1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:03,440 Speaker 1: Well this episode of news World Dogs, sailors and airmen 2 00:00:03,640 --> 00:00:07,360 Speaker 1: of the Allied Expeditionary Force, You are about to embark 3 00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:10,680 Speaker 1: upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these 4 00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:13,320 Speaker 1: many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. 5 00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:17,599 Speaker 1: The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march 6 00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:21,040 Speaker 1: with you. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion 7 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:24,720 Speaker 1: to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing 8 00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:28,640 Speaker 1: less than full victory. Day has a very special meaning 9 00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:32,440 Speaker 1: for me. On d Day, my own son graduated from 10 00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:36,000 Speaker 1: West Point. On the very day he was graduating. These 11 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:41,760 Speaker 1: men came here, British and our other allies Americans, to 12 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:46,839 Speaker 1: storm these beaches for one purpose, not to gain anything 13 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:52,440 Speaker 1: for ourselves, not to fulfill any ambitions that America had 14 00:00:52,479 --> 00:00:58,120 Speaker 1: for conquests, but just to preserve freedom, systems of self 15 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:01,800 Speaker 1: government in the world. In the councils of government. We 16 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:06,680 Speaker 1: must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought 17 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:12,440 Speaker 1: or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for 18 00:01:12,520 --> 00:01:16,880 Speaker 1: the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. 19 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:21,240 Speaker 1: We must never let the weight of this combination endanger 20 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:25,920 Speaker 1: our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. 21 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:32,360 Speaker 1: Only an alert and knowledgeable citizens can compel the proper 22 00:01:32,440 --> 00:01:36,080 Speaker 1: meshing of the huge industrial and military missionary of defense 23 00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:40,840 Speaker 1: with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and 24 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:45,640 Speaker 1: liberty may prosper Together. You and I and our government 25 00:01:46,319 --> 00:01:50,240 Speaker 1: must avoid the impost to live only for today, plundering 26 00:01:50,320 --> 00:01:54,320 Speaker 1: for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. 27 00:01:55,640 --> 00:02:00,680 Speaker 1: We cannot warns the material assets of our grandchildren without 28 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:04,320 Speaker 1: risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. 29 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:09,359 Speaker 1: We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, 30 00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:16,960 Speaker 1: not to become the insolvent fan of tomorrow. Hi, this 31 00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:19,560 Speaker 1: is new due to the virus. I'm recording from home, 32 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:25,680 Speaker 1: so you may notice a difference in audio quality. This 33 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:29,280 Speaker 1: is part two in our three part The Immortals Dwight 34 00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:33,480 Speaker 1: David Eisenhower's series, and I'll talk about Eisenhower's extraordinary leadership 35 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:37,240 Speaker 1: during World Warship. In Part three, I will be joined 36 00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:41,280 Speaker 1: by President Eisenhower's granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, on the eve of 37 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:45,440 Speaker 1: the dedication to Eisenhower's memorial in the Washington Mall. Susan's 38 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:49,240 Speaker 1: new book is How I Cold The Principles behind Eisenhower's 39 00:02:49,320 --> 00:03:02,079 Speaker 1: biggest decisions. We are continue our news World series on 40 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:07,800 Speaker 1: the Immortals with Part two about Dwight David Eisenhower. Part 41 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:12,240 Speaker 1: one carried Eisenhauer from childhood through West Point, to his 42 00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:15,880 Speaker 1: service in World War One and between the wars, and 43 00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:19,200 Speaker 1: then his development in World War Two up through the 44 00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:23,640 Speaker 1: landing at Normandy, who was an extraordinary career already and 45 00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:26,880 Speaker 1: he clearly had become one of the most powerful important 46 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:32,040 Speaker 1: people in the Western world, rising from having worked in Salias, 47 00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:35,960 Speaker 1: Kansas for two years at the local creamery before he 48 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,240 Speaker 1: got accepted to West Point. He was the classic American 49 00:03:39,320 --> 00:03:42,120 Speaker 1: story of the twentieth century of the hard working good 50 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:46,040 Speaker 1: guy who after all had as his slogan I Like Ike, 51 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:51,240 Speaker 1: because he was really, in many ways very accessible to 52 00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:54,480 Speaker 1: soldiers and very concerned about them and identified with him 53 00:03:54,760 --> 00:03:59,040 Speaker 1: as people like himself. Remarkably different from say General Douglas MacArthur, 54 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:02,640 Speaker 1: who saw him clearly as an aristocratic general who was 55 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,120 Speaker 1: fortunate enough to have soldiers to work for him, but 56 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:09,560 Speaker 1: he was in charge. Mike was a much more inclusive person, 57 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,640 Speaker 1: and we rejoined him with the American and British and 58 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,120 Speaker 1: Canadian forces having landed in Normandy, which I want to 59 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:20,760 Speaker 1: remind you as the most complicated single thing humans have 60 00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:23,120 Speaker 1: ever done. When you realize that all this was being 61 00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:27,839 Speaker 1: done without computers, without cell phones, and they were literally 62 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:34,560 Speaker 1: organizing this enormous movement of tremendous combat power, everything from 63 00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:39,760 Speaker 1: paratroopers to battleships, to people landing on the shores to 64 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:43,800 Speaker 1: thinking through what the logistics supplies have to be an 65 00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:47,279 Speaker 1: enormously difficult and complex thing, and one which was a 66 00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:50,480 Speaker 1: closer run thing. If the weather had changed the wrong way, 67 00:04:50,800 --> 00:04:53,760 Speaker 1: it might have been a disaster. If the Germans had 68 00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:57,400 Speaker 1: qualited Ramel's plan, which was putting their armored forces very 69 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:01,080 Speaker 1: close to the front, it might have been disaster. But 70 00:05:01,279 --> 00:05:04,520 Speaker 1: luckily for us it wasn't, and it wasn't in part 71 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:07,320 Speaker 1: because it was a very smart landing. It wasn't just 72 00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:11,840 Speaker 1: courageous people rushing ashore. But the Allies did everything they 73 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:15,159 Speaker 1: could to convince the Germans that Normandy was a faint 74 00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:17,680 Speaker 1: and the real landing was going to occur north of 75 00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:21,680 Speaker 1: there at Cali, and Hitler bought it totally and insistent 76 00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:25,000 Speaker 1: on keeping the bulk of his armor up around Cali 77 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:28,239 Speaker 1: for days and days and days while the allies built 78 00:05:28,279 --> 00:05:31,800 Speaker 1: up the beachhead at Normandy. Eisenhower had been a part 79 00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:33,880 Speaker 1: of this and had thought it through. And one of 80 00:05:33,880 --> 00:05:36,120 Speaker 1: the side stories it tells you a lot about Ike 81 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:41,159 Speaker 1: is that his best combat general was George Patten. But 82 00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:45,520 Speaker 1: Patten had temper, and Patten had a tendency to shoot 83 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:49,600 Speaker 1: his mouth off, and so in Sicily during the campaign there, 84 00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:53,479 Speaker 1: he had gotten very frustrated and he actually slapped a 85 00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:57,240 Speaker 1: soldier who was suffering from what we would now call PTSD, 86 00:05:57,880 --> 00:06:01,239 Speaker 1: but back then it was called battle fatigue. And Patten decided, 87 00:06:01,240 --> 00:06:03,520 Speaker 1: actually he just needed to be shocked into getting back 88 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:06,120 Speaker 1: in action, called him a coward, and the guy just 89 00:06:06,279 --> 00:06:09,200 Speaker 1: broke down, and the doctors and the nurses were horrified. 90 00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:13,480 Speaker 1: The story eventually broke in a column back in the US, 91 00:06:13,640 --> 00:06:18,039 Speaker 1: became an enormous storm among the politicians, and Patton was 92 00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:24,800 Speaker 1: forced to apologize publicly to his entire unit and to 93 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:26,680 Speaker 1: tell them how sorry he was he had done it, 94 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:29,160 Speaker 1: that it was the wrong thing to do. He hated it, 95 00:06:29,160 --> 00:06:31,200 Speaker 1: but he understood that he had a choice. That he 96 00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:33,680 Speaker 1: had not apologized, they were going to relieve him of 97 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:38,640 Speaker 1: his command, and Eisenhower then was communicating with George Marshall, 98 00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:42,560 Speaker 1: chief Staff of the Army, and said to Marshall, this 99 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:46,040 Speaker 1: is our best combat commander. We are somebody going to 100 00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:48,600 Speaker 1: break out of Normandy. When we do, we're going to 101 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:52,960 Speaker 1: want somebody who cuts and slashes and moves rapidly. Nobody's 102 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:55,720 Speaker 1: as good at that as Patton. The political pressure is 103 00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:58,240 Speaker 1: so great that we have to dumping. We'll dumping, We'll. 104 00:06:58,279 --> 00:07:01,160 Speaker 1: They got away around them, and Marshall came back and said, no, 105 00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:05,440 Speaker 1: I'll take the heat. You keep pattent. So Eisenhower didn't 106 00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:10,040 Speaker 1: just keep pattent. Eisenhower created an entire phony army built 107 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:14,239 Speaker 1: around pattern further north in Britain, gave them all sorts 108 00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:18,440 Speaker 1: of radio capabilities, and all day long, this totally phony 109 00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:21,560 Speaker 1: army who was broadcasting and radio going back and forth 110 00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:24,640 Speaker 1: sending out signals about how much equipment they needed. They 111 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:28,000 Speaker 1: built phony airfields, they built phony tanks out of wood. 112 00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:31,000 Speaker 1: They designed it so that the Germans would believe, because 113 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:33,240 Speaker 1: the Germans had eat with the assessment that Patten was 114 00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:35,800 Speaker 1: our best combat general, and so they wanted them to 115 00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:39,120 Speaker 1: think that Patten was going to land at Calais, and 116 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:42,400 Speaker 1: that therefore the patent army was the real offensive even 117 00:07:42,440 --> 00:07:46,239 Speaker 1: though it didn't exist, and this literally helped us skip 118 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:49,880 Speaker 1: to shore and helped us keep the Germans totally preoccupied 119 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:53,240 Speaker 1: with the wrong place. Now, in the same moment, to 120 00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:56,080 Speaker 1: show you again what Ike had to deal with, Patten 121 00:07:56,200 --> 00:07:59,880 Speaker 1: gives a speech and talks about it being the future 122 00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:02,760 Speaker 1: of the British and American people to rule the world. 123 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:06,200 Speaker 1: This is a speech to a local ladies group. He 124 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:09,400 Speaker 1: just can't help himself, and so of course there's another 125 00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:14,560 Speaker 1: big uproar about Patton describing Americans and British dominating the planet. 126 00:08:15,040 --> 00:08:18,680 Speaker 1: Patten is called in and is told, in no uncertain terms, 127 00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:21,800 Speaker 1: you do one more stupid thing like this and you're 128 00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:24,240 Speaker 1: going home. No matter how bad do we need you, 129 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:29,080 Speaker 1: we cannot take how often you are publicly stupid. And 130 00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:31,880 Speaker 1: Patton was very contrived. He had a pretty good ability 131 00:08:32,280 --> 00:08:34,959 Speaker 1: to suck up to authority when he had to, and 132 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:38,320 Speaker 1: so he really whined and whimpered eyes and Aweric said, 133 00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:40,319 Speaker 1: all right, Georgie, I'm going to cover for you. Just 134 00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:42,599 Speaker 1: try to not to get me in more trouble. So 135 00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:46,839 Speaker 1: Patten is sitting up. They're getting really frustrated because after 136 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:49,880 Speaker 1: you land at Normandy. Remember Normandy as big as it 137 00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:54,920 Speaker 1: is is the beginning. You now have to reinforce the troops. 138 00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:58,040 Speaker 1: You have to move inland, and we discovered a couple 139 00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:01,160 Speaker 1: of very hard things which took much more time than 140 00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:04,720 Speaker 1: we thought it would. One was that they had hedge rows, 141 00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:07,439 Speaker 1: which didn't show up when you send in airplanes to 142 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:10,960 Speaker 1: take aerial photographs. You kind of saw them. You had 143 00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:13,040 Speaker 1: no idea what they really were. With the heads rows, 144 00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:17,440 Speaker 1: the bocage they were called in Normandy were enormous. They 145 00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:21,320 Speaker 1: were ten twelve, fourteen feet tall. They were extraordinary thick. 146 00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:24,920 Speaker 1: Tank could not drive through them. The farm fields would 147 00:09:24,920 --> 00:09:27,960 Speaker 1: have an open field for planting things, and then they'd 148 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,760 Speaker 1: have a hedgerow to stop the wind, and so you 149 00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:34,160 Speaker 1: could literally fight one field at a time with the 150 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:37,520 Speaker 1: German machine guns and the German anti tank guns buried 151 00:09:37,559 --> 00:09:40,719 Speaker 1: in the hedgerows, and you had to take them out. Eventually, 152 00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:43,679 Speaker 1: some bright young sergeant figured out a guy with good 153 00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:47,040 Speaker 1: mechanical skill how to build a tank. But this was 154 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:49,000 Speaker 1: an inch blance was the opposite of what they wanted 155 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,719 Speaker 1: to do, and it terrified Churchill because it began to 156 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:55,400 Speaker 1: remind him of World War One, when the British and 157 00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:57,880 Speaker 1: the French had bogged down in French warfare and had 158 00:09:57,960 --> 00:10:01,160 Speaker 1: lost so many people fighting in by inch, and so 159 00:10:01,559 --> 00:10:03,840 Speaker 1: you had the pressure of the hedge rows. You also 160 00:10:03,920 --> 00:10:06,920 Speaker 1: had the fact that the Vermont the German army, was 161 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:10,600 Speaker 1: consistently the best defensive army in the war. Whether they 162 00:10:10,679 --> 00:10:13,520 Speaker 1: fought the Russians or the Americans, or the British, or 163 00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:15,720 Speaker 1: the Canadians or the Poles, didn't matter who they thought, 164 00:10:16,080 --> 00:10:19,600 Speaker 1: they routinely caused more casualties than they took. They had 165 00:10:19,679 --> 00:10:23,640 Speaker 1: an extraordinary ability to reorganize in combat, and if they 166 00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:26,400 Speaker 1: lost part of a unit, they could reconstitute it in 167 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:29,280 Speaker 1: a matter of minutes, and a flexibility that no other 168 00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:31,880 Speaker 1: army at the time had. So we found that they 169 00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:34,920 Speaker 1: were very tenacious on defense and they were making us 170 00:10:34,960 --> 00:10:38,800 Speaker 1: paid inch by inch. Part of the landing, though was 171 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:41,839 Speaker 1: being led by the British, got bogged down in the 172 00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:47,079 Speaker 1: city of Kahane and just literally spent days and days 173 00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:51,000 Speaker 1: and days fighting building the building. Again, not what they 174 00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:54,760 Speaker 1: had planned, but it turned out that cities can absorb troops, 175 00:10:55,240 --> 00:10:57,800 Speaker 1: and the people on defense in a city can use 176 00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:01,719 Speaker 1: every bombed out building as a defense position. You had 177 00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:04,400 Speaker 1: the real huge problem that General Montgomery had been the 178 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:07,080 Speaker 1: hero of El Alamaine and was seen by the British 179 00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:10,199 Speaker 1: as their best field marshal, somebody that couldn't be touched 180 00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:13,000 Speaker 1: politically because he was the one person that the British 181 00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:17,040 Speaker 1: had confidence in. But he also recognized that given all 182 00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:19,840 Speaker 1: the losses of World War One, and given the fact 183 00:11:19,880 --> 00:11:23,760 Speaker 1: that Britain had been in the war since September of 184 00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:27,560 Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine and we didn't enter the war seriously 185 00:11:28,040 --> 00:11:32,480 Speaker 1: until nineteen forty two, that the British simply had had 186 00:11:32,480 --> 00:11:35,480 Speaker 1: their manpower drained, and so they had to be much 187 00:11:35,559 --> 00:11:37,840 Speaker 1: more careful and trying not to lose as many people. 188 00:11:38,160 --> 00:11:41,600 Speaker 1: Americans had this huge manpower pool. We were building an 189 00:11:41,679 --> 00:11:44,520 Speaker 1: army that was enormous, going to very rapidly be much 190 00:11:44,600 --> 00:11:47,840 Speaker 1: much bigger than the British. So he's trying to fight carefully, 191 00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:52,800 Speaker 1: which means slowly, and he's not breaking through in his sector. Meanwhile, 192 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:57,800 Speaker 1: in the South where Bradley is, Bradley decides the American commander, 193 00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:01,280 Speaker 1: and We're going to use massive of air power and 194 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:04,319 Speaker 1: bring in V seventeens and B twenty fours, and we 195 00:12:04,400 --> 00:12:07,839 Speaker 1: are going to bomb the German line so intensely that 196 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,000 Speaker 1: we'll be able to basically go right through it. Well, 197 00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:14,840 Speaker 1: an enormous tragedy. The bombers had got the wrong direction, 198 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:18,880 Speaker 1: came in the wrong way, killed a lot of Americans, 199 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:22,240 Speaker 1: including a four star general, General Leslie McNair, who was 200 00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:25,199 Speaker 1: the number two guy in the army. And again things 201 00:12:25,240 --> 00:12:28,440 Speaker 1: just weren't quite working. Meanwhile, Pat Nichourse is going crazy 202 00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:31,280 Speaker 1: because he's still stuck in England, not allowed to fight. 203 00:12:31,880 --> 00:12:38,600 Speaker 1: Eisenhower is trying to manage Churchill, manage Roosevelt, manage Montgomery, 204 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:43,520 Speaker 1: manage what's happening among the Americans with Bradley, and keep 205 00:12:43,559 --> 00:12:45,840 Speaker 1: all the stuff moving. At the same time, he's trying 206 00:12:45,840 --> 00:12:49,160 Speaker 1: to get the logistics working to get gasoline and ammunition 207 00:12:49,559 --> 00:12:54,800 Speaker 1: and medical supplies falling into the continent. And in July 208 00:12:54,960 --> 00:12:57,280 Speaker 1: they have an enormous storm which recks one of the 209 00:12:57,360 --> 00:13:01,880 Speaker 1: major unloading facilities. And it's ironic because if Eisenhower had 210 00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:04,319 Speaker 1: not gone in June, they would have been trying to 211 00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:06,120 Speaker 1: land in the middle of one of the biggest storms 212 00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:09,240 Speaker 1: ever to hit the French coach in the summertime, so 213 00:13:09,440 --> 00:13:13,880 Speaker 1: that further slows everything down. Patton, of course, is beside himself. 214 00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:17,520 Speaker 1: He wants so desperate to get into the fight. Finally 215 00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:21,760 Speaker 1: that by just sheer weight of numbers, the Sobbeta Army 216 00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:25,560 Speaker 1: is absorbing an enormous number of Germans. So to some extent, 217 00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:29,440 Speaker 1: the Soviet offensive is pulling Germans away from the West 218 00:13:29,880 --> 00:13:32,080 Speaker 1: at the same time that the Americans in the British 219 00:13:32,360 --> 00:13:35,320 Speaker 1: are pulling Germans away from Russia. And what's happening, of course, 220 00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:38,920 Speaker 1: is Germany is beginning to realize they don't have enough troops. 221 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:42,040 Speaker 1: They've taken on too many people, They're fighting too many 222 00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:46,240 Speaker 1: wars simultaneously, and so they begin to decay from just 223 00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:48,880 Speaker 1: the sheer exhaustion and the absence of enough new tanks, 224 00:13:49,240 --> 00:13:52,679 Speaker 1: new ammunition, and enough new aircraft. Our use of air 225 00:13:52,760 --> 00:13:56,679 Speaker 1: power is enormous. And again, think about Eisenhower's complexity. Here. 226 00:13:57,280 --> 00:13:59,960 Speaker 1: He is managing a naval force, one of the large 227 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:04,920 Speaker 1: as ever, he is managing air power. He's managing regular 228 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:09,599 Speaker 1: infantry and armor and our children. He is managing the 229 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:14,199 Speaker 1: operations of guerrilla groups in France itself. One of the 230 00:14:14,280 --> 00:14:17,000 Speaker 1: greatest challenges he has is trying to manage General Degal. 231 00:14:17,559 --> 00:14:21,200 Speaker 1: Because General Degau not only was naturally arrogant and very 232 00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:25,320 Speaker 1: physically tall guy, his name, after all, means Charles of France, 233 00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:27,560 Speaker 1: and they thought himself that way when he thought of 234 00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:31,800 Speaker 1: himself as being the personal representative of French nationalism. But 235 00:14:31,960 --> 00:14:35,480 Speaker 1: in addition, the Goal knew that if he wasn't rigid, 236 00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:38,880 Speaker 1: and he wasn't tough, and he wasn't protective of France, 237 00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:41,840 Speaker 1: that the French would just get run over and ceased 238 00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:44,160 Speaker 1: to be important. This is a country which thought of 239 00:14:44,240 --> 00:14:47,280 Speaker 1: itself as the Grand Nacion, the great nation. And so 240 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:52,160 Speaker 1: the humiliation of having been occupied by the Germans, compounded 241 00:14:52,240 --> 00:14:55,400 Speaker 1: by having the Anglo Saxons, the Americans, and the British 242 00:14:55,400 --> 00:14:58,720 Speaker 1: and Canadians helping liberate them, the gall felt he had 243 00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:00,640 Speaker 1: to be a bigger pain in the neck in order 244 00:15:00,680 --> 00:15:03,280 Speaker 1: to prove that France really mattered. So Ike is in 245 00:15:03,280 --> 00:15:06,560 Speaker 1: the middle of managing this very complicated and arrogant and 246 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:10,800 Speaker 1: difficult personality. He is in the process of working with Churchill, 247 00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:14,560 Speaker 1: and it stands Zapple who Eisenhour's technique. Once a week 248 00:15:15,120 --> 00:15:19,240 Speaker 1: Eisenhower went to dinner with Churchill, and he would sit 249 00:15:19,320 --> 00:15:23,800 Speaker 1: there and listen to Churchill for hours. They normally agreed. 250 00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:26,120 Speaker 1: They normally went on the same side that two or 251 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:29,800 Speaker 1: three big arguments, most of which Eisenhower were one, but 252 00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:33,960 Speaker 1: Churchill insisted on being able to argue Churchill was a 253 00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:37,200 Speaker 1: complicated person. For eis an hour to try to manage. 254 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:39,440 Speaker 1: Because Churchill would get up very late in the morning, 255 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:43,120 Speaker 1: he would take a two hour nap every afternoon, literally 256 00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:46,520 Speaker 1: get in his pajamas, take a two hour nap, and 257 00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:49,880 Speaker 1: then starting around dinner time, he would work till two 258 00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:52,920 Speaker 1: in the morning. So, if you're ike and you're trying 259 00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:56,040 Speaker 1: to actually run all these different administrative assignments, make all 260 00:15:56,080 --> 00:16:00,400 Speaker 1: these major decisions, manage all these different personalities. He track 261 00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:02,680 Speaker 1: of what's going on in the battlefield. Once a week, 262 00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:06,440 Speaker 1: you stop and you pay attention to Winston Churchill. Now 263 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:10,960 Speaker 1: it's a great example of Eisenhower's understanding of things that 264 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:14,240 Speaker 1: matter and his understanding of human beings, because he knew 265 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:18,560 Speaker 1: if he would listen to Churchill every week, that Churchill 266 00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:21,440 Speaker 1: would decide that Eisenhower was really smart because he listened 267 00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:25,080 Speaker 1: to Churchill, and that meant that when Eisenhower occasionally got 268 00:16:25,120 --> 00:16:28,240 Speaker 1: into some problems, Churchill was on his side. In fact, 269 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:30,960 Speaker 1: in a key moment where Eisenhower gets into a big 270 00:16:31,040 --> 00:16:35,480 Speaker 1: fight with Montgomery, Churchill signs with Eisenhower against the British 271 00:16:35,920 --> 00:16:39,280 Speaker 1: Field Marshal, and that's because I had paid his dues 272 00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:42,760 Speaker 1: and he was very smart about the stuff. It didn't 273 00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:46,560 Speaker 1: work the same way with Degaul, because Degaul would never relax, 274 00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:51,240 Speaker 1: Degaul would never have some sense of comradeship. Degaul would 275 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:55,280 Speaker 1: be the embodiment of French nationalism. And so Eisenhower on 276 00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:57,880 Speaker 1: occasion that he is a very different technique with Degaul, 277 00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:00,200 Speaker 1: which is he threatened to cut off the gas in 278 00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:04,040 Speaker 1: the ammunition because the Free French Army operated only because 279 00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:07,840 Speaker 1: of American logistics, and Eisenhow would occasionally remind the Gaul 280 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:11,560 Speaker 1: that if in fact, he got too far out of line, 281 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:14,680 Speaker 1: the entire Free French Army would stop because it would 282 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:17,719 Speaker 1: be no gasoline delivered and there'd be no ammunition delivered. 283 00:17:18,080 --> 00:17:20,520 Speaker 1: And so he could sort of keep de Gaul under hand. 284 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:24,160 Speaker 1: But it was doubly tricky because President Franklin he Roosevelt 285 00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:28,240 Speaker 1: really disliked the Gaul. He intuited de Gaull's arrogance and 286 00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:30,760 Speaker 1: it just drowed him crazy. So if he could have 287 00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:32,359 Speaker 1: figured out a way to get rid of de Gaul, 288 00:17:32,960 --> 00:17:36,080 Speaker 1: Roosevelt would have. Eisenhower knew that was not possible, and 289 00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:38,200 Speaker 1: he knew that in a lot of ways General de 290 00:17:38,280 --> 00:17:40,800 Speaker 1: gaul and the Free French who been very hopeful. They've 291 00:17:40,800 --> 00:17:44,040 Speaker 1: been helpful on intelligence matters, They've been helpful of sabotage 292 00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:47,720 Speaker 1: during the initial phase of the landing. They provided a 293 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,040 Speaker 1: good bit of manpower, particularly when the second being invasion 294 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:53,920 Speaker 1: occurred in southern France, which was called Ango and which 295 00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:57,000 Speaker 1: occurred after the Germans had basically pulled out. But the 296 00:17:57,080 --> 00:18:00,840 Speaker 1: Free French were a significant component of the Allied forces 297 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:04,680 Speaker 1: that were liberating France. But it took this ability in 298 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:09,280 Speaker 1: Eisenhower's mind to juggle all of these different personalities. Now, 299 00:18:09,680 --> 00:18:11,280 Speaker 1: this is what I have to do to keep President 300 00:18:11,359 --> 00:18:13,200 Speaker 1: Roosevelt happy, This is what I had to do to 301 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:16,320 Speaker 1: keep General Marshall happy. This will have to keep Churchill happy, 302 00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:19,080 Speaker 1: This will I have to keep to go happy. And 303 00:18:19,320 --> 00:18:38,320 Speaker 1: he managed somehow to do that. Ike would spend part 304 00:18:38,359 --> 00:18:42,960 Speaker 1: of the weekend relaxing because you couldn't sustain this level 305 00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:46,520 Speaker 1: of intensity for four solid years without cracking. And he 306 00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:48,840 Speaker 1: knew that, and he knew how to balance himself. And 307 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:50,480 Speaker 1: part of what he did in the weekends as he 308 00:18:50,560 --> 00:18:53,960 Speaker 1: read Westcaster, he loved Louis Lamore novels and similar novels. 309 00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:57,080 Speaker 1: And again he'd grown up in Kansas, and all of 310 00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:00,960 Speaker 1: the liberal intellectuals can tempt for us now he must 311 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:04,160 Speaker 1: be some very shallow guy to read Westerns. And Ike 312 00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:07,160 Speaker 1: made the point years later, if you're doing as many 313 00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:11,560 Speaker 1: difficult things as I was doing, and you're handling as 314 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:16,040 Speaker 1: many difficult problems as I was handling, you don't want 315 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:21,600 Speaker 1: to read thucydites on the weekend. And ironically, when later 316 00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:24,200 Speaker 1: after he left the army he became president of Columbia, 317 00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:28,920 Speaker 1: he actually was translating thucidities from the Greek because in fact, 318 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:30,840 Speaker 1: eis now it was a very smart guy. He wasn't 319 00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:33,800 Speaker 1: an intellectual in the sense that the Ivy League people 320 00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:36,480 Speaker 1: looked down their nose at him, but he was very, 321 00:19:36,600 --> 00:19:40,240 Speaker 1: very smart, and he was very capable of reading serious 322 00:19:40,280 --> 00:19:43,240 Speaker 1: books when he wasn't trying to wage total war. So 323 00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:47,959 Speaker 1: we begin to break out and they bring in Patton, 324 00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:52,600 Speaker 1: and Patton launches the Third Army, and it's everything I 325 00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:56,359 Speaker 1: hoped for, and it absolutely paid for having put up 326 00:19:56,400 --> 00:20:00,360 Speaker 1: with Patten's personality. The Third Army was an armor army, 327 00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:02,800 Speaker 1: which was truck based army, and this is one of 328 00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:06,080 Speaker 1: the great examples of World War Two and why we wanted. 329 00:20:06,560 --> 00:20:10,120 Speaker 1: The Germans had really developed blitzcreen, which means lightning war. 330 00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:13,960 Speaker 1: But other than their tanks and a very small number 331 00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:18,760 Speaker 1: of mobile artillery, most of the German army still moved 332 00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:23,040 Speaker 1: with horse drawn wagons and still marshed. They didn't have 333 00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:25,719 Speaker 1: trucks on the scale we did. But as the country 334 00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:29,800 Speaker 1: which had produced Henry Ford and which had produced general motors, 335 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:34,639 Speaker 1: arm manufacturing capacity was so enormous that by nineteen forty 336 00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:38,760 Speaker 1: four Eisenhower had an entirely mobile army that used trucks 337 00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:41,840 Speaker 1: with a kind of abundance that nobody had ever dreamed it. 338 00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:44,800 Speaker 1: Now it's important for two reasons. One is it means 339 00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:48,560 Speaker 1: when you finally do break out, which Patton did, you 340 00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:51,000 Speaker 1: can move really fast. You move at the speed of 341 00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:54,240 Speaker 1: a truck, not the speed of Alwaukee infantry. So the 342 00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:58,199 Speaker 1: Germans who are now trying to retreat are retreating at 343 00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:01,560 Speaker 1: the pace of walking, and around them there's an American 344 00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:03,760 Speaker 1: army moving at the pace of a truck or a tank, 345 00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:06,520 Speaker 1: and the result is that there's a huge catch of 346 00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:10,960 Speaker 1: German prisoners around an area called flats, which is the normally, 347 00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:14,280 Speaker 1: but a good distance from the beaches, and it would 348 00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:17,160 Speaker 1: have been even better except that the British Army didn't 349 00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:19,560 Speaker 1: close the gap that became known as the Flat's Gap, 350 00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:23,720 Speaker 1: and probably a quarter million Germans escaped to refit and 351 00:21:23,800 --> 00:21:26,280 Speaker 1: to fight later in the year. But they caught an 352 00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:30,200 Speaker 1: enormous number of Germans, had an enormous number of tanks 353 00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:33,840 Speaker 1: and artillery pieces and other things that were abandoned, and 354 00:21:34,119 --> 00:21:37,800 Speaker 1: Patton was running wild. And then Eisnar faced one of 355 00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:42,439 Speaker 1: his great headaches. When Patton runs wild with trucks and tanks, 356 00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:46,399 Speaker 1: he burns up a lot of gasoline because we had 357 00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:49,879 Speaker 1: not gotten enough ports over. We don't have enough gasoline, 358 00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:54,879 Speaker 1: and we were delivering the gasoline by truck. They created 359 00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:57,280 Speaker 1: a system called the Red Ball Express which were just 360 00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:01,080 Speaker 1: mile after mile after mile of trucks trying to catch 361 00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:04,440 Speaker 1: up with Pattern, and Pattern m course is getting very frustrated. 362 00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:07,720 Speaker 1: And Pattern has a great idea, why do you give 363 00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,720 Speaker 1: me everything, and then I'll go win the war. And 364 00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:14,200 Speaker 1: of course to the north you have the great British 365 00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:17,159 Speaker 1: Field Marshal Montgomery, who has the same idea, why do 366 00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:19,840 Speaker 1: you give me everything and I'll get to win the war. 367 00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:23,359 Speaker 1: And here have Eisenhower, who knows he can't stop the 368 00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:26,720 Speaker 1: Americans or the American public will go crazy, and he 369 00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:29,679 Speaker 1: can't starve the British or the British public will go crazy. 370 00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:33,520 Speaker 1: So someone has to balance both of those while also 371 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:36,440 Speaker 1: taking care of the free French, and the result is 372 00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,440 Speaker 1: that they gradually grind to a halt. That in fact 373 00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,920 Speaker 1: the logistics tale, and this is why people say that 374 00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:49,520 Speaker 1: amateurs study strategy and professional study logistics, because the ability 375 00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:52,560 Speaker 1: to have the equipment, to have the supplies, to get 376 00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:54,720 Speaker 1: them at the right place at the right time is 377 00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:59,520 Speaker 1: central to sustaining any campaign. So he's having to divide 378 00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:01,800 Speaker 1: this up for political reasons, and a lot of people 379 00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:06,640 Speaker 1: who don't understand Clausewitz's argument that war is an extension 380 00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:10,440 Speaker 1: of politics play other means, and as Clausewitz says, anybody 381 00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:12,480 Speaker 1: who thinks you can have a council of war without 382 00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,680 Speaker 1: having a prince in the council misunderstands the very nature 383 00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:20,360 Speaker 1: of warfare. In the end, politics defines the war. So Eisenhower, 384 00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:23,840 Speaker 1: in a theoretical world, if you were at a military 385 00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:26,719 Speaker 1: school and you were doing an exercise, you can say, oh, 386 00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:28,840 Speaker 1: I got it. Let's give all of it to George 387 00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,080 Speaker 1: Patten and see how well he does. Let's give all 388 00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:33,280 Speaker 1: of it to Montgomery and see how well he does. 389 00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:37,440 Speaker 1: But in the real world, you would have Churchill going 390 00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,480 Speaker 1: crazy if everything went to Patton, and you would have 391 00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:43,919 Speaker 1: the American people in the Congress gone crazy if everything 392 00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:49,520 Speaker 1: went to Montgomery. So Eisenhower is forced to balance these 393 00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:52,040 Speaker 1: two personalities and to give each of them a fair 394 00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:57,600 Speaker 1: amount of opportunity. Now Montgomery, who is, if anything, almost 395 00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:01,320 Speaker 1: as arrogant as the goal and very aware that he's 396 00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:03,440 Speaker 1: the victor of el Almain and he is the great 397 00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:07,679 Speaker 1: Field Marshal, Montgomery's another example of what Eisenhower had to manage. 398 00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,560 Speaker 1: Montgomery decides that Eisenhower's a good guy and he has 399 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:16,760 Speaker 1: a nice personality who didn't understand warfare. Montgomery proposes that 400 00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,480 Speaker 1: he be allowed to take over managing the war while 401 00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:25,919 Speaker 1: Eisenhower manages the diplomacy and the politicians. Now Eisenhower actually 402 00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:28,560 Speaker 1: thought he knew a fair amount about warfare by this stage, 403 00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:32,520 Speaker 1: and they have to have a meeting. To give you 404 00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:36,600 Speaker 1: an example of Montgomery's arrogance, Montgomery can't leave his headquarters 405 00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,960 Speaker 1: because he's too busy. So if Eisenhar instead of a meeting. Eisenhower, 406 00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,480 Speaker 1: who is the supreme commander in Europe, has to go 407 00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:49,119 Speaker 1: to Montgomery's headquarters, so he does, and he brings with 408 00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:53,480 Speaker 1: him Beetle Smith, who is his deputy, the implementer of 409 00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:57,400 Speaker 1: all of his activities. Montgomery wants to meet only with Eisenhower, 410 00:24:57,520 --> 00:24:59,840 Speaker 1: but he wants his deputy to be in the meeting, 411 00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,240 Speaker 1: but not beat him, and Eisner says, no, if you 412 00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:05,240 Speaker 1: don't want to beat him, that's fine, But then for 413 00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,280 Speaker 1: the digin, well, who's the Montgomery guy, he can't be 414 00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:12,639 Speaker 1: in either. So they end up with Ike and Montgomery 415 00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:17,280 Speaker 1: in a very small headquarters room, sitting face to face 416 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:22,760 Speaker 1: in two chairs, and Montgomery starts lecturing, and the more 417 00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,159 Speaker 1: he lectures, he listens to himself and realize is how 418 00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,399 Speaker 1: brilliant he is and how incompetent Eised now is, and 419 00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,639 Speaker 1: he gets more intense and more intense and more intense, 420 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:35,480 Speaker 1: and Eisener was just patiently listening to him because he 421 00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:38,760 Speaker 1: understands Montgomery's personality and he understands that this guy is 422 00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,200 Speaker 1: very insecure and he has to have all this bluster 423 00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:43,720 Speaker 1: to prove to himself that he's really the most important 424 00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:50,040 Speaker 1: guy around. So finally Montgomery goes too far. Eisenhower calmly 425 00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,399 Speaker 1: leans in, taps him on the knee and says, Monty, 426 00:25:55,840 --> 00:26:01,879 Speaker 1: you can't say that I'm your commanding officer. And Montgomery, 427 00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:07,040 Speaker 1: just for those few quiet words, he suddenly reminded, oh yeah, 428 00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:12,040 Speaker 1: if Ike wants to fire me, they will fire me, 429 00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,879 Speaker 1: because the American Army is now so big in his presence, 430 00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:20,359 Speaker 1: is so huge that there's no possibility the Churchill is 431 00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:23,119 Speaker 1: going to want to fare Eisenhower and Montgomery begins to 432 00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:26,719 Speaker 1: back up and apologize. No Ike understood that he had 433 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:30,000 Speaker 1: managed the problem, but he hadn't solved it. This gets 434 00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,159 Speaker 1: them off into another problem, because what you now have 435 00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:37,040 Speaker 1: is like two jealous kids. The further pattern goes, the 436 00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,359 Speaker 1: more Montgomery wants to do something brilliant. The more daring 437 00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,280 Speaker 1: pattern is, the more daring Montgomery wants to be. And 438 00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:45,200 Speaker 1: one of the transies of this is a Montgomery is 439 00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:49,080 Speaker 1: a very good general and a terrific manager of battles, 440 00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:53,159 Speaker 1: and proved it at all Alamain, where he defeated rombol 441 00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:57,800 Speaker 1: in the German army in Egypt. But he's not really 442 00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,359 Speaker 1: a daring guy. He's a very mythidh nacho guy. He 443 00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,840 Speaker 1: wants desperately to prove that he can do better than pattern, 444 00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,520 Speaker 1: and so he comes up with a plan which is 445 00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,400 Speaker 1: really brilliantly captured both in a movie in a book 446 00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:14,880 Speaker 1: called The Bridge Too Far, And his plan is, we're 447 00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:18,639 Speaker 1: going to use paratroopers and we're going to cross the 448 00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:24,399 Speaker 1: river three times driving into the Netherlands, and we're going 449 00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:26,879 Speaker 1: to capture the Great Bridget Armament and that will put 450 00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:31,399 Speaker 1: us across the Rhine River into Germany. And we're going 451 00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,440 Speaker 1: to do all of this on a very very short 452 00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,600 Speaker 1: time schedule, and we're going to make it all work. 453 00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,560 Speaker 1: And the plan is brilliantly designed. They have like nine 454 00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:44,679 Speaker 1: hundred officers who come together for the final briefing. Montgomery's 455 00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:46,800 Speaker 1: one of those guys who's just a brilliant briefer. By 456 00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,280 Speaker 1: the time he's done, you think he started all through. 457 00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:53,040 Speaker 1: He understands everything, but there's a practical problem, and it's 458 00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:55,480 Speaker 1: a problem that Clausewitz, and he's ready to work on war, 459 00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:58,440 Speaker 1: describes it very well. He said that the problem with 460 00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:02,280 Speaker 1: war is that everything is very simple, but the simple 461 00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:05,399 Speaker 1: is very very hard, and he said it is like 462 00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:10,720 Speaker 1: trying to walk in sand that is so thick and 463 00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:15,159 Speaker 1: so deep that the friction makes everything you try to 464 00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,199 Speaker 1: do hard, and that's what happens in this case. Now 465 00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,159 Speaker 1: eisen Art does everything that Montgomery wants. He gives them 466 00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,960 Speaker 1: all of the air power as both the British, Polish 467 00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:27,320 Speaker 1: and the American airborne divisions. He gives them all the aircraft, 468 00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:31,240 Speaker 1: so the largest concentration of paratroopers in history. He gives 469 00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:34,720 Speaker 1: them the backing of the American Army, an enormous amount 470 00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:38,160 Speaker 1: of combat air power. But the phrase of the Book 471 00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,920 Speaker 1: of Britshy Far captures exactly what happened, and it's also 472 00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:45,920 Speaker 1: a great case study in what's wrong with most militaries, 473 00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:50,080 Speaker 1: particularly a problem with the American and British military. At 474 00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:51,960 Speaker 1: the time. There were a lot of Dutch officers who 475 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,440 Speaker 1: had fled Holland when the Germans occupied it. None of them, 476 00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:58,960 Speaker 1: not one, was asked to look at the plan for 477 00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:04,720 Speaker 1: this campaign, and after the battle failed, one of them 478 00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:10,719 Speaker 1: pointed out that the graduation exercise at the Dutch War 479 00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:13,200 Speaker 1: College was how do you go from the Megan to 480 00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:18,000 Speaker 1: Arnam And if you took the road that was up 481 00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,320 Speaker 1: on top of the river, you automatically failed because the 482 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:24,120 Speaker 1: road was too narrow and you could block it. If 483 00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:25,880 Speaker 1: he killed a tank, he has blocked it until he 484 00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:27,920 Speaker 1: got the tank hell the way, and so it was 485 00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:30,520 Speaker 1: impossible to go quickly that in fact you had to 486 00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:33,040 Speaker 1: go down close to the river in order to do it. 487 00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,040 Speaker 1: Nobody in either the British are American army thought to 488 00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:39,920 Speaker 1: ask the Dutchess, and so of course they did exactly 489 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,520 Speaker 1: what you would fail at the Dutch War College if 490 00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,600 Speaker 1: you did it, and they can't get to Arnam meanwhile, 491 00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:47,840 Speaker 1: and one of those really weird things that reminds you 492 00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,440 Speaker 1: that the war is so hard and so difficult to execute, 493 00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,960 Speaker 1: the wrong radio crystals are dropped with the Polish airborne 494 00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,520 Speaker 1: unit and they can't talk to the airplanes because the 495 00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,440 Speaker 1: radio don't work. And again as an example of the 496 00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,680 Speaker 1: modern world, it turned out after the battle that the 497 00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:10,360 Speaker 1: Dutch civilian telephone system was working and people in Arnham 498 00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:12,800 Speaker 1: were talking by phone to people in the Megen, but 499 00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,120 Speaker 1: had never occurred to a single soldier to walk up 500 00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:18,000 Speaker 1: and knock in the house and asked to use the phone, 501 00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:22,320 Speaker 1: and so the radios are out ultimately into disasters. Also 502 00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:25,840 Speaker 1: a disaster because again a reminder that reconnaissance, just as 503 00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,040 Speaker 1: it was wrong in terms of the will college that 504 00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,360 Speaker 1: the great Hedgerow country. The reconnaissance did not pick up 505 00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:35,480 Speaker 1: that a German Armored Corps was resting and recuperating at Arnham, 506 00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,360 Speaker 1: so we were actually landing paratroopers on top of the 507 00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,400 Speaker 1: German Armored division. All those things came to bear. Ultimately 508 00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:46,400 Speaker 1: it didn't work. Was a bitter, bitter disappointment. But again 509 00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,240 Speaker 1: Montgomery had tried and could make a case by the 510 00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:52,160 Speaker 1: way that had he put the same amount of combat 511 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:56,520 Speaker 1: power into cleaning up the peninsula that leads up to Rotterdam, 512 00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:58,920 Speaker 1: who had been much better off because they couldn't get 513 00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,720 Speaker 1: any supply ships into Rotterdam because the Germans still occupied 514 00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:05,840 Speaker 1: the land on both sides of the river down to 515 00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:09,440 Speaker 1: the ocean and took months to big him out. That's 516 00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:11,880 Speaker 1: now what happened. We ended up in a situation where 517 00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:16,080 Speaker 1: our supplies are still precarious and we sort of run 518 00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,240 Speaker 1: out of energy. If you look at a map of Europe, 519 00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:21,560 Speaker 1: there is this enormous lunge first to get on land, 520 00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,800 Speaker 1: then to cross France liberate Paris, which was a great 521 00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,000 Speaker 1: emotional moment, and where again Eyes now showed his political 522 00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:32,840 Speaker 1: skills because he deliberately had the free French army lead 523 00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:36,000 Speaker 1: into Paris, so that the French were liberated by the 524 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,520 Speaker 1: French in order to rebuild French morale, which in the 525 00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:41,680 Speaker 1: long run would be very important when we got around 526 00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:43,720 Speaker 1: with the Cold War and we were trying to keep 527 00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,760 Speaker 1: France on the side of the West. I should like 528 00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:51,800 Speaker 1: to address myself today to the people of Paris. Two 529 00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:58,080 Speaker 1: weeks ago French and Allied forces entered the city. We 530 00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:02,360 Speaker 1: came to deliver the coup de Glass to the last 531 00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:09,200 Speaker 1: remaining elements of the enemy here. But the liberation of 532 00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:14,120 Speaker 1: Paris had already largely had been completed a week before. 533 00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:19,680 Speaker 1: The men of the French forces of the Interior, who 534 00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,640 Speaker 1: for four long years, inspired by Gene de Gaul, had 535 00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:28,160 Speaker 1: carried on a relentless struggle against the enemy, had risen 536 00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:30,720 Speaker 1: in their wrath and gone into the streets to drive 537 00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:37,760 Speaker 1: out the hated invader. We shared your joy when Paris 538 00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:42,680 Speaker 1: was returned to its people and to France. Liberty had 539 00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:47,080 Speaker 1: returned to one of his traditional homes, and the glory 540 00:32:47,160 --> 00:33:08,479 Speaker 1: of having freed the capital belonged to frenchmen. Eisenhour now 541 00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:13,240 Speaker 1: sitting there in November, Pattern's gone as far as he 542 00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:15,360 Speaker 1: can go. Because they can't get him any more supplies. 543 00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:19,440 Speaker 1: Montgomery's made his great bold lunge and failed. They've all 544 00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:21,720 Speaker 1: got to take a deep breath, and they've got to 545 00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,960 Speaker 1: think about what to do next and rebuild their supplies 546 00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:29,160 Speaker 1: and hopefully open up the great porter Rutterden. While they're 547 00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:34,600 Speaker 1: doing that, Hitler decides, taking a page really out of 548 00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:39,600 Speaker 1: Frederick the Great, who was hopelessly outnumbered and launched a 549 00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:43,280 Speaker 1: winter campaign that shocked all of his opponents and saved Prussia. 550 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,760 Speaker 1: Hitler decided he could do the same thing, and so 551 00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:51,720 Speaker 1: he very carefully pulled together the last great combat army 552 00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,640 Speaker 1: that the Germans would have, and all through November, who 553 00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:02,880 Speaker 1: was funneling people into western Germany Belgium and preparing a 554 00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:08,080 Speaker 1: great offensive. He was further helped because the weather went bad, 555 00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:11,000 Speaker 1: and back then we had the aircraft that were basically 556 00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,640 Speaker 1: daytime aircraft. If the weather got really bad and he 557 00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:15,880 Speaker 1: had really a lot of fog or cloud cover a 558 00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,719 Speaker 1: lot of rate, our capacity to use airpower dropped dramatically, 559 00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,960 Speaker 1: and airpower was probably our biggest single advantage over the Germans. 560 00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,560 Speaker 1: So suddenly they're able to fight in an environment where 561 00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:30,439 Speaker 1: they don't have American and British airpower hitting him every morning, 562 00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:35,960 Speaker 1: and they surprise us. Eisenhower had moved a very tired 563 00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:41,000 Speaker 1: division into a sector that became known as the Battle 564 00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,480 Speaker 1: of the Bulge. Who was the German offensive created a 565 00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:48,800 Speaker 1: bulge in the Allied lines, and Eisenhower put this tired 566 00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:54,240 Speaker 1: division undertrained and really just needing to recuperate at exactly 567 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:56,839 Speaker 1: the point that we get hit by the Germans. One 568 00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:01,120 Speaker 1: of the great examples of Eisenhower's leadership is that when 569 00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:03,600 Speaker 1: the offensive began and it began to be obvious that 570 00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:07,760 Speaker 1: this was a big, all out German offensive, Eisenhower asked 571 00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,879 Speaker 1: all of his major leaders to meet at Verdun. When 572 00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:16,800 Speaker 1: they got there, he said, we will have no frowns. 573 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,600 Speaker 1: We will have only smiles. The Germans have come out 574 00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,080 Speaker 1: in the open and given us a chance to destroy them, 575 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,920 Speaker 1: and therefore we should look on this as an enormous opportunity. 576 00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:32,280 Speaker 1: They went around the room. Montgomery and his usual fashion, 577 00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:35,680 Speaker 1: pointed out that the way the attack was developing would 578 00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,840 Speaker 1: be a number of American divisions that were north of 579 00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:42,600 Speaker 1: the German attack and would be cut off from Bradley's 580 00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:46,040 Speaker 1: eily to control the SOS. Montgomery be glad to help 581 00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:49,720 Speaker 1: save the Americans. The way he said it pissed off everybody, 582 00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:52,440 Speaker 1: but in fact it was the right solution, and eisnwer 583 00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,960 Speaker 1: knew that. So Eisner irritated one of his closest friends, 584 00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,160 Speaker 1: General Bradley, by doing what was militarily the right thing 585 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,360 Speaker 1: to do. Gave a significant number of American divisions to 586 00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:06,160 Speaker 1: Montgomery to coordinate until they could defeat the offensive to 587 00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,880 Speaker 1: re establish the firm line across the region. He then 588 00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,960 Speaker 1: turns to Patton and he says, how soon can you 589 00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:18,160 Speaker 1: be moving? And Patton says forteen hours. This is the 590 00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,360 Speaker 1: one example that validates everything I has never done to 591 00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:27,279 Speaker 1: save Patton and says, come on, George gets serious, how 592 00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:31,160 Speaker 1: soon can you turn and move? And Patton says, look, 593 00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:37,000 Speaker 1: I intuited that since the German Army had not launched 594 00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:42,719 Speaker 1: a winter offensive since the seventeen seventies, that this was 595 00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:47,840 Speaker 1: a winter offensive. And I told my guys to design 596 00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,360 Speaker 1: three plans, depending on where you want me to get to. 597 00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:53,719 Speaker 1: And they have three plans, and I can call them 598 00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:56,320 Speaker 1: on the phone from here and use any one of 599 00:36:56,440 --> 00:37:00,640 Speaker 1: three words, and they will at that moment launch the 600 00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:05,399 Speaker 1: troops towards breaking off the Germans. And it was true. 601 00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:09,279 Speaker 1: Patton had literally thought through the second he heard what 602 00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:11,359 Speaker 1: was going on, he said, this is a full out 603 00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,440 Speaker 1: German offensive. And his guys were good enough his planners 604 00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,920 Speaker 1: that literally he could call them and they could pivot 605 00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:23,879 Speaker 1: the entire third Army north and drove to cut off 606 00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,719 Speaker 1: the Germans and to save the American forces at best Own. 607 00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,920 Speaker 1: And it's really one of the amazing command activities of 608 00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:33,839 Speaker 1: the war because it took enormous effort to take an 609 00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:38,759 Speaker 1: army that's totally lunging into the east, pivoted and have 610 00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:42,319 Speaker 1: it go basically a ninety three return and go straight north. 611 00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,160 Speaker 1: So as this all happens, the weather starts to clear, 612 00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:50,040 Speaker 1: the air power comes back, the Germans get defeated. There's 613 00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,000 Speaker 1: a lot of shock because people sort of psychologically thought 614 00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,520 Speaker 1: the war was over, and then they was talking about 615 00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,480 Speaker 1: the boys coming home by Christmas, etc. And in fact, 616 00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:00,799 Speaker 1: of course the Germans were still fighting. They would fight 617 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,400 Speaker 1: until May eighth. As we broke out and began to 618 00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:08,760 Speaker 1: move east into Germany, we ran across very tough fighting, 619 00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,400 Speaker 1: particularly in a place called the Hurricane Forest, where they 620 00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:15,280 Speaker 1: tenaciously sort of yard by yard and foot by foot 621 00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:20,040 Speaker 1: tried to stop us, and we began to run into 622 00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:22,760 Speaker 1: the real politics that would proceed the Cold War because 623 00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:26,920 Speaker 1: the Soviets wanted to be as far west as possible. Now, 624 00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:30,359 Speaker 1: Eisenhower's view as a military guy was, this is where 625 00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,160 Speaker 1: the politicians to sort out. I don't want to lose 626 00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:37,160 Speaker 1: a single American taking some area that we're not going 627 00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:40,320 Speaker 1: to keep. So Eisenhard, for example, was deeply opposed to 628 00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,400 Speaker 1: going to Berlin because he had recognized that Berlin was 629 00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,919 Speaker 1: an enormous city and the Russians lost an amazing number 630 00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:50,279 Speaker 1: of people conquering Berlin. And he didn't particularly want to 631 00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,680 Speaker 1: go east too feig into Czechoslovakia because that was already 632 00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:56,160 Speaker 1: agreed to be in the Soviet zone of influence. So 633 00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:00,279 Speaker 1: Eisenhower is looking to a post Cold War where we 634 00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:02,920 Speaker 1: will try to find some way to collaborate with the Soviets. 635 00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:06,239 Speaker 1: Patton actually would like to go fight the Soviets, and 636 00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,520 Speaker 1: so he wanted to drive his troops as far into 637 00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,800 Speaker 1: Czechoslovakian as far into Austria as possible. He would have 638 00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:15,560 Speaker 1: been quite cheerful about encountering him. Eisenhower imposed pretty strict 639 00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,719 Speaker 1: controls on Patton, worked to understand the Soviets had to 640 00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:23,920 Speaker 1: work with them, and on May eighth, the Germans surrendered 641 00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:27,080 Speaker 1: and the war was over. A very short message from 642 00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:32,280 Speaker 1: Eisenhower that says mission accomplished. If you look at Eisenhower's 643 00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:34,640 Speaker 1: way of signaling that the war was over, and then 644 00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:37,279 Speaker 1: go look at MacArthur in Tokyo Bay, you get some 645 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,799 Speaker 1: real sense of the difference in the two personalities. Eisenhower 646 00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,960 Speaker 1: then faced occupying Germany, which people tend to forget. It 647 00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:49,320 Speaker 1: was a much more challenging thing than we thought it 648 00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,959 Speaker 1: would be. We arrested eighty five thousand Germans the first 649 00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:59,200 Speaker 1: year in denoscification. He was truly horrified when he visited 650 00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:03,080 Speaker 1: the first con centration camp. He wanted every American soldier 651 00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:07,040 Speaker 1: to go through these camps. He wanted all the Germans 652 00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:09,320 Speaker 1: who lived within twenty or thirty miles of these camps 653 00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,040 Speaker 1: to go through the camps. He was sickened by it, 654 00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,640 Speaker 1: he was enraged by it, and I think he never 655 00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:17,879 Speaker 1: quite thought about the Germans the same way after he'd 656 00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:20,759 Speaker 1: seen these camps. And he did everything he could to 657 00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,160 Speaker 1: get medical assistance in to help people. But at the 658 00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:28,920 Speaker 1: same time he was subordinate to presidented states and the 659 00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:32,840 Speaker 1: political system so when we had agreed, for example, to 660 00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:37,160 Speaker 1: turn Russian prisoners of war back over to the Russians 661 00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,399 Speaker 1: people who had been captured by the Germans, even though 662 00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,440 Speaker 1: we knew they would virtually all be sent to Siberia 663 00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:46,000 Speaker 1: and the ones who weren't sent to Siberia would probably 664 00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:49,080 Speaker 1: be shot. That was the agreement, so he did it. 665 00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,360 Speaker 1: There were times when Eisenhower did things he didn't necessarily 666 00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:54,759 Speaker 1: like or agree with, but he was in the chain 667 00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:57,920 Speaker 1: of command. He understood the importance of sustaining the chain 668 00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,319 Speaker 1: of command and the importance of obeying the commander in chief, 669 00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:05,160 Speaker 1: of which had become Harry Truman by that stage. I 670 00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:08,680 Speaker 1: think that what's noteworthy here in wrapping up like in 671 00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:16,360 Speaker 1: World War Two, is the degree to which Eisenhower's capacity 672 00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:21,120 Speaker 1: for growing just continued for a whole love. He's somebody 673 00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:26,400 Speaker 1: who studied, listened and thought about it, absorbed it, moved 674 00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,680 Speaker 1: to the next phase of his activities. I think that 675 00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:33,839 Speaker 1: he went back home to replace George Catlin Marshall as 676 00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,399 Speaker 1: Chief of Staff of the Army. Eisner had a very 677 00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:43,960 Speaker 1: little sense of himself as a central figure, but somebody 678 00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:47,719 Speaker 1: had to be the supreme commander on powers, so as Eisenhower. 679 00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:51,600 Speaker 1: I think his attitude always was to do his duty 680 00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:56,400 Speaker 1: and to serve his country. He comes out of the 681 00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:01,560 Speaker 1: war I think as probably the most popular American military leader, 682 00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:05,000 Speaker 1: partially because of the size of the American military and Europe, 683 00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:08,719 Speaker 1: partially because of his sunny smile, partially because of the 684 00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:12,480 Speaker 1: belief that he had enormous good sense and that he'd 685 00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:17,719 Speaker 1: made relatively few mistakes in that setting. He pivoted and 686 00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:21,400 Speaker 1: decided that was over. After he had done being the 687 00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:24,960 Speaker 1: Chief of Staff of the Army, he retires from acting service. 688 00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,359 Speaker 1: He writes a terrific book which I recommend everybody called 689 00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,440 Speaker 1: crusadeed Europe, which gives you a real flavor of how 690 00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:34,399 Speaker 1: he thought about things. He also shows you how clever 691 00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:37,719 Speaker 1: he is because Congress passes a law which exempts that 692 00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,320 Speaker 1: book from any taxes, and as a result, the income 693 00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:43,600 Speaker 1: from that book is enough that it enables him to 694 00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:47,880 Speaker 1: buy the farm at Gettysburg. He then goes to serve 695 00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:51,880 Speaker 1: as president Plumber University in December of nineteen forty eight, 696 00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:56,640 Speaker 1: but he's always consultant. Back to the first Secretary Defense 697 00:42:56,719 --> 00:43:00,480 Speaker 1: and then to the Army. He's brought back twenty nine 698 00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:03,919 Speaker 1: in formal capacity to serve as Chairman of the Joint 699 00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:07,360 Speaker 1: Chiefs of Staff under this brand new Department of Defense 700 00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:11,000 Speaker 1: that had just been created. The Korean War begins in 701 00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:17,279 Speaker 1: June twenty fifth, nineteen fifty, and Eisenhower is called back 702 00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:22,839 Speaker 1: from Colombia in President Truman in the twelve and NATO 703 00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,600 Speaker 1: nations asked him to become a Supreme Commander of the 704 00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:30,320 Speaker 1: Allied forces in Europe. Montgomery also comes back and the 705 00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:34,600 Speaker 1: two of them create the North Atlantic Treaty organization designed 706 00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:38,040 Speaker 1: to stop the Soviets from trying to evade Western Europe. 707 00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,400 Speaker 1: And I suspect that the joint prestige of Eisenhower Montgomery 708 00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:45,160 Speaker 1: by itself was enough to slow down the Soviets and 709 00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:49,000 Speaker 1: make them think long and hard about exactly what they 710 00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:52,320 Speaker 1: were doing. So at this point, Eisenhower is at the 711 00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:54,719 Speaker 1: end of the military phase of his life. He is 712 00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:57,919 Speaker 1: about to enter a political phase. And in the next 713 00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:02,440 Speaker 1: episode of The Immortal I will talk about Eisenhower and 714 00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:05,680 Speaker 1: the whole way in which he gets drawn into politics 715 00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:08,680 Speaker 1: and having turned it down in nineteen forty eight, and 716 00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:11,920 Speaker 1: the way in which he plays an enormous role both 717 00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:15,279 Speaker 1: in the Republican Party in the country and as a 718 00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,719 Speaker 1: leader around the world. There are very few people who 719 00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:22,279 Speaker 1: have had the total accumulative impact that I had from 720 00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,680 Speaker 1: his military days, his political days, and you take them 721 00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:29,520 Speaker 1: all together, being both the Supreme Commander in Europe, five 722 00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,799 Speaker 1: star General. President Nined states, there's a lot to learn 723 00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:38,400 Speaker 1: and a lot that's worth study. You can read more 724 00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:41,680 Speaker 1: about President Dwight David Eisenhower on our show page at 725 00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,760 Speaker 1: newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Ginwich three sixty 726 00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:50,600 Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Debbie Myers and our 727 00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:54,440 Speaker 1: producer is Garnsey Slap. The artwork for the show was 728 00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:57,880 Speaker 1: created by Steve Penney. Special thanks to team at Gingwich 729 00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:02,080 Speaker 1: three sixty. Please email with your questions at Gangwich three 730 00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:06,520 Speaker 1: sixty dot com slash questions. I'll answer them in future episodes. 731 00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:10,000 Speaker 1: If you've been enjoying Newsworld, I hope you'll go to 732 00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:13,719 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts and both rate us with five stars and 733 00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,680 Speaker 1: give us a review so others can learn what it's 734 00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:20,480 Speaker 1: all about. I'm newt Gingrich. This is new to World