10. Cox, Grey Eminence, 1–6.
11. Mamie left after months of struggling with depression, insects, rodents, and bats.
12. As Ike’s biographers delight in pointing out, Eisenhower’s high school yearbook predicted that he would become a professor of history at Yale. The closest he came to that position was as president of Columbia University, but by that time he had more contact with the university’s board of trustees than he did with its history department. See Louis Galambos, ed., The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: Columbia University, vols.10 and 11 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984). .
13. A brigade and a regiment can include from 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers.
14. Major Mark C. Bender, Watershed at Leavenworth: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Command and General Staff School (Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General Staff College, 1990), 6. Bender’s study was written to commemorate the Eisenhower Centennial. While I disagree with some of the author’s statements about Ike, I am indebted to Bender for his history of a school that played a central role in the professionalization of army leadership.
15. Cox, Grey Eminence, 31–32.
16. D’Este, Eisenhower, 168.
17. Fox Conner, Efficiency Report, August 31, 1924, EL.
18. Ibid. Also D’Este, Eisenhower, 176–177.
19. On the difference between a mentor and a sponsor, see Sylvia Ann Hewlett, “Mentors Are Good, Sponsors Are Better,” New York Times, April 14, 2013.
20. Michael Korda, Ike: An American Hero (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 168ff. See D’Este, Eisenhower, 176–183, for an authoritative account.
21. D’Este, Eisenhower, 176–183, citing Boyd L. Dastrup, The U.S. Army Command and General Staff College: A Centennial History (Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, 1982).
22. See the discussion of this article in Chapter One.
23. Bender, Watershed, 17.
24. Ibid., 21, 24.
25. Ike was only ranked above average on “physical endurance, military bearing and neatness, and tact” and average on “physical activity, which included ‘agility’ and the ‘ability to work rapidly.’ ” Bender, Watershed, 24–25.
26. Korda, Ike, 177.
27. Chief of Staff Diary (henceforth “C/S Diary”), September 26, 1929, EL.
28. Efficiency Report, August 9, 1930, EL.
29. Bender, Watershed, 26.
30. The memoir won a Pulitzer Prize but, as D’Este notes, it “went largely unread, in no small part because it was as dull and confusing as Eisenhower had predicted.” D’Este, Eisenhower, 201. For a more charitable view, see Frank E. Vandiver, Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing, II (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1977), 1084–1086. Even Vandiver remarks, “If the book did not rank as great literature, it did deserve admiration as a splendid historical source.” I agree with D’Este, not with the late Professor Vandiver, my former colleague (at Rice University) and a talented historian.
31. See Robert D. Cuff, The War Industries Board: Business-Government Relations During World War I (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).
32. Evaluation, June 30, 1932, EL.
33. Ibid. He continued: “Major Eisenhower is one of the finest officers I know and in general value to the service I would place him near the top of a list of all officers of my acquaintance.… He works rapidly and untiringly.… He has a keen intellect.… Here is a man I should always like to have with me.” The assistant secretary of war concurred: “I, too, have the feeling that I should like to keep him with me.” Evaluation,July 1, 1931, EL.
34. Evaluations, July 31, 1931, EL. On February 18, 1933, Moseley recognized DDE’s three years of service with him: “What a great blessing you have been! … You possess one of those exceptional minds which enables you to assemble and to analyze a set of facts, always drawing sound conclusions and, equally important, you have the ability to express those conclusions in clear and convincing form.” While many other officers could pull together and analyze information, “few have your ability of expression,” he wrote. Moseley looked forward to promotion for Eisenhower.
35. In 1923, Ike thought his appendix was to blame for his health issues. In an episode that provides a good measure of the lowly state of American medicine, Eisenhower actually persuaded his doctors to remove his healthy appendix, but the surgery did not cure his recurrent gastrointestinal distress. Clarence G. Lasby, Eisenhower’s Heart Attack: How Ike Beat Heart Disease and Held on to the Presidency (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1997), esp. 23–25, describes and analyzes in detail the evidence provided by Ike’s long medical history. Lasby notes: “Back in Washington, where Eisenhower was extraordinarily busy and under stress with an assignment to the office of the assistant secretary of war, his symptoms returned and persisted for several years” (24).
36. Evaluations, November 4, 1931, EL.
Five. Tested
1. The Chief of Staff was the top officer in the US Army and the only officer who was a four-star general.
2. William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), 7.
3. D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), 1:7–11.
4. Ibid., 32–44.
5. Ibid., 75.
6. Cole C. Kingseed, “Dark Days of White Knights,” Military Review, January 1993, 67–75, discusses some of the low points in the careers of Douglas MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton.
7. MacArthur was given to gross overstatements about these campaigns, and some of his accounts need to be divided by 20 (based on his errors in estimates of German prisoners taken in the action at St. Mihiel). James, Years of MacArthur, 204.
8. For a precise and skeptical analysis of one of the central military actions that gave MacArthur his reputation, see Robert H. Ferrell, The Question of MacArthur’s Reputation: Côte de Châtillon, October 14–16, 1918 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2008). For the standard version of MacArthur’s heroic actions, see, for instance, Geoffrey Perret, Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur (New York: Random House, 1996), esp. 103–109.
9. This was MacArthur’s second tour of duty in the Philippines. His first was 1903–1904, when he was serving with a detachment of US Army engineers. Carol Morris Petillo, Douglas MacArthur: The Philippine Years (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), esp. 64–78, 125–137.
10. See DDE to Elivera Doud, John Doud, Eda Carlson, November 12, 1931, and C/S Diary, December 1, 1931, both in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries and Selected Papers, 1905–1941, ed. Daniel D. Holt and James W. Leyerzapf (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 201–202, 205; James, Years of MacArthur, 462.
11. C/S Diary, June 15, 1932, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 224–233.
12. See Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), 218–224.
13. Donald J. Lisio, The President and Protest: Hoover, MacArthur, and the Bonus Riot (New York: Fordham University Press, 1994). Lisio does an excellent job of examining the evidence and providing the reader with reasonable conclusions about the motivations of the major actors in this disgraceful episode. He delineates Ike’s role as a “reluctant” subordinate and notes the two major occasions when Eisenhower’s advice to MacArthur was ignored (esp. 192–194, 213–214). Lisio draws upon the account in Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (New York: Doubleday, 1967).
14. D. Clayton James, a leading biographer of MacArthur, gives the general as much credit as possible, but suggests that he should have reflected on the lessons of Don Quixote before attacking the Bonus Army. James, Years of MacArthur, 383–414. Perret, Old Soldiers Never Die, 154–161, is more charitable to MacArthur.
15. August 10, 1932, Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 233, EL.
16. Report and notes, August 15, 1932, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 233–247. For more accurate accounts of the army’s actions and MacArthur’s leadershi
p, see Lisio, The President and Protest, and Roger Daniels, The Bonus March: An Episode of the Great Depression (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971), esp. 242–283.
17. The Chief of Staff had no fixed term and served at the pleasure of the president of the United States. An optimistic Eisenhower commented on the November election results: “While I have no definite leanings toward any political party I believe it is a good thing the Democrats won—and particularly that one party will have such overwhelming superiority in Congress.” C/S Diary, November 30, 1932, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 247.
18. C/S Diary, June 15, 1932, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 224–233.
19. MacArthur apparently kept him working most nights until 7:30 or 7:45. Eisenhower, At Ease, 214.
20. Diary, February 28, 1933, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 247–249. In addition to favoring centralization, Major Eisenhower thought that enhancing world trade was not the way out of the Depression: “We have a greater per capita wealth in natural resources than any other nation. Very well—let’s shut the others out and proceed scientifically to adjust economic activity within our own country so as to enhance the general standard of living to the greatest extent possible.” Diary, April 20, 1933, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 251–252.
21. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983) 1:83, comments on the friendship and joint activities of the two Eisenhower brothers during the 1930s.
22. Diary, October 29 and December 9, 1933, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 253–257. As James points out, the relief work done by the army made MacArthur’s political ideas and media image important to FDR. See James, Years of MacArthur, 442.
23. DDE to General George V. H. Moseley, February 21, 1934; DDE to Isaac Marcosson, March 5, 1934; DDE to General Fox Conner, April 23, 1934; DDE to Captain J. C. Whitaker, May 31, 1934; Diary, April 26, and June 8, 1934. All in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 264–274. Also see James, Years of MacArthur, 426–435, 437–442.
24. John S. D. Eisenhower, “Introduction: The Eisenhower Diaries, 1929–1941,” in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, xxvii.
25. According to his biographer, MacArthur had been intemperate as he struggled with FDR over the army’s budget. James, Years of MacArthur, 428–429.
26. Later in life, Eisenhower said that his tour of duty at the War Department was the most stressful, unpleasant part of his career in the army.
27. Remembering that At Ease was written many decades after these events, it is nonetheless interesting that Eisenhower recalled these developments in these words: “General MacArthur lowered the boom on me, so to speak.… Duty with troops was my first desire. Psychologists might argue that my wish was simply a preference for the known over the unknown. I do not know. Whatever might have been going on inside me, I was in no position to argue with the Chief of Staff.” Eisenhower, At Ease, 220, italics added.
28. As his biographer observes, MacArthur had set himself up for this retaliation by not treating President Roosevelt with the respect he deserved. James, Years of MacArthur, 428–429.
29. Eisenhower, At Ease, 223. For a more charitable view of MacArthur’s actions, see Petillo, Douglas MacArthur, 173–175.
30. Diary, December 27, 1935, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 8–9.
31. Diary, January 20, 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 302, Ike’s dour comment was: “We must never forget that every question is settled in Washington today on the basis of getting votes next November. To decide this matter completely in our favor would gain no votes, while to disapprove the request and give the matter some publicity might be considered as a vote getting proposition among the pacifists and other misguided elements of the American electorate.”
32. Diary, January 17, 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries,301.
33. Petillo, Douglas MacArthur, 180–185. See especially Secretary of State Hull’s message to Secretary of War Woodring, September 18, 1936, quoted in ibid., 184.
34. DDE to Ord, July 8, 14, 29, and August 13, 1937, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 340–354.
35. James, Years of MacArthur, 484.
36. Diary, January 20, 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 304.
37. Diary, February 15, 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries 306.
38. Diary, September 26, 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 328. Roosevelt won a landslide victory that cemented the Democratic coalition.
39. Diary, May 29, 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 311.
40. Diary, January 20, 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 309.
41. Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace (New York: Random House, 2012), 135.
42. Eisenhower alluded to these meetings in his letter to Ord, September 1, 1937, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 356–359; by this time, the two men were meeting almost daily.
43. Diary, January 20, 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries 304.
44. For the entire plan, see Diary, June 15, 1936, Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 312–325.The peso was pegged at 50 cents to the American dollar.
45. Diary, Christmas 1936, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 329.
46. Letter to Ord, July 29, 1937, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 345–349.
47. Diary, December 21, 1937, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 370–372.
48. Ibid.
49. James, Years of MacArthur, 525–526.
50. The total number of islands was 7,100, but only 2,000 were occupied.
51. Diary, February 15, 1938, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 377.
52. Eisenhower received his promotion on July 1, 1936, when he was forty-five years old.
53. For the holes that Ike began to shoot, as well as MacArthur’s effort to break the two men apart, see Diary, April 6, 1938, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 379–381.
54. Diary, June 18, 1938, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 383.
55. Ibid.
56. See Eisenhower’s diary entries from June 26 through July 18, 1938, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 387–388.
57. These events are covered in the diary entries from July 18 through October 14, 1938, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 388–409. See also the accounts in Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace, 144–145, and D’Este, Eisenhower, 248. And see Kerry Irish, “Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines: There Must Be a Day of Reckoning,” Journal of Military History 74 (April 2010): 439–473.
58. Sandbagging refers to the practice in poker of concealing your hand (with a call) and then striking with a large bet (a raise) after the pot has been increased. It is a perfectly legal way to bet, but the practice is frowned upon in friendly games.
59. Diary, November 10, 1938, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 410.
60. Ibid., 410–411.
61. Ibid., 410–412. For various opinions on the conclusion of Ike’s tour of duty in the Philippines, see James, Years of MacArthur, 564–565; Daniel D. Holt, “An Unlikely Partnership and Service: Dwight Eisenhower, Mark Clark, and the Philippines,” Kansas History 13 (Autumn 1990): 161–162; D’Este, Eisenhower, 248–249; Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace, 141–149; Michael Korda, Ike: An American Hero (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 207–227.
62. See, for instance, his diary entry for December 12, 1938, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 412–413. Exasperated, Ike wrote, “Will I be glad when I get out of this!!” On January 18, 1939, 419: “We don’t have policies, we just walk tight ropes!” See also March 9, 1939, 422–424: “I work on academic subjects, because I have no longer power or opportunity to start execution of needed projects.”
63. Holt, “Unlikely Partnership,” 149–165. Also see DDE to Major Mark Clark, May 27, 1939, 434; June 7, 1939, 435; June 22, 1939, 435–437; June 28, 1939, 437; all in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries.
64. DDE to Major Mark Clark, October 25, 1939, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 451–452.
65. Diary, November 15, 1939, 453–454; December 14, 1939, 456; both in Eisenh
ower: The Prewar Diaries.
66. Diary December 14, 1939, in Eisenhower: The Prewar Diaries, 456; John S. D. Eisenhower, Strictly Personal (New York: Doubleday, 1974), 6, 17.
67. Evaluation, June 30, 1936, EL.
Six. Combat
1. DDE to Quezon, August 8, 1940, EL. This report is an excellent guide to some of Eisenhower’s major assumptions about the challenges of military leadership on the borderline before American entry into the war. It is not too difficult to apply some of his ideas about the Philippines to the United States. These include his emphasis on “removing the worthless type of seniors from controlling positions,” promoting morale by eliminating “favoritism, neglect or injustice,” and establishing the “clean cut administration through established channels of communication and authority” that would “achieve unity of purpose and effort.”
2. Diary, September 3, 1939, 445–447, EL. Ike also noted: “I have had some degree of admiration for Mussolini, none, ever, for Hitler. The former has made some tragic, stupid, mistakes. But he at least has seemed able as an administrator, and for a dictator, has abstained from the use of the ‘blood purge’ in maintaining himself in power.” Eisenhower guessed that Mussolini would stay out of the war. This was Ike’s first serious discussion in his diary of what was happening in Europe.
3. Eisenhower called himself a crusader in a letter to his old friend Swede Hazlett: “I do not mean to sound like a demagogue nor a politician.… But I do have the feeling of a crusader in this war.” DDE to Hazlett, April 7, 1943, Eisenhower, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years, ed. Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970), 2:1081–1082 (hereafter cited as Papers). He would later title his book about the war Crusade in Europe. See also Ira Chernus, “Eisenhower’s Ideology in World War II,” Armed Forces and Society 23, no. 4 (Summer 1997): 595–613.
4. See, for instance, DDE to Major Mark Clark, September 23, 1939, 447; October 11, 1939, 450–451; October 25, 1939, 451–452. See also DDE to General Walter C. Sweeney, September 27, 1939, 448. All in EL.
5. DDE to Colonel Leonard T. Gerow, October 11, 1939, 449–450, and August 23, 1940, 489–490; DDE to Thomas A. Terry, May 1, 1940, 463; DDE to Brigadier General Courtney Hodges, May 1, 1940, 464. Also see DDE to Lieutenant Colonel Omar N. Bradley, July 1, 1940, 466–467; DDE to Colonel George S. Patton Jr., September 17, 1940, 491–492. All in EL.
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