Eisenhower in War and Peace

“Let’s put it this way,” Bradley told Simpson. “We would prefer to hold our present line until we can arrange an orderly changeover. But if the Russian insists on going forward to his line of occupation, we’re not going to start any trouble. Work it out as best you can and allow him to. We are not going to risk an explosion that might bring a sequel to the war and bring World War III.”⁴

Eisenhower’s order triggered another row with London. The back-and-forth continued throughout May. Washington backed Ike and insisted the withdrawal be handled at the tactical level; the British were adamant that the matter was political. “I do not quite understand why the Prime Minister has been so determined to intermingle political and military considerations,” Eisenhower cabled Marshall. “My original recommendation was a simple one and I thought provided for a very sensible arrangement.”⁵ Churchill responded with his famous “iron curtain” cable to President Truman.^a “Surely,” said the prime minister, “it is vital now to come to an understanding with Russia, or to see where we are with her, before we weaken our armies mortally or retire to the zones of occupation.”⁶

Churchill proposed that he and Truman meet to review the situation, but the president declined. “I could see no valid reason for questioning an agreement [on zonal boundaries] on which we were so clearly committed,” said Truman. “The only practical thing to do was to stick carefully to our agreement and to try our best to make the Russians carry out their agreements.”⁷ To accomplish that, the president dispatched Harry Hopkins to Moscow to arrange a postwar Big Three meeting with Stalin. “In the meantime,” he told Churchill, “it is my present intention to adhere to our interpretation of the Yalta agreements,” which meant that the United States would withdraw to its zonal area.⁸

By late May the problem was becoming critical. It was no longer a tactical question of meeting the Red Army, but the much larger issue of governing postwar Germany. The Allied armies were still holding their battle positions, and Eisenhower was still in supreme command. The issues pertaining to the occupation were not being addressed. On May 23, Eisenhower advised Washington that he “could not carry out his mission much longer” in the absence of four-power government. Ike suggested that SHAEF be abolished and that the withdrawal from the Russian zone begin immediately.¹⁰

The British continued to oppose any withdrawal, but suggested that the four military commanders in Germany (Eisenhower, Zhukov, Montgomery, and de Lattre de Tassigny) meet in Berlin and establish the Allied Control Council. The ACC, said the British, could discuss the Allied withdrawal from the Russian zone, but until all outstanding issues with the Soviet Union were resolved, American and British forces should stand fast.

After a week of protracted negotiations at the governmental level, it was agreed that the four military commanders would meet in Berlin on June 5, 1945, to complete the paperwork necessary for the creation of the Allied Control Council and the assumption of supreme authority in Germany. But differences between Washington and London persisted. Eisenhower was authorized by the president to work out the withdrawal with Zhukov, but Montgomery was told by the Foreign Office that the continued occupation of large parts of the Russian zone was an “important bargaining counter for obtaining satisfaction from the Soviet government on a number of outstanding questions.”¹¹

Marshall cleared his answer with the White House, and then told Ike on June 3 that the question of withdrawal should not be a prerequisite for establishing the Allied Control Council. “If the Russians raise the point, you should state in substance that the matter of withdrawal is one of the items to be worked out in the Control Council. As to the actual movement of U.S. Forces, you should state that this is primarily a military matter; its timing will be in accordance with U.S. ability to withdraw their forces … and the Russian ability to take over.”¹³

Churchill, who received a copy of Marshall’s message, remained resolute. “I view with profound misgivings the retreat of the American Army to our line of occupation,” he cabled Truman. “I hoped this retreat, if it has to be made, would be accompanied by the settlement of many great things which would be the true foundation of world peace. Nothing really important has been settled yet, and you and I will have to bear great responsibility for the future.”¹⁴

Churchill visualized the Cold War, and may even have been contributing to its onset. Eisenhower hoped that the defeat of Nazi Germany would lay the groundwork for a peaceful world in which the victorious Allies would cooperate. If there was going to be conflict with the Soviet Union—hot or cold—Ike was determined that the United States was not going to be responsible for starting it. As he told Butcher in late May, he thought relations with the Russians were about like American relations with the British at the beginning of the war.

The four military commanders signed the formal declaration assuming total power in Germany.^b But as Eisenhower anticipated, Zhukov made it clear that any steps to set up control machinery would have to await the Allied withdrawal from the Soviet zone. “There is some justification for Zhukov’s position that he is unable to discuss administrative problems in Germany when he still is not in control and hence not familiar with the problems of the zone for which he will eventually be responsible,” Ike told Marshall. “As a result of my discussion with Zhukov I am optimistic that the Russians will join in some form of control machinery when the withdrawal is accomplished and will agree to our force entering into Berlin concurrently with our withdrawal from their zone.”¹⁸ Murphy subsequently cabled the State Department: “For the Depts secret information, I believe that Gen Eisenhower does not consider that the retention of our forces in the Russian zone is wise or that it will be productive of advantages.”¹⁹

Two days after the conference in Berlin, Harry Hopkins stopped off at Eisenhower’s headquarters on his return from Moscow to Washington. Hopkins had arranged with Stalin for the Big Three to meet at Potsdam on July 15, and wanted to discuss the situation in Germany with Ike. Hopkins remained in Frankfurt twenty-four hours, after which he cabled President Truman that he was convinced “the present indeterminate status of date of withdrawal of Allied troops from area assigned to the Russians is certain to be misunderstood by Russia as well as at home.”

Hopkins’s message broke the logjam. Whereas Eisenhower had not been able to overcome British resistance in the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Hopkins succeeded in driving home to President Truman the importance of withdrawing Allied forces. On June 11, Truman informed Churchill that he was “unable to delay the withdrawal of American troops from the Soviet zone in order to use pressure in the settlement of other problems.” The president said that SHAEF should be dissolved immediately, and that separate U.S. and British zones under Eisenhower and Montgomery should begin to function forthwith. American troops, said Truman, would commence their withdrawal from the Soviet zone on June 21.²¹

Churchill yielded gracefully. “Obviously we are obliged to conform to your decision,” he cabled the president on June 14. “I sincerely hope that your action will in the long run make for a lasting peace in Europe.”²²

On the personal front, Eisenhower’s affection for Kay Summersby crested as the war ended. According to Kay, Ike pledged his love and insisted they go to London, take in a show, and celebrate VE Day. At the theater they were joined in Ike’s box by John and his British date; General Bradley; and Kay’s mother. It was all very public. When the audience demanded that Eisenhower speak, he told them how happy he was to be back in England. “It’s nice,” he said, “to be back in a country where I can almost speak the language.”²³ After the theater they adjourned to Ciro’s for dinner and dancing. Again, all very public. “It was hard to tell what step we were doing or what beat Ike was listening to,” Kay remembered. “We were sort of hopping around the floor. But I didn’t care.”²⁴

According to General Lucius Clay, who was Ike’s deputy at the time, “General Eisenhower was under considerable pressure immediately after the war to take up permanent residence in England. A group of leading citizens, led by Jimmy Gault [Sir James Gault, Eisenhower’s British aide], who was very influential in London financial circles, wanted General Eisenhower to live in Britain and had even selected a residence for him.”

I asked General Clay if that would have involved Kay Summersby. Clay blushed and did not answer. After a significant pause Clay continued: “General Eisenhower was a General of the Army. That was a lifetime appointment. He would never be required to retire. He would always draw his pay and allowances. So living in England was a real possibility.”²⁵

When Miller published his interview with President Truman in 1974, the American historical establishment expressed incredulity.²⁶ The reaction was similar to that following the publication of Fawn Brodie’s biography of Thomas Jefferson suggesting that Jefferson and Sally Hemmings had enjoyed a sexual relationship.²⁷ Like Brodie’s book, Truman’s story has the ring of reality. Professor Garrett Mattingly, the distinguished Columbia University historian who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1959 for The Armada, was stationed in Washington during the war as a junior officer in Naval Intelligence. It was Mattingly’s job to read the outgoing cables from the high command for censorship purposes. In the early 1950s, when Ike was president of Columbia University, Professor Mattingly told his history department colleagues that he had seen Marshall’s cable to Eisenhower. The only difference between Mattingly’s version and Truman’s was that Mattingly recalled Marshall saying that he would relieve Eisenhower as supreme commander if he did such a thing. Truman’s “bust him out of the Army” is a down-home Missouri embellishment. Professor Mattingly died in 1962—well before Truman’s interview with Merle Miller.^c

An additional incident offers tangential corroboration. On June 4, 1945, Eisenhower wrote Marshall to suggest that American officers remaining in Germany on occupation duty be permitted to bring their wives from the States.

Eisenhower was signaling that his affair with Kay had ended. As Eisenhower biographer Michael Korda has pointed out, the most curious aspect of Ike’s letter is that he felt it necessary to write Marshall in the first place. “If Ike had simply told Mamie to pack her bags and join him, it is hard to imagine that anybody would have been shocked or angered.”²⁹ When Clay succeeded Eisenhower as military governor, he authorized dependents to come to Germany without consulting Washington and caused scarcely a ripple.³⁰

Shortly afterward Kay received a typewritten “Dear John” letter from Eisenhower on War Department stationery.

In his own hand, Ike added a postscript: “Take care of yourself—and retain your optimism.”³² The postscript notwithstanding, Eisenhower’s letter to Kay is cold-blooded and ruthless. FDR would have been incapable of writing such a missive, and George Patton would have said a warmer good-bye to his horse. With his letter Eisenhower closed the book on his relationship with Kay Summersby. Kay would not completely go away, but Ike had taken the necessary step to restore his marriage to Mamie and resume his career. Eisenhower and his son John have been assiduous in their attempt to minimize the role Kay Summersby played in Ike’s life.^e Kay’s wartime diary, for example, which is at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, is filed under the “Barbara Wyden Papers” (Wyden assisted Kay in writing Past Forgetting), not under “Kay Summersby.”³³

A wartime romance is scarcely a deadly sin. In 1941, Franklin Roosevelt resumed his relationship with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, and Lucy was with FDR when he died at Warm Springs. For twenty years after the president’s death, Roosevelt scholars pooh-poohed the possibility of a presidential romance with Lucy Mercer. “Such rumors,” wrote Harvard professor Frank Freidel, “seem preposterous. They reflect more on the teller than FDR.”³⁴ But the truth eventually emerged, and did not adversely affect FDR’s reputation. As Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the dean of Roosevelt biographers, has noted, “If Lucy Mercer in any way helped Franklin Roosevelt sustain the frightful burden of leadership in the Second World War, the nation has good reason to be grateful to her.”³⁵ The same might be said for Kay Summersby. Major General Everett Hughes, a close friend of both Ike and Mamie, and who was regarded as Eisenhower’s “eyes and ears” at SHAEF, put it in almost identical terms. “Leave Ike and Kay alone,” he once admonished Eisenhower’s aide Tex Lee. “She’s helping him win the war.”³⁶

Victory celebrations engulfed Europe. Like the Duke of Wellington after Waterloo, Eisenhower was the hero of the hour. He was feted in the pomp and circumstance of London’s Guildhall, and the stately splendor of the Palais de l’Élysée. At the Guildhall, Ike addressed the assembled establishment of Great Britain, was proclaimed an honorary citizen, and was presented with a ceremonial sword bearing the insignia of the Order of Merit, Britain’s highest decoration. In Paris, he placed a wreath on the tomb of the unknown in an elaborate ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, was named a Compagnon de la Libération, and on behalf of the American people received a sword that had belonged to Napoléon. After a state dinner at the Élysée and another speech, de Gaulle presented him with a platinum cigarette case embossed with five sapphire stars and engraved in de Gaulle’s own handwriting.^f There were similar celebrations and decorations bestowed in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Eisenhower had become the most popular figure in western Europe, and he bore the acclaim with grace, dignity, and a residual midwestern humility.

On June 16, 1945, Eisenhower left Frankfurt for Washington, his first visit home in almost two years. President Truman dispatched the presidential plane, The Sacred Cow, for Ike’s use, and the party stopped for a day in Bermuda so that Eisenhower might have some time in the sun before embarking on his triumphal tour. In Washington, Ike addressed a joint session of Congress, met with President Truman and Secretary Stimson, and was awarded a second oak leaf cluster for his Distinguished Service Medal. Marshall had furnished Eisenhower a prepared text for his address to Congress, but Ike discarded it and spoke extemporaneously. When Eisenhower talked off the cuff, listeners were always impressed with his warmth and sincerity. When he spoke from a text, he appeared wooden and pedantic.³⁷ Lawmakers were charmed by Ike’s directness and gave him the longest standing ovation in congressional history.³⁸ Was Eisenhower a Democrat or a Republican? That was a question veteran leaders on both sides of the aisle found themselves asking.

That evening at a dinner in his honor at the Waldorf Astoria, Eisenhower returned to the theme:

On the morning of June 20 Eisenhower went to West Point, where he spoke to the corps of cadets, and then flew to Kansas for a reunion with his mother and brothers. Tiny Abilene (population five thousand) was jammed with twenty thousand well-wishers, and Ike remained for three days, staying with his brother Milton at Kansas State. In Abilene, newsmen had the opportunity to meet with Eisenhower at close range, and they peppered him with questions about his future. Was political office on the horizon?

“I am in the federal service and I take orders from my commander in chief,” Ike replied.

In typical Eisenhower fashion, Ike cited Sherman but did not use Sherman’s words—which were absolute. To say “I’d like to go even further than Sherman” is not the same as saying categorically that he would not accept if nominated, and would not serve if elected. By appearing to take himself out of contention but not actually doing so, Eisenhower had implicitly announced his availability.^h

From Abilene, Ike returned briefly to Washington, and then joined Mamie, John, and the Douds at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, for ten days of golf, horseback riding, and fly-fishing. Back in Washington on July 5 for another round of conferences, he returned to Germany on July 10. “I truly enjoyed my trip to the U.S.,” Ike wrote Mamie from Frankfurt. “If you’d just once understand how exclusively I love you and long for you then you’d realize how much a week at White Sulphur meant. Please don’t forget that I love only you—loyal friends and helpers [for example, Kay Summersby] are not involved in the wonderful feelings I have for you.”⁴²

The Potsdam conference convened on July 15, 1945. Eisenhower was not a member of the American delegation, but flew up frequently from Frankfurt to consult with Marshall, Stimson, and President Truman. One day, following a lengthy lunch, Ike and Bradley took the president on a tour through the ruins of Berlin. According to Bradley, Truman was very much at ease and in a generous mood. He turned to Eisenhower and said, “General, there is nothing that you may want that I won’t try to help you get. That definitely and specifically includes the presidency in 1948.” Eisenhower and Bradley were stunned. “I kept a poker face,” Bradley recalled, “wondering how Ike would reply to that.”⁴³

Eisenhower laughed heartily and said, “Mr. President, I don’t know who will be your opponent for the presidency, but it will not be I.”⁴⁴

It was while the Potsdam conference was taking place that Eisenhower first learned of the atomic bomb. During a long talk at Ike’s Frankfurt headquarters, Secretary Stimson, who was the cabinet officer responsible for the bomb’s development, informed Eisenhower of the successful test in New Mexico and said the government was preparing to drop the bomb on Japan unless the Japanese surrendered quickly. This was Ike’s first introduction to atomic weapons, and he was appalled. As Secretary Stimson laid out the facts, Eisenhower recalled that he was overcome by depression.

Eisenhower was the only one at Potsdam who opposed using the bomb. And when Ike expressed his misgivings, Stimson became highly agitated, “almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave for my quick conclusions.”⁴⁶ Eisenhower was not an original thinker. But he thought for himself and he was blessed with uncommon common sense. Just as he had done when he permitted de Gaulle to occupy the Palais de l’Élysée, he was applying common sense to a complex issue rather than accept the conventional wisdom. Alone among those present at Potsdam, Eisenhower recognized that once the genie was out of the bottle, it could not be put back in. The bomb would increase world tension, just when it seemed possible that it might be controlled.⁴⁷ ⁱ

After a side trip to Leningrad at Eisenhower’s request—he wanted to see the site of the nine-hundred-day siege where 350,000 civilians had starved to death—he met with Stalin for a series of extended conversations relating primarily to the occupation of Germany and postwar Allied cooperation. Stalin emphasized how badly the Soviet Union needed American help in recovering from the war. It was not simply money. “We must learn about your scientific achievements in agriculture. We must get your technicians to help us in our engineering and construction problems, and we want to know more about mass production methods in factories. We know that we are behind in these things and we know that you can help us.”⁵² When Eisenhower responded sympathetically, Stalin expressed his appreciation. Later he told Ambassador W. Averell Harriman that he thought Eisenhower was a great man. “Not only because of his military achievements but because of his human, friendly, kind and frank nature. He is not coarse like most military men.”⁵³

Lucius Clay concurred with Ike’s assessment of their reception. “There was no tension whatever,” he remembered. “Nothing could have been more friendly.”⁵⁶ With Washington’s approval, Eisenhower invited Zhukov to tour the United States, and offered to provide his personal plane for the trip. Zhukov tentatively accepted and asked that Ike or Clay accompany him. But Zhukov, whom Stalin stripped of command in 1946, fearing he was becoming too popular, never received permission to make the trip.⁵⁷

Patton’s remarks caused a sensation. Had American policy in Germany reversed? Was Patton announcing the change, or was he again shooting from the hip? Eisenhower summoned him to Frankfurt. “That man is yet going to drive me to drink,” Ike wrote Mamie. “He misses more opportunities to keep his mouth shut than almost anyone I ever knew.”⁵⁹

Patton reported to Ike on September 28. “General Eisenhower came in that day looking as though he hadn’t slept a wink,” Kay Summersby recalled. “I knew at once he had decided to take action against his old friend. He had aged ten years in reaching the decision.” Patton and Eisenhower were closeted for over an hour. It was “one of the stormiest sessions ever staged in our headquarters,” said Summersby. “It was the first time I ever heard General Eisenhower raise his voice.”⁶⁰ Patton was relieved as military governor of Bavaria and commander of Third Army, and reassigned to head Fifteenth Army, a paper formation whose purpose was to write the history of the European campaign. Eisenhower later told his son John that they could have survived the tempest Patton had created. “Actually, I’m not moving George for what he’s done—just for what he’s going to do next.”⁶¹ At a more consequential level, Eisenhower’s relief of Patton made it abundantly clear that the United States had no intention of backing away from denazification. The most distinguished battle leader in the American Army had been relieved of command. Throughout the American zone, military government detachments in every village and hamlet understood that Eisenhower had made the purge of Nazi officials the immediate purpose of zonal policy.^m

“The most ‘suitable’ position for me is unquestionably a remotely situated cottage in a state of permanent retirement,” Eisenhower replied. “Of course, I know that there are still very difficult problems to solve, and … I am willing to attempt anything that my superiors may direct.”⁶³

In late October, President Truman reluctantly accepted Marshall’s resignation and set the changeover for November 26, 1945. Eisenhower prepared to leave Germany, but wanted to see Zhukov one last time before he departed. On November 7, the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ike went to Berlin to attend the Soviet reception and spent the evening discussing postwar problems with Zhukov. “The whole purpose of my long talk with him,” Eisenhower told Clay afterward, “was to renew and strengthen the spirit of understanding that he has seemed to show toward you and me so cordially and to get certain concrete concessions that I thought would do much to prove the sincerity of both sides.” Nagging problems concerning the air corridors to Berlin were resolved, and when Zhukov asked that the delivery of reparations designated for Russia be expedited, Ike agreed. “I hope you will follow these things up with General Sokolovsky and move instantly to meet them always at least half way,” he instructed Clay.⁶⁴

Eisenhower left Frankfurt on November 10, 1945, and after stops in Paris, the Azores, and Boston arrived in Washington on the twelfth. The administration’s proposals for universal military training (UMT) and for the creation of a single Department of Defense were pending on Capitol Hill, and Ike was rushed off to testify.⁶⁶ On November 15, he appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee to support UMT, and the following day went to the Senate to back the merger of the services into a single department. Eisenhower felt strongly about both. He made headlines across the country responding to the questioning of Congressman J. Parnell Thomas, the Red-baiting Republican from Allendale, New Jersey, who later chaired the House Un-American Activities Committee.ⁿ

Thomas apparently wanted to establish Ike’s credentials as a vigilant anti-Communist. He laid out a scenario suggesting the United States was threatened by foreign enemies and that another Pearl Harbor was in the offing. Who were those enemies?

From the moment he arrived in Washington, Eisenhower was clearly a potential presidential candidate. But his responses to Thomas did little to galvanize political support among hard-core party faithful on the Republican right. On the other hand, it established Eisenhower’s credentials as a thoughtful observer of the world scene who could be relied on for evenhanded analysis. Liberal Republicans and Democrats were delighted; the GOP’s crackpot brigade felt betrayed. Unlike Douglas MacArthur, Ike was not a man on horseback.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

^g On June 5, 1884, General William Tecumseh Sherman informed the Republican National Convention, “If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.” John Marszalek, “William Tecumseh Sherman,” in Encyclopedia of the American Civil War 1769 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002).

^h Bedell Smith, when asked by Major General Sir Ian Jacob, Churchill’s deputy chief of staff, whether Ike wanted to be president, replied, “Want it! He wants it so bad he can taste it.” Jacob, interview by Peter Lyon, cited in Lyon, Eisenhower: Portrait of the Hero 348 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974).

ⁱ “Before the atom bomb was used,” Eisenhower later told Saturday Evening Post war correspondent Edgar Snow, “I would have said yes, I was sure we could keep peace with Russia. Now I don’t know. I had hoped the bomb wouldn’t figure in this war. Until now I would have said that we three, Britain with her mighty fleet, America with the strongest air force, and Russia with the strongest land force on the continent, we three could have guaranteed the peace of the world for a long, long time to come. But now, I don’t know. People are frightened and disturbed all over. Everyone feels insecure again.” Edgar Snow, Journey to the Beginning 360–61 (New York: Random House, 1958).

^j Liberal journalist Murray Kempton, in a perceptive appraisal of Eisenhower’s presidency, noted that Zhukov’s description of moving through German minefields made a lasting impression on Ike. “Keep Nixon and Dulles around for marching through minefields” became one of Eisenhower’s operating principles. Murray Kempton, “The Underestimation of Dwight D. Eisenhower,” Esquire 109, September 1967.

^k At the press conference, Eisenhower told the Russian correspondents present that they must expect that American publishers would be harshly critical of the Soviet Union. “They will give you the devil,” said Ike. “All I suggest is that we all keep our sense of values and not be upset by the lies or propaganda of a few crackpots.” The New York Times, August 15, 1945.

^l On August 11, 1945, Patton complained to Eisenhower that too many trained administrators were being removed from office because of the denazification program and were being replaced by “inexperienced and inefficient people.” According to Patton, “It is no more possible for a man to be a civil servant in Germany and not have paid lip service to Nazism than it is for a man to be a postmaster in America and not have paid at least lip service to the Democratic Party or Republican Party when it is in power.”

Eisenhower pulled Patton up short. “The United States entered this war as a foe of Nazism,” he reminded the Third Army commander. “Victory is not complete until we have eliminated from positions of responsibility and, in appropriate cases properly punished, every active adherent to the Nazi party.… The discussional stage of this question is long past.… I expect just as loyal service in the execution of this policy … as I received during the war.”

GSP to DDE, August 11, 1945, in Blumenson, 2 Patton Papers 738; DDE to GSP, September 11, 1945, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 6, Occupation 351–52.

^m On Sunday, December 9, 1945, Patton was involved in a freak automobile accident near Mannheim. His neck was broken, and he died in the hospital on December 21. He is buried alongside his troops in the U.S. Military Cemetery at Hamm in Luxembourg. It was War Department policy at the time that servicemen who died overseas be buried overseas. On December 21, Eisenhower cabled Bedell Smith that if Mrs. Patton wished George to be returned for a stateside burial, he would assume responsibility for doing so, and would clear it with higher authority. No request was made.

Neither Eisenhower nor Bedell Smith was listed among the honorary pallbearers at Patton’s funeral. Patton’s final judgment of Eisenhower was harsh. “I hope he makes a better President than he was a General.” Quoted in D’Este, Patton 801. DDE to Smith, December 21, 1945, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 7, Chief of Staff 673–74. Cited subsequently as 7 Chief of Staff.

ⁿ In 1950, Thomas was indicted and convicted for taking kickbacks from his congressional staff and sentenced to eighteen months in a federal penitentiary. He was pardoned by President Truman on Christmas Eve, 1951.

^o Zhukov replied that he regretted that they would not be able to meet as frequently as in the past. “I nevertheless hope that we shall remain good friends as we have been, and therefore I agree beyond all doubt to your calling me your friend, and I trust that you will likewise allow me to call you my friend.” The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 7; Chief of Staff 592n1.

^p As a young boy growing up in the capital in the 1930s, I vividly remember being taken by my parents late on Sunday afternoons to watch the retreat ceremony of the 3rd Cavalry, at which the Army Band rendered honors. The ceremony was conducted by the flagpole in front of Quarters 1, and General Marshall, sometimes in dress blues, was often there. I am sure Patton was there as well, but he was not so well known that my parents would have recognized him and pointed him out.

^q In his postpresidential memoirs, Eisenhower noted that public relations had become an essential skill for a military officer. Until World War II, said Ike, the Army had ignored the public and as a result had become “a budgetary stepchild.” DDE, At Ease 320.

^r One of the by-products of Truman’s displeasure with Byrnes was passage of congressional legislation altering the line of presidential succession. From the time of Grover Cleveland, the order of succession ran from president to vice president to secretary of state, and then around the cabinet by rank. The purpose was to ensure that the party in power remained in power, assuming all members of the president’s cabinet would be of the same party. At Truman’s urging, Congress inserted the Speaker of the House and the president pro tem of the Senate before the secretary of state. The ostensible reason was that the Speaker and president pro tem held elected office and the secretary of state did not. The underlying reason was Truman’s disdain for Byrnes, whom he did not want in a position to succeed him.

^s The fruitless Columbia presidential search is described in detail by Travis Beal Jacobs in Eisenhower at Columbia 1–49 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001). Offers were made to James Phinney Baxter III, president of Williams, and Robert G. Sproul, president of the University of California, both of whom declined.

^t “It was almost the first decision I ever had to make in my life that was directly concerned with myself,” Eisenhower wrote Bedell Smith. “I had to struggle against every instinct I had.… I think my real dream was to get a small college of an undergraduate character somewhere in the Virginia or Pennsylvania area or possibly even in the Northwest and live quietly with Mamie in that kind of an atmosphere.” DDE to Smith, July 3, 1947, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 8, Chief of Staff 1799–800.

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