If the Japanese were determined to invade, reinforcements might well not arrive in time. The garrison on the islands might be overrun, lives and prestige lost. And yet America must fight anyway, Ike insisted. If not, the world—and especially America’s allies in the region—would lose heart and confidence. “They may excuse failure,” he told Marshall, “but they will not excuse abandonment.” It was “seemingly hopeless [but] we have got to do our best.”
“I agree with you,” Marshall replied. “Do whatever you can.”
Eisenhower had grasped the larger strategic context of the question. It was not merely about arms and supplies but also about nations and confidence, the imperatives of leadership, the limitations of democratic governments in conflict with authoritarian regimes. He passed his most crucial test.
Ike knew he was privileged to land a spot on Marshall’s senior staff, but he still was, in one sense, anxious. Here was his second war, and at its outset it appeared he would fight again from an office, not the field. Conner counseled patience and urged Ike to trust Marshall. “Here’s the man who can fight the war because he understands it,” Conner once told Ike. So Ike settled in and went about raising an army.
Eisenhower was well suited to the task—comfortable with detail, proficient in training, committed to planning but open to improvisation. He had proved himself during a national training exercise in 1941, when Clark had been just one of those impressed by his work. The columnist Drew Pearson remarked on Ike’s “steel trap mind” at the conclusion of those exercises, and Eisenhower’s performance was recognized for his “marked ability and conspicuous success.” Now Eisenhower tended to preparations on a national scale.
Men who worked for Marshall were expected to devote their lives to the task, and Eisenhower did. On March 10, 1942, Ike received word that his father had died. He recorded the news with two sentences in his diary: “Father died this morning. Nothing I can do but send a wire.” The next day, he allowed himself a few more moments to grieve, confessing, “I loved my Dad,” and adding, “I think my Mother the finest person I’ve ever known.” He quit early that night, leaving at 7:30, and the following day, while his father was buried, Ike closed the door to his office and spent half an hour reflecting. “He was a just man, well liked, well educated, a thinker. He was undemonstrative, quiet, modest, and of exemplary habits—he never used alcohol or tobacco.” Ike admired his father’s reputation in his community and appreciated the lessons of his youth. “My only regret,” he concluded, “is that it was always so difficult to let him know the great depth of my affection for him.” With that, Ike returned to work.
Marshall was meticulous in all things, but none more than the selection of subordinates, an area to which he “gave long and earnest attention,” rejecting the importuning of others. He kept a book in which he listed names of promising men, adding some as he heard new information about them, striking those who disappointed him. He had plucked Eisenhower off that list at Mark Clark’s suggestion in 1941. Now, as armies trained for Europe and men died in the Pacific, as American industry stepped up to its role as the “arsenal of democracy” and the Depression subsided, Marshall made a fateful decision: he dispatched Eisenhower to Britain. There, Eisenhower took charge of coordinating an invasion by two armies, thankfully of shared language but of different strategic traditions, intelligence capabilities, technological advancement, and even rank structures. The melding of such armies was of paramount necessity, and Ike, still a novice, relied heavily on his chief deputy, Bedell Smith, whose sour willingness to say no balanced and permitted Eisenhower’s cheerier disposition.
On July 25, after what Ike described in his diary as “tense and
“I agree with you,” Marshall replied. “Do whatever you can.”
Eisenhower had grasped the larger strategic context of the question. It was not merely about arms and supplies but also about nations and confidence, the imperatives of leadership, the limitations of democratic governments in conflict with authoritarian regimes. He passed his most crucial test.
Ike knew he was privileged to land a spot on Marshall’s senior staff, but he still was, in one sense, anxious. Here was his second war, and at its outset it appeared he would fight again from an office, not the field. Conner counseled patience and urged Ike to trust Marshall. “Here’s the man who can fight the war because he understands it,” Conner once told Ike. So Ike settled in and went about raising an army.
Eisenhower was well suited to the task—comfortable with detail, proficient in training, committed to planning but open to improvisation. He had proved himself during a national training exercise in 1941, when Clark had been just one of those impressed by his work. The columnist Drew Pearson remarked on Ike’s “steel trap mind” at the conclusion of those exercises, and Eisenhower’s performance was recognized for his “marked ability and conspicuous success.” Now Eisenhower tended to preparations on a national scale.
Men who worked for Marshall were expected to devote their lives to the task, and Eisenhower did. On March 10, 1942, Ike received word that his father had died. He recorded the news with two sentences in his diary: “Father died this morning. Nothing I can do but send a wire.” The next day, he allowed himself a few more moments to grieve, confessing, “I loved my Dad,” and adding, “I think my Mother the finest person I’ve ever known.” He quit early that night, leaving at 7:30, and the following day, while his father was buried, Ike closed the door to his office and spent half an hour reflecting. “He was a just man, well liked, well educated, a thinker. He was undemonstrative, quiet, modest, and of exemplary habits—he never used alcohol or tobacco.” Ike admired his father’s reputation in his community and appreciated the lessons of his youth. “My only regret,” he concluded, “is that it was always so difficult to let him know the great depth of my affection for him.” With that, Ike returned to work.
Marshall was meticulous in all things, but none more than the selection of subordinates, an area to which he “gave long and earnest attention,” rejecting the importuning of others. He kept a book in which he listed names of promising men, adding some as he heard new information about them, striking those who disappointed him. He had plucked Eisenhower off that list at Mark Clark’s suggestion in 1941. Now, as armies trained for Europe and men died in the Pacific, as American industry stepped up to its role as the “arsenal of democracy” and the Depression subsided, Marshall made a fateful decision: he dispatched Eisenhower to Britain. There, Eisenhower took charge of coordinating an invasion by two armies, thankfully of shared language but of different strategic traditions, intelligence capabilities, technological advancement, and even rank structures. The melding of such armies was of paramount necessity, and Ike, still a novice, relied heavily on his chief deputy, Bedell Smith, whose sour willingness to say no balanced and permitted Eisenhower’s cheerier disposition.
On July 25, after what Ike described in his diary as “tense and
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