The General's Women

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “No,” Kay said firmly. “They are the heart of the story. It’s a love story, after all. And surely Americans are sophisticated enough to accept the fact that people who love one another make love. The General has been dead for some time, and you’ve promised to hold the book until Mamie is gone, which surely can’t be much longer.” She thought briefly of the irony: that of the three of them, Mamie would live the longest, in spite of the “fragile” health that had kept Ike from making love to her. “You’ve read that part of the manuscript,” she added. “You can see that the scenes aren’t the least bit sensational.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” the editor said uncomfortably. “But of course the family does have an interest in protecting its . . . reputation.”

  With some sympathy, Kay noted his nervousness. He was, after all, in a rather vulnerable position. “I see,” she said. “Well, then, what are you suggesting?”

  He leaned forward eagerly. “I was wondering if perhaps we could just leave it as you have it in that first love scene. The one at Hay’s Lodge, I mean. That’s the one where Ike failed. After that, we could say that he continued to . . . er, fail. He loved you dearly, but he couldn’t consummate—”

  “But that’s not what happened,” Kay protested. “In fact, Ike wanted a child. Now that I know about his letter to General Marshall, I believe it was one of the reasons he wanted us to marry. He wanted a family.” The words tumbled out now, propelled by a strong conviction. “He’d lost his little boy, Icky, you see, and he thought he had missed a big part of his son John’s life. He was only fifty-four. Lots of older men have children, and having a child seemed important to him. He wouldn’t have wanted that if he hadn’t been able to . . .”

  “Please.” The editor set his teacup down. “Please don’t upset yourself, Kay. And don’t give it another thought. It was just an idea, you know. A way for us to accommodate the family’s concerns and still have the book you want. But obviously it’s not something you—”

  “It’s not,” Kay said passionately. She was breathing hard. “It’s a lie.”

  And then she smiled a little to herself, remembering the night at Sous le Vent when Ike had said to her that if anyone asked about their relationship, they could just lie. “It’s nobody’s goddamned business,” he had said—and here she was refusing to lie. It was ironic.

  The editor put out his hand in a soothing gesture. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” he said. “I am prepared to stand by your book and everything that’s in it. Your story is important. It needs to be told, in its entirety, of course.” He smiled toothily. “Let’s say no more about it, shall we?”

  “Thank you.” Kay leaned back in her chair.

  They would say no more about it. But she could guess what was going to happen. John Eisenhower was a powerful man, and Mamie—a former First Lady—was many people’s ideal of a loving, devoted wife. David Eisenhower, Ike’s grandson, had married Julie Nixon, the daughter of former president Richard Nixon. These were important families, with influence. The editor and his publisher might find themselves cornered and—once she was no longer around to make a fuss about truth and lies—forced to make concessions. They might take out the love scenes altogether. Her relationship with Ike might be portrayed as intimate, perhaps even devoted, but incomplete, unconsummated. Or perhaps the book wouldn’t even be published—although since it seemed poised to make a great deal of money, that didn’t seem likely. They would want to publish the book. They would want it to sell a hundred thousand copies. They would want it to be made into a movie.

  And they would do whatever it took to make that happen. He’s theirs, Kathleen, her mother had said. They’ve made him. They’ll never let you have him. In the end, Kay knew, her mother was right—and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

  “Well, then.” She sat up straight and reached for the pot. “Would you like another cup of tea?”

  • • •

  Later, after the editor had gone, Kay lay on her bed, knowing that this book, this final truth she had to offer, was out of her hands now. The ghostwriter would do what the editor told her to do. And the editor would do whatever he found necessary, depending on who leaned on him. She might as well stop worrying about it. She wouldn’t be around to see how it turned out.

  That morning, she had written what she thought might be the very last paragraph. She hoped they would leave it just as it was:

  Now that I am very close to the end of my life, I have a strong sense of being close to Ike again. It is almost as if he were looking over my shoulder as I write. Laughing now and then. Saying, “Christ, I’d completely forgotten about that.” Or “Oh, that was a great day. Didn’t we have a good time that day!” Right now, he’s saying “Goddamn it, don’t cry.”

  Kay lay back against the pillow. As she closed her eyes, she thought of the night she had stood on the deck of the dying Strathallan under a canopy of aloof and distant stars, with five thousand others, standing together—the moment at which one part of her life had ended and a new life began. And of the afternoon she learned that Dick was dead and that there would be no marriage, no children. And of Ike’s letter, when once again, her future was an empty horizon. Of all the moments when her life had changed, and she had to go on alone.

  And then she saw Telek, dear Telek, trotting toward her. He had been gone for fifteen years now, but she saw him as gay and gallant and sweet as ever, and she knew he was asking to be taken for a walk.

  “Come on, then, funny little boy.” She smiled and bent over to stroke his lovely black fur. “It’s time. Let’s go.”

  It was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

  The Last Word

  Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

  August 1979

  Mamie was alone now, spending much of her time in her bedroom at the Gettysburg farm that she and Ike had bought in 1950 as their “retirement home.” Which of course it wasn’t, not then. It was another ten years before Ike turned the Oval Office over to Jack Kennedy, that boy, and they left the White House.

  But the farm had been worth waiting for. The century-old brick farmhouse had needed a massive renovation before Mamie would even consider living there, but it had a lovely view of the South Mountains rising to the west eight miles away, and three gorgeous ash trees in front. In the remodeling, she had insisted that the bedroom windows be lowered so she could see out from her bed: her pink bed—with pink sheets, pink spread, and pink upholstered headboard—in a room that boasted pink damask draperies, pale green walls, and mint green rugs.

  Most days, Mamie loved to lie in that bed and watch the robins and squirrels in the huge ash tree outside the window. Now, though, she was watching Rosalynn Carter sitting in on one of President Carter’s Cabinet meetings, taking notes. The television commentator had just said, approvingly, that Ms. Carter also advised the President on his speeches and arranged his appointments. Quoting Time magazine, he added that Ms. Carter was the “second most powerful person in the United States.”

  Testily, Mamie grabbed the remote and turned off the set. She detested the word Ms. A woman was either a Miss or a Mrs., nothing in-between. What’s more, she herself had visited the Oval Office only four times—four!—in the entire eight years Ike had run the country. It would never have occurred to him to ask her to sit beside him and take notes or arrange his calendar. That was a job for a secretary, for heaven’s sake, not for a wife. That’s something Ann Whitman would have done.

  At the thought of Ike’s young, attractive personal secretary, Mamie frowned. She had tried her best to get Ann fired before the 1952 election, but Ike had found out about it and told her “nothing doing” in that flat, this-is-an-order tone. So she’d had no choice but to tolerate Ann Whitman for the next eight years, although she didn’t have to be nice to her. Ike’s staffers said she was jealous, and maybe she was, but so what? She was his wife, wasn’t she? She had a right to be jealous, especially after Kay Summersby. And after Ike’s brother Edgar married
his secretary. Now, really.

  But when Ike decided he wanted to keep Ann with him after they moved to the farm, Mamie had put her foot down—although not directly to Ike, of course. She had simply made things so unpleasant for Ann that she finally took the hint and found another employer. In Mamie’s opinion, it was really too bad when women thought they had to have an outside job. The division of labor she preferred was so much better all around: the husband worked, the wife managed the home. It was very simple. “Ike runs the country,” she liked to say. “I turn the pork chops.”

  Well, not exactly. Mamie had never learned to cook, so if they were having pork chops for dinner it was because the cook turned them or Ike turned them—he was the chef in the family. His specialties were quail hash (with birds he shot himself), beef stew, and steaks on the grill. When she was responsible for the meal, it was TV dinners in the Radarange. She’d rather spend her time playing Scrabble, watching soap operas and I Love Lucy, or listening to Lawrence Welk.

  Except that these days, even Lawrence Welk and The Guiding Light had lost their appeal, and she had watched so many reruns of Lucy that they weren’t funny anymore. The truth was, she was bored. When she was First Lady, there was always something interesting to do. Because she spent a lot of her days in bed, people said she was . . . well, lazy. Of course she wasn’t. Maybe she hadn’t remodeled the White House or planted flowers along the freeways like Mrs. Johnson or attended Cabinet meetings like Mrs. Carter.

  But during her eight years in the White House, she had launched charity drives, served as honorary president of the Girl Scouts, and sponsored the Easter Seal campaign. She had included Negro children in the annual Easter Egg Roll and approved of Marian Anderson singing at Ike’s inaugural ceremony. She had whipped the White House staff into shape (Ike said she reminded him of General Patton) and established a chain of command in the domestic staff. She hired fifteen staff members to answer the seven hundred letters she got every month; she knew that people were thrilled to get a personal reply with her signature on it. She completed the collection of presidential china and painted so many rooms pink that some wag in the press corps renamed the White House the Pink Palace. Of course, her pink walls were nothing like the “historic restoration” Mrs. Kennedy did, which Mamie had never quite gotten over. The White House as a museum, with all that antique, Frenchified furniture? It wasn’t very American, was it? You’d think a First Lady would have a little more common sense, even if she did graduate from Vassar.

  But what Mamie loved most about being in the White House was that she was the boss. People had to do things the way she told them, or she made them do it over again. People lined up to talk to her, to see her, to shake her hand. She was in demand. She was wanted. People accepted her as the power behind the throne. She didn’t even mind it when they said that Ike ran the country but Mamie ran Ike.

  And she and Ike traveled. She had decided that her heart was strong enough to fly, after all, so while he was president, they took lots of trips. Even after Ike retired, they took trips. In the springtime, they went to Georgia, to the Augusta National Golf Club, where he liked to spend all day out on the course. In the winter, they lived at the El Dorado Country Club in Palm Desert, California, where he played golf and worked on his memoirs. Mamie did her best to keep a watchful eye over his health, but he hated it when she told him he ought to wear a hat or boots or a muffler or stop using so much salt—and especially when she told him he should cut back on the number of speeches he gave.

  But she refused to feel guilty about telling Pat Nixon (behind Ike’s back, of course) that she was worried about his health and that he really shouldn’t campaign for Dick when he was running for president against Kennedy in 1960. Mamie knew that Ike was hurt because Dick didn’t ask him and that Dick thought the President’s noticeable absence from the campaign trail had cost him the election. But she didn’t care that he held it against her. She’d never much liked Nixon anyway.

  But all that excitement was gone now, and she had to depend on her own resources, which had never been all that dependable. These last few years . . . well, she felt pretty much the same way she’d felt during the war. Isolated. Left out. “On the shelf,” she had told her sister Mike.

  Or maybe “left behind” was a better term. Times had changed. People made fun of “Mamie pink,” and “Mamie bangs” were definitely passé. Now, women had children and careers, and her definition of marriage as an arrangement where the husband ran his business and the wife ran the home seemed terribly out of date. She didn’t understand why her granddaughters would want to divorce their perfectly nice husbands and start new lives, and the disapproval she didn’t bother to hide strained family relationships. She tried to do what she knew Ike would want: stay optimistic. But she had always pretty much considered herself as an extension of him, and now that he was gone . . . well, there wasn’t that much left of her.

  Mamie was nearing eighty-three now. Her life was tranquil, except for a few health problems—and that old Summersby business, of course. Somehow, the stories just wouldn’t go away. Every now and then, something would pop up in the newspapers, and she would get a few dozen sympathy letters from “friends.” She hated those letters, for they all had to be answered, and what was she supposed to say?

  The truth of the matter was . . . that she simply didn’t know the truth of the matter. When Ike came back from Europe after the war, he had refused to talk about it. She asked him once or twice, but he gave her a stony look and turned away. Mamie didn’t want to press the questions because she didn’t want to hear the answers. As long as she didn’t actually know what had happened between her husband and that woman, she could tell everyone, especially herself, that of course he had been completely faithful.

  Her doubts were still there, though, just as they had been during the war, when he kept writing all those letters full of protestations of love, so utterly unlike him. So the more often he wrote things like You are the only girl for me and I haven’t been in love with anyone else and don’t want any other wife, the more she suspected that he was up to something.

  But Mamie had always made sure that her doubts were her doubts. She buried them in her heart and never spoke a word about them, either to him or to anybody in the family. If the subject ever came up, she would just lift her chin and smile dismissively. “Least said, soonest mended,” her mother had always said, and that was Mamie’s philosophy, too. If you simply smiled and didn’t talk about something bad, it would go away.

  But this didn’t. Over the years, the stories kept turning up, and even though Mamie didn’t let on that she heard them, of course she did. For instance, back in 1947, people around Ike were worried about the book Mrs. Summersby was writing, until they got her to sign some sort of paper agreeing not to write anything that might embarrass Ike. Five years later, during the 1952 presidential campaign, she had heard Ike’s staffers whispering about a letter he had written to General Marshall, saying he wanted to divorce her and marry that woman. They were concerned that if the letter surfaced during the campaign, it could keep Ike out of the White House. Mamie didn’t believe there was any such letter, of course. Ike would never consider divorce. She just held up her head and kept smiling.

  Then in 1973, Harry Truman was quoted as saying that he had actually seen the letter and General Marshall’s angry reply, and Truman’s military aide chimed in to support him. The former president might be a vulgar, hateful old man but he had a reputation for telling the unvarnished truth. Mamie finally had to accept the idea that Ike might have wanted to divorce her and marry the other woman. Smiling was difficult after that, but she did her best.

  And then the unthinkable. The flurry over Truman’s claim had just settled down when Kay Summersby’s book, Past Forgetting, was published. Mamie knew that the family wanted to keep her in the dark about it, so it was never mentioned when they got together. But she read reviews with headlines like BOOK TELLS ALL ABOUT FAMOUS LOVE AFFAIR and POWERFUL GENERAL NOT SO POWER
FUL WHEN THE LIGHTS WERE OUT (that one from a tabloid). And then Parade magazine reported that Bantam had paid $800,000 for the paperback rights.

  Well! If the book was worth that much, Mamie thought she ought to know what was in it. So she dispatched her maid to Philadelphia to buy a copy. (Buying it in Gettysburg, of course, would have let the cat out of the bag. You couldn’t do anything in that little town without having everybody know about it.) She hid the book in her undies drawer for several days until she screwed up enough courage to read it. Once she began, she wished she hadn’t, for there were things in the book that sounded just like Ike and made her miss him terribly. Past Forgetting was obviously written by a woman who had known him inside and out. When she finished it, she pulled the pillow over her head and cried harder than she had cried when he died.

  Which in a way made sense, for now she knew that the story was true. Ike had loved the woman. He had wanted to marry her. And he hadn’t come home to her, Mamie, to his wife: he had come home to his duty, and his country, and the possibility that he might be president. For that, and not for her, he had given up the love of his life.

  But she had to be brave. She got up and washed her face and put on fresh powder and her favorite pink lipstick, reminding herself that, technically speaking, there hadn’t been an affair, not really. The book made that clear—and of course, you couldn’t have an affair if you didn’t have sex. Which wasn’t news to her, naturally, for sex hadn’t been part of their marriage, even before the war.

  And in the end, she convinced herself that she had been the ultimate winner. She was the one who had ridden with Ike in all those ticker-tape parades. She was the one who had been elected to the White House with him, twice. She was the one with whom he had spent the rest of his life. As she had said when their new king-sized bed was installed in their pink bedroom in the White House, “Now I’ve got Ike right where I want him. I can reach over and pat him on his old bald head anytime I want to.” And it was true. She had him exactly where she wanted him.