Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  On the morning of June 20 Eisenhower went to West Point, where he spoke to the corps of cadets, and then flew to Kansas for a reunion with his mother and brothers. Tiny Abilene (population five thousand) was jammed with twenty thousand well-wishers, and Ike remained for three days, staying with his brother Milton at Kansas State. In Abilene, newsmen had the opportunity to meet with Eisenhower at close range, and they peppered him with questions about his future. Was political office on the horizon?

  “I am in the federal service and I take orders from my commander in chief,” Ike replied.

  All I want is to be a citizen of the United States, and when the War Department turns me out to pasture that’s all I want to be.

  I’m a soldier, and I am positive that no one thinks of me as a politician. In the strongest language you can command you can state that I have no political ambitions at all. Make it even stronger than that if you can. I’d like to go even further than Sherman did in expressing myself on this subject.41 g

  In typical Eisenhower fashion, Ike cited Sherman but did not use Sherman’s words—which were absolute. To say “I’d like to go even further than Sherman” is not the same as saying categorically that he would not accept if nominated, and would not serve if elected. By appearing to take himself out of contention but not actually doing so, Eisenhower had implicitly announced his availability.h

  From Abilene, Ike returned briefly to Washington, and then joined Mamie, John, and the Douds at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, for ten days of golf, horseback riding, and fly-fishing. Back in Washington on July 5 for another round of conferences, he returned to Germany on July 10. “I truly enjoyed my trip to the U.S.,” Ike wrote Mamie from Frankfurt. “If you’d just once understand how exclusively I love you and long for you then you’d realize how much a week at White Sulphur meant. Please don’t forget that I love only you—loyal friends and helpers [for example, Kay Summersby] are not involved in the wonderful feelings I have for you.”42

  The Potsdam conference convened on July 15, 1945. Eisenhower was not a member of the American delegation, but flew up frequently from Frankfurt to consult with Marshall, Stimson, and President Truman. One day, following a lengthy lunch, Ike and Bradley took the president on a tour through the ruins of Berlin. According to Bradley, Truman was very much at ease and in a generous mood. He turned to Eisenhower and said, “General, there is nothing that you may want that I won’t try to help you get. That definitely and specifically includes the presidency in 1948.” Eisenhower and Bradley were stunned. “I kept a poker face,” Bradley recalled, “wondering how Ike would reply to that.”43

  Ida Eisenhower basking in the glow of Ike’s achievements. Asked by a newsman if she was proud of her son, Ida responded, “Which one?” (illustration credit 16.6)

  Eisenhower laughed heartily and said, “Mr. President, I don’t know who will be your opponent for the presidency, but it will not be I.”44

  It was while the Potsdam conference was taking place that Eisenhower first learned of the atomic bomb. During a long talk at Ike’s Frankfurt headquarters, Secretary Stimson, who was the cabinet officer responsible for the bomb’s development, informed Eisenhower of the successful test in New Mexico and said the government was preparing to drop the bomb on Japan unless the Japanese surrendered quickly. This was Ike’s first introduction to atomic weapons, and he was appalled. As Secretary Stimson laid out the facts, Eisenhower recalled that he was overcome by depression.

  So I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.… I disliked seeing the United States take the lead in introducing into war something as horrible and destructive as this new weapon was described to be.45

  Eisenhower was the only one at Potsdam who opposed using the bomb. And when Ike expressed his misgivings, Stimson became highly agitated, “almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave for my quick conclusions.”46 Eisenhower was not an original thinker. But he thought for himself and he was blessed with uncommon common sense. Just as he had done when he permitted de Gaulle to occupy the Palais de l’Élysée, he was applying common sense to a complex issue rather than accept the conventional wisdom. Alone among those present at Potsdam, Eisenhower recognized that once the genie was out of the bottle, it could not be put back in. The bomb would increase world tension, just when it seemed possible that it might be controlled.47 i

  As president, Eisenhower would twice be presented with recommendations from his National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the bomb be used; first, in Vietnam to protect the French at Dien Bien Phu, then against China at the time of the Formosa Strait crisis. Both times Eisenhower rejected the recommendations. As a former supreme commander, Eisenhower had the confidence to do so, where other presidents might not have. And by rejecting the use of the bomb, there is no question that Eisenhower raised the threshold at which atomic weaponry could be employed—a legacy we continue to enjoy.

  On August 11, 1945, Eisenhower undertook a long-delayed visit to Moscow. Stalin had invited him earlier, but the date had conflicted with Ike’s scheduled journey to the United States. Eisenhower flew from Berlin in his personal C-54, the Sunflower, and was accompanied by Marshal Zhukov—who would be his official host—Lucius Clay, T. J. Davis, and his son John—an intimate group of old friends.48 Pursuant to Russian practice, Ike’s plane flew low, and Ike was impressed by the devastation he saw. “I did not see a house standing between the western borders of the country and the area around Moscow,” he wrote. “Through this overrun region, Marshal Zhukov told me, so many women, children, and old men had been killed that the Russian Government would never be able to estimate the total.”49 Eisenhower and Zhukov bonded during the five-hour flight. Sitting to themselves, with Zhukov’s urbane interpreter alongside, they reveled in each other’s expertise. Zhukov unhooked the high collar of his tunic and inquired about Allied logistics. Had they really laid pipelines under the Channel, and how did the red ball express work—the one-way road net that John C. H. Lee’s transportation people devised to speed supplies to the front? Ike was interested in how Zhukov smashed through German minefields with so little loss of armor. It wasn’t complicated, Zhukov replied. He sent the infantry through first. “The losses we get from personnel mines we consider only equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend that particular area with strong bodies of troops instead of with mine fields.”50 j

  In Moscow, Eisenhower was treated with extraordinary deference. Aside from the customary banquets and receptions, he reviewed the annual Physical Culture Parade in Red Square, standing alongside Stalin on top of Lenin’s tomb, the only foreigner ever accorded that honor. One hundred thousand athletes and gymnasts marched past in a five-hour display of synchronized athleticism, while a thousand-man band played continuously. “None of us had ever witnessed anything remotely similar,” wrote Eisenhower.51 Eisenhower and Zhukov attended a soccer game at Moscow’s Dynamo Stadium and received a prolonged standing ovation from the eighty thousand spectators. Unable to speak to the crowd in Russian, Ike put his arm around Zhukov’s shoulders as a gesture of goodwill. The fans roared their approval. The marshal escorted Ike to a collective farm, an airplane factory, the glittering Moscow subway, and on an extended tour of the Kremlin, another treat rarely offered foreigners.

  After a side trip to Leningrad at Eisenhower’s request—he wanted to see the site of the nine-hundred-day siege where 350,000 civilians had starved to death—he met with Stalin for a series of extended conversations relating primarily to the occupation of Germany and postwar Allied cooperation. Stalin emphasized how badly the Soviet Union needed American help in recovering from the war. It was not simply money. “We must learn about your scientifi
c achievements in agriculture. We must get your technicians to help us in our engineering and construction problems, and we want to know more about mass production methods in factories. We know that we are behind in these things and we know that you can help us.”52 When Eisenhower responded sympathetically, Stalin expressed his appreciation. Later he told Ambassador W. Averell Harriman that he thought Eisenhower was a great man. “Not only because of his military achievements but because of his human, friendly, kind and frank nature. He is not coarse like most military men.”53

  For his part, Eisenhower was equally impressed, finding Stalin “benign and fatherly.” He told Brooks Atkinson, the Moscow correspondent of The New York Times, that he felt he was in the hands of friends and sensed “a genuine atmosphere of hospitality.” Ike said he was “convinced that Russia and the United States must work together in a spirit of amity” and said he “was eager to help promote that.” Asked by Atkinson about U.S. policy in Germany, Eisenhower stressed the importance of providing the Germans with as much freedom and independence as possible. “The thing to be avoided is committing the nation to a dictatorship under which one man has the power to send the people to war.”54 The following day, Ike told a news conference in Moscow, “I see nothing in the future that would prevent Russia and the United States from being the closest possible friends. If we are going to be friends, we must really understand each other a bit.”55 k

  Lucius Clay concurred with Ike’s assessment of their reception. “There was no tension whatever,” he remembered. “Nothing could have been more friendly.”56 With Washington’s approval, Eisenhower invited Zhukov to tour the United States, and offered to provide his personal plane for the trip. Zhukov tentatively accepted and asked that Ike or Clay accompany him. But Zhukov, whom Stalin stripped of command in 1946, fearing he was becoming too popular, never received permission to make the trip.57

  Shortly after Eisenhower returned to Germany from Moscow, he was faced with another Patton eruption. In addition to commanding Third Army, Patton had been made military governor of Bavaria, and in that capacity made no secret of his opposition to the denazification policies the Allies had agreed upon.l During a press conference at his headquarters in Bad Tölz on September 22, 1945, Patton was asked by a reporter why reactionaries were still in power in Bavaria. “Reactionaries!” Patton exploded. “Do you want a lot of Communists?” He paused for a moment, considering his response. “I don’t know anything about parties,” he said. “The Nazi thing is just like a Democratic or Republican election fight.”58

  Patton’s remarks caused a sensation. Had American policy in Germany reversed? Was Patton announcing the change, or was he again shooting from the hip? Eisenhower summoned him to Frankfurt. “That man is yet going to drive me to drink,” Ike wrote Mamie. “He misses more opportunities to keep his mouth shut than almost anyone I ever knew.”59

  Patton reported to Ike on September 28. “General Eisenhower came in that day looking as though he hadn’t slept a wink,” Kay Summersby recalled. “I knew at once he had decided to take action against his old friend. He had aged ten years in reaching the decision.” Patton and Eisenhower were closeted for over an hour. It was “one of the stormiest sessions ever staged in our headquarters,” said Summersby. “It was the first time I ever heard General Eisenhower raise his voice.”60 Patton was relieved as military governor of Bavaria and commander of Third Army, and reassigned to head Fifteenth Army, a paper formation whose purpose was to write the history of the European campaign. Eisenhower later told his son John that they could have survived the tempest Patton had created. “Actually, I’m not moving George for what he’s done—just for what he’s going to do next.”61 At a more consequential level, Eisenhower’s relief of Patton made it abundantly clear that the United States had no intention of backing away from denazification. The most distinguished battle leader in the American Army had been relieved of command. Throughout the American zone, military government detachments in every village and hamlet understood that Eisenhower had made the purge of Nazi officials the immediate purpose of zonal policy.m

  By late summer it was obvious that Eisenhower’s time in Germany was nearing an end, and that he would be returning to Washington to succeed Marshall as chief of staff. The groundwork had been laid in May, immediately after Germany’s surrender. Marshall wanted to retire—he had been on the job for six years rather than the statutory four—but agreed to stay until the war with Japan ended. President Truman, for his part, wanted a senior World War II commander to head the Veterans Administration. Ike, like Marshall, wanted to retire. And Omar Bradley wanted to become chief of staff. The result was a package deal. Bradley would return to the United States immediately to become chief of the Veterans Administration, but would serve only two years and would remain on active duty as a four-star general. When Marshall retired, Eisenhower would succeed him, and would serve two years. And when Ike retired, Bradley would move from the VA to become chief of staff.

  Bradley left on schedule for Washington in June, and in August Marshall submitted his resignation to President Truman, recommending Ike as his successor. “There is no position other than Chief of Staff of the Army which is suitable to his present rank and prestige,” said Marshall.62

  “The most ‘suitable’ position for me is unquestionably a remotely situated cottage in a state of permanent retirement,” Eisenhower replied. “Of course, I know that there are still very difficult problems to solve, and … I am willing to attempt anything that my superiors may direct.”63

  In late October, President Truman reluctantly accepted Marshall’s resignation and set the changeover for November 26, 1945. Eisenhower prepared to leave Germany, but wanted to see Zhukov one last time before he departed. On November 7, the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ike went to Berlin to attend the Soviet reception and spent the evening discussing postwar problems with Zhukov. “The whole purpose of my long talk with him,” Eisenhower told Clay afterward, “was to renew and strengthen the spirit of understanding that he has seemed to show toward you and me so cordially and to get certain concrete concessions that I thought would do much to prove the sincerity of both sides.” Nagging problems concerning the air corridors to Berlin were resolved, and when Zhukov asked that the delivery of reparations designated for Russia be expedited, Ike agreed. “I hope you will follow these things up with General Sokolovsky and move instantly to meet them always at least half way,” he instructed Clay.64

  Eisenhower, General Lucius D. Clay, Zhukov, and Marshal Vassily Sokolovsky at a Berlin reception following the wedding of Clay’s son Frank. (illustration credit 16.7)

  Later, in 1948, Eisenhower wrote that his time in Germany marked the high point of U.S.-Soviet cooperation. “We in Berlin saw no reason why the Soviet system of government and democracy as practiced by the Western Allies could not live side by side in the world provided each respected the rights, the territory, and the convictions of the other, and each system avoided overt or covert action against the integrity of the other.”65

  Eisenhower left Frankfurt on November 10, 1945, and after stops in Paris, the Azores, and Boston arrived in Washington on the twelfth. The administration’s proposals for universal military training (UMT) and for the creation of a single Department of Defense were pending on Capitol Hill, and Ike was rushed off to testify.66 On November 15, he appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee to support UMT, and the following day went to the Senate to back the merger of the services into a single department. Eisenhower felt strongly about both. He made headlines across the country responding to the questioning of Congressman J. Parnell Thomas, the Red-baiting Republican from Allendale, New Jersey, who later chaired the House Un-American Activities Committee.n

  Thomas apparently wanted to establish Ike’s credentials as a vigilant anti-Communist. He laid out a scenario suggesting the United States was threatened by foreign enemies and that another Pearl Harbor was in the offing. Who were those enemies?

  THOMAS: L
et us name a couple of names.

  EISENHOWER: You name them.

  THOMAS: All right. I’ll name them, and I’d like to have your views on them. What about Great Britain as a potential aggressor?

  EISENHOWER: There will never be a war between Great Britain and the United States. (Applause.)

  THOMAS: What about Russia as a potential aggressor?

  EISENHOWER: Russia has not the slightest thing to gain by a struggle with the United States. There is no one thing, I believe, that guides the policy of Russia more today than to keep friendship with the United States.

  Frustrated by Ike’s response, Thomas turned to nuclear weapons. Wasn’t there a danger of espionage? Couldn’t the secret be stolen?

  EISENHOWER: I am sure that if we could establish through the United Nations Organization a complete interchange of knowledge and free access of every government to every other, you would at least inspire confidence, and thereby you could give such secrets to all nations and it would make no difference.

  THOMAS: Should the United States maintain its monopoly of atomic secrets?

  EISENHOWER: Let’s be realistic. The scientists say other nations will get the secret anyway. There is some point in making a virtue out of necessity.67

  From the moment he arrived in Washington, Eisenhower was clearly a potential presidential candidate. But his responses to Thomas did little to galvanize political support among hard-core party faithful on the Republican right. On the other hand, it established Eisenhower’s credentials as a thoughtful observer of the world scene who could be relied on for evenhanded analysis. Liberal Republicans and Democrats were delighted; the GOP’s crackpot brigade felt betrayed. Unlike Douglas MacArthur, Ike was not a man on horseback.