Eisenhower in War and Peace

diffidence

“We have learned to expect from the Filipinos with whom we deal,” wrote Eisenhower, “a minimum of performance from a maximum of promise. When any detail is under discussion, they seem to grasp the essentials of the problem, and readily agree to undertake accomplishment of whatever decision is arrived at. But thereafter it is quite likely that nothi

What Eisenhower sensed was a fundamental resistance, particularly on Churchill’s part, to crossing the Channel under fire. Although the British had agreed “in principle” to an invasion of the Continent in the spring of 1943 (ROUNDUP), Churchill was never fully convinced.

Above all, it was in North Africa that Eisenhower made the transition from staff officer to senior commander.

Eisenhower was now wearing three hats. He was officially assigned to the office of the assistant secretary but was working directly for Moseley and occasionally for MacArthur. The strain began to show. “Lots of trouble with my insides lately,” Ike wrote in his diary in the spring of 1931. “Have been bothered for 5–6 years with something that seems

The American system reflected the assembly line attitude that worked well producing tanks and airplanes, but fell woefully short when it came to maintaining unit morale.

Churchill, Eden, and British public sentiment strongly supported Charles de Gaulle’s Free French movement as the rallying point for France’s liberation.

When Roosevelt was reelected in the greatest presidential landslide since James Monroe trounced John Quincy Adams with an all-but-unanimous sweep of the electoral college in 1820 (one New Hampshire elector defected to Adams), MacArthur ate crow.

Both men were exacting taskmasters. “General Eisenhower was not the easiest person in the world to work for,” said Lucius D. Clay. “He would give you a job, and when you completed it he would give you another. The more you did, the more he asked. And if you did not measure up, you were gone. He had no tolerance for failure.”