Sublime

Conner and Moseley were retired in 1938, so Ike directed his quest for a new assignment to old friends who were in positions to help.

“He operated behind the scenes, so to speak,” Mac Conner wrote. “The general public was and is unaware of his value to the military and to the country … his true legacy stretched far beyond his own wonderful military career.”

Ike’s unusual ability to think like his superiors paid dividends.

Ike’s chief contribution at this point in the war was to ride herd on his countrymen and keep them working in harness with the British, who were still doing the lion’s share of the fighting.

Administrative responsibility came naturally. He handled the staff adroitly and was always able to cajole crusty Cambridge printers into opening the forms and remaking a page for last-minute submissions by tardy college journalists. “In his geniality was a kind of frictionless command,” his co-editor, W. Russell Bowie, recalled.53

interlopers like Sir Edward Michelborne

Think of me, Ike had written. You know what I will be thinking.