Eisenhower in War and Peace

Eisenhower played no direct role in the battle for Sicily. “I am the Chairman of a Board,” he told Lord Louis Mountbatten.¹ Alexander, with his headquarters close to the fighting in Sicily, controlled the ground war. Cunningham, at the Royal Navy’s base on Malta, directed the war at sea. And Tedder waged the air war from Tunis. Ike remained at Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) in Algiers and was primarily concerned with keeping London and Washington abreast of the fighting while overseeing civil affairs in French North Africa and coordinating the work of his deputies. But as the escape of the German Army across the Strait of Messina demonstrated, the commanders in chief were too widely separated to be coordinated easily, and at the close of the Sicilian campaign Eisenhower ordered them back to Algiers.

The sheer size of Allied Forces Headquarters meant that Ike’s personal preferences could be accommodated easily. He lived in a spacious seven-bedroom villa overlooking the Mediterranean, enjoyed a country retreat near Carthage, and had a personal staff (his “family”) that catered to his needs. Sergeant Mickey McKeogh supervised the household; his valet, Sergeant John Moaney, dressed him each morning; and Tex Lee and Harry Butcher ran whatever errands were required. The duty day began at seven with cigarettes and countless cups of scalding black coffee, and continued until about four, when Eisenhower headed for his country place, went riding with Kay when weather permitted, and returned for cocktails about six. Dinner was informal, unless visiting dignitaries were present, and was inevitably followed by a rubber of bridge with Ike and Kay taking on Butcher and whoever else might be available, usually T. J. Davis, the theater adjutant general. Kay made Eisenhower’s off-duty moments as pleasant as she could, and often attended top-level meetings as his personal assistant and confidant. “We have no secrets from Kay,” Ike was quoted as saying.² Curious about their relationship, General James Gavin of the 82nd Airborne asked veteran correspondent John “Beaver” Thompson of the Chicago Tribune if the rumors they were having an affair were true. “Well,” Thompson replied, “I have never before seen a chauffeur get out of a car and kiss the General good morning when he comes from his office.”³

Eisenhower’s executive ability—his capacity to delegate while assuming ultimate responsibility—was exceptional. After the war, Omar Bradley said that Ike “did not know how to manage a battlefield,” but as a theater commander he proved uniquely gifted. Montgomery concurred. He would not class Eisenhower as a great soldier, said Monty, “but he was a great Supreme Commander—a military statesman.”⁴ ^b No other general officer, British or American, could have dealt as effectively with Washington and London, kept headstrong subordinates working in harmony, and (with the help of John C. H. Lee) amassed the matériel that ensured ultimate victory. In a sense, Ike was like a giant umbrella. He absorbed what was coming down from above, shielded his commanders from higher authority, and allowed them to fight the war without excessive second-guessing.

But the pressures took a toll. Harold Macmillan, whom Churchill had dispatched to provide political guidance, noted in his diary during the Sicily campaign that Ike

“All these instructions are naturally contradictory and conflicting,” said Macmillan, and it was like a parlor game to juggle them and get things right.⁵

The bombing of Rome, combined with the reverses in North Africa and Sicily, meant that Mussolini’s days were numbered. On July 25 the Grand Council of Fascism (which had not met since 1939) voted no confidence in Il Duce. King Victor Emmanuel relieved him of office that evening, and Mussolini was placed in protective custody. News of the dictator’s fall triggered massive celebrations in the streets of Rome, and Victor Emmanuel, instead of naming a Fascist replacement, turned to Italy’s most distinguished soldier, Marshal Pietro Badoglio. “Fascism fell like a rotten pear,” said Badoglio later.⁸

In 1936, Badoglio had turned the Italian debacle in Ethiopia into victory, and subsequently served as chief of the Supreme General Staff (Commando Supremo) until December 1940, when he broke with Mussolini over the invasion of Greece. As soon as he was installed in office, Badoglio assured Hitler of Italy’s continued loyalty. He then initiated secret discussions with the Allies, first in Madrid, then Lisbon. Eisenhower’s headquarters was represented by Bedell Smith and British brigadier Kenneth Strong, and after considerable to-ing and fro-ing an armistice was set to take effect the evening of September 8.⁹ “The House of Savoy,” a Free French newspaper observed, “never finished a war on the same side it started, unless the war lasted long enough to change sides twice.”¹⁰

The Italian surrender had little practical effect. Badoglio and the King fled to Brindisi (on the heel of the Italian boot), the Germans occupied Rome, and the Italian Army was disarmed and demobilized. The principal gain was that the Italian fleet sailed from its bases in La Spezia and Taranto to Malta to be interned. Ike and Admiral Cunningham watched from the deck of the destroyer HMS Hambledon as the Taranto squadron sailed into St. Paul’s harbor, flags aloft, sailors manning the rails. “When they replied to our bosun’s whistle,” Butcher remembered, “I swear theirs had an operatic trill.”¹¹ By mid-September, six battleships, eight cruisers, thirty-three destroyers, and one hundred merchant ships had surrendered to the Allies.¹²

When the time came, the invasion of Italy was mishandled as badly as the invasion of North Africa had been. Instead of landing in one location with overwhelming force as Eisenhower had insisted on doing in Sicily, the Allies once again landed piecemeal. On September 3, 1943, Montgomery crossed the Strait of Messina with two veteran divisions from Eighth Army, landed on the toe of the Italian boot, and secured the adjacent coastline to protect Allied shipping (BAYTOWN). Six days later, three divisions from Mark Clark’s Fifth Army landed at Salerno, three hundred miles north of Montgomery, and less than fifty miles below Naples (AVALANCHE). No effort was made to coordinate the landings, and by dividing his forces, Eisenhower not only weakened the landing at Salerno, but deprived AVALANCHE of the battle-tested troops of Eighth Army.^d

Eisenhower, his AFHQ staff, and his commanders in chief overestimated the impact of Italy’s surrender, underestimated Kesselring’s ability to mount a spirited defense, and again failed to comprehend the topographic impediments that an army would encounter pressing north. The uninterrupted strand of beaches at Salerno provided a favorable landing site. But they were ringed by low-lying mountains from which German mortars and artillery could blast the troops coming ashore. As one Navy planner put it, “The landing site was like the inside of a coffee cup.”¹⁵ And although Salerno appeared on small-scale planning maps to be just south of Naples, it was separated from the city by the Vesuvian massif, a barrier just as formidable as Mount Etna had proved to be in Sicily. Eisenhower assumed that Naples would be in Allied hands within the week and planned to move his headquarters there later in the month. Clark shared Ike’s optimism. “You don’t have to worry about this operation,” he told an old Army friend. “This will be a pursuit, not a battle.”¹⁶ The fact is Clark’s troops did not enter Naples until October 1, 1943, after three weeks of some of the most difficult fighting of the war.

In the south, Montgomery encountered little opposition. Kesselring chose not to defend every inch of Italian territory, and with Sicily already in Allied hands, southern Calabria was of little strategic value. But at Salerno it was a different story. Fifth Army came within an eyelash of being driven back into the sea. Eisenhower ultimately deployed every bomber in the theater and every warship Cunningham could muster to protect the beachhead, and eventually the German counterattack was turned back. But it was truly the most dangerous moment of the war in Europe for the Western Allies. An entire field army of two corps and four divisions was on the verge of annihilation.¹⁷

Eisenhower had gambled that the Italian surrender would change the nature of the war and that Clark would face little opposition. The fact is, both he and Marshal Badoglio were playing a double game. Ike and Bedell Smith led Badoglio and his representatives to believe that the Allies would land at various points along the Italian coast with no fewer than twelve divisions. Assuming that so many American and British troops would be coming ashore so quickly, Badoglio pledged that the Italian Army would switch sides and assist the Allies. Eisenhower and his staff became so enthralled with the possibility of Italian support that they devised a last-minute scheme to land an airborne division in Rome (almost two hundred miles north of Salerno) to protect the Badoglio government and “stiffen the Italian formations” (GIANT II).

To complicate matters further, the news that Italy had surrendered was announced shortly before the troops boarded their landing craft. Many believed the beaches would not be defended. Admiral Henry Hewitt, commanding the naval task force, noted with alarm that Fifth Army’s “keen fighting edge” had been dulled.²¹ Incredible as it seems in retrospect, the 36th Division elected to forgo a preparatory naval barrage to soften enemy defenses. “I see no point to killing a lot of peaceful Italians and destroying their homes,” said Major General Fred L. Walker, the division commander.²² Clark supported that decision. As a consequence, German artillery and mortar fire pummeled the beaches at will. Allied planners had assumed Fifth Army would be four thousand yards inland by daylight. Instead, by midmorning the beachhead scarcely extended four hundred yards.²³ At that point the destroyers and cruisers accompanying the invasion force moved close to shore and began to shell the German positions on Monte Soprano. The Germans pulled back, and by nightfall the beachhead was secure.

Faced with impending doom, Eisenhower sprang into action, determined, as he put it, “to move heaven and earth to save Fifth Army.” Tedder was ordered to deploy the full strength of the Allied air force—including B-17 strategic bombers—to protect the beachhead; Cunningham rushed the main battle fleet to the Gulf of Salerno; Alexander was dispatched to bolster Clark’s resolve; and Montgomery was ordered to hasten his advance from Calabria. “An evacuation from Salerno,” Cunningham wrote later, “would have resulted in a reverse of the first magnitude—an Allied defeat which would have completely offset the Italian surrender.”²⁷

The battle at Salerno lasted four days. Allied bombers dropped almost a thousand tons of high explosives per square mile, annihilating intersections, rail lines, and whole villages.²⁸ Cunningham’s fleet delivered more than eleven thousand tons of highly accurate five- and six-inch shells in direct support of Clark’s troops. “The attack this morning had to endure naval gunfire from at least 16 to 18 battleships, cruisers and large destroyers,” Vietinghoff informed Kesselring on September 14. “With astonishing precision and freedom of maneuver, these ships shot at every recognized target with overwhelming effect.”²⁹

In postwar interviews, as well as in their memoirs, Eisenhower, Clark, and Bedell Smith planted the idea that much of Fifth Army’s problem at Salerno was attributable to Montgomery’s failure to move up from Messina more rapidly.³¹ It is another illustration of Ike’s ability to reshape the record. Not only did the initial orders given Montgomery not contemplate his direct support of AVALANCHE, but Eighth Army was not provided sufficient transport to move beyond Calabria. When he was belatedly ordered to rush to Clark’s support, additional transport was provided and Montgomery closed the gap in three days. For Monty it was old hat. In February he had been asked by Alexander to hasten his advance into Tunisia to ease the pressure on Fredendall at Kasserine Pass. Now he was hustling to assist Clark.^g

The blame for the setback at Salerno rests squarely with Eisenhower and Clark and the rosy scenario they painted as to what would follow Italy’s surrender. As a consequence, too few troops were deployed, Montgomery’s Eighth Army veterans were dispatched on a wild-goose chase three hundred miles south of the main battle area, naval and air support were initially haphazard, and the quality of tactical leadership was manifestly inadequate. As General Rudolf Sieckenius, commanding the 16th Panzer, put it, the Americans and British were “devoid of offensive spirit, excessively dependent on artillery support, and reluctant to close with the enemy.”³²

Eisenhower learned from the crisis at Salerno, and the mistakes were not repeated at Normandy. Whether Clark learned anything continues to be a matter of debate. What is clear is that a foul-up as significant as Salerno required a scapegoat, and the victim was Major General Ernest J. Dawley, who commanded Clark’s VI Corps. Dawley’s performance was no worse than any other general officer’s at Salerno. Yet he quarreled repeatedly with Clark (Dawley vehemently objected to evacuating the beachhead), and Clark convinced Ike that Dawley was unstable. Eisenhower, with some misgiving, reduced Dawley to his permanent peacetime rank of colonel and sent him back to the United States, where he was assigned to a training command.³³ “It was just as well,” Dawley said later. “I couldn’t work with Clark. He made decisions off the top of his head.”³⁴ Dawley regained one star almost immediately, returned to the European theater in 1945, and retired as a major general two years later. “He is being promoted,” Marshall told Texas senator Tom Connally, “as a reward for keeping his mouth shut.”³⁵

On September 22, 1943, Churchill—who was deeply committed to the invasion of Italy—praised Ike for the outcome at Salerno. “I congratulate you on the victorious landing and deployment northwards of our armies,” he cabled. “As the Duke of Wellington said of the battle of Waterloo, ‘It was a damned close-run thing,’ but your policy of running risks has been vindicated.”³⁶

Marshall did not share Churchill’s enthusiasm. The following day he chastised Eisenhower for launching Montgomery in Calabria before Clark hit the beach at Salerno. “Quite evidently you and Alexander had a different view but at long range it would seem that you gave the enemy too much time to prepare and eventually find yourself up against very stiff resistance.”³⁷

According to Butcher, Marshall’s letter “took the starch out of Ike.”³⁹ Accustomed to nothing but praise from his mentor in Washington, Eisenhower had been pulled up short. He fretted over a reply for a day, and then sent Marshall a whine reminiscent of George McClellan’s frequent responses to Lincoln in 1862. “I do not see how any individual could possibly be devoting more thought and energy to speeding up operations or to attacking boldly and with admitted risk than I do.”⁴⁰ Eisenhower said there was no way that the landing at Salerno “could have logically preceded BAYTOWN [Montgomery’s landing in Calabria].” This reply was less than candid. Before BAYTOWN was launched, Montgomery told Eisenhower and Alexander that it was a mistake to send Eighth Army across the Strait of Messina and that everything should be concentrated at Salerno. But neither Ike nor Alexander listened. As one military historian has put it: “Instead of keeping Eighth Army concentrated for landing further north, Eisenhower committed himself to one of the most senseless assaults of the war, and then blamed Montgomery for being slow.”⁴¹

Marshall’s rebuke disconcerted Eisenhower. While Churchill had applauded his willingness to take risks, Marshall and Dill, from their global perspective in Washington, questioned his judgment.⁴² It was the beginning of Ike’s autumn of discontent. The battle for Italy was not the cakewalk he had anticipated. Allied troops would not enter Rome for another nine months; the Germans now had twenty-four divisions south of the Alps; winter was approaching, and the mountainous hinterland north of Naples scarcely suggested a “soft underbelly.” The rivers in Italy flow east and west, and each provided a defense line for the ever resourceful Kesselring. Even worse, Italy was now a secondary theater. The Allies’ main tent was OVERLORD, and Eisenhower had already lost seven divisions and three strategic bombing groups to the buildup in Britain. His requests for men and matériel often went unheeded, and he was losing many of his best officers (such as Bradley) to the cross-Channel attack.

Eisenhower biographers uniformly attribute Ike’s funk in the fall of 1943 to his despair at the prospect of returning to Washington to replace Marshall as chief of staff. That possibility undoubtedly affected his mood. But he was also concerned that he might be trapped in a military sideshow. The battle for Italy would be long, hard, and thankless, and Ike despaired at finding a way out.

In 1925, when Eisenhower believed he had been passed over for the Command and General Staff School at Leavenworth, Fox Conner had executed an end run around the chief of infantry and Ike secured an appointment. When Eisenhower was stuck in the all-black 24th Infantry at Fort Benning, Conner intervened to have him assigned to Pershing’s Battle Monument Commission. And when duty with Pershing in Paris appeared to be a dead end, Conner arranged Ike’s transfer to the office of the assistant secretary of war in Washington. But Fox Conner had long retired and Eisenhower was stuck.

George Patton often referred to Ike as “Divine Destiny.” The British—Brooke, Alexander, and Montgomery—never thought much of Eisenhower’s generalship but always welcomed his good luck. Napoléon also preferred lucky generals, and it was not long until fortuna came to Ike’s relief. On November 17, 1943, Prime Minister Churchill, accompanied by the British high command, stopped off in Malta for a preliminary conference with Eisenhower before meeting with FDR in Cairo, and then with Stalin in Teheran. Churchill pressed his Mediterranean strategy on Ike and confessed that the idea of crossing the English Channel left him cold. “We must take care that the tides do not run red with the blood of American and British youth, or the beaches be choked with their bodies.”⁴⁴

Two days after meeting with Churchill, Eisenhower stood on the pier of the great French naval base at Mers el-Kébir, six miles west of Oran, awaiting the arrival of the president. Standing with Ike were Admiral Cunningham and FDR’s sons Elliott and Franklin, Jr., who were stationed nearby. In the harbor, the USS Iowa, the latest of a new class of battleships, rode at anchor following a 3,800-mile passage from Hampton Roads.⁴⁷ In addition to the president, the Iowa’s passengers included Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s White House aides, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a full complement of military planners. The eight-day crossing had allowed the president time to review plans for the war in Europe with his military chiefs before meeting Churchill and Stalin. “The sea voyage had done Father good,” Elliott recalled. “He looked fit and he was filled with excited anticipation of the days ahead.”⁴⁸

Daylight flights were too risky, Eisenhower explained. “We don’t want to have to run fighter escort all the way to Cairo. It would just be asking for trouble.”

“If you’re going to make me stay over at Carthage all Sunday, you’ve got to take me on a personally conducted tour of the battlefields—ancient and modern.”

The one-day briefing turned into a two-day lovefest. FDR and Ike were both engaging extroverts, and they hit it off from the beginning. Roosevelt was accustomed to being the center of attention; Eisenhower was equally accustomed to dealing with celebrities such as Churchill and MacArthur, and knew instinctively how to make them comfortable.

“Where is Miss Summersby?” the president asked as soon as he was settled in Ike’s quarters. Eisenhower sent for Kay, and introduced her.

“Mr. President, this is Miss Kay Summersby, the British girl you asked about.”

“I’ve heard quite a bit about you,” FDR told Kay. “Why didn’t you drive me from the plane? I’d been looking forward to it.”

“Very well. You shall drive me then. I’m going on an inspection trip soon.”⁵¹

At dinner that evening Kay sat one place from the president.ⁱ “I was exposed to the fabled F.D.R. charm,” she remembered. “He had it on full, with all stops out.” Roosevelt took his leave at ten-thirty. “See you tomorrow, Child,” he said to Summersby, in a tone she had not heard since she was a girl.⁵²

The next morning Roosevelt, his son Franklin, Eisenhower, and Summersby, joined by Telek, the Scottie Ike and Kay shared, set out in Ike’s staff car to tour the battlefields. According to Franklin, his father grilled Ike closely, not only about the recent battles but also those of ancient Carthage. “The fact that Ike knew the details of each conflict pleased Father hugely: it showed that Ike, like Father, had a bent for history, and a love for knowledge.”⁵³

Scarcely had the tour begun when Telek jumped onto the president’s lap. Nothing could have been better calculated to put FDR at ease. “The President played with him as one who knows and loves dogs,” said Summersby. Roosevelt talked about Fala, and asked whether Telek was British or American. Eisenhower allowed as how he was British, but had an American wife. “I guess I think as much of him, Mr. President, as you do of Fala.”⁵⁴

A little after noon, Roosevelt spotted a rare eucalyptus grove, an oasis in the desert landscape. “That’s an awfully nice place. Could you pull up there, Child, for our little picnic?” When the car came to a stop, surrounded by squads of GIs with fixed bayonets, Kay opened the picnic basket.

“No, let me do that, Kay, I’m very good at passing sandwiches around,” said Ike.

Eisenhower got out of the car, went to the front passenger seat, and selected a chicken sandwich for the president.⁵⁵ Ike claimed he knew his chicken sandwiches because of all the Sunday-school picnics he had gone to as a child.⁵⁶

Before biting in, Roosevelt turned to Kay. He patted the empty seat beside him and said, “Won’t you come back here, Child, and have lunch with a dull old man?”⁵⁷

“Roosevelt enjoyed himself immensely,” Summersby recalled. “He had a gift of putting a person completely at ease, and I soon got over my awe of him and was chatting away as if I had known him all my life.”⁵⁸ ^j

When they returned to Eisenhower’s quarters late that afternoon, FDR was beaming. He leaned over and put his hand on Ike’s arm. “You know, Ike—I’m afraid I’m going to have to do something you won’t like.

“I know what Harry Butcher is to you [but] I may have to take him away.” The president explained that Elmer Davis was leaving his post as director of the Office of War Information, and had recommended Butcher as his successor. “What would you say if I drafted ‘Butch’ to take over the job?” asked Roosevelt.

“Well, Mr. President, I won’t pretend it wouldn’t be tough. But if you need him, if you give the word, the answer is, sure, go ahead.”

According to Franklin junior, “Father paused, with a very satisfied look on his face. It was the sort of answer he liked, and he was bound to like Eisenhower the more for it, especially inasmuch as he knew what losing Butcher would mean to the General.”⁶⁰

That evening after dinner, Eisenhower accompanied FDR to the airport. Just before the president boarded the plane, he mentioned the command of OVERLORD—which evidently he had been thinking about.

FDR went on to say that he dreaded the thought of losing Marshall from Washington. “It is dangerous to monkey with a winning team.”⁶²

But FDR was having second thoughts. General John J. Pershing, who knew both Marshall and Eisenhower, had written from his sickbed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to caution the president against sending Marshall to London. The command structures in Washington and overseas were working well, said Pershing. “It would be a fundamental and very grave error in our military policy to break up working relationships at both levels.”⁶³

Marshall’s colleagues on the Joint Chiefs also voiced concern. Leahy, King, and Arnold believed it essential to retain Marshall as a member of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, where he could fight for American interests. “None of us, least of all myself, wanted to deny Marshall the thing he wanted most,” wrote Leahy. “On the other hand, he was a tower of strength to Roosevelt and to the high command.”⁶⁴

FDR was also concerned about recent press criticism suggesting that Marshall’s transfer to Europe was a left-wing plot to elevate General Brehon Somervell to chief of staff and possibly position him as a running mate in 1944. Somervell, who had headed the WPA in New York under Hopkins, was considered an ardent New Dealer (which surely would have astonished Somervell), and more in sympathy with FDR’s domestic agenda than Marshall. Above all, however, there was the problem of dealing with Congress, which after the 1942 midterm election had become increasingly difficult. Most members of Congress believed George Marshall could do no wrong, and FDR wondered whether a new chief of staff would enjoy similar credibility on Capitol Hill.⁶⁵

On the other side of the ledger, Roosevelt had just subjected Eisenhower to the most searching scrutiny and liked what he saw. Unlike Lincoln, who was prone to error until he found Grant in 1863, FDR was exceptionally able at selecting military commanders (Marshall, MacArthur, Leahy, King), and he believed Ike would be a good fit to head the cross-Channel attack. The job was Marshall’s if he wanted it, but Eisenhower seemed to have all the necessary qualifications. He had proven his ability to command large multinational coalitions, he worked well with the British high command in London, and he had demonstrated a particular ability to underplay American special interests for the benefit of the common cause—an essential attribute that Marshall may have lacked. Roosevelt was not a friend of detail and did not pursue matters to the third decimal place. The landings in North Africa, Sicily, and at Salerno may not have been textbook examples of military precision, but Ike had prevailed. (Shiloh and the Wilderness were not pretty, either.) As a result of those landings, Eisenhower had a firsthand knowledge of amphibious operations that Marshall did not have.

FDR also liked Ike. Not only was he easy to get along with, but he exhibited none of the posturing that often accompanied high rank in the military. Ike might just be the man for the job, Roosevelt thought as he boarded his plane for Cairo. But he wanted a second look. He ordered Eisenhower to join the conference in Cairo “in two or three days” and report on the situation in the Mediterranean.⁶⁶

Eisenhower took off for Cairo on Tuesday evening, November 23. As a thoughtful gesture, he invited the president’s son Colonel Elliott Roosevelt and FDR’s son-in-law, Major John Boettiger, to accompany him. Elliott commanded the theater’s photo reconnaissance group, and Boettiger, former publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was attached to Allied military government in Italy. He and his wife, Anna, had been friends of the Eisenhowers since Ike was stationed at Fort Lewis in 1940. In addition to Elliott and Boettiger, Eisenhower’s party included Kay Summersby, his personal staff, and the theater commanders in chief.

The issue exploded at the meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff attended by Roosevelt and Churchill on November 24, 1943. The prime minister and Marshall went head-to-head. As Marshall recalled, “It got hotter and hotter. Finally Churchill grabbed his lapels, his spit curls hung down, and he said, ‘His Majesty’s Government can’t have its troops standing idle. Muskets must flame.’ ”

“God forbid if I should try to dictate,” Marshall replied. “But not one American soldier is going to die on that goddamned beach.”⁶⁸

The meeting was stunned. Marshall carried the point, but Churchill never completely forgave him.⁶⁹ When Elliott called on his father later that morning, he found FDR still musing about the exchange. “I think Winston is beginning not to like George Marshall very much.”⁷⁰

“I wouldn’t envy anybody the job of standing up to the P.M.,” said Elliott.

“Well, I’ll tell you one man who deserves a medal for being able to get along with Winston. And that’s Ike Eisenhower.”

“Sure I am. But he won’t take one. At the same time MacArthur was given the Medal of Honor, it was offered to Ike, and he turned it down. Said it was for valor, and he hadn’t done anything valorous.”^l

A report from Eisenhower was not on the original agenda drawn up by the Combined Chiefs, but since he was in Cairo they asked him to report at their final session on November 26. Minutes before the meeting Ike was summoned to the president’s villa. The medal had arrived from Smith in Algiers, and FDR wanted to award it. “It was just the kind of surprise he loved to spring,” Elliott recalled.

In the brief ceremony, which came as a total surprise to Eisenhower, the president glowed with admiration. “You deserve this, and much more, Ike.”

Eisenhower’s eyes filled with tears. “It is the happiest moment of my life, Sir. I appreciate this decoration more than any other you could give me.”⁷²

Eisenhower’s presentation to the Combined Chiefs that afternoon was a measured assessment of the military situation in Italy. If the CCS provided the resources necessary, he said he could reach the Po River by spring. But that would delay OVERLORD by several months. Without additional resources, he could take Rome, but then would have to assume a defensive posture. Unlike his sophomoric presentation to the Combined Chiefs at Casablanca, where he lost points by recommending an unfeasible war games solution to the problem in Tunisia, Eisenhower demonstrated a firm grasp of the strategic situation and appeared realistic about the possibilities. Asked by Brooke about the situation in Yugoslavia, Ike said that Allied propaganda to the contrary, all possible equipment “should be sent to Tito, since Mihailovic’s forces were of very little value.”⁷³

The chiefs were impressed with Eisenhower’s presentation.⁷⁴ But Marshall noticed Ike looked tired. He was working too hard and needed to take some time off. Eisenhower said there was too much work waiting for him back in Algiers. “Look, Eisenhower,” Marshall replied, “everything is going well. Just let someone else run that war up there for a couple of days. If your subordinates can’t do it for you, you haven’t organized them properly.”⁷⁵

Eisenhower’s affection for Kay had become increasingly evident. Years later Churchill remembered how miffed Ike had been when Summersby was not included among the dinner guests slated to dine with him at the British embassy in Cairo.⁷⁸ And when FDR returned to Washington after Teheran, he told his daughter, Anna, that he thought Ike was sleeping with Kay.^m Eisenhower also left a discreet paper trail. Whether he and Kay were intimate remains a matter of conjecture. But there is no question they were in love. On the return night flight to Algiers he presented Kay with a postcard of the Garden of Gethsemane inscribed, “Good night! There are lots of things I could say—you know them. Good night.”⁷⁹

At Teheran it was apparent that FDR was having second thoughts about naming Marshall supreme commander. It was the first meeting of the Big Three, and Roosevelt had gone to Teheran determined to strike up a working relationship with Marshal Stalin. “He is not going to allow anything to interfere with that purpose,” said Harry Hopkins, who had become Roosevelt’s principal diplomatic troubleshooter. “He has spent his life managing men, and Stalin at bottom could not be so very much different from other people.”⁸⁰

The principal issue at Teheran was the second front. Stalin pressed the point. “If we are here to discuss military matters, Russia is only interested in OVERLORD.”⁸¹ Churchill dissembled. Unwilling to accept the reality of a cross-Channel attack, the prime minister extolled the advantages of alternative approaches—Italy, Turkey, Rhodes—and the shortage of landing craft, which was indeed a problem. Roosevelt came down hard on Stalin’s side. “We are all agreed that OVERLORD is the dominating operation, and that any operation that might delay OVERLORD cannot be considered by us.”⁸² The president said he favored sticking to the original date agreed on at Quebec, early May 1944. Stalin replied that he didn’t care whether it was May 1 or May 15 or May 20. “But a definite date is important.”⁸³

Stalin then turned to FDR. “Who will command OVERLORD?” Roosevelt was caught off guard. “That old Bolshevik is trying to force me to give him a name,” the president whispered to Admiral Leahy, “but I can’t tell him because I haven’t made up my mind.”⁸⁴

After the translation of Stalin’s remarks, Roosevelt replied that the matter was not yet decided. “Then nothing will come out of these operations,” said Stalin. The Soviet Union had learned that in military matters decisions could not be made by committee. “One man must be responsible and one man must make decisions.”⁸⁵ Stalin said the Soviet Union did not presume that it would take part in the selection of a supreme commander, but merely wanted to know who this officer would be and felt strongly that he should be appointed as soon as possible. Churchill said he thought the choice should be made “within a fortnight,” to which Roosevelt agreed.

When the conference ended on December 2, 1943, FDR still had not reached a decision. He recognized Marshall was entitled to the post, and understood his obligation to the chief of staff. But he had increasingly come to believe that Eisenhower might be a better choice, and he was truly reluctant to lose Marshall from Washington. What did Marshall want? Back in Cairo, Roosevelt delegated Hopkins to find out. When Hopkins called on Marshall, the chief of staff declined to state his opinion. “I will wholeheartedly accept whatever decision the President makes,” said Marshall.⁸⁶

The following day, Sunday, December 5, FDR sent for Marshall shortly before lunch. “I was determined,” Marshall said later, “that I should not embarrass the President one way or the other—that he must be able to deal in this matter with a perfectly free hand in whatever he felt was the best interest of the country.”⁸⁷

After a few brief formalities, Roosevelt asked Marshall directly what he wanted to do. “Evidently it was left up to me,” Marshall recalled. “I repeated again in as convincing language as I could that I wanted him to feel free to act in whatever way he felt was to the best interest of the country and to his satisfaction and not in any way to consider my feelings.”⁸⁸

“Then it will be Eisenhower,” said Roosevelt. “I don’t think I could sleep at night with you out of the country.”⁸⁹ ⁿ

^a Bedell Smith was initially concerned that Alexander had too few Americans on his staff at Fifteenth Army Group. Harold Macmillan told Smith that the quality of the American officers previously provided was poor and “quite frankly that he must supply some better American officers if they were to be taken seriously.” Smith got the message and dispatched Lyman Lemnitzer to be Alexander’s deputy. (Lemnitzer served as chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1960 to 1962.) Harold Macmillan, The Blast of War: 1939–1945 304 (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).

^b After conceding Eisenhower’s executive ability, Monty wrote Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the imperial general staff, that Ike “knows nothing whatever about how to make war or fight battles; he should be kept away from all that business if we want to win this war.” Montgomery to Brooke, April 4, 1943, Montgomery Papers, Imperial War Museum, London.

^c “It was a crashing blow to hear from him [Churchill] that he was now handing over this appointment to the Americans,” Brooke recorded in his diary entry of August 15, 1943. “Not for one moment did he realize what this meant to me. He offered no sympathy, no regrets at having had to change his mind and dealt with the matter as if it were one of minor importance.” Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries, 1939–1945 441–42, Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, eds. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001). When Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke was elevated to the peerage, he adopted the name Alanbrooke.

^d Montgomery’s orders instructed him “to secure a bridgehead on the toe of Italy, to enable our naval forces to operate through the Straits of Messina.” No effort was made to coordinate his efforts with the Fifth Army, and it was not anticipated that the Eighth Army would move north beyond the neck of Catanzaro, the ankle of the Italian boot. Alexander to Montgomery, August 20, 1943, Montgomery Papers, Imperial War Museum, London. Also see The Memoirs of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein 173 (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1958); Nigel Hamilton, Master of the Battlefield: Monty’s War Years, 1942–1944 386–87 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983).

^e In addition to having been first captain of the corps of cadets (USMA, 1922), Taylor was a gifted linguist who had taught French and Spanish at the academy.

^f “When the time comes that I must meet my Maker,” wrote Ridgway in his memoirs, “the source of most humble pride to me will not be accomplishments in battle, but the fact that I was guided to make the decision to oppose this thing [GIANT II]. I deeply and sincerely believe that by taking the stand I took we saved the lives of thousands of brave men.

“The hard decisions,” Ridgway added, “are not the ones you make in the heat of battle. Far harder to make are those involved in speaking your mind about some hare-brained scheme, which proposes to commit troops to action under conditions where failure is almost certain, and the only results will be the needless sacrifice of priceless lives.” Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway, as Told to Harold H. Martin 82–83 (New York: Harper, 1956).

^g Could Eighth Army have reached Salerno more quickly? The U.S. Army’s official history of the Salerno campaign, written by the distinguished military historian Martin Blumenson, states that the “unequivocal answer is impossible.” After describing the difficulties Eighth Army surmounted, Blumenson quotes Mark Clark’s note to Montgomery while the battle was still in progress: “Please accept my deep appreciation for assistance your Eighth Army has provided Fifth Army by your skillful and rapid advance.” Clark to Montgomery, September 15, 1943, in Martin Blumenson, Salerno to Cassino 140–41 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, 1969).

^h On October 30, 1943, FDR cabled Churchill that it was important for a commander of OVERLORD to be appointed quickly, but, “as you know I cannot make Marshall available immediately.” The president asked Churchill if he could appoint a British deputy supreme commander “who in receipt of precisely the same measure of support as will eventually be accorded Marshall could well carry the work forward.”

Churchill replied the following day. “Can you give me a firm date when Marshall will be available, as I see great difficulties in the various stop gap arrangements proposed?” Warren F. Kimball, ed. 2 Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence 571, 573 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984). Also see Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring 304–6 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951).

ⁱ The dinner guests, in addition to FDR and Kay Summersby, included Eisenhower, Admiral Leahy, General Spaatz, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, Elliott Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., and Miss Nancy Gatch, a Red Cross worker who was Butcher’s latest girlfriend. Lieutenant Junior Grade William Rigdon, who kept the president’s logbook, decorously listed Summersby and Gatch as the guests of Franklin, Jr., and Elliott. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943 287 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961).

^j In the course of the conversation, FDR asked Summersby whether she would like to join the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). Kay replied she would like nothing better, but she wasn’t an American citizen and therefore was not eligible. “Well, who knows?” Roosevelt replied. “Stranger things have happened.”

By order of the president, Kay Summersby was commissioned a second lieutenant in the WACs in October 1944. Korda, Ike 422.

^k Marshall, although he consistently refused to express any opinion on the appointment, evidently assumed he would be named to the post. Mrs. Marshall had begun moving the family’s personal belongings out of Quarters 1 at Fort Myer to their home in Leesburg, Virginia, and Marshall had had his desk, the behemoth used by General Pershing (and now used by the secretary of defense), crated for shipment to London. Katherine Tupper Marshall, Together: Annals of an Army Wife 156–57 (New York: Tupper and Love, 1946); David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943–1945 42–43 (New York: Random House, 1986).

^l FDR’s memory failed him, or perhaps the wish was father to the thought, as sometimes happened with the president. MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor in March 1942 after his escape from the Philippines. At that time Eisenhower headed the War Plans Division in the War Department and certainly would not have been recommended for the Medal of Honor. Eisenhower had opposed the award of the medal to MacArthur, which FDR may have remembered. Manchester, American Caesar 275–76.

^m In a lengthy letter to her husband postmarked December 19, 1943, Anna described FDR’s return to the White House. “LL [Little Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt] is now in N.Y., so OM [Old Man, FDR] and I are having the Norwegians [Princess Martha] for tea, and then OM, the big kids and I will swim.… OM and I had a good talk about Elliott. During the discussion, you’ll be amused to know that he suspects that the man you first wrote to about going into the Army [Eisenhower], is sleeping with his attractive driver!” Anna Roosevelt Boettiger to John Boettiger, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park.

ⁿ The British were delighted that Roosevelt chose Eisenhower rather than Marshall. After leaving Teheran, FDR told Elliott, “It’s absolutely clear that Winston will refuse absolutely to let Marshall take over. It’s not that [Marshall] argued too often with the P.M. on military matters, it’s just that he’s won too often.”

In his memoirs, Churchill insisted it was the president’s decision, but when informed by Roosevelt that it would be Eisenhower, he replied that he had the “warmest regard for General Eisenhower, and would trust our fortunes to his direction with hearty good will.”

General Sir Alan Brooke, who was often critical of Eisenhower, called the decision “a good one. Eisenhower had now 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. On the other hand Marshall had never commanded anything in war except, I believe, a company in the First World War.”

Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It 209 (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1946); Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring 418; Lord Alanbrooke, War Diaries 491.

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Supreme Commander