Word: ike
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...months. The eyes of the world are upon you. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking." Ike kept in his pocket another communique he had written in case of disaster: "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops. If there is any blame or fault attached to the attempt, it is mine alone." As Eisenhower...
...communiqué explains in brief why he was one of the 20th century's great military leaders. He may not have been a grand master of strategy or tactics; yet, better than any other commander of his time save George Marshall, Ike understood what is most important in modern warfare: organization and coordination. He was, as Winston Churchill noted, a great "creative, constructive and combining genius." It is doubtful that anyone else, again save Marshall, could have melded the competitive British and American forces?not to mention the Canadians, Free French, Poles, Czechs, Dutch and assorted others?into so formidable...
...role as statesman-soldier, Ike was not hurt by his famous modesty. Somehow, in his slow, frustrating progression as a peacetime Army officer, he had gained such self-confidence that he could let subordinates win glory and medals, taking to himself the satisfaction of achievement. "Your job," Eisenhower told S.L.A. Marshall, the European theater's chief historian in 1945, "is to determine the truth, and I will settle for that. You are not here to protect my reputation." Well aware of his worth, he was not falsely humble, but the bravura of a MacArthur, a Patton or a Montgomery distressed...
...rejected the original conception of a knifelike, five-division strike into Europe and insisted instead on a broad, seven-division assault. Against the advice of his own deputy, he insisted on a paratroop landing behind enemy lines. Only at the end, the historian relates, did Churchill accept Ike's battle plan...
...word from the President might have brought McCarthy to heel. "I am convinced that the way for me to defeat Senator McCarthy is to ignore him," Eisenhower noted in a personal memo in April 1953. "Never to admit that he has damaged me, upset me, or anything else." Again, Ike's above-the-battle concept of the presidency was partly responsible for his party's loss in the 1954 congressional elections. Never again was he to have a Republican Congress. He conceived of the President's role as only one of a team running the country. For the last...