eisenhower’s West Point classmate and a member of the adjutant general’s division.

  15. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 41–42.

  16. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 21.

  17. DDE to GCM, June 30, 1942, 1 War Years 366–67.

  18. The New York Times, June 12, 1942.

  19. Pogue, 2 Marshall 329.

  20. Stimson diary, June 17, 1942, Yale University.

  21. WSC to FDR, June 20, 1942, quoted in Winston S. Churchill, Hinge of Fate 381–82. The full text of the memo is reprinted in Kimball, 1 Churchill and Roosevelt 515–16.

  22. Mark A. Stoler, The Politics of the Second Front: American Military Planning and Diplomacy in Coalition Warfare, 1941–1943 55 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977).

  23. Quoted in Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War 425 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948). Also see Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 600–601.

  24. For documents and minutes pertaining to ARGONAUT, see FRUS: Washington and Casablanca 419–86.

  25. Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War, 1937–1945 273–78 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000). The carriers Lexington, Yorktown, Wasp, and Hornet had been sunk; Saratoga and Enterprise were badly damaged and out of service. Only the Ranger, in the Atlantic, was ready for duty.

  26. FDR to Hopkins, Marshall, and King, July 16, 1942, reprinted in full in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 603–5.

  27. DDE to GCM, July 17, 19, 21, 1942, in 1 War Years 388–404.

  28. Pogue, 2 Marshall 345.

  29. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 29.

  30. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 610–11.

  31. DDE to Major General Orlando Ward, April 15, 1951, in Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 286. Eisenhower’s orders from the Combined Chiefs of Staff designating him supreme commander were dated August 13, 1942. Ibid. 287n74.

  32. FDR to WSC, July 27, 1942, in Kimball 1 Churchill and Roosevelt 543–44.

  33. Minutes, 34th meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, July 30, 1942, cited in Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 282–83.

  34. Memo, Gen. [Walter Bedell] Smith for JCS, 1 August 1942, sub: Notes of Conf Held at White House, 8:30 p.m., July 30, 1942, quoted in Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 283–84.

  35. Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 16 (New York: Henry Holt, 2002).

  36. For General Sir Alan Brooke’s opinion of Marshall, see Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide: A History of the War Years Based on the Diaries of Field-Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff 290 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957).

  37. Eisenhower’s remark is quoted in Arthur L. Funk, The Politics of TORCH: The Allied Landings and the Algiers Putsch, 1942 100 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1974).

  38. FDR to WSC, September 5, 1942, and WSC to FDR, September 6, 1942, in Kimball, 1 Churchill and Roosevelt 592.

  39. DDE to GSP, September 5, 1942, 1 War Years 541–42.

  40. DDE diary entry, September 2, 1942, 1 War Years 524–27.

  41. Quoted in Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 50.

  42. Marshall, interview by Forrest C. Pogue, November 15, 1956, quoted in Pogue, 2 Marshall 330.

  43. DDE, Crusade in Europe 71.

  44. “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your making [Gruenther] available for duty in this theater,” Ike wrote Krueger on July 30, 1942. “When I talked to General Marshall about Gruenther I told him that you had voluntarily called me just before I left Washington and stated that you stood ready to make available the very best men in your command in order that they might be placed where their talents are badly needed. He seemed highly pleased and it was because of your assurance that I had the nerve to put down Gruenther’s name.” In 1953, General Gruenther succeeded Eisenhower as supreme Allied commander in Europe. 1 War Years 400.

  45. Quoted in Merle Miller, Ike the Soldier 388.

  46. DDE, Letters to Mamie 40–41.

  47. Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss 6–7.

  48. Susan Eisenhower, Mrs. Ike 206.

  49. Quoted in Merle Miller, Ike the Soldier 378.

  50. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 65–66. Also see Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss 30–32.

  51. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 137. Butcher recommended a Dandie Dinmont, but Eisenhower preferred “the attitude of independence struck by a strutting Scottie.”

  52. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 77.

  53. Korda, Ike 286–87.

  54. DDE to MDE, October 13, 1942, Letters to Mamie 45–46.

  55. FDR to WSC, August 30, 1942, Kimball, 1 Churchill and Roosevelt 583–84.

  56. DDE, Directive to Naval Task Force Commander, Western Task Force [Rear Admiral Henry K. Hewitt], October 13, 1942, 1 War Years 611–12.

  57. Winston S. Churchill, Hinge of Fate 628.

  58. Quoted in Korda, Ike 316.

  59. Ambrose, Supreme Commander 99.

  60. Charles de Gaulle, 1 War Memoirs (New York: Simon and Schuster) 10.

  61. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 106. Washington columnist Walter Lippmann characterized Murphy as “a most agreeable and ingratiating man whose warm heart causes him to form passionate, personal, and partisan attachments rather than cool and detached judgments.” New York Herald Tribune, January 19, 1943.

  62. Arthur L. Funk, Charles de Gaulle: The Crucial Years, 1943–1944 34–35 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959).

  63. Jean Edward Smith, FDR 566.

  64. Ambrose, Supreme Commander 100.

  65. DDE to GCM, September 19, 1942, 1 War Years 562–63.

  66. Ibid.

  67. Blumenson, Mark Clark 78–89. Clark’s Calculated Risk 67–89 presents a meretricious account of the meeting.

  68. Patton’s hastily assembled force was composed of the 2nd Armored Division, and the 3rd and 9th Infantry divisions. The divisions were brought to full strength by ransacking eight other stateside divisions for the necessary personnel. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 36.

  69. Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph 195 (New York: Ivan Obolensky, 1963).

  70. GSP diary, October 23, 1942, Library of Congress.

  71. Marshall’s September 26, 1942, message objecting to Hartle was evidently hand-carried to Eisenhower by Clark, 1 War Years 593n1. Marshall’s list included Courtney Hodges, William H. Simpson, and John P. Lucas as possible alternatives. 3 Papers of George Catlett Marshall 367–68; Pogue, 2 Marshall 407.

  72. DDE, Crusade in Europe 83. General Anderson spent much of his prewar career with the Seaforth Highlanders.

  73. Ibid. 89.

  74. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 91. In My Three Years with Eisenhower, Butcher fails to list Kay among those who accompanied Ike. (At page 147.)

  75. Ibid 80. “The exercises that I witnessed had both encouraging and discouraging aspects,” Eisenhower told Marshall. “The men looked fine and were earnest in trying to do the right thing. Their greatest weakness is uncertainty.” DDE to GCM, October 20, 1942, 1 War Years 626–28.

  76. Kay Summers
by Morgan, Past Forgetting 78.

  77. Clark, Calculated Risk 90.

  78. Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss 36. Also see Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 158.

  79. DDE to GCM, October 29, 1942, 1 War Years 639–43.

  80. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 81–82. Also see Summersby, Eisenhower Was My Boss 37–38. Butcher mentions the dinner in his diary but once again neglects to list Summersby among the attendees. My Three Years with Eisenhower 160.

  81. DDE to GCM, November 1, 1942, 1 War Years 651.

  82. FDR to Secretary of War, November 2, 1942, 1 War Years 651n6. On behalf of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Leahy wired Murphy, “The decision of the President is that the operation will be carried out as now planned and that you will do your utmost to secure understanding and cooperation of the French officials with whom you are in contact.” Quoted in Langer, Our Vichy Gamble 335–36 (New York: Knopf, 1947).

  83. DDE, Letters to Mamie 50–52.

  CHAPTER TEN: BAPTISM BY FIRE

  The epigraph is from a letter that Eisenhower wrote to his son John, February 19, 1943, in The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 2, The War Years 967–68. Cited subsequently as 2 War Years.

  1. DDE to Smith, November 6, 1942, in 1 War Years 658–59.

  2. Quoted in DDE, Crusade in Europe 97.

  3. Ibid. 95.

  4. Ibid. 99. The text of Murphy’s offer to Giraud, November 2, 1942, is reprinted in Langer, Our Vichy Gamble 333–34. Murphy, as Professor Langer points out, was shooting from the hip. The State Department did not receive a copy of Murphy’s letter until the spring of 1943.

  5. DDE, Crusade in Europe 101.

  6. DDE to GCM, November 8, 1942, 2 War Years 669–72.

  7. DDE, Crusade in Europe 100.

  8. Ibid.

  9. DDE to GCM, November 8, 1942, 2 War Years 669–72.

  10. DDE, Crusade in Europe 181.

  11. DDE to GCM, November 8, 1942, 2 War Years 669–72.

  12. GCM to DDE, November 8, 1942, ibid., note 6.

  13. DDE to GCM, November 8, 1942, ibid. 673–74.

  14. Korda, Ike 324.

  15. DDE to Smith, November 9, 1942, 2 War Years 677–78.

  16. DDE, “Worries of a Commander,” November 8, 1942, ibid. 675.

  17. DDE to Smith, November 9, 1942, EL.

  18. DDE to Smith, November 11, 1942, 2 War Years 693–95.

  19. DDE to Mabel Frances [“Mike”] Moore, December 4, 1942, ibid. 796–98.

  20. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 92.

  21. De Gaulle, 1 War Memoirs 49.

  22. Charles W. Ryder, Oral History, March 1949, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.

  23. DDE to Smith, November 9, 1942, 2 War Years 677–78. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)

  24. DDE, Crusade in Europe 104. In his postpresidential memoirs, Ike wrote that Giraud “proved wholly incapable of influencing anyone.” DDE, At Ease 258.

  25. Clark, Calculated Risk 109.

  26. Quoted in Richard Lamb, Churchill as War Leader 211 (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1993).

  27. De Gaulle, 1 War Memoirs 49–50. Rick Atkinson, in his elegant account of the North African landings, states that “sixty years after TORCH, a precise count of Allied casualties remains elusive,” and then cites ballpark figures similar to those above. Army at Dawn 159.

  28. George S. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 282–84 (New York: Knopf, 1972); Funk, Charles de Gaulle 40–41.

  29. DDE to Clark, November 12, 1942, 2 War Years 698.

  30. Kenneth Pendar, Adventure in Diplomacy: The Emergence of General de Gaulle in North Africa 119 (London: Cassell, 1966).

  31. Ambrose, Supreme Commander 125–26.

  32. Robert Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors 118 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964).

  33. Winston S. Churchill, Hinge of Fate 637.

  34. Quoted in Milton S. Eisenhower, The President Is Calling 137 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974). Also see Ambrose, Supreme Commander 130.

  35. De Gaulle, 1 War Memoirs 57.

  36. 12 The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt with Special Material and Explanatory Notes by Samuel I. Rosenman 479–82 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950). (Emphasis added.)

  37. FDR’s message to Eisenhower was first published in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 654.

  38. DDE to John S. D. Eisenhower, December 20, 1942, 2 War Years 855–56.

  39. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 159.

  40. Quoted in Langer, Our Vichy Gamble 372.

  41. Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors 150–51.

  42. Winston S. Churchill, Hinge of Fate 641.

  43. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 651.

  44. F. H. Hinsley, 2 British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations 466–67 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

  45. Anthony Martienssen, Hitler and His Admirals 147 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1949).

  46. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 167.

  47. Clark, Calculated Risk 134–35.

  48. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 187.

  49. Ibid. 184.

  50. DDE to Smith, November 18, 1942, 2 War Years 732–34.

  51. DDE to British War Office, November 22, 1942, ibid. 761–64.

  52. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 191.

  53. WSC to DDE, November 22, 1942, 2 War Years 767n2.

  54. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 197.

  55. DDE to MDE, November 27, 1942, Letters to Mamie 66.

  56. Lyon, Eisenhower 185.

  57. DDE to GSP, November 26, 1942, 2 War Years 774–75.

  58. Quoted in Korda, Ike 353.

  59. Nigel Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield: Monty’s War Years, 1942–1944 145 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1983).

  60. Blumenson, 2 Patton Papers 135. Patton went on to say he almost thought Ike was “timid. When he goes out, a peep [jeep?] full of armed men precedes and follows his armed limousine.”

  61. Ibid. 137–38 (December 10, 1942).

  62. Bryant, Turn of the Tide 430.

  63. GCM to DDE, December 22, 1942, 3 Papers of George Catlett Marshall 488.

  64. DDE to GCM, December 26, 1942, 2 War Years 867–68.

  65. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 249.

  66. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 228–29.

  67. Funk, Charles de Gaulle 48–51.

  68. Robin W. Winks, Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961 183–84 (New York: William Morrow, 1987). Professor Winks, the Randolph W. Townsend, Jr., Professor of History at Yale, was afforded access to Professor Coon’s papers at the University of Pennsylvania (they are restricted), and discusses Coon’s view of the efficacy of political assassinations at some length. Also see Carleton S. Coon, A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent, 1941–1943 (Ipswich, Mass.: Gambit, 1980). Stephen Ambrose and Richard Immerman relate the story in Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Intelligence Establishment 48–56 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981). Neither Murphy nor Professor Coon was willing to be interviewed by Ambrose.

  69. Leahy to DDE, December 25, 1942, EL.

  70. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 98–99.

  71. Ibid. 101.

  72. Major General Everett J. Hughes diary, December 30, 1942, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. The reference to Summersby’s reputation in London pertains to the fact that she took up with Captain Richard (“Dick”) Arnold of the U.S. Corps of Engineers while her divorce from Mr. Summersby was still pending. Arnold was also married at the time.

  73. DDE to MDE, December 30, 1942, Letters to Mamie 74–75.

  74. DDE to MDE, December 31, 1942, ibid. 76. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)

  75. WSC to FDR, December 31, 1942, Kimball, 2 Churchill and Roosevelt 98–99.

  76. WSC to DDE, December 31, 1942, 2 War Years 883n2. Also see Martin Gilbert, 7 Winston S. Churchill 286 (London: Heinemann, 1986).

  77. For the proceedings of the Casablanca
conference, see FRUS: Washington and Casablanca. Eisenhower’s presentation to the third session of the Combined Chiefs is at pages 567–69.

  78. Ibid. 567.

  79. Ibid. 568–69.

  80. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 283.

  81. Bryant, Turn of the Tide 448.

  82. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 676.

  83. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 243.

  84. Quoted in Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It 79 (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1946).

  85. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 689.

  86. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 286.

  87. Blumenson, 2 Patton Papers 154–55.

  88. Bryant, Turn of the Tide 430–31.

  89. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 677.

  90. FRUS: Washington and Casablanca 660.

  91. DDE to GCM, January 17, 1943, and GCM to DDE, January 18, 1943, 2 War Years 908–11. The fact that Marshall told Ike about the appointment of Alexander two days before Brooke made the formal proposal suggests they had discussed it beforehand.

  92. Quoted in Bryant, Turn of the Tide 454–55.

  93. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower 258–59.

  94. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting 110.

  95. Ibid. 107–8.

  96. Hughes diary, February 12, 1943, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

  97. DDE to MDE, February 20, 1943, Letters to Mamie 97. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)

  98. Margaret Bourke-White, “Women in Lifeboats: Torpedoed on an African-bound Troopship, a Life Photographer Finds Them as Brave in War as Men,” Life 48–54, February 22, 1943.

  99. Quoted in Susan Eisenhower, Mrs. Ike 204–5.

  100. DDE to MDE, March 2, 1943, Letters to Mamie 104–5. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)

  101. DDE to AGWAR [Adjutant General, War Department], 1013 hrs, February 13, 1943, quoted in Atkinson, Army at Dawn 337.

  102. DDE to GCM, February 15, 1942, 2 War Years 955–57. II Corps’ operations log contained the entry “General disposition of forces was satisfactory to General Eisenhower on February 13.” Atkinson, Army at Dawn 332.

  103. DDE to GCM, February 15, 1942, 2 War Years 956.

  104. Atkinson, Army at Dawn 346.

  105. Bernard Law Montgomery, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein 142 (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1958).