The General's Women

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Butch cleared his throat. “I don’t think we’ve got much of a problem with Goebbels. He’s got a mistress, a Czech actress. He’s not going to blackmail us when he knows we’ll counter.”

  “Anyway,” Ike said, “the OWI won’t let a story like that get into American newspapers.” He looked at Beetle. “What else have you got?”

  “She’s Irish. Which means they won’t put her on the BIGOT list.”

  “Ah,” Ike said, now really steaming. “I suppose you heard that one from Montgomery.”

  BIGOT stood for “British Invasion of German Occupied Territory.” The BIGOT list contained the names of the personnel who were cleared to know the details of Overlord—especially the time and place of the invasion—and cleared for contact with other BIGOTs. Ireland was technically neutral in the war, so people born in Ireland were barred from the list and from any contact with invasion secrets. In Ike’s view, this was totally idiotic. Fifty thousand Irishmen were serving in the British Army, and there were several Allied installations in Northern Ireland.

  “Yes, Montgomery,” Beetle said. “He’s raised it several times.”

  “BIGOT is a British list, not an Allied list,” Ike said stiffly. “I’m not obliged to abide by it. I have absolutely no doubt of Kay’s loyalty. To me, or to the Allied cause, or the British crown.”

  “It’s not a matter of her loyalty, as I understand it,” Butch said. “The question is, what if the Germans should kidnap her? What secrets could she reveal?”

  “Well, hell, Butch,” Ike growled. “What if the Huns should kidnap you? If they started pulling out your toenails, can you guarantee that you wouldn’t spill your guts?”

  Beetle spoke. “Patton, too, has raised serious concerns about—”

  “I’ve heard all I want to hear from George,” Eisenhower snapped. Patton was a public relations liability with a big mouth. In Ike’s opinion, Patton was a much greater security threat than Kay.

  “That’s it, Boss.” Butch stood up.

  “Just thought you ought to be informed,” Beetle said, standing as well.

  “I’m informed,” Ike growled. “Dismissed.”

  • • •

  Then it was June. Everything that could be done to prepare for the invasion—the largest amphibious landing in history—had been done. Now, all attention was focused on the south coast, near Portsmouth, where Eisenhower had set up his advance command post: a trailer for his office and sleeping quarters, surrounded by a tent encampment. Kay had a tiny desk in the corner of the trailer, where she kept up with the correspondence while she monitored the telephone. The WAC stenographers and typists had been installed in nearby Southwick House, an elegant Georgian mansion that had been requisitioned by the Royal Navy at the beginning of the war. Planning sessions and staff meetings were held in the war room there, too. Nerves were taut and security so tight that even the Supreme Commander was given a badge to wear.

  The invasion was set for Monday, June 5, and ships from as far away as Scotland were already on their way. Scheduling was tricky. The landing craft (there still weren’t enough) required an early-morning incoming tide, and only a few days fit that requirement. The airborne assault required clear skies, but the weather was increasingly problematic. By Saturday, June 3, a thick blanket of clouds shrouded the Channel and the barometer was falling rapidly. Late Saturday night, SHAEF’s chief meteorologist, RAF Captain John Stagg, joined Ike and his command team in the Southwick war room to report that Monday’s weather would be “unflyable.” His forecast sent a disappointed groan rippling around the room, and Eisenhower grimly ordered that D-Day be postponed for one day, to Tuesday, June 6. Afterward, Kay heard him muttering that if he had to postpone again, the invasion forces would have to be held for two whole weeks for favorable morning tides—and that was damned difficult. His greatest fear, she knew, was that if the invasion were delayed, the Germans—who so far seemed to be deceived by Patton’s Fortitude—would guess their real target. A delay would give them time to reinforce their lines behind the Normandy beaches.

  The storm arrived on Sunday, with high seas and winds that lashed the rain into horizontal ribbons. But the late-night group meeting in the Southwick officers’ mess heard a better forecast. As Kay served coffee, Captain Stagg predicted that the cloud cover would lift on Monday night, making the weather “flyable.” But the winds would be unpredictable and the seas would still be rough. The airborne drops and the beach landings would be risky.

  Pacing across the front of the room, Eisenhower asked for input from his commanders, but Kay knew that the decision was entirely up to him. The full weight of success or failure—and the loss of thousands of young men on a foreign beach—rested entirely on him.

  “We’ll go on Tuesday,” Ike said at last. There was a muted cheer. Cups clattered and chairs scraped as the commanders hurried off to their headquarters to issue final orders, and he was left in an empty room.

  Watching, Kay thought that a moment before, he had been the most powerful man in the world, the fate of a million men in his hands, the future of nations weighing on his shoulders. But the moment he said “Go,” he became powerless. What he had set in motion could not be altered or halted, not by him, not by anyone.

  He turned to Kay. “I hope to God I know what I’m doing,” he muttered.

  It was still raining the next morning when Kay drove him to South Parade Pier in Portsmouth to watch hundreds of British soldiers clamber into dozens of landing craft for what promised to be a rough trip across the Channel. But by evening the skies had cleared, and she drove him to an airfield near Newbury, where he shared a cigarette with the men of the 101st Airborne, bulky parachutes and weapons strapped to their backs, their faces blackened with burnt cork and cocoa. He told them they had the best training and the best equipment and urged them not to worry—they had a job to do and they were going to do it. A sergeant said, “Hell, General, we ain’t worried. It’s the Krauts that ought to be worrying.”

  Afterward, Kay went with the General to the roof of the division headquarters to watch the big C-47s, white and black “invasion stripes” painted on their wings and fuselages, lumber down the runways and lift slowly into the sky, lit now by a full moon so bright that Kay could see their shadows. Overhead, clusters of planes circled like great flocks of wheeling birds, then peeled off for Normandy. Kay held her breath, knowing that she would never see anything like it, ever again.

  Ike thrust his hands into his pockets. “All those brave, brave men,” he said.

  Kay saw that his eyes were bright with tears.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

  The Beginning of the End

  England—Washington, D.C.—France

  June 7–August 27, 1944

  The first reports were encouraging. The landing had been successful. A hundred and fifty-five thousand men took the beaches of Normandy. There had been heavy fighting, but the losses—twenty-five hundred casualties, mainly at Omaha Beach—were lighter than predicted. The Atlantic Wall had been breached and the Allied army had taken its first step on the long journey to Berlin. Everyone could smile—and breathe out the collective breath they’d been holding for weeks.

  Kay felt her own relief as she saw the General’s tension easing and the worry lines fading from his face. He looked even better after he crossed the Channel and went ashore at Juno Beach to talk to some of the commanders. They hadn’t achieved all of their initial objectives, but he was pleased with what he had seen. “The beginning of the end,” he said, clearly relieved.

  There was another reason for the General’s good mood, Kay knew. His son John had graduated from West Point on D-Day, and Ike had arranged for the newly commissioned second lieutenant to fly to England for his two-week leave. John was a fine-looking officer—tall, slender, ramrod straight, politely deferential, and very young. Kay was fascinated by the relationship between father and son. She drove them where they needed to go and spent evenings at Telegraph Cottage with them. John was eager to please h
is father and clearly overwhelmed by the General’s evident importance. For his part, Eisenhower was often critical; he would snort and exclaim, “Oh, for Godsake,” when John ventured an answer to a military question. But the son took the father’s curt words good-naturedly and despite the frequent awkwardness, there was an obvious bond between them. Lucky, lucky Mamie, Kay thought enviously, to have such a double treasure.

  But while the pre-invasion tensions had eased, there was a new and terrifying danger. The Germans were retaliating for the Allied invasion by firing V-1 flying bombs: buzz bombs, people called them. “The devil’s own contraption,” in Ike’s words. V-1s announced themselves with a shrill, whining drone that grew louder and louder and then stopped so abruptly that ears rang in the silence. The next thing people heard—and felt—was the explosion. The chief target was London, where a hundred buzz bombs sometimes crashed into the city in a single day. But the Germans also directed their long-range artillery fire to the area around Bushy Park, which included Telegraph Cottage. While John was visiting, they spent several nights in the bomb shelter that Churchill had built—Ike, John, Kay, and the house staff. Close quarters, hot and stuffy, but a welcome refuge.

  A few days before John was due to fly back to the States, Ike surprised Kay with an offer. “I’m sending John home in my B-17. Tex is going, too, on an errand for me at the Pentagon, and a couple of the WACs. How would you like to go? You could spend some time in Washington, go up to New York—see how you like the States, come back in a couple of weeks.”

  Kay’s eyes widened. Washington, New York, America, her long-ago dream, for two whole weeks! “But I don’t want to leave you,” she protested. “You need—”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve been working twelve or fourteen hours a day since you signed on, Kay. You deserve some time off. Anyway, I’m going to France to get a look at the situation there, and I can’t take you.” His voice softened. “I’ll worry about you and John on the same plane, though. Putting all my eggs in one basket.”

  She smiled. It wasn’t very romantic, but she understood what he was trying to say and was touched.

  • • •

  In a few days, Kay found herself with John and Tex boarding Ike’s Flying Fortress, almost breathless with anticipation. She had thought that her dream of going to America had died with Dick Arnold, and here she was, making the journey on General Eisenhower’s personal airplane. But while the plane was much more comfortable than the usual air transport, the flight was long and tiring. They arrived at Bolling Field in a dizzying July heat wave—worse, Kay thought, as she got off the plane, than the Egyptian desert she and Ike had visited. There, the heat had been dry, crisp; here, the humid air was thick and oppressive.

  Kay hadn’t expected Mrs. Eisenhower to greet them at the airfield, but there she was. She was perky and stylish in a flowered hat, spotless white gloves, and white patent leather pumps. But Kay was shocked at how thin she was. She hugged John and—obviously surprised to see Kay—offered her the tips of her fingers.

  “I’m glad to meet you at last, Mrs. Summersby.” Her words were gracious, but her blue eyes were probing and her voice was chilly. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “And I’ve heard so much about you,” Kay replied, remembering what Ike had told her about his wife’s anger when he called her Kay—and the other things he had said, haltingly, about their marriage. “The General speaks of you often.”

  “Mother,” John said eagerly, “I think it would be swell if we invited a few friends of yours and Dad’s to the apartment to meet Kay. Let’s do that tomorrow, shall we?”

  Kay felt a flutter of alarm. “John, I’d really rather not impose. I—”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Summersby will have many other interesting things to do,” Mrs. Eisenhower cut in. “I wouldn’t want to place any demands on her time.”

  John wasn’t deterred. “Oh, but I’m sure—”

  “I’ve got us a cab, Kay,” Tex said, coming up to them. “I thought we’d check in at the hotel first. It’s not fancy, but it’s affordable.” He turned to Mamie. “It’s great to see you again, Mrs. Eisenhower. Seems like a couple of centuries since the old days at Fort Sam, doesn’t it?”

  Kay was grateful to Tex for the interruption, and glad to follow him to the taxi, congratulating herself on escaping from a very sticky wicket. But she wasn’t going to get off so easily. A telephone call from John awakened her in her hotel room the next morning.

  “Mother would love to have you over for drinks this afternoon,” he said. “She’s invited a few friends. Do say you’ll come, Kay. It’s very casual.”

  Kay remembered what Ike had said about the Washington gossip, and the flutter of alarm became a stab of panic. Obviously, John wasn’t aware of the stories that were going around, and—being nice, or perhaps thinking it would please his father—must have pressured his mother into extending the invitation. She shuddered, thinking that Ike would not want her to do this.

  Uncomfortable, she said, “Thank you, John, but I’m sure your mother wants all your time. And I really don’t want to put her to any trouble. Let’s not—”

  “Oh, but I want you to come, Kay.” John’s voice was earnest. “It’ll do these ladies good to meet a woman in uniform and hear just how much work goes on over there and how difficult it is. And of course it’s no trouble at all. My mother is a born hostess. She lives to entertain.”

  Kay knew it wasn’t as simple as that, but she couldn’t think of a reasonable excuse. She put the receiver down, feeling trapped.

  • • •

  The Wardman Park was quite a sumptuous residential hotel, and given the oppressive heat, the air conditioning in Mrs. Eisenhower’s elegant apartment was welcome.

  But for Kay, the afternoon was a nightmare. The guests—all women—were beautifully coiffed and daintily pretty in their pastel summer suits and Kay, in her olive-drab uniform, rayon stockings, and brown leather service oxfords, felt awkward and clunky in their company. She usually enjoyed the light, lively banter of cocktail parties, but she had nothing in common with these women, who were talking about movies they had seen, parties they had been to, things they had bought and how much they’d paid. Her only topic of conversation was the war, and most of that was secret. And even if it weren’t, she couldn’t chatter about what she and the General did every day—together. Thankfully, only one or two people asked her about him. Most seemed to want to avoid the subject as much as she did.

  John brought her a Scotch and water and a plate of beautifully made hors d’ oeuvres, assembled from a sumptuous table loaded with beautiful foods that Kay hadn’t seen since before the war. It was all utterly marvelous, and if she hadn’t felt so out of place, she would have indulged herself. But as she was introduced to the wives, she couldn’t help thinking of their husbands, some of whom she knew had their own wartime companions. They were polite, but she could tell by the narrow-eyed scrutiny and the uneasy glances that they wondered just what and how much she knew about what their husbands were up to.

  And while Kay might want to avoid mentioning Mrs. Eisenhower’s husband, she saw that he was very much in evidence. In fact, Ike seemed to be everywhere, in a room that was a photo gallery entirely dedicated to him. There were seven elegantly framed photographs of him on a piano in the corner, spanning his career from West Point cadet to four-star general. The walls were hung with photographs taken in Panama, Europe, the Philippines, London, North Africa—always with him in the center of an admiring group. The glass shelves in a curio cabinet were filled with small souvenirs of various places he had visited, including (Kay saw with a start) an olivewood box identical to the one he had bought her in the Jerusalem bazaar. A leather-bound scrapbook lay on a table, open to a pasted-in newspaper clipping with a photo of Ike receiving his fourth star. On the table was a framed photograph of Ike with King George. Ike was looking uncomfortably serious as the King hung a sumptuous gold medal around his neck.

  Kay looked around for a
ny evidence of Mamie’s interests in the room, but aside from the piano (did Mamie play?) she couldn’t see any. Uneasily, she remembered that Ike had said his wife put her family first, but this was more than that. It was as if the General was Mrs. Eisenhower’s very own special trophy, and that her merits—whatever they were—were derived from the fact that this hero had chosen her as his wife. Dwight Eisenhower wasn’t just the center of her life; he was the whole of it, its entire sum and substance. She felt cold. The same thing could be said of herself, couldn’t it?

  Suddenly she was aware that Mamie was standing beside her, an orange old-fashioned in her hand. She gestured to the photograph. “That was taken in Algiers,” she announced brightly. “And that’s King George the Sixth, of course, awarding some sort of medal to my husband.” The words “my husband”—smug, possessive, proprietary—staked her claim. And perhaps they were also meant as a not-so-subtle warning: Hands off. This man is mine.

  Kay couldn’t help herself. “Yes,” she said gently. “I was there. It’s the Knight Grand Cross.” She turned to smile at Mamie. “Afterward, the General gave a dinner party for King George at his villa. It was an intimate gathering, small, but quite splendid. He must have written you about it.”

  Mamie met her eyes briefly. “I’m sure it was quite the affair,” she murmured. A woman was standing nearby, and she raised her voice. “Cookie, isn’t it wonderful?” she trilled. “Mrs. Summersby was just telling me that she was there when the King hung that enormous gold medal around Ike’s neck. She actually saw it happen!”

  “Ooh, lucky you,” the woman purred. She leaned forward, regarding Kay with something like professional curiosity. “Do tell me, please, Mrs. Summersby. Have you met the Duchess of Windsor—the former Mrs. Simpson? I understand that she is not very well liked in Britain. For making off with your king, I mean.”