EPILOGUE

IN HIS LATER YEARS, former President Eisenhower loved to sit by the fireside at his home near Gettysburg and tell colorful stories of George Patton, the fighting court jester whom he described as “one of my oldest and dearest friends—lovable, colorful, generous, a splendid fellow.” For all of Patton’s flaws, idiosyncrasies, and public gaffes, Ike reserved a special place in his heart for the brash horseman who strutted onto the fields at Camp Meade in that lifeless autumn of 1919.¹

Though he treasured his friendship with George, Ike also recognized the long shadow cast by the flashy cavalier, whose larger-than-life statue now gazed over the grounds of their alma mater, West Point. Vaguely bothered by the growing legend of “Blood and Guts,” a man he knew to have flaws to rival his strengths, Eisenhower vigorously defended the fighting records of other, less showy men whose place in history was in danger of eclipse from the Third Army commander. Shortly after the war, Ike read magazine articles and books that claimed George Patton was Ike’s favorite commander. Nonsense, he told an interviewer: While he had enjoyed a close friendship with “Georgie” for three and a half decades, Omar Bradley was, in Ike’s opinion, the greatest American ground commander in recent memory. As he wrote in one of his personal memoirs, At Ease: Stories I Tell to My Friends,

Brad was outstanding. I have yet to meet his equal as an offensive leader and a defensive bulwark, as a wielder of every army that can be practically employed against an enemy. In the aftermath of war, I’m surprised that he seems at times to be ignored or undervalued by those who write of the Mediterranean and European campaigns. Patton, for instance, was a master of fast and overwhelming pursuit. Headstrong by nature, and fearlessly aggressive, Patton was the more colorful figure of the two. . . . Bradley, however, was the master of every military maneuver, lacking only in the capacity—possibly the willingness—to dramatize himself. This, I think, is to his credit.²

Toward the end of his life, Ike heard about an obscure project to make a movie depicting the life of George Patton. In response to an inquiry, he wrote to one of its producers:

[George’s] temperament made him a headliner in the press but he was not the kind of all-around, balanced, competent and effective commander that Bradley was—or Simpson or Hodges. But he was a genius in pursuit. Recognizing this I was determined to keep him in my war organization no matter how often the public might scream for his scalp because of some publicized and foolish episode. He disliked, intensively, the heavy fighting necessary to break through, and because of this I did not use him in the slugging match that finally brought about the break-out from the beach head, in late July, 1944. Once, however, we had broken through, he was a natural to put in for Exploiting the weaknesses of the Nazi forces on our right flank. The same was true in Sicily, where he overran the entire western side of the island, racing through that area at high speed. He later did the same thing after we had crossed the Rhine in March of 1945.

On the other hand, when we got into dirty ding dong fighting in Moselle and later when he was trying to fight his way into Bastogne, he was apt to become pessimistic and discouraged. In such instances he liked a great deal of moral “patting on the back.”³

While he always kept a special place in his heart for George, until the end of his public life Ike continued to nurture the career of the Missourian whose loyalty he never doubted. As Ike had promised, Bradley became Army Chief of Staff. Later, partly through Ike’s influence, he was named the first Chairman of the new Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1950, Bradley’s reputation as a team player for the Truman Administration bore fruit when he became the last of the permanent five-star generals, a rank that carried the handsome salary of $17,000 per year. His promotion spurred a telegram of congratulations from his “devoted and admiring friend” from Kansas.⁴

 

Ever the faithful soldier, Omar Bradley weathered the storms of the Berlin Airlift, Korea, MacArthur, NATO, and the early Cold War as Eisenhower ascended the ladder to the presidency. During Ike’s 1952 campaign, Brad’s admiration of Ike hit a pothole as the Republican candidate stumped against the “mess” left by the Truman Administration—of which Brad and Marshall were two senior policymakers. Brad’s tenure with the Joint Chiefs during the Eisenhower Administration made for a colder, more formal relationship than those early days when the two classmates were simply “Ike” and “Brad” to one another. In 1953, after a ceremony marking Bradley’s retirement from active duty, President Eisenhower presented the general with the last of his Distinguished Service Medals. He also sent Brad a valedictory letter, one that Brad treasured to the end of his days:

Dear Brad:

 

You are probably so worn out with dinners and ceremonies to salute you as you leave your post of active duty that you are glad you have to go through the thing only once in a lifetime. Nevertheless, I hope you will never forget that each of those occasions is merely an effort on the part of others to express to you something of their appreciation of a long, useful and brilliant career in the service of our common country.

The purpose of this note is simply to assure you once again—as I have so many times in the past—that I have always counted on your approval to be almost the certification of the value of any proposal or project; your disapproval to be equally conclusive that the matter had better be discarded without further to-do.

You well know that my admiration and continued affection go with you to your new occupation. . . .

With love to Mary and your family, and, as always, with the very best to yourself.

As ever,
IkE.⁵

Ike and Brad aged gracefully. As civilians who, by law, never “retired” from the Army’s muster rolls, they could be seen together at West Point reunions and D-Day festivities, smiling for cameras and chatting together about fishing trips, golf, skeet shooting, old times, and family news. As the shadow of the Vietnam War lengthened, they appeared together in interviews discussing the military challenges facing the country they loved. The friendship that began on the banks of the Hudson in 1911—a dormant partnership that flourished under the pressure of war—remained a source of pride and nostalgia for both men until 1969, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower, known universally to his countrymen as “Ike,” passed into history.⁶

 

The soft-spoken “GI’s General” was the last of the great World War II commanders. He soldiered on for another dozen years as a living legend. Like Eisenhower, his feelings about Patton, at least in the years following George’s death, were warm. In 1951, Bradley wrote in his memoirs, “To this day I am chagrined to recall how hesitatingly I first responded to Patton’s assignment, for when George joined my command in August, 1944, he came eagerly and as a friend without pique, rancor, or grievance. My year’s association with him in Europe remains one of the brightest remembrances of my military career.” He told Chet Hansen, “As far as I know he was one of the most loyal people that ever served under me. I have had several people—different people—tell me that George was obviously loyal to me. They had heard him cuss out every single officer in the Army, both above and below him, frankly, except me. The had never heard him say one word against me.”⁷

But the legend of Omar Bradley was perceptibly dimmed by the aura of his two more famous brothers in arms, and this gnawed at him when he pictured his place in history.

Brad felt he understood Eisenhower’s appeal to the American public; Ike was, after all, the Supreme Commander, a man with razor-sharp political instincts, and a manifestly popular figure—though Brad did not vote for him during his two presidential campaigns. George, however, was a different matter. Brad could never grasp why one of his four army commanders—a man leading secondary forces in a secondary front—should garner so much celluloid, so much ink, so much public acclaim. In a campaign comprised of millions of men, many of whom did their jobs with far fewer complaints and complications, why, he wondered, did the American public choose to canonize George Patton?⁸

The more Brad thought of George, the more his feelings toward his former superior, former subordinate breathed new life into resentment he had once felt in Sicily. Brad and his aide Chet Hansen edited their postwar writings to paint George in mixed colors and elevate other generals in his stead. Bradley was rediscovered by the public when he served as technical adviser to the Academy Award–winning film Patton, but the film merely served to confirm Patton’s apotheosis in the public mind. The thought that Brad’s wartime legacy had become an appendage to the greater legends of Patton and Eisenhower whetted his feelings into a sharp resentment toward George, and a muted contempt for Ike.⁹

The 1974 publication of George’s diaries and letters disabused Bradley of any notion of Patton’s loyalty. In the last full decade of his life, he decided to set the record straight, as he saw it. Bradley’s second autobiography—a work completed by his collaborator after his death in 1981—portrayed Eisenhower as a political wizard but a tactical bumbler who was better at directing a conference than an army. Referring to George as “the most fiercely ambitious man and the strangest duck I have ever known,” Brad’s postscript depicted George Patton as a deeply flawed, insecure man whose brief explosions of genius were bookends to long pauses filled with depression, egotism, and ineptitude. Physically and mentally robust until the day he died, Bradley claimed the last word in a story written over three decades of idealism, frustration, resentment, and mutual respect.¹⁰

 

Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton, were but three notes in a larger symphony played by scores of talented musicians. But what a masterful chord these three notes struck. Many of Eisenhower’s crucial decisions, such as his counterattack in the Bulge and his drive on central Germany, were, in great measure, reflections of the advice of his brilliant classmate and the inspiration of his polo-playing mentor. Bradley and Patton, in turn, were beholden to Eisenhower for the positions they occupied in war and history; neither would have realized their full potential, or left such a deep imprint on the American consciousness had Ike wavered for a moment in his support. At the highest level, Ike, Brad, and George were, as the Army had trained them to be, members of a team whose value to the Allied cause was exponentially greater than the sum of its parts. In the end, it was not the blare of the cavalryman’s bugle, the bark of the infantryman’s command, or the echo of a general’s oratory that shaped the course of the war. It was, rather, a blend of the three, an evolving partnership, animated by friendship, that shaped the contours of victory.