Eisenhower Page 9

  Ike was worried. He and Ord thought there was too much emphasis on numbers and not enough on efficiency. “When the blow-up comes,” Eisenhower asked himself, “I wonder how he [MacArthur] is to convince anyone that the present plan can be executed for a total ten year cost” of 160 million pesos.45 The issue was temporarily left smoldering while the general and Ord were in Washington arguing the case for support to the Philippines. But the financial bind became worse, not better. Like any intelligent politicians facing a similar crunch, MacArthur and his team had begun to mortgage the future by taking 1937 expenditures from the 1938 budget.46 Now, however, President Quezon was upset by the size of the budget. The reckoning seemed to be coming sooner than Ike had expected.

  When the general returned, he did not want to consider the “hard facts” that Eisenhower was presenting. Ike said, “We’re like a bunch of skaters on thin ice, going faster and faster to keep from falling through, and always desperately looking for some lucky break that will carry us to firm footing.”47 Deeply distressed, Ike lamented his decision to join MacArthur’s Philippines team. He felt isolated. While Mamie and his son John had joined him, he only had one close friend, Jimmie, upon whom he could always depend. He and Jimmie, he wrote, had “concerned ourselves with trying to develop for this gov’t and country the best possible army with the means at hand. We have been beset on all sides by difficulties arising from personal ambition, personal glorification, personal selfishness of the hot shot (66,000 pesos a year and a penthouse), etc., etc. When we have objected strenuously to measures which we believe unwise such as the Field Marshal-ship; the 1937 calling of 20,000 trainees; the 1938 boosting of the budget; we’ve been finally told to shut up.”48

  In the next month, a bad time grew much worse, and Eisenhower found it impossible to remain silent. He protested when the general announced his plans for an expensive military parade that would bring 20,000 soldiers to Manila. They were already operating on a bare-bones budget, Ike pointed out, and were forced to rob from the next year to keep their training mission going. After President Quezon heard about the plan, he agreed that they couldn’t afford it. That outraged MacArthur, who was convinced that Eisenhower and Ord had gone behind his back to President Quezon and undercut his authority. The general decided to strike back. As he knew full well, he could have promptly ended both Ike’s and Jimmie’s careers over this issue.49 Instead, he decided to let Machiavelli guide his hand.

  Ike now found the endless squabbles tiring, the beratings childish, and the dishonesty reprehensible. He was frustrated and again uncertain about his future in the army. When his gastrointestinal problems flared up, he retreated to the hospital in agony. He escaped without surgery, but then he suffered another severe blow. Jimmie Ord, his closest colleague and personal friend, died in an airplane crash in the Philippines in January 1938. Ord’s tragic accident left Eisenhower alone between the general and President Quezon, alone to deal with his tempestuous boss, and alone to create a fighting force that could somehow defend a commonwealth of 2,000 islands.50 Ord’s replacement, Major Richard K. Sutherland, was a brittle, harsh man who clearly was not going to be the close partner that Ord had been since 1935. Ike was isolated now and vulnerable, with his career hanging in a balance that was entirely in the control of a moody General MacArthur.

  By this time, conciliation and forbearance were out of season with Ike. For months his relationship with his boss had been spiraling downward. Now Ike’s anti-authoritarian streak came to the surface. His bitterness prompted thoughts that were unbecoming at best and far beneath what even a “hot-shot” boss with a “penthouse” apartment deserved. Particularly undeserved were Ike’s nasty remarks about MacArthur’s service in the world war: “The popular notion of his great ability as a soldier and leader, is, of course, not difficult to explain to those that know how war time citations were often secured. These, plus direct intervention of Sec. Baker to give him his first star (Regular) have been parlayed, with the help of a magnificent front both vocal and in appearances to a reputation of wisdom, brilliance and magnificent leadership.”51 Angry, Ike ignored the fact that he had no firsthand knowledge of the general’s wartime service. He ignored all that Fox Conner had done, above and below board, to push Ike’s career ahead.

  MacArthur also did little to distinguish himself in these difficult months. He, too, had reasons to be grumpy. He had been forced in December 1937 to retire from the US Army. While he was still a Philippine field marshal, he was no longer the senior officer in the military mission. That was now Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower.52 But of course MacArthur was still the de facto head of the organization, and he refused to give up on his unrealistic budget. He tried to tailor a fair-seeming plan that would fit the original figures on which he had based his optimistic projections. Having assured President Quezon that he could defend the islands on an annual budget of 16 million pesos, he blended realistic cuts with fantasy changes to get the bottom line he wanted. Recognizing that Ike was able to shoot holes in his fraudulent accounting, MacArthur tried to break the friendly relationship between Eisenhower and the commonwealth’s president.53 Instead of exploiting the friendship in order to achieve America’s strategic mission, the general behaved like a spoiled middle-school boy unable to get his way with the teacher. Neither the general nor Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower should have been in this position as war edged ever closer to America and its empire.

  The General’s Gambit

  Then, rather suddenly, in the early summer of 1938, General MacArthur became the sort of friendly senior officer that Fox Conner had been. This should have made Ike suspicious. But he was so pleased to have a rational environment again that he reveled in the tolerance of the new MacArthur. “The General,” he wrote in June, “has been extraordinarily sympathetic, increasingly so, with my views, opinions, and personal situation. At one time it seemed almost impossible to discuss with him any point in which there was the slightest difference of opinion, but for the past few months this has not been so. He is willing to talk over things—and his answer is more often than not, ‘as to that I’ll accept your judgment.’ ” So startling was the transformation that Ike was left fishing for an explanation of what had changed. Still something of the boy from Abilene, he opted for the most charitable explanation: “It is difficult to believe that Jimmy’s loss should have occasioned this change, but the fact is, that ever since then he has progressively grown more mellow, less arbitrary and less ready to allege sinister motive for every mere difference of opinion.”54

  The new MacArthur quickly approved Eisenhower’s plans for a trip to the United States. It was to be a combination of leave and renewed effort to get support for the Philippine defense forces. At that point the general almost revealed his hand. “Nothing that occurs around here with respect to you is to be considered a precedent,” MacArthur said. “In all respects you represent a special case, and it is my hope to keep you here a long time.” That might have aroused some questions about what, exactly, was likely to change, but Ike was bowled over by the general’s friendly overtures. “The atmosphere has cleared to such an extent,” he said, “that this job, at long last, has become personally agreeable as well as professionally interesting.”55 Pleased by his boss’s transformation, Ike forgot his experiences with poker.

  A happy lieutenant colonel and his wife and son sailed from the Philippines on June 26, 1938. Their trip took them to Hong Kong, Kobe, Yokohama, and Honolulu before they landed in San Francisco.56 There was time to visit with Mamie’s family and make one side trip to Yellowstone Park. But then Mamie had to have surgery, and for a time it appeared that John might also need an operation. Fortunately, their son’s condition improved without a surgical procedure, and Mamie recovered in time to join her husband on his second trip to Washington. There, Ike continued to grind away at the army’s leadership in an effort to get support for the Philippine forces. This was micro-management at its best: deciding whether to get 60 mm or 81 mm mortars and trying to ensure that they woul
d have ammunition for whatever they bought; negotiating directly with the arms manufacturers, the companies making light planes, and a series of army officers who were in no hurry to satisfy Ike or his boss. A successful meeting with Army Chief of Staff Malin Craig helped accelerate the process, but it was still excruciatingly complex and slow—a peacetime army at its worst. Still, Ike was satisfied that he had made some progress before he and his family left on October 14, 1938, on the Empress of Japan for their return trip.57

  Arriving in Manila in early November, Eisenhower was shocked to discover that he had been sandbagged.58 MacArthur had stripped him of his responsibilities and given them to Dick Sutherland. Searching for an explanation, Ike focused on the tight links he and Jimmie Ord had established with the Philippine leaders: “So, while I was gone, he reorganized the office, so as to remove me completely in official affairs from Malacañan. Not content with this he re-arranged the office force so that I’m no longer his C. of S. [chief of staff], but only another staff officer—he is theoretically the coordinator of the whole group. My section is plans, training, mobilization education, etc.—the purpose being to keep me absorbed in academic work at my desk, and to rob me of any influence in the Army or at Malacañan.”59

  Feeling robbed, Ike contemplated revenge: “The only thing he forgets is that all of us are attached to Department Headquarters and whether he likes it or not the Senior Officer of the U.S. Army on duty with this group [that is, Eisenhower] is compelled to make efficiency reports on the others.” He labored to explain to himself what MacArthur had done: “Why the man should so patently exhibit a jealousy of a subordinate is beyond me. I guess it’s because he is afraid a conviction will grow in the minds of local people that he personally is not so important to the Army and to the P.I.” He went on, “Administratively, the new scheme is so clumsy as to require no comment.… I will not give him the satisfaction of showing any resentment. But my usefulness is so curtailed as to rob the job of much of its interest, so I’m going at the earliest possible moment. If the d_____ fool had only sent his plan to me while I was in the States I would not have returned.” But of course that was part of MacArthur’s cunning plan: to change his team with a minimum amount of disturbance either in the Philippines or in Washington, DC.60

  This was Ike’s first Machiavellian moment, the first time that he had been deceived and boxed out of a major leadership position by shrewd administrative maneuvering. It is not clear that he reflected initially on his own role in what had happened. He was too mad to do that. “My fury,” he wrote, “is academic rather than practical and actual.” He released that fury by enumerating MacArthur’s vulnerabilities, including his hush-hush affair with a Filipina who had become his mistress in Washington and his wild blasts at President Roosevelt when the general was demoted from four-star to two-star rank. “Oh hell—what’s the use. The point is he knows we won’t tell these things. Now that I’ve jotted all this down I hope that it never again comes, even momentarily, to my mind.”61

  While that would not be true, Eisenhower had certainly learned a great deal about how he would have to deal with superiors—rational or irrational—if he wanted to get ahead. He already knew how he should handle those who worked for him. That was never a problem for this forty-eight-year-old lieutenant colonel. With his superiors, however, he would have to control his natural tendency to be completely open and honest about their proposals—no matter how much he disagreed with them. He needed to learn from what Fox Conner had done—on the positive side of Machiavellianism—to promote Dwight’s career. He needed to reflect on the fact that his repeated efforts to constrain MacArthur’s exuberant plans for the Philippine forces had poisoned their relationship and left him in limbo, grumbling to his diary. He would not have to be what he described with disdain as a “boot-licker.”62 But he would have to be more cunning if he was going to be successful.

  Caught between the Philippine president Quezon, who was friendly and relatively open with Ike, and General MacArthur, who was formal, precise, and distant, Eisenhower played out the string in his final months in Manila. He received orders to join the 15th Infantry at Fort Lewis (Tacoma, Washington), and quickly began to negotiate the date when he would leave for his new post. The Fort Lewis posting was not an accident. He had clearly learned something from Fox Conner about how to maneuver successfully in the top reaches of the army. On the tail end of his 1938 trip to the United States, Ike had visited with his old friend Mark Clark, who was serving at Fort Lewis. Later he wrote to Clark and asked for his help in getting command of a battalion of infantry. Clark and his friends—including George C. Marshall—helped “arrange” Eisenhower’s assignment. At last, he was about to be in the position he had sought since the 1920s.63 No longer a coach, no longer assigned to training, no longer a staff officer, he would at last serve in direct command of troops.

  When the war began in Europe in 1939, it accelerated Ike’s effort to get back to the United States. Impatient, he wrote to Clark: “I’m ready for anything! Field, garrison, wilderness, let them send the outfit wherever they please. I’ll be happy as long as I can go with a regular unit.”64 By this time, he was counting down the days to his departure like a student looking forward to summer vacation.

  Ike and his family finally left on December 13, 1939, on the SS President Cleveland.65 A wave of luncheons, reviews, dinners, and speeches preceded the departure. General MacArthur added a finishing touch to their service together by attending the farewell parties and seeing them off at the dock.66

  The general was careful to close out their relationship in a formal manner that suited his interests as well as those of the US Army. In 1936, his evaluation of Eisenhower had been extremely positive. The general said Ike had “no superior of his time either in Command or General Staff capacity in the Army.” These were powerful words coming from a former Chief of Staff. MacArthur recommended Eisenhower “for immediate appointment to General Officer rank in time of war.”67 Now in 1939, with war on the horizon for America, he gave the War Department and the army bureaucracy no reason to believe that he had changed his judgment. Although he had recently demoted Ike from his position as chief of staff of the military mission, MacArthur simply ignored that unpleasant subject. The general’s performance in the last months of Eisenhower’s Philippine duty was a tribute to his self-discipline, deep knowledge of the army bureaucracy, administrative skill and aptitude for duplicity.

  In 1939, Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower was unable to match the talented MacArthur in any of those regards. Despite Ike’s ability as a poker player, he was in his professional career still relatively open in the Abilene style, still more oriented to performance than to power, still expecting others to follow the rules. But he was learning. He would be sandbagged only one more time in his career, and he was from this point on somewhat more willing to be cunning and maybe even deceptive in order to achieve his objectives.

  The Philippine experience clearly helped to develop Eisenhower’s distinctive leadership style. He had passed this test and a more forceful leader emerged from his years with MacArthur. That experience strengthened Ike’s natural proclivity to pay heed to what his subordinates had to say—that is, to take seriously their advice and thus make full use of their capabilities. He had learned as well how to deal with political leaders in an unstable setting that imposed severe constraints on American policy. He was now even more attuned than he had been to the personal aspects of power relations in the army, and he had begun to think more seriously about the geopolitical relationships of nations in peace and war. He still had much to learn in that regard. But with Europe exploding and Japan’s power growing, he would soon have new opportunities to deepen his knowledge of strategy and to remember the lessons he had learned from reading Clausewitz’s On War.

  Part II

  Becoming Supreme

  Six

  Newly promoted in 1941 to brigadier general, Eisenhower sent this photograph to his family.

  Combat

 
; The whirlwind of war in Europe and Asia in 1939 had begun to transform Eisenhower’s career even before he and his family landed in San Francisco. Germany had quickly conquered Poland and divided the country with an opportunistic Soviet Union. France and Britain braced for an anticipated German invasion, one that they hoped would be stalled by the seemingly impenetrable fortifications of France’s Maginot Line. In Asia, Japan was pressing forward with its invasion of China after skirmishing unsuccessfully with Soviet troops on the Manchurian border. Alert to this tumultuous world, Ike was paying increasing attention to questions of strategy. As late as August 1940, he still thought Japan would not launch a full-scale invasion of the Philippines, but by that time he knew that Fox Conner’s predictions about another world war were devastatingly accurate. Although the United States was legally and politically locked into neutrality, Eisenhower and many other US military officers had little doubt that America would soon be drawn into the war in Europe. When that happened, Ike realized, the nation would need to “achieve unity of purpose and effort.”1 Unity would shortly become central to his career as a military leader.

  As war in Europe and Asia shoved national security back up near the top of the nation’s political agenda, President Roosevelt cautiously began edging America toward a decision that he knew was inevitable. Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower was no less certain that he and his country would get involved in the war, but he predicted that it would not happen until America’s national security was clearly threatened or it was directly attacked. After listening to a broadcast of Britain’s declaration of war against Germany, Ike reflected: “If the war … is as long drawn out and disastrous, as bloody and as costly as was the so-called World War, then I believe that the remnants of nations emerging from it will be scarcely recognizable as the ones that entered it. Communism and anarchy are apt to spread rapidly, while crime and disorder, loss of personal liberties, and abject poverty will curse the areas that witness any amount of fighting.… Hundreds of millions will suffer privations and starvation, millions will be killed and wounded because one man so wills it.” Hitler, Eisenhower said, was “criminally insane”: “Hitler’s record with the Jews, his rape of Austria, of the Czechs, the Slovaks and now the Poles is as black as that of any barbarian of the Dark Ages.”2 Motivated by an apocalyptic vision of the past and the future, Eisenhower became a crusader against fascism.3