Legion Of Honour Recipients

"I thought so at first, but there is reason to believe that he is still alive. But that in itself does not constitute a problem."

"Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends."

"Kinship among nations is not determined in such measurements as proximity of size and age. Rather we should turn to those inner things — call them what you will — I mean those intangibles that are the real treasures free men possess. To preserve his freedom of worship, his equality before law, his liberty to speak and act as he sees fit, subject only to provisions that he trespass not upon similar rights of others — a Londoner will fight. So will a citizen of Abilene. When we consider these things, then the valley of the Thames draws closer to the farms of Kansas and the plains of Texas."

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone."

"Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."

"Shortly we will be fighting our way across the Continent of Europe in battles designed to preserve our civilization. Inevitably, in the path of our advance will be found historical monuments and cultural centers which symbolize to the world all that we are fighting to preserve. It is the responsibility of every commander to protect and respect these symbols whenever possible. In some circumstances the success of the military operation may be prejudiced in our reluctance to destroy these revered objects. Then, as at Cassino, where the enemy relied on our emotional attachments to shield his defense, the lives of our men are paramount. So, where military necessity dictates, commanders may order the required action even though it involves destruction to some honored site. But there are many circumstances in which damage and destruction are not necessary and cannot be justified. In such cases, through the exercise of restraint and discipline, commanders will preserve centers and objects of historical and cultural significance. Civil Affairs Staffs at higher echleons will advise commanders of the locations of historical monuments of this type both in advance of the front lines and in occupied areas. This information together with the necessary instruction, will be passe down through command channels to all echleons."

"Today we are fighting in a country which was contributed a great deal to our cultural inheritance, a country rich in monuments which...illustrate the growth of the civilization which is ours. We are bound to respect those monuments so far as war allows. If we have to choose between destroying a famous building and sacrificing our own men, then our men's lives count infinitely more and the building must go. But the choice is not always so clear-cut as that. Nothing can stand against the argument of military necessity. That is an accepted principle. But the phrase 'military necessity' is sometimes used where it would be more truthful to speak of military convenience or even personal convenience. I do not want it to cloak slackness or indifference. It is a responsibility of high commanders to determine through AMC Officers the locations of historical monuments whether they be immediately ahead of our front lines or in areas occupied by us. This information passed to lower echleons through normal channels places the responsibility on all commanders of complying with the spirit of this letter."

"This is a long tough road we have to travel. The men that can do things are going to be sought out just as surely as the sun rises in the morning. Fake reputations, habits of glib and clever speech, and glittering surface performance are going to be discovered."

"The chief of staff says I'm the guy."

"I'm going to command the whole shebang."

"If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it."

"We were depending on considerable assistance from the insurrectionists in France. Throughout France the Free French had been of inestimable value in the campaign. ... Without their great assistance the liberation of France and the defeat of the enemy in Western Europe would have consumed a much longer time and meant greater losses to ourselves."

"When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the warmth of the summer afternoon on a river bank, we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I wanted to be a real major league baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish."

"Outwardly Eisenhower impressed me favourably. On June 5 Eisenhower, Montgomery and de Lattre de Tassigny arrived in Berlin to sign the declaration on the defeat of Germany and the assumption of supreme authority in Germany by Governments of the USSR, the US, Britain and France. Before the formal meeting, Eisenhower came to my headquarters to confer upon me a high American military award: I was made Chief Commander of the Legion of Merit. On receiving the award, I immediately called Stalin and told him about it. Stalin said: "We should decorate Eisenhower and Montgomery with Orders of Victory and de Lattre de Tassigny with the Order of Suvorov, First Class." "May I tell them about it?" I asked. Stalin said I could."

"As old soldiers, I think you and I will find a common language and work as a team."

"With my new instructions I returned to Berlin. The very day after my arrival I was visited by General of the Army Eisenhower with his numerous retinue, amongst whom was General Spaatz, Chief of the US Strategic Air Command. We received General Eisenhower at the Headquarters of the front in Wedenschlosse. Present at the meeting was A. Ya. Vyshinsky. We greeted each other like soldiers, and, I may say, in a friendly way. Taking both my hands in his, Eisenhower looked me over for a long time, then said, "So that's what you're like.""

"At numerous times in his life, Eisenhower showed that the call of duty governed his actions, not the summons of glory. Early in his career, he yearned to command soldiers in the field, but orders to staff positions crushed his hopes. Instead of complaining, he put aside his ambition and placed full effort into whatever task he faced. While most of his West Point classmates experienced combat in the fields of France in World War I, he labored at a string of training posts. As disappointed as he might have been, he declined lucrative financial offers on two occasions to remain in the military. His reasons simply stated were that he saw war coming and knew that the nation needed him. Eisenhower was not one to act in his own interests, as MacArthur did in the Philippines or Montgomery and Patton did in Europe. He did what he was supposed to do as an Army officer, even if it was not always what he wanted to do. As such he serves as a superb example for everyone."

"Dwight Eisenhower was an outstanding leader long before he supervised the campaign against Hitler. The qualities he exhibited, as early as his initial posting after his graduation from West Point, led to a spectacular career that culminated in two historic achievements- the defeat of Nazi Germany and the presidency."

"Montgomery may have been right so far as the British public were concerned, but Eisenhower knew that his troops in the field and his people at home would see the issue in simple terms, almost in terms of American football. Patton was 'carrying the ball,' and was making an 'end run' with every American cheering him on. As Eisenhower saw it, there was no justification- in football or in battle- for taking the ball away from him. Patton had already proved himself to be a master of exploitation and his troops were already across the Seine. Montgomery had no such reputation and his troops had not yet reached the Seine. Neither the British nor the Canadians had yet shown a capacity for advancing with the dash and drive the Americans had demonstrated so brilliantly since the break-out. It is not surprising, therefore, that Eisenhower would have doubted at this stage whether Montgomery had the troops or the commanders to carry the northward thrust through to the Ruhr before the Germans could establish a coherent front."

"The plan which Montgomery presented to Eisenhower at their meeting on August 23rd was bold enough, but it meant halting Patton and confining the Third Army to the defensive role of flank protection during the advance of the Second British and First American Armies to the Ruhr. Eisenhower's first reaction was that, even if it was militarily desirable (which he did admit), it was politically impossible to stop Patton in full cry "The American public," said Eisenhower, "would never stand for t; and public opinion wins war." To which Montgomery replied, "Victories win wars. Give people victory and they won't care who won it.""

"It seems fair to say that the very qualities which made Eisenhower a successful Supreme Commander prevented him at this time from becoming a successful commander in the field His great talent lay in holding the Allied team together, and in reconciling the interests of the different nations and services. In the situation which had now developed, however, Eisenhower's conscientious tolerance and inclination to compromise were liabilities. The occasion called for a man with a bold plan, a Commander-in-Chief who knew what was essential and had the will to impose his strategic ideas without regard for personalities or public opinion."

"Furthermore, being an honest and modest man, Eisenhower was conscious of his lack of experience in the tactical handling of armies, and this gave him a sense of professional inferiority in dealing with men like Montgomery and Patton who had been through the mill of command at every level. Because he had no philosophy of battle which he himself had tested in action, Eisenhower was reluctant to impose his ideas, unless the decision was one which he, as Supreme Commander, had to make. As a general rule, he tended to seek the opinions of all and to work out the best compromise. When he could gather his commanders and advisers around the conference table, he had a remarkable capacity for distilling the counsel of many friends into a single solution, but, when his commanders were scattered over France, he was open to persuasion by the last strong man to whom he talked."

"Dwight Eisenhower, with Churchill and Stalin removed from the world scene, became clearly its most imposing figure — a distinction only Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (briefly in 1919) had achieved. Eisenhower was also the first television president, visible virtually every night on the home screen. After Eisenhower, any president was to be the single most familiar figure to every American, far more so than anyone's mayor or senator or governor."

"Intent to move away from the Cold War as a national emergency, Eisenhower ended up institutionalizing it as policy and doctrine. On the Korean War, the new president simply got lucky. Stalin’s death removed the last hindrance for a negotiated armistice. But Eisenhower believed that projections of US strength would prevent what he saw as Soviet adventurism in the future. Confirming Truman’s overall containment strategy, Eisenhower wanted to reinforce it by increasing US nuclear capacity and readiness. He also upgraded the CIA’s covert operations and used them to overthrow governments the president saw as inimical to US Cold War interests, such as in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala the following year. Eisenhower saw the Cold War as a total contest that would last for a long time, and in which US purpose and readiness would remain the critical element. But the new president also believed, firmly, that the United States could fight the Cold War without making too many compromises with regard to its domestic affairs."

"If Europeans hungered for recovery, Americans longed for stability. For more than twenty years, US voters had faced one emergency after another: the Great Depression, the New Deal, wars in Europe and Asia, and the Cold War. In 1952 they voted for stability and normality under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first professional military man to head the US government since Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s and the first Republican president since the onset of the national crises. Eisenhower was an internationalist and a Cold Warrior who believed that the United States needed to confront the USSR and Communism worldwide. In his campaign, he had argued for the need to win in Korea and for “rolling back” Communism in Europe and Asia. But his main rhetoric was intended to assure Americans that they were safe under his leadership, and that the United States would defeat its enemies if it put its own house in order through national unity, fiscal discipline, a strong defense, and clear international priorities."

"Dwight D. Eisenhower was a reluctant politician. His decision to run for president in 1952 was rooted in a deep concern over the scope of the domestic debate about how best to respond to the Communist challenge."

"He'll sit here and say, "Do this! Do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating."

"The decision to weigh Lieut. Gen. Patton's great services to his country, in World War I and World War II, from these shores to Casablanca and through Tunisia to triumph in Sicily, on the one hand, against an indefensible act on the other, was Gen. Eisenhower's. As his report shows, General Eisenhower in making his decision also considered the value to our country of General Patton's aggressive, winning leadership in the bitter battles which are to come before final victory. I am confident that you will agree with me that Gen. Eisenhower's decision, under these difficult circumstances, was right and proper."

"We ought to invite Eisenhower to Moscow sometime. I want to meet him."

"The improvement of race relations," Eisenhower wrote in 1953, "is one of those things that will be healthy and sound only if it starts locally. I do not believe that prejudices, even palpably unjustified prejudices will succumb to compulsion. Consequently, I believe that Federal law imposed upon our States... would set back the cause of race relations for a long, long time." At a dinner with Warren in 1954, while the court was deliberating over Brown v. Board of Education, the case that would outlaw school segregation, he told the chief justice that white segregationists were "not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negro."

"Foreign policy is remembering what Dwight D. Eisenhower said as he left office: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."...What Eisenhower said over fifty years ago is even more"

"Eisenhower had about the most expressive face I ever painted, I guess. Just like an actor's. Very mobile. When he talked, he used all the facial muscles. And he had a great, wide mouth that I liked. When he smiled, it was just like the sun came out."

"My dear Mr. President: I was sitting in the audience at the Summit Meeting of Negro Leaders yesterday when you said we must have patience. On hearing you say this, I felt like standing up and saying, "Oh no! Not again. " I respectfully remind you sir, that we have been the most patient of all people. When you said we must have self-respect, I wondered how we could have self-respect and remain patient considering the treatment accorded us through the years. 17 million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change. We want to enjoy now the rights that we feel we are entitled to as Americans. This we cannot do unless we pursue aggressively goals which all other Americans achieved over 150 years ago. As the chief executive of our nation, I respectfully suggest that you unwittingly crush the spirit of freedom in Negroes by constantly urging forbearance and give hope to those pro-segregation leaders like Governor Faubus who would take from us even those freedoms we now enjoy. Your own experience with Governor Faubus is proof enough that forbearance and not eventual integration is the goal the pro-segregation leaders seek. In my view, an unequivocal statement backed up by action such as you demonstrated you could take last fall in dealing with Governor Faubus if it became necessary, would let it be known that America is determined to provide -- in the near future for Negroes -- the freedoms we are entitled to under the constitution, Respectfully yours,"

"The first CIA-directed covert operations during Eisenhower's presidency was conducted in Iran. On May 28, 1953, the Iranian prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, cabled Eisenhower to ask him for U.S. help in counteracting a boycott of Iranian oil by the international oil companies. The boycott was instituted after Mossadeq nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951. Mossadeq told the president that, if he did not receive U.S. assistance, Iran might be forced to turn to the Soviet Union. Mossadeq's threat turned on Eisenhower's alarm bell. Only two weeks after entering the White House, the new president accepted the advice of the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which insisted that Mossadeq had to be overthrown to ensure continued Western access to Iranian oil and to prevent Iran from becoming a Soviet satellite. Accordingly, on May 28, 1953, Eisenhower rebuffed Mossadeq's plea for assistance, stating that all that was required to settle the crisis was "a reasonable agreement" with the British. Then Eisenhower added a warning of his own. He expressed his hope that, "before it is too late, the Government of Iran will take such steps as are in its power to prevent a further deterioration of the situation.""

"To back up the massive retaliation strategy, the administration intended to give the nation's armed forces a "New Look." It called for major cuts in conventional and a massive buildup of nuclear weapons. During the Eisenhower years, the size of the army and navy was reduced, that of the air force increased- a reflection of the fact that air power, and particularly strategic air power, was going to primary component of the administration's massive retaliation strategy. In June 1953 the U.S. Air Force began ordering the nation's first intercontinental jet bomber, the B-52, which had a capability to deliver hydrogen bombs on Soviet targets. For long-term deterrence, however, the Eisenhower administration placed major emphasis on developing ballistic missiles. In 1955 the president approved the development of the Atlas missile, America's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and its first intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), the Thor. In 1957 the president approved still another air force ICBM, a solid-fueled missile, the Minuteman, which in the 1960s replaced the manned bomber as the primary component of the nation's strategic forces."

"While Eisenhower personally was immune to McCarthy's charges, he nevertheless tried to insulate his administration against the senator's witch-hunt in the federal bureaucracy by instituting an antisubversive program of his own. In April 1953 the president signed an executive order authorizing the heads of all federal departments and agencies to fire any employee whose loyalty, reliability, or "good conduct and character" were in doubt. Hundreds of federal employees lost their jobs under the new security system, but not a single traitor, spy, or subversive was indicted by the government. The Department of State was particularly hard hit by the Eisenhower security program. Among those who lost their jobs were a number of experts in Chinese affairs, including John Patton Davies and John Carter Vincent. However, they were dismissed, not because they were subversives, but because they had predicted the collapse of the Nationalist government in China and had favored a more realistic policy toward the Chinese Communists. The decline of expertise and morale in the foreign service that resulted from this purge did much to prevent the formation of a realistic policy toward communism, particularly Asian communism, in the years ahead."

"The Cold War deepened and expanded during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. While the superpower stalemate was maintained in Europe, the rearmament of West Germany, the Hungarian Revolution, and the status of Berlin were among the issues that aggravated Cold War tensions on that continent during the Eisenhower years. Although Eisenhower kept his promise to end the Korean War, Sino-American relations remained frigid, and, in fact, were aggravated during two crises in the Taiwan Strait. During the Eisenhower years, the United States also became more deeply involved in Indochina and took the first steps down the slippery slope to the Vietnam quagmire. The Cold War also intensified in the Middle East, as a result of Egypt's increasing dependence on the Soviet Union, and in Latin America, culminating in the establishment of the first Soviet client state in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba. During Eisenhower's presidency, the Cold War spread even to sub-Saharan Africa, when the superpowers intervened in the internal affairs of the Congo (now Zaire). The Cold War truly became global during the Eisenhower years. The friction between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Third World became increasingly dangerous as a result of a mushrooming nuclear arms race during Eisenhower's years."

"He was pretty. His eyes were kind and young. One had to wonder whether he was fourteen years old, or a thousand, being so smooth and untouched. A little boy peered out of the man's face. He was funny... I was bewildered... a man, responsible for the life and death of thousands, and yet there was no trace on him? One could be frightened of less, and yet so harmlessly innocent? Yes, innocent was the word... I knew I would remember this meeting the rest of my life, because I had never before met an emptyness like this."

"In The Hidden-Hand Presidency : Eisenhower as Leader, Greenstein attributed part of the public's discontent with presidential performance to the conflict built into the Constitution between the president's apolitical and unifying role as chief of state and his partisan and divisive role as head of government. ... Eisenhower was able to bridge the built-in contradictions of the office and provide an effective leadership style. In his analysis of Eisenhower, Greenstein focused on three classes of variables: the personal properties of the man, his leadership strategies, and his organizational style. Eisenhower's political psychology exhibited antithetical qualities in public and private, a duality well suited for adapting to contradictory public expectations. His leadership strategies involved making his job as chief of state readily visible while covertly exercising much of his public leadership. In parallel fashion, his organizational style focused public attention on the formal machinery but left unpublicized his use of informal organization."

"I LIKE IKE!"

"Sometimes I think your life and mine are under the protection of some supreme being or fate, because, after many years of parallel thought, we find ourselves in the positions we now occupy."

"Of all the many talks I had in Washington, none gave me such pleasure as that with you. There were two reasons for this. In the first place, you are about my oldest friend. In the second place, your self-assurance and to me, at least, demonstrated ability, give me a great feeling of confidence about the future ... and I have the utmost confidence that through your efforts we will eventually beat the hell out of those bastards — "You name them; I'll shoot them!""

"No doubt history will say that Eisenhower was a soldier. For my part, I will remember, above all, his goodness. He was a fundamentally good man who knew how to be loved by the Americans. I was fond of Ike."

"He was a natural choice as the senior American general in Europe. After a year in the field he had much more experience than Marshall. He had a reputation as a good manager of men, a good chair for a committee. A tall, balding figure, Eisenhower ('Ike' to almost everyone) looked at 53 like a school headmaster in uniform- even more so when he donned his round-rimmed spectacles to read. Born in Abilene, Kansas, in 1890, the son of a failed storekeeper, his rise to supreme commander had much of the American dream about it. With no money and a modest mid-West education behind him, he stumbled into an army career in which he quickly showed himself to be an energetic organiser. The First World War ended before he got to Europe. He swore to himself that he would 'make up for this', but he spent a fruitless twenty years stuck at the rank of major. There was nowhere to fight and little to fight with. On the outbreak of war he was posted to the War Department to take over as Deputy for War Plans, but not until August 1942 did he get a field command, Supreme Commander for the Torch landings in North Africa. When he arrived in Africa in November to take up his command he had never seen armed combat. His talents were managerial. His inexperience was self-evident; Brooke complained that he had 'absolutely no strategical outlook'. His strength was his ability to achieve 'good cooperation' from subordinates and allies alike. Such a talent was at a premium in preparing Overlord."

"Eisenhower was known as a harmonizer, a man who could get diverse factions to work toward a common goal... Leadership, he explained, meant patience and conciliation, not "hitting people over the head.""

"Ike's remaining nine years were generally happy ones. He presided over the farm, and Mamie the house at Gettysburg. He painted frequently, a hobby begun at Columbia and pursued without much talent, almost purely for relaxation. There was still the Gang for golf and bridge, Scrabble with Mamie in her sunroom, and there were grandchildren to indulge. The Eisenhowers also began spending the winters at Eldorado Country Club in California's high chaparral, doing much the same things. Being Ike, writing was an obvious recourse. But while Crusade in Europe had been dictated in a blazing three months, Eisenhower now struggled for three years with his White House memoirs, and the two-volume product was not nearly so crisp, bordering on turgid, actually, robbed of energy and coherence by security considerations. But later he bounced back and produced At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, a look back much more in the spirit of MacArthur's Reminiscences, and accordingly more readable. Unfortunately, Ike's good times were punctuated by heart attacks, one in November 1965 he recovered well enough from to play golf again; but a coronary in April 1968 landed him in his last stop, Walter Reed, ward 8, VIP suite. Here he suffered a third the day after giving a televised speech to the GOP convention in Miami about to nominate Richard Nixon for president. It was from the same sickbed that he watched Nixon win the election and the White House, and then his daughter Julie marry Ike's grandson David, tying these two now presidential families together with bonds of matrimony. For Ike, there was no escape from Nixon. And nothing to do but wait for the end in the suite Mamie had decorated in soft pinks and greens. On March 27, he told his son he wanted to be taken off life support: "I've had enough, John. Tell them to let me go." The next morning he summoned John and grandson David and had them lower the stage and stand at attention while he uttered his last words: "I want to go; God take me," then lapsed into unconsciousness. He died just past noon, March 28, 1969. The next day his body was placed in the Capitol Rotunda, in a standard-issue Army coffin, clad in his Ike jacket uniform, devoid of decorations, only his five stars. Among the mourners was Charles de Gaulle, as promised, with him to the end. The Washington ceremonies concluded, his flag-draped casket was placed on a funeral train for Abilene, where two days later Dwight David Eisenhower was laid to rest on the property of his boyhood home in a simple funeral for just family and close friends, next to the grave of little Icky. A decade later Mamie joined them there. But before she did, when asked by grandson David if she had ever truly known her husband, Mamie replied: "I'm not sure anyone did.""

"Like the others, Ike declined true to form. When he requested that he be returned to his five-star rank- reassuming the identity of general rather than Mr. President, about the only tangible benefit being that he got to keep Sergeant Moaney as his valet- JFK was flabbergasted. But it was completely in character. Dwight Eisenhower was a soldier at the core, and this was the identity he intended to die with. It was largely in this role that he was consulted by his successors, particularly Lyndon Johnson, now the one caught in Vietnam's quicksand. Eisenhower thought he was too involved in the day-to-day running of the war, and advised him to "go for victory," suggestions Johnson was not about to follow."

"In the Pacific we gave our enemies a costly lesson in amphibious warfare, just as in Europe we, with our allies, demonstrated successful coalition warfare. The performance of all branches of the services in Europe under General Eisenhower, in the central and southern Pacific under Admiral Nimitz, and in the southwestern Pacific under General MacArthur brought glory to themselves and to their country."

"Eisenhower disliked excessively rhetorical flourishes because they betrayed a desire to be ingratiating, or overly persuasive, or too eager for promotion. Fox Conner had drilled him in the army mystique of never seeking or refusing an assignment, and Eisenhower always managed matters so that the assignments sought hum. His gift for being offered jobs he had not asked for would appear almost magical if one did not keep in mind "that alert brain" at work. One of the most tedious and revealing sections of his "diaries" deals with the self-examination he went through to persuade himself to run for President in 1952. Couldn't the man see? the reader keeps asking himself. No, he could not. It was not in his nature to appear to want something; his nature was to be wanted. And so he progressed from obscurity- he first appears in the White House Usher's Diary at two-thirty on February 9, 1942, as "P.D. Eisenhauer"- to greatness. His rise was rocketlike. Within less than two years he went from lieutenant colonel to full general. His exposure to politics in the raw came as rapidly as his promotions. When he was appointed to command the North African expedition, Eisenhower was briefed by Robert Murphy, our diplomatic representative there, on the "bewildering complexities" of the quarrels among not only the French factions but Spanish, Arab, Berber, German, and Russian as well. "Eisenhower listened with a kind of horrified fascination," wrote Murphy, "to my description of the possible complications... The General seemed to sense that this first campaign would present him with problems running the entire geopolitical gamut- it certainly did." What he could not have realized was that it would also place him in the crossfire between two towering political personalities, Franklin Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle. Say this, too, for Eisenhower: He was able to confront himself, in words and on paper, with the harsh unpleasantness of the work that lay ahead. "The actual fact is," he wrote in a note to his desk pad on May 5, 1942, "that not 1 man in 20 in Govt. (including the W. and N. Depts) realizes what a grisly, dirty, tough business we are in!""

"This was a most unusual man, a veiled man, so seemingly forthright, so ready to volunteer his thoughts, yet in the end so secretive, so protective of his purposes and the hidden processes of an iron logic behind them. A reviewer of his published diaries commented on his "closed, calculating quality" and went on: "Few who watched him carefully indulged the fantasy that he was a genial, open, barefoot boy from Abilene who just happened to be in the right place when the lightning struck." Another perceptive comment was made by the war correspondent Don Whitehead, who covered the European theater and the invasion for the Associated Press. "I have a feeling," Whitehead wrote years later, "that he was a far more complicated man than he seemed to be- a man who shaped events with such subtlety that he left others thinking that they were the architects of those events. And he was satisfied to leave it that way." Eisenhower conveyed warmth but there was a chill inside him. An early sorrow, the death of his first son, had seared his emotional nerve endings. "This was the greatest disappointment and disaster of my life," he wrote, "the one I have never been able to forget completely. Today when I think of it, even now as I write it, the keenness of our loss comes back to me as fresh and terrible as it was that long dark day." He came to question whether attachment to another person was a luxury that could be afforded. In 1947, he was told of the crack-up over personal loss of a wartime associate and wrote in his diary: "makes one wonder whether any human ever dares become so wrapped up in another that all happiness and desire to live is determined by the actions, desires- or life- of the second." The associate in question was Kay Summersby, his driver and secretary, to whom his himself appears to have become attached, and his words bear the mark of a steely will."