by Jim Newton
Patton bolstered Eisenhower at every opportunity. When Ike was accepted to the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Patton sent his notes from his time there. Ike graduated first in his class—“One,” as he called it—and graciously credited Patton. Later, Patton tried to recruit Ike to his command. Eisenhower hesitated, flattered but by then attracting wide attention and angling for something more significant.
Once the war began, they resumed their friendship in a new configuration, with Eisenhower as a commander and Patton as a complicated subordinate. Despite his idiosyncrasies, Patton fought marvelously, first in North Africa, then in Italy.
Once Patton’s friend, Eisenhower now was his boss, an unenviable position at times. In February 1943, Ike warned Patton to watch his mouth. “My advice is … (if you want it) merely the old saw to ‘count to ten before you speak,’ ” Eisenhower wrote. “This applies not only to criticism of Allies, a subject on which I am adamant, but to many others. A man once gave to me an old proverb. It was this: ‘Keep silent and appear stupid; open your mouth and remove all doubt.’ I do not mean that this applies to you, as you damn well know, but I do mean that a certain sphinx-like quality upon occasion will do one hell of a lot toward enhancing one’s reputation.” One can feel Eisenhower laboring in that note, can appreciate his almost parental care with Patton’s feelings, his determination to deliver important advice without offending his delicate colleague’s pride. At one level, Patton appreciated it; two weeks later, he wrote to his wife of Ike’s greatness. But Patton was incapable of restraint.
The Allied invasion of Sicily commenced on the night of July 9–10, 1943, as air forces dropped paratroopers and amphibious craft overcame stormy weather and seas. Within days, Patton’s divisions were stampeding across the island, sealing up its western reaches, while General Bernard Montgomery, commander of the British troops, waged a more cautious and deliberate conquest of the island’s eastern sections. Much of the fighting was brutal, as were conditions on the island, in particular rampant malaria across its central plains. Casualties were high, the stress on men profound.
Patton visited the Fifteenth Evacuation Hospital in Sicily on August 3. There, he commended men for their courage, comforted the wounded, tearfully praised the brave. As he made his inspection, however, he encountered a shaken young private, Charles H. Kuhl. Patton asked what Kuhl was suffering from. The private responded: “I guess I can’t take it.” Patton snapped. He called Kuhl a coward, slapped him with his gloves, then grabbed him by the neck and threw him from the tent. Not finished yet, Patton visited still another group of wounded men at the Ninety-third Evacuation Hospital a few days later. There, Patton bore in on Private Paul G. Bennett, a twenty-one-year-old soldier who served for four years in the Army without signs of trouble until a friend was wounded in the Italian campaign. Bennett was shivering. Patton demanded to know what ailed him. “It’s my nerves,” Bennett replied and began to sob. “Your nerves, hell, you are just a goddamned coward, you yellow son of a bitch,” Patton bellowed. He slapped Bennett and continued: “Shut up that goddamned crying. I won’t have these brave men here who have been shot seeing a yellow bastard sitting here crying.” With that, Patton slapped him again, hitting him so hard that Bennett’s helmet liner was knocked from his head and rolled out of the tent.
Before leaving the tent, Patton vowed to have Bennett sent back to the front lines, adding that if he would not fight, Patton would put him before a firing squad. Flashing his own famous ivory-handled revolver, Patton added: “I ought to shoot you myself, you goddamned whimpering coward.”
Those shocking incidents were witnessed by reporters who did not immediately alert their readers but rather, concerned about the effect of the incident on morale and the campaign itself, reported the matter to Eisenhower. Ike asked the reporters to hold off on sending dispatches home; they agreed. He also received word through the chain of command. As one doctor reported: “The deleterious effects of such incidents upon the wellbeing of patients, upon the professional morale of hospital staffs and upon the relationship of patient to physician are incalculable.”
Eisenhower could not stand by and let one of his commanding generals abuse troops. His letter to Patton surely stands with the most excoriating and unyielding missives ever delivered by a superior to a subordinate, bristling with purposeful rage. It was written in secret and delivered by hand, included in no official file at the time. It enclosed the physician’s report that had been forwarded to Eisenhower, and it threatened the end of Patton’s career:
I am attaching a report which is shocking in its allegations against your personal conduct. I hope you can assure me that none of them is true, but the detailed circumstances communicated to me lead to the belief that some ground for the charges must exist. I am well aware of the necessity for hardness and toughness on the battlefield. I clearly understand that firm and drastic measures are at times necessary in order to secure desired objectives. But this does not excuse brutality, abuse of the sick, nor exhibition of uncontrollable temper in front of subordinates.
Concluding, Eisenhower reiterated his affection for his old friend. “But I assure you,” his letter ended, “that conduct such as described in the accompanying report will not be tolerated in this theater no matter who the offender may be.”
Eisenhower understood the moral equation before him: he could not sanction the abuse of his troops, nor could he sacrifice a general who might hasten the end of the war and thus save the lives of those same men. Moreover, Ike’s own command was at stake. Should Patton embarrass or discredit the U.S. effort, Eisenhower’s handling of the matter—one involving a friend—would certainly be subject to close scrutiny. He wrote to his boss, George Marshall, to explain himself—and protect himself—by fulsomely praising Patton’s military skills and candidly acknowledging his inability to check his emotions, what Ike called “those unfortunate personal traits of which you and I have always known and which during this campaign caused me some most uncomfortable days.” (Ike’s reminder to Marshall that “you and I have always known” was another subtle but clear way to signal that he was not alone on this issue.) Eisenhower assured his commanding officer that he had rebuked Patton—“I have had to take the most drastic steps,” he wrote—and had done what he could to keep this from happening again. “Personally,” he said, “I believe that he is cured.”
The charges against Patton eventually made their way to the United States, where they ignited a furor when the columnist Drew Pearson disclosed details of the affair. By then, however, Eisenhower had confronted Patton and laid the groundwork with Marshall. Patton had apologized to those involved. Faced with a crisis that could have cost him his most aggressive battlefield leader, Eisenhower steadied his command, reprimanded the culprit, refused to allow friendship to distract him, and, ultimately, protected the lives of his soldiers.
Patton tested him again before the war was over—at a tenuous stage of the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union, he denigrated the Soviets—and afterward, when he contradicted American policy on de-Nazifying Germany, a reckless comment perhaps fueled by Patton’s latent anti-Semitism, which seemed to flare once Germany was subdued and the new threat arose from the Soviet Union. The final episode was one too many for Ike, who telegraphed Patton to demand “a report from you to be completed as quickly as it is physically possible to do so.” Dissatisfied, Ike yanked his old friend’s command.
Patton dreamed of dying in glory, of concluding his grand life on a fabled battlefield, sword or ivory-handled pistols in hand. Peace left him without a mission, and he dreaded it. “Now the horrors of peace, pacafism [sic], and unions will have unlimited sway,” he wrote to Bea. Bored, he climbed inside his chauffeur-driven car on Sunday, December 9, 1945, thinking he would pass the time by hunting pheasant. The car collided with a truck, and Patton was thrown upward and into the partition separating passenger from driver. His head was badly cut and, more seriously, his spine broken. Patton lay i
n the hospital for twelve days, struggling but fading. He died on December 21. Ike was informed immediately and cabled Bea his condolences and his heartfelt reflections on a friend who taught him much. Patton was, Eisenhower wrote, “a leader whose gallantry and skill contributed outstandingly to the completeness of our victory in Europe.” And he was, to Ike, more than that: “I have lost one of my oldest and dearest friends.”
In the months that followed Icky’s death in 1921, Ike and Mamie knew no consolation, no relief from their woe. When a break finally did arrive, they had General Conner to thank. Conner, much impressed by the Eisenhower he met at Patton’s Sunday supper, asked Ike to join him in Panama, where Conner was given command of the Twentieth Infantry Brigade. Eisenhower welcomed the opportunity—the chance to leave the site of Icky’s death—but was blocked by his commanding officer at Fort Meade, in part because Eisenhower was coaching the camp football team and thus was considered indispensable. Now, however, Conner called upon his allies in Washington and sprung Ike loose. He wrote to an influential colonel, George Marshall, “asking him to steer the matter.” With the gentle touch of an experienced officer, Conner suggested to Eisenhower: “It might be advisable for you to drop in on Col. Marshall … and tell him your desire to go.”
First, however, Ike needed to address what could have become a dire threat to his career. When Icky was born, Eisenhower applied for a housing allowance; that was standard and accepted. But at the time, Icky was living with Mamie and her parents, not with his father or in military housing. That violated Army rules, but Eisenhower had made the application apparently unaware that the benefit only was available to children living in the care of the military officer. An audit turned up the violation and concluded that he owed the Army $250.67. The acting inspector general recommended that Eisenhower be court-martialed. Ike desperately tried to pay the money back, but the inspector general persisted until a higher officer intervened. Ike’s savior yet again: General Conner. Conner backed the inspector general down; Ike repaid the money, and the crisis passed.
The opportunity to work for Fox Conner was one proffered only to the Army’s most promising young officers, and Eisenhower well understood that he was being ushered into select company. In World War I, Conner designed the divisions that Pershing used to attack the German army. At the moment of the armistice, twenty-nine of the American divisions in the field were those that Conner had created. The German surrender caught Conner and Pershing by surprise, and they warned the political leadership against stopping too soon. “Complete victory,” they argued, “can only be obtained by continuing the war until we force unconditional surrender from Germany.” They were ignored, but history vindicated that advice and only added to Conner’s reputation.
Ike accepted the assignment with enthusiasm; he and Mamie shipped out—as soon as football season was over. Before they did, they registered another monument toward moving on with life: Mamie became pregnant again.
The voyage to Panama was miserable. The ship was dirty, and bad weather made the passage rough. Mamie endured a double bout of morning sickness and seasickness. The Eisenhowers’ car was damaged in transit. Arriving in Panama, the post was no better. Their house was dilapidated and nearly overrun by jungle. The roof leaked, and mildew permeated the home. Bed frames had to be doused in kerosene and burned once a week to kill bedbugs. There were crawling insects and flying ones. And there were bats. Mamie hated bats. As Christmas approached, Mamie wrote to her parents again, confessing that she felt far away and homesick.
Ike and Mamie had been married for more than five years, separated for long stretches of that period by Ike’s assignments. Mamie had struggled with the difficulties of Army life, uprooting herself over and over and trying to make comfortable homes on Ike’s meager salary and her allowance from her father. She had adjusted, but then, on that unforgettable morning in 1921, they had lost their son. As she surveyed the fetid jungle around the Panama Canal and imagined having another child there, Mamie surely could be forgiven for having doubts. At first, she made the best of it. She took on volunteer work and helped to establish a maternity clinic on the base. But she was unhappy, and Ike knew it. It was, he conceded drily, “not the best introduction to life beyond our borders.” In the spring of 1922, with the birth of their second child approaching, Mamie left for home.
There, on August 3, Mamie gave birth to John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower. Ike arrived just in time. Mamie went into labor late at night, and Ike, trying not to wake the neighbors, rolled the car to the end of the driveway before starting it. Nervous and hurrying, he stepped on the gas, but the car would not move. “Ike,” Mamie implored, “you have to start the ignition.”
Nothing would ever erase the memory of Icky’s short, loving life, but John would occupy his own place in his parents’ hearts. He grew to be a clever boy, willful and headstrong, the spitting image of his older brother. There would always remain a shadow of grief—as well as a residue of distance between Ike and Mamie and a veiled sense that John would fulfill not only his own destiny but that of his departed brother. But now, too, there was joy and family. Mamie returned to Panama with their son.
It did not last long. Charged with raising a baby even as her husband was increasingly absorbed in his work and tutelage under Conner, Mamie lost weight and grew frantic. The jungle pressed in, the insects and bats hovered and intruded. She worried over John—surely, she could not survive the loss of a second son. She could not sleep. Conner’s wife, Virginia, watched with concern as Ike and Mamie seemed to drift apart. Finally, Mamie announced that she was leaving. Ike begged her to reconsider, pleading so fervently that she never forgot—though never recorded—his desperate attempt to hold on to her.
Once home, she regained her strength and reconsidered. Mamie, with John, at last returned to Panama. This time, it stuck. She took to riding to have time with her husband, he gave her a tea set, and they hosted regular dinner parties. “Am finally getting Ike housebroken again,” Mamie reported happily to her parents.
Panama thus marked a crisis and recovery in the Eisenhower marriage. It also brought Ike some of his greatest professional satisfaction. He and Conner explored the jungle and roamed the margins of the canal. As they rode and camped, Conner painstakingly broadened his charge’s horizons, drawing out Ike with soft questions, posed in his Mississippi drawl. “He gave the appearance of being leisurely,” Eisenhower recalled.
Conner kept a learned library, deep in military history and classics—Shakespeare, Clausewitz, Plato, Tacitus, Nietzsche, Generals Grant and Sheridan, and many other accounts of the Civil War. He doled his books out to Eisenhower. Ike devoured them and, with Conner’s help, extrapolated their meanings. Conner advocated the integration of technology, emphasized intelligence and logistics, stressed readiness as a means of deterrence.
Conner made Ike read Clausewitz’s On War three times, and the message finally stuck. Clausewitz’s analysis of military conquest and integrated command and his emphasis on the need for tactical flexibility and the centrality of political calculations in military planning all found expression in the presidency of the young man who studied him between the wars. Decades later, President Eisenhower would quote Clausewitz to his national security advisers and note his significance at work in areas as far-flung as the continuity of civilian-military leadership and the implications of war fighting in a nuclear era, when, as Clausewitz observed, the decisive goal would be to defeat not an enemy’s capacity to fight but rather his will to do so. Military historians tend to divide between those who admire Napoleon and those who follow Clausewitz. Eisenhower, his son observed later, was “Clausewitz all the way.”
Conner was a uniquely gifted tutor, patient and prescient—and practical as well. He foresaw that Germany would not be held down forever, that another war would test Europe before long. To defeat a resurgent Germany, Conner understood, would require a new type of Allied response, a union of nations willing to fight under a unified command, an excruciatingly difficult und
ertaking for independent nations, even those fighting for their lives. Conner knew it would be difficult. “Dealing with the enemy is a simple and straightforward matter when contrasted with securing close cooperation with an ally,” he wrote. “America should, if she ever indulges in the doubtful luxury of entering another coalition, advocate the establishment of a Supreme War Council, coincident with entering a war with allies.”
It was in those long, pleasant sessions, a fire to warm them in Conner’s quarters or beneath a tropical night sky, that Eisenhower made a leap of intellect, the refinement of a serious, intelligent officer into a wise one. Conner would leave soon, and Eisenhower was relieved to exit Panama as well once it no longer had the attraction of the general. But in their time together, Conner created the foundation for the officer and politician that Eisenhower would become. Conner received in Panama a grief-stricken, promising, but still somewhat shallow officer; he sent back to the United States a man who could lead an army.
Eisenhower never questioned the debt he owed. On July 4, 1942, two weeks after arriving in Britain, he surveyed the challenges of unifying the Allies for war with Germany and recalled Conner’s lessons. “More and more in the last few days my mind has turned back to you and to the days when I was privileged to serve intimately under your wise counsel and leadership,” Eisenhower wrote to his mentor. “I cannot tell you how much I would appreciate, at this moment, an opportunity for an hour’s discussion with you.”
The following year, with fighting fierce in Italy and along the eastern front, with D-day six months away, Ike paused briefly on the day after Christmas to write to Conner’s wife. He inquired about the old general’s health and reminisced about those formative days in Panama: “I still long for opportunities to sit down with him in front of a wood fire and discuss this damnable business of war.” There was no doubt about the degree of Conner’s mark upon his protégé. “Outside of my parents,” Eisenhower reflected late in his life, “no one influenced me as much.”