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Another Perspective
Distorting Ike?
The never-ending obsession with Kay Summersby affects even Jean Edward Smith’s new biography of Eisenhower.
Jean Edward Smith’s new Eisenhower In War and Peace has been widely praised, including by columnist George Will. Likely this latest biography about Ike as general and President has many virtues. But its inordinate attention to Ike’s war-time chauffeur and fulsome portrayal of her as mistress based on almost no credibly presented evidence undermines the book’s credibility.
Kay Summersby was an attractive British army officer who chauffeured Eisenhower for much of three years through London, in North Africa, and later in Europe, while also serving as a secretary. Her looks and constant proximity to Ike during the war raised some eyebrows but not sufficiently to inhibit his later political successes. He had virtually no contact with her after he returned to America at war’s end. Her initial memoir about her work for Ike never claimed romance. But her ostensible second memoir published posthumously claimed physical intimacies with her war-time boss.
The index of Eisenhower in War and Peace allots more page mentions to Summersby than to five-star General Omar Bradley, Ike’s close subordinate and a friend across 50 years starting at West Point. She also eclipses British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Ike’s most important military ally and frequent nemesis. She’s mentioned more often than Richard Nixon, Ike’s vice president and political mentee. Likewise, Summersby gets more mentions than Eisenhower’s only child and son, who graduated from West Point in time to serve in Europe, spending time with his commander and father, and who also worked for his father after the President’s retirement to Gettysburg. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, arguably Ike’s most influential cabinet member across seven years and whom he admired tremendously, similarly is overshadowed by Summersby, at least in page mentions.
General George Patton, Ike’s flashiest subordinate, just barely gets more page mentions than Summersby. So does General Douglas MacArthur, for whom Ike worked before World War II. The few others who merit more attention than the chauffeur are Ike’s wife of over 50 years who served as First Lady, President Franklin Roosevelt and General George Marshall, who together elevated Ike to greatness, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Ike’s chief partner in the liberation of North Africa and Europe. Seemingly only these global figures are more important than Summersby in the life of Eisenhower.
No doubt Eisenhower appreciated Summersby’s company across three tumultuous years, during which Ike chain-smoked and tersely plotted the destruction of the Third Reich. Possibly a tense and lonely Ike betrayed his wife and succumbed to her charms. But other biographers like Stephen Ambrose and Carlo D’Este have doubted it. So too have surviving members of Eisenhower’s closest staff, who emphasize that he was almost never alone throughout the war, constantly surrounded by staff, fellow generals, and supplicants for his attention. Ike’s war-time orderly recalled physically putting his commander to bed every night and getting him out of bed every morning, with no sign of Summersby. Eisenhower’s son also rejected the claims of adultery, believing his father would never have embarrassed his only son by asking him to escort Summersby during his U.S. visit if she had been a mistress.
Smith liberally quotes from Summersby’s purported 1975 memoir, Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower, without fully mentioning it was ghost-authored by a professional novelist and published after Summersby’s death. The book admits the chauffeur was rarely alone with her boss but recalls quickly stolen intimacies in an affair that was never successfully consummated. Smith also quotes from Merle Miller’s Plain Speaking, a popular but ultimately discredited 1973 remembrance of interviewing former President Harry Truman more than a decade earlier for a television series that never aired. Miller claimed Truman told him of personally destroying or returning correspondence in which Ike supposedly told General Marshall he wanted to divorce his wife and marry Summersby, to which Marshall responded by threatening to kibosh Ike’s career. The tapes of these interviews survive but there’s no such conversation. Miller safely published his book right after Truman’s death. But when he earlier sought permission from Truman to publish excerpts, Truman alleged “misstatements” and threatened litigation. Smith mentions no reasons for skepticism about Miller, himself a novelist.
In a more tortured fashion, Smith relates that an elderly professor told him of a since deceased colleague who, as a young naval intelligence officer, had supposedly perused Marshall’s rebuke to Ike. Would the famously discrete and disciplined Marshall have put such a rebuke on paper and had it transmitted through channels for censorship review by a low ranking serviceman? And would Marshall have left such incendiary correspondence in Pentagon files, as Miller claimed, knowing they could be exploited by countless political hacks? No trace of such letters has ever surfaced in the Truman, Eisenhower, or Marshall archives. Smith also bases his assumption of an affair by Ike and Summersby with his longtime-acquaintance with General Lucius Clay, about whom he also wrote a biography. But he provides no supporting quotes from Clay, who died over 30 years ago, instead only noting that Clay “blushed” when asked about Summersby and changed the topic.
Smith even oddly cites Fawn Brodie’s ridiculous 1974 psycho-babble “intimate biography” of Thomas Jefferson, which conjectured an affair between Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings. Smith asserts Brodie’s fictional speculations carry the “ring of reality,” similar to the lore about Ike and Summersby. Somberly, Smith recounts Ike’s “cold-blooded and ruthless” good-bye letter to Summersby at war’s end. By comparison, he declares that FDR would have been “incapable” of writing such a thoughtless farewell. Although Smith has written a lengthy biography about Roosevelt, he seems to forget that the famously ruthless FDR, whose wife once wondered if he truly cared about anyone, coolly neglected his own secretary and sometimes alleged mistress of over 20 years after her stroke. She was devastated by his neglect. (In fairness to FDR, he was an ailing paraplegic leading a great war against two enemy empires with limited personal time and emotional energy.) Ike’s letter to Summersby is only “cold” if she was in fact a mistress. If she was instead a trusted and close subordinate, the letter is in fact rather gracious, especially by Ike’s detached standards.
Eisenhower in War and Peace mostly lauds Ike’s leadership and accomplishments. As to the details of Ike’s relations with Summersby, Eisenhower’s son once likened it to the platonic, teasing and fatherly association between Ed Asner’s Lou Grant and Mary Tyler Moore’s character in Moore’s popular 1970s sitcom. This comparison probably better and more succinctly captures the essence than Smith’s nearly one column of index page mentions that mostly cite idle speculations.
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (37) | Leave a comment
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gearjammer| 3.20.12 @ 8:08AM
Good for you. The left always cuts are side down with lies and nonsense. In their faces I say. Nixon was a better husband and father than JFK. Is their a single love letter from JFK to Jackie ?
chris Matthews I am sure is working on a forgery.
Maxwell| 3.20.12 @ 8:17AM
And so is Dan Rather.
Alan Brooks| 3.20.12 @ 9:04AM
"The book admits the chauffeur was rarely alone with her boss but recalls quickly stolen intimacies in an affair that was never successfully consummated."
You make it sound so clinical; they necked and petted but hadn't enough time alone to do The Dirty Deed?
gearjammer| 3.20.12 @ 8:32AM
Indeed. Courage.
Bob K.| 3.20.12 @ 8:38AM
Jean Edward Smith writes biographies. He has a PhD in Political Science-not History. One should not expect historically rigorous research from people who do not have the training and past experience in writing history. Biographies like this are written to sell to the public and not to professionals. They are usually either hagiographies or scandal sheets.
chester arthur| 3.20.12 @ 10:53AM
Well put.One addition would be that trained historians are frequently out the realm of facts,too.Douglas Brinkley's biography of Henry Ford informs us that the 49 Ford got an all new beam axle,it didn't,being the first to have independent suspension.The same historan tells us that Obama is the smartest man ever to take on the Preidency,based on grades,transcripts,and standardized testing that no one has seen lately.
chester arthur| 3.20.12 @ 10:55AM
Yep,I know Presidency,and out OF the realm of facts.
RJ| 3.20.12 @ 12:08PM
Yes, many books are written and it is hard to determine which are accurate and insightful. I am always surprised to run across adults who rely on movies for their understanding of historical events. God help us.
Roscoe| 3.20.12 @ 8:38AM
So many books to read & so little time, so, I'm rather pleased that I won't have to bother with this bodice-ripper disguised as an intellectual effort.
cuban pete| 3.20.12 @ 9:21AM
Yikes! I just spent forty bucks on this book.
Because Ike is my personal hero I have studied his life rather closely -for a non-academic.
If this book turns out to be a pot boiler my wife will harp that I should have waited until it was available at the library.
Tim the Enchanter| 3.20.12 @ 5:00PM
Well, you just blew the price of a good steak dinner.
cuban pete| 3.20.12 @ 7:50PM
In Chicago one steak,no salad,no side dish and no dessert.
jay hoenemeyer| 3.20.12 @ 9:27AM
Read the wiki article on Ike . I was blown away by the mindnumbing tedium of his service in the interwar years : that was real devotion to duty and country . And then read in the same article the speech he was prepared to give if D-day had failed . Would one of our generals had half the personal integrity /character of Ike . And lastly , study the photo of Ike sending off the 101st . He was expecting 50% casualties for those men such that he was talking to men he likely was sending to their deaths and there he is looking them straight in the eye , talking to them with the bark on .
Ed| 3.20.12 @ 12:22PM
Easy answer: No, our current military leadership has no such character or personal integrity.
RiverRat| 3.20.12 @ 2:53PM
Our current military leadership of USAF generals, Army generals, USMC generals and Navy admirals has zero character and same zero integrity.
They have led us to the abyss of a paper military that is still rather long on tech but woefully short on rigorously tough non commissioned officers, selfless officers, and top fit (mentally and physically) personnel.
If you want to know what self-centered looks like and sounds like, attend an event that permits mingling with top ranked active duty officers.
About once a year the Navy Times will do an article that briefly sums up the officers relieved (fired) of command. It is just a tiny summary with mention of name, rank, and about two or three sentences as to why they were relieved (again, this means fired). If one drills down into the lives of these officers and the whys on their undoings, they are pathetic.
KyMouse| 3.20.12 @ 11:15AM
When Ike was president, my brother, who was about 10 years old, sent him a letter inviting him to be a member of our neighborhood club. We had membership cards printed (thanks to our dad) for all of us, and all kinds of nice stuff.
We received a very nice letter which explained that the president was very honored by the invitation, but didn't believe he would able to attend any of our meetings, so he had to decline.
The letter was written by some nice aide, of course, but we were very impressed. Still are.
Al Adab| 3.20.12 @ 11:37AM
Why we seem so obsessed with the foibles of great men escapes me. We need to learn from their deeds and dedication to duty greater than themselves. Does it matter that Chrichill drank or walked about the house naked? Does it matter whether Eisenhower succumbed to temptation under the pressures of his duty? Hardly. What we should remember is that when the future of mankind, the future of liberty demanded sacrifice and great competence, we found men who could rise to the occasion.
The question for Americans today is whether or not we can find such men now when that same future is again in jeapordy.
BTW David Eisenhowers': Eisenhower at War, is a better history.
Occam's Tool| 3.20.12 @ 8:11PM
A good point to remember is this note on the development of cardiac catheterization: "Clinical application of cardiac catheterization begins with Werner Forssmann in the 1930s, who inserted a catheter into the vein of his own forearm, guided it fluoroscopically into his right atrium, and took an X-ray picture of it. Forssmann won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this achievement, though hospital administrators removed him from his position owing to his unorthodox methods. "
This is from Wiki. My textbook in medical school noted that he TIED HIS ASSISTANT UP BECAUSE HE PROTESTED THIS AS TOO DANGEROUS, then catheterized himself, THEN RAN UP SOME FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, then took the X-rays which documented the catheterization.
Genius, true genius, can allow for some significant latitude. Ike was remarkably restrained given his abilities.
Obama, on the other hand, takes the latitudes with an IQ of no more than average. "All sizzle, no steak."
Occam's Tool| 3.20.12 @ 8:44PM
Sorry, the X-ray Department was located downstairs: (Wiki)
"Forßmann was born in Berlin on August 29, 1904. Upon graduating from Askanische Gymnasium, he entered the University of Berlin to study medicine, passing the State Examination in 1929.[1]
He hypothesized that a catheter could be inserted directly into the heart, for such applications as directly delivering drugs, injecting radiopaque dyes, or measuring blood pressure. The fear at the time was that such an intrusion into the heart would be fatal.[2] To prove his point, he decided to try the experiment on himself.
In 1929, while working in Eberswalde, he performed the first human cardiac catheterisation. He ignored his department chief and persuaded the OR nurse in charge of the sterile supplies, Gerda Ditzen, to assist him. She agreed, but only on the promise that he would do it on her rather than on himself. However Forssmann tricked her by restraining her to the operating table and pretending to locally anaesthetise and cut her arm whilst actually doing it on himself.[3] He anesthetized his own lower arm in the cubical region and inserted a uretic catheter into his antecubital vein, threading it partly along before releasing Ditzen (who at this point realised the catheter was not in her arm) and telling her to call the X-Ray department. They walked some distance to the X-ray department on the floor below where under the guidance of a fluoroscope he advanced the catheter...."
He was also an asshole, becoming a Nazi later on. Nonetheless, a genius.
LindaF | 3.20.12 @ 11:54AM
I'm amused by the tortured ways Liberals work to gin up Republican extra-marital romances. It's as though they can't face reality - that their esteemed Liberal "Gods" are, in fact, uniquely Presidential hound-dogs. By pretending that various Republican icons were unfaithful, they minimize their own heroes' behavior - after all, "everybody" does it, doncha' know?
cuban pete| 3.20.12 @ 1:33PM
Bingo!
ncatty| 3.20.12 @ 12:14PM
Was it necessary to compare Ike with Ed Asner?
sirbourbon| 3.20.12 @ 1:46PM
Without the women in Eisenhower's life he would have retired from the army as a Lt. Colonel. By the time he arrived in Europe pretending to lead an army First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had already pulled enough strings in Washington to place the lowly Lt. Colonel Dwight Eisenhower on a trajectory to full General in less than 18 months!
MacArthur commented that Ike made a good clerk but doubted his field command leadership capabilities. MacArthur knew that Ike had no field experience yet he was promoted over senior officers with vastly more experience and far superior in planning major combat missions. Ike had never had a field command when he was placed above commanders that did have field command experience!
Here was the perfect example of how charm and political connections have worked to ruin a country. As president Ike stopped McCarthy from properly investigating the communits traitors within our government.
An army commander he was not. As president others in his cabinet ran the White House and set the policies that built socialism during his 8 years in office.
In Post War Europe Ike did make some decisions on his own volition: Operation Keelhaul and Stopping Patton from getting to Berlin before the Russians.
Westie| 3.20.12 @ 2:48PM
Thanks Sir Bourbon, I was just about to mention the other side of the 'Swedish Jew' Eisenhower. I would like to read much more about the other side of Ike the Commander that hamstrung Patton and allowed the Soviets to take Berlin, released 1 million+ europeans to the Soviet Gulags and actively starved possibly a million German POWs. After learning of this b/g/ on Ike, I also have further doubts about Ike's weak Presidency in which he did nothing about the leftover FDR/Truman administration's Communist. I wonder what Hoover's new book says about Ike?
sirbourbon| 3.20.12 @ 9:08PM
There were many converts ( voluntary and unvolutary) from Judism to Christianity, particularly during the 15th century in Spain and Portugal. There have been forced conversions from Christianty to the Muslim religion and other religions and Muslims have been converted to Christianity by the heart and by the sword. Christians today may have ancestors that were Jewish or Muslim and other religions including pagan.
People that join or more precisely are invited to join semi-secret organizations like the CFR and Fully secretive outfits like the Bilderbergers, don't belong to any one dominant religion. You will find Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Hebrew, Hindu, Pagan, et al. in these secretive groups. Those that become Council on Foreign Relations and Bilderberg members may leave behind their religion and embrace the all powerful state, which the CFR and Bilderberg promote. Perhaps that is their new religion. Power seekers like Kissinger, Condeleeza Rice, Colin Powel, Hillary Clinton and Richard M. Gardner come from various Protestant backgrounds while Henry Kissinger, Richard Hass and Fareed Zakaria are decendants of Jews and Hindus.
What is perhaps more true than focusing on religious background and affiliations is that these men and women are dedicating "the whole of their lives" as former convert from communism Benjamin Gitlow once did before he broke free of the tractor beam of power politics. http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Th.....163&sr=8-1
Getting people to fall into the Jewish conspiracy theory is a trap that is set to discredit anyone who falls into it. Once you are associated with and labelled an anti-semitic bigot it is difficult to get others to look at evidence of political conspiracies because they associate your theories with those that attack the Jewish people.
But there is a conspiracy that has little in common with the "far right conspiracy" that First Lady" Clinton spoke of and that Rush Limbaugh calls the "manufactured" crisis of global warming. Limbaugh is closer to the mark than Clinton but both of these people are members of the CFR. {do a BING search on wikipedia for CFR members}
The book of Genesis tells us of those who wished to compete with God by building a structure on earth to reach Him. They were fools. Today's fools also seek to be gods on earth and use such entities as the World Bank, the IMF, NATO and the UN as their Towers of Babal.
Rose tinted history lessons| 3.20.12 @ 3:29PM
Sir Bourbon,
Interesting remarks. You should expand upon them.
I was just having thoughts on this the other day. The main impetus that finally pushed many in the world to see Hitler and the German National Socialist movement for what it was was the invasion of Poland.
It was at that point that "high-minded" intellectuals, politicians, 'statesmen,' around the globe said that war must be declared on Germany.
Okay, keep Poland free, keep a dictator from controlling Polska....I can dig that.
So, how is it then that the Allies cave to Stalin so easily after May 1945?
I've been to the place where the U.S. Army troops reached deepest in Czechoslovakia. I can tell you; they got pretty far. Some U.S. troops actually got very close to the Oder River border between Germany and Poland. And it was true, men like Patton were pushing them to advance because they knew that Berlin would fall soon and that the war in Europe would be over. It was so obvious to them -- the Americans advancing ever eastward -- that the Russians would stake complete claim to everything not occupied by Brits or Americans.
Eisenhower, like many others, had to know how weak Roosevelt had been, how frail, how unable to mentally be up to the tasks. (HAD TO KNOW!)
Yet what did Ike (and, yes, many others) do on behalf of the people looking to his leadership?
All one had to do to know how evil the Russians were was to watch the daily 10's of thousands of former prisoners, concentration camp people, forced laborers and indigenous people walking westward as fast as they could. Bedraggled and beaten down as one could be, they pressed westward if they could, many dying in the process of schlepping themselves westward.
Everybody knew it; if you want a better life when this horrid conflagration ends, get west now! You can only take what you can get on your back. Who cares. Get on your way westward -- now!
Eisenhower a great man?
C'mon. I think we overdo the D-Day thing. It was tough to be sure. But on that day our allied Navies had cleared the English Channel and no German trusted himself in a plane above (knowing he'd be shot down). No German sub or vessel trusted itself to show in those waters. And they never would again.
A successful invasion of France or into the Benelux was just a question of time, a foregone conclusion at that point due to the incredible onslaught against the Axis powers of Germany, Austria, and Italy to that point from North Africa to Greece to the boot of Italy and inland.
We were already bombing targets DAILY deep into the Axis zones.
*Also, when you go to Normandie, you learn right away how easy (by comparison) the Canadian beachhead turned out to be. Omaha? As we know, it was a slaughter on our guys. Where was the leadership to pull back and just send guys to the softer landing areas? (That's not at Ike's level, that's lower level decision-making, but it is part of the 'rose tinted history lessons' we now hear)
Ike was a big cheese in 1944 - 1947. He alone could have clamored for the absolute folly of ceding to Stalin's Russia Poland, Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Balkans.
Why would any leader ever agree to that?
Russia did not stand on its own to beat back the Germans. They did it on the backs of U.S. logistical aid that saved their bacon.
The Russians were never our "equal." They were never our ally. Lend Lease anyone?!! Ike had to know that. And he had to know of all the atrocities the Russians committed on the peoples, towns, villages, etc. as they advanced westward.
Heck, all a U.S. Army officer needed to know was to see how the Russian Army personnel treated their own officers and soldiers.
Ike is not the only one by a long stretch. But he helped enslave the people of Eastern Europe to USSR dictatorship for 45 long, arduous, for some, disastrous, years.
So....we enter the war (most of the European allies) to save Poland in 1939. And just how did we "save" Poland?
Eastern Europe is STILL recovering from these 1945 - 1950 errors made by people like Ike.
Nobody has a crystal ball. None of us. Ike didn't either. But he had to be an absolute fool to not know what Stalin and the Moscow leadership had in mind.
sirbourbon| 3.20.12 @ 6:55PM
Eisenhower as I touched on did some weird things on his own ( Keelhaul and blocking McCarthy from purging communists from key government offices).
Ike had beena lifelong Democrat, and liberal to boot, all of his adult life. The Dems were courting him but it was the GOP establishment that convinced him to take the GOP nomination from "Mr. Republican" Robert Taft. Taft wasn't perfect but he scared the establishment since Taft was going to dismantle FDR's New Deal!
Ike was handed the GOP nomination so fast that I doubt he even had time to change his registration from Democrat to Republican before the GOP "New Dealers" managed to steal the nomination from Robert Taft! The dirty bas***ds started a psy-ops campaign on Taft delegates. The Ike supporters began telling delegates that Taft was a great guy but he couldn't beat Stevenson. It worked and Ike the life-long Democrat took the nomination away from a genuine conservative.
Does this sound familiar to the nonsense being thrown around at Ron Paul today at one primary after another?
In Ike's day there were still large numbers of Republicans that understood the Constitution and what it permitted. They understood the New Deal as pure socialism and hated it.
In today's GOP the average Republicans have a ways to catch up to history; they are unaware that Ike made a big jump into socialism when he merged federal programs with the creation of the Cabinet level department of Health Education and Welfare ( HHS). Ike created the federal highway program.
Too many GOP members believe that to be a good thing!
The drift into socialism has been gradual and subsequent GOP presidents from Nixon on down to Bush 43 have not reversed the drift into socialistic chaos. In fact had their Dem opponents won the Republicans in Congress would have resisted it!
marshcope| 3.20.12 @ 1:53PM
Michael Korda in his bio of Ike gets pretty heavy on Ike and Kay but he has Beedle Smith having a girl friend while at SHAEF (grouchy old Beedle having human drives seems very striking). And General Pershing seems to have been a very randy old guy.
Rick| 3.20.12 @ 3:16PM
Nothing like some good old fashioned anti-semitism.
Pat| 3.20.12 @ 5:00PM
This Kay Summersby obsession reveals more about Americans today than about Ike. We desperately want to idolize those great men and women leading our nation but unfortunately there are no great ones in sight. So, we feel the urge to diminish the heroes of our past over alleged sexual affairs as compensation for the intellectual and moral poverty of today’s “Great Leaders”. In truth, Ike was like so many famous leaders of WWII, greatness was thrust upon him, he didn’t have greatness within him. The command structure within the American armed forces during WWII was much like a modern corporation’s management. The CEO, General George Marshall, never saw a day’s combat, either in WWII or WWI, the same could be said for his chief of operations, Eisenhower. Their talents lay in other areas; primarily administration, training and coordination.
FDR was a sick man during much of the war, beset by hypertension and heart problems. His doctors insisted he follow a 20 hour work week and a strict regimen of relaxation geared toward preserving his waning physical strength. So, America spent much of the war with a part time president and inexperienced fighting generals. Winning a war on 3 fronts - the Pacific, China/ Southeast Asia and Europe - was more a tribute to the American people than to individually inspired leadership.
But Ike was a humble man who realized his limitations and did his best to compensate for them. He was an average military strategist and decision maker and we should remember that Ike’s lack of prior combat experience was through no fault of his own. Between WWI and WWII, America put its military on a starvation diet, manpower was drastically reduced, promotions were extremely slow, pay was low and base housing was little more than wooden shacks. Equipment was antiquated and in short supply within critical areas such as armor and aircraft carriers.
When we entered the war, we were unprepared both in terms of experienced leadership and fighting divisions. The American people don’t have a biography of their own focused on the war years but we should because the key to our victory rested solely within the courage, ingenuity and industry of millions of average Americans.
marshcope| 3.20.12 @ 6:16PM
Marshall was closer to battle than he is given credit for. He gets the credit for organizing the AEF into battle line to go into the Argonne, and surprised the Germans that a million Yanks were coming at them.
Dipesto| 3.20.12 @ 7:37PM
For an interesting view of Ike, as seen from the perspective of the Grey Old Lady[the NYT] find a copy of Eisenhower, by Tom Wicker, in the series of short books on the Presidents . (It's the series which has John Deane writing about Harding). Wicker takes the Shoulda view of Ike: Ike shoulda been nicer to the Russians, Ike shoulda scrapped US atom bombs, Ike shoulda understood Mao's aspirations for China, Ike shoulda officially banned Jim Crow, Ike shoulda ended Poverty in the US and the rest of the world. Ike shoulda ended all social injustice anywhere and everywhere by 1961. A hundred and thirty pages of Ike Shouldas all by himself.
Pat| 3.20.12 @ 8:18PM
Dipesto: the scribblers did the same job on Ike before he was president. He shoulda taken Berlin, although since Berlin would fall within the post-war Russian sector per allied agreement, he would have had to give it back in any event. Ike shoulda stopped the Russians cold in their drive to take Eastern Europe as a buffer zone. Except the Russians had 200+ experienced combat divisions in Europe while the British Commonwealth forces, the French and the Americans had a combined 90 divisions. For those arm chair generals firing high explosive shells from their laptops, the Russians were pushovers and Patton could have easily driven on to Moscow. Right, except that the Russians defeated the cream of the German army with very little combat support from their western allies. Before June 6, 1944, over 90% of German army casualties were inflicted by the Red Army. Ike was an intelligent and compassionate man who would probably have flashed his famous grin at all the 4 star “shoulda” generals.
FME HSTG| 3.21.12 @ 3:21AM
Pat, you seem a good commenter here but you have no clue when you write that 90% of German Wehrmacht casualties were inflicted by the Russians alone.
And you seem to have no clue as to the immense logistical support, material support, vehicular support that came from the West by sea and air to Russian ports and airfields -- all so they would not fall to the Germans and to stabilize them.
Please look at all the places the U.S., British, Canadian, French, Australian and more armies were actively engaging German troops prior to June 6, 1944. And, except for us, these Commonwealth troops had been shooting Krauts even prior to Dunkirk. Keep that in mind as you reflect on when the Russian Army first met the German Wehrmacht on the field of battle, eh?
The Russians surely had a hard go of it, but it is not nearly as lopsided as you state.
I've never heard anyone (armchair laptop general or otherwise) claim that the U.S. Army should have maneuvered on to Moscow. The point that most make it is it was obvious to see the communist doctrine takeover of the new governments propped up as the Germans were booted out of the Ukraine, out of the Balkans, out of Poland. It was indeed the iron curtain of totalitarian regiemes.
How could anyone look a Pole, a Hungarian, a Czech, a Romanian, a Bulgarian, or a Ukrainian in the eyes with a straight face and somehow brush aside that we'd liberated them from a dictator Hitler only to permit them to be under a worse dictator named Stalin?
The writing was on the wall for all to see. What did Eisenhower see? What did the other top 1,000 male decision-makers in London, Paris, and Washington, D.C. see?
I know what my forefathers saw and knew. They fled the Red Terror, they fled for their lives and were in peril and great hardship the whole way. And it was not because they had collaborated with the Germans and feared retributions. They knew in their souls what a Moscow-led, Stalin-led world would look like.
Pat, you've never known what it is to live in a dictatorship. You've simply been rather spoiled.
We can name all the top generals and admirals in the European theater and the diplomats as well who had to deal with the Russians prior to and during World War II --- All of them had to know of the ugly, vile, detestable truths of Stalin's world.
Pat| 3.21.12 @ 1:51PM
Following the Japanese surrender in WWII, military and civilian historians spent thousands of hours interviewing many Japanese as to their reasons for starting a war with the United States. One recurring theme was a Japanese belief that their nation’s unique culture had produced the Yamato spirit, a superior mental outlook developed by a superior race of people. In evaluating America as an enemy, the Japanese substituted emotion for logic, subjectivity for informed judgment and relied on their Yamato spirit to compensate for their lack of logistical and industrial parity with America. Yamato spirit vs. vast industrial power reads like a fairy tale theme.
Other Japanese such as Combined Fleet Admiral Yamamoto, who had lived and worked within the United States, clearly understood America’s superior industrial power and willingness to fight. He, as well as other Japanese thinkers who realized the wide disparity between the two nations, repeatedly warned the Japanese government leaders against provoking the United States– one of their diplomats even insisted the Japanese were mere children in their outlook and everyone realized as much. Your response reminds me of the Japanese and their Yamato spirit as a substitute for logic and objective reasoning.
Apparently, you have developed some form of grudge or obsession with living under a dictatorship and resent our failure to save the Eastern Europeans from the Russians. But the war has been over for close to 70 years, it is the most well-documented war in the history of the world and the facts I wrote about are easy to verify and accepted by all reputable historians. America performed beyond anyone’s realistic expectations during WWII, we fought over a larger geographic area than any other combatant nation, we forced the Italian surrender, forced the Japanese surrender and assisted the Red Army in forcing the German surrender – the fact that we didn’t defeat Germany singlehandedly shouldn’t create an emotional response on the part of any mature adult. We did far more in WWII against the Axis powers than other combatant nations, shouldn’t that be enough to justify our pride – is it necessary to engage in childish hero worship and war story myths?
The German army lost more men to the Red Army for the simple reason that the Wehrmacht threw far more German soldiers against the Russians. Starting in November, 1942 America fought the Germans on land for the first time. For months prior to our entry in North Africa, the Germans, their allies and the Red Army had been engaged in combat over thousands of square miles and involving millions of men. Combined casualties from the 1942 battle of Stalingrad alone is estimated at over 2 million men. During the summer of 1943, the battle of Kursk involved 1.5 million Germans attacking approximately 3.4 million Red Army soldiers in the greatest tank battle ever fought. During that same summer of 1943, we invaded Sicily and the Italian mainland. During the Sicilian invasion, American forces engaged one German army division, as well as divisions of the Italian army. The Germans fought a rear guard action in Sicily against the British and American forces and then successfully withdrew their single division to the Italian mainland. Given the enormous disparity between our efforts and that of the Red Army against the Germans, are you still of the naïve belief that we inflicted equal casualties on the Germans? And you might also note that among the German Army allies were the Hungarian and Romanian armies. Are these the Eastern European countries who subsequently fell under communist rule that you weep for?
Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army wouldn’t have beaten the Germans is merely another WWII myth cherished by some Americans. America provided weapons and supplies to every one of our Allies during the war, not just the Russians. Our so-called Lend-Lease to the Chinese army didn’t allow them to beat or even rout their Japanese enemies, so material support alone was never a deciding factor, although it was important during some phases of the war.
It’s true that the average Red Army soldier knew only two American words, Studebaker and Spam. The Russian troops looked very favorably on American trucks and developed a hearty relish for American pressed meat packed in a jelly like substance. One historian even quipped the Germans were beaten with Russian blood paid for in Spam. But Spam wasn’t the reason the Red Army defeated the Germans. Weapons developed by the Soviet Union proved superior to German weapons and were produced in far greater numbers. How many American built tanks participated in the Battle of Kursk? Zero. How many American built fighter planes and bombers supported the Russian drive through the Ukraine and into Eastern Europe? Zero. The Red Army actually rejected American offers to supply medium tanks, their home built tanks were superior to our Shermans and much better adapted to the Russian terrain.
American provided supplies in plenty to the Russians but the Russians couldn’t count on America to keep them well supplied. During the Battle of the Atlantic, we even suspended shipments to the Russians due to the German submarine menace. Lend-Lease did not insure the Red Army would continue the fight or prove to be a major strategic advantage in their war against the Germans.
War is a serious business where the penalties for mistakes are severe indeed. We desperately wished to keep the Russians in the war but circumstances prevented us from engaging the Germans on a scale equal to Russia. Stalin came to believe, with good reason, that the Red Army could have defeated Germany without our help. And he had no intention of giving up countries in Europe the Red Army fought for and occupied. He didn’t fear Patton, Bradley or Eisenhower for equally good reasons. We could not have liberated Eastern Europe from the Russians without a million casualties on our side and good sense won out over childish emotions. Plus, we had a war to finish within the Pacific saving the people of Asia from their Japanese masters. So, in summary, I find your uninformed conclusions and corresponding emotional drivel to be slightly amusing.
POST American| 3.20.12 @ 10:28PM
----------------------FINAL WORD-----------------------
Ike was human of course, and certainly,
through most of his career, deeply deluded
as to the 'ultimate' final aims of the international
capstone agenda. He was presiding during the
Korea betrayal ---and was on the scene, and,
far as we can tell, pretty silent on the earlier
Harriman-CFR betrayal of Chiang Kai Shek
and handover of poor China to the MAO-ist Halocaust.
His Somersby affair has been long known.
It seems almost quaint when we consider
'conservative' and 'traditional' forces now
are led by open, mecenary adulterers
and 'chrisitian' evangelical leadership is
entirely dominated by EUGENICS agenda
pushing 33rd degree FREE--'MAY--SIN-Re'.
IN FACT this has been the case---for decades!
(Ford/ Reagan/ McCain/ Gingrich/Billy Graham/
Robert Schuller/ Pat Robertson/ --Oral Roberts
--Jesse Jaksonn!),
IN FACT it perfectly mirrors the genesis
of the CFR/RED China 'Nick's ON' ---MAO
sellout of 1972.
And so IKE, in this the 11th hour of the
CFR--RED China sellout, transfer, 'de--in-dust--
realization', TREASON and FINAL EUGENICS
OP ---seems, in retrospect, something of
a beacon of sobering truth.
sirbourbon| 3.20.12 @ 11:18PM
There's a clever line in the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Andy Dufrane speaking to his prison buddy Red, confessess that "on the outside he was a completely honest man; he had to come to prison to learn to be a crook."
Congressmen have the best of intentions when they are out campaigning. They may be honest but they have to go to congress to learn to be crooks.
They truly sound like they mean to clean up congress; to vote to cut the waste and the spending, cut taxes and reduce government. Once they get in congress few follow through for various reasons.
The main reason they forget their lofty intentions is that the voters back home don't support their noble efforts and aren't constantly reminding them of their campaign promises. Voters forget all about them until election time.
Another reason is that they find it too hard to buck the pressure to vote for deficits, more government and "bringing home the bacon," (pork projects) because the Party leadership is insistent that they vote with "the team," to quote Rick Santorum for big government and more spending.
Lobbyists work for special interests to break down a politician's will to ignore the will of their constituents and vote for bills supported by the special interests.
Constituents forget to make a phone call or send a simple email to keep their congressman's feet to the fire. Meanwhile high-paid lobbyists are wining and dining those elected to represent people in the 435 congressional districts.
And of course there is the politician that says whatever it takes to fool voters that he is one of them. He's in it for personal gain not principle.
Ike was in it for personal gain and a book was written about his career titled The Politician, by Robert Welch. It's a myth buster for sure.