Supreme Commander (100 page)

Brooke made one more effort. When the CCS moved on to Yalta for the conference with the Russians, he proposed a switch—Tedder to go to the Mediterranean and become Supreme Commander there,
with Alexander replacing him at SHAEF. On February 2 Brooke, Churchill, Marshall, and Roosevelt discussed the proposal. The Americans thought that “politically such a move might have repercussions in America if carried out just now.… They were, however, quite prepared to accept this change in about six weeks’ time after further offensive operations will have been started and the Ardennes operation more forgotten.”
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Word of the proposal reached SHAEF in mid-February. Eisenhower discussed it with Montgomery, who assured the Supreme Commander that he wanted no change and could see no good coming out of Alexander’s moving to SHAEF. Tedder told Eisenhower the same thing.
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On February 16 Eisenhower wrote a long letter to Brooke on the subject. He said that any change in the working team would be deplorable, but if the CCS insisted upon it he wanted to make sure Brooke understood what Alexander’s position would be. “There can be no question whatsoever of placing between me and my Army Group Commanders any intermediary headquarters, either official or unofficial in character.” Montgomery agreed with this point, Eisenhower said, and indeed the field marshal had declared that “the command arrangements I have made are as nearly perfect as circumstances, including diverse nationalities, will permit.”

Eisenhower was candid with Brooke. He pointed out that the Americans in the AEF, especially the senior commander, “feel themselves aggrieved” because of Montgomery’s press conference on the Bulge and the treatment of the battle on BBC and in the London newspapers. “The upshot is that should there be any attempt on the part of any newspaper to interpret Alexander’s appointment here as the establishment of a ground headquarters or the interposition of any kind of intermediate control between myself and my Army Group Commanders, I would find it immediately necessary to make a formal announcement setting forth the facts.” This would be quite embarrassing to Alexander. Eisenhower said that he liked Alexander enormously and would be delighted to work with him again, “but it is one of my principal jobs to see that nothing occurs that may tend to create misunderstandings within my own command, or to mar the generally splendid British-American relationships that we try to promote.”
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Brooke showed Eisenhower’s letter to Churchill, who was upset at the implication that Eisenhower’s British deputy had nothing to do. Eisenhower then wrote Churchill to set him straight. Tedder was an intimate member of the SHAEF family, the Supreme Commander pointed
out, and Alexander would be too if he were transferred. Turning to the main point, Eisenhower added, “Far from regarding this problem from a British versus American viewpoint, my whole effort is to exercise the authority of my office so as to weld and preserve the sense of partnership that to my mind is absolutely essential to the winning of the war and to our common welfare.”
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Montgomery added his voice in support of Eisenhower’s position. On March 4 he declared that the command arrangement should be left as it was and warned that a change would merely raise a storm and cause an organizational setback. The next day Churchill met with Eisenhower and Tedder and agreed that the decision regarding command arrangements belonged entirely to Eisenhower. The Supreme Commander made no changes.
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Eisenhower had won, but that was not the most significant result of the long and often bitter dispute over command. Given the difference in the size of the contribution of the two nations to the AEF, Marshall’s attitude, Eisenhower’s support from the British members of SHAEF, and Roosevelt’s inclination to follow Marshall’s lead in military matters, it was inevitable that Eisenhower would have his way. His real achievement was that he had won without alienating the British. They felt strongly about the issues, and pressed their points as hard as they dared, giving Eisenhower’s patience a thorough testing. He kept turning them down, but only after giving them the opportunity to fully state their views, and he never let himself be provoked into losing his temper. At the end of the war his reputation with the British remained extraordinarily high, a unique achievement for an allied commander.

Montgomery summed up Eisenhower’s achievement in a letter he wrote the Supreme Commander shortly after the surrender. “Dear Ike,” he began, “… I suppose we shall soon begin to run our own affairs.” Before the AEF split up, he wanted to say “what a privilege and an honor it has been to serve under you. I owe much to your wise guidance and kindly forbearance.” Montgomery said he knew his own faults very well “and I do not suppose I am an easy subordinate; I like to go my own way. But you have kept me on the rails in difficult and stormy times, and have taught me much.” Montgomery thanked Eisenhower for all he had done for him and signed off, “Your very devoted friend, Monty.”
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Eisenhower himself put things in perspective in a February 20 letter to Marshall. The Supreme Commander said he had just had two conferences
with Montgomery, who was “emphatic in his statement that everything is developing soundly, and he has been especially vehement in protesting his complete loyalty and his belief in the efficacy of our command system.” Eisenhower said he had told Montgomery that he hoped the field marshal would have an opportunity to tell that to the Prime Minister. Rumors about Alexander replacing Tedder continued to crop up from time to time, but they no longer worried Eisenhower. “The vague rumors and statements that tend to create … uneasiness are largely froth,” he said. Meanwhile, ironically, Americans had been protesting that Churchill had a veto on all United States officers serving on SHAEF, and it was sometimes said that SHAEF was a British operation. Eisenhower felt that “the trouble often is that to gain a particular end, people, even in high places, are sometimes not above using gossip and misinterpretation.” But, he added, “all these things I ignore as long as they have no important effect upon this Command.”
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In January 1939 Eisenhower wrote a letter to his brother Milton, who had been offered a position as a dean at Pennsylvania State University. Milton wanted his brother’s advice: should he continue his work at the Department of Agriculture, where he was head of a bureau, or should he go to Penn State? Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower said that Milton’s happiness was the most important consideration, then went on to warn his brother about overwork. “The human machine wears out,” he declared, “although none of us ever applies this inescapable law to his own case. Deterioration and destruction are familiar phenomena, but the mind recoils from personal application of the logical conclusion.” If Milton decided to stay in Washington, Eisenhower continued, he should be aware of the danger. “Men of ability in the government service see so much to be done, they create or have created for them so many jobs that lazier men like to shunt from their own shoulders (except of course when it comes to collecting the glory for recognized accomplishment) that gradually the victim … loses his sense of values, and with this needful governor failing him, he applies his mind, consciously and unconsciously, day and night, to important and intricate problems that march up ceaselessly, one after the other, for consideration.” Do not, in other words, Eisenhower wrote his brother, get bogged down in detail. Save your time and energy for the really important matters. Be willing to delegate responsibility.
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Eisenhower was not just handing out “trite but nevertheless sound truisms,” as he put it—these were the rules he later followed himself as Supreme Commander.

At the height of the European campaign the total strength of SHAEF was 16,312. Nearly 1600 of those serving at SHAEF were U.S. officers;
another 1229 were British officers. The remainder were British or American enlisted men.
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In theory all matters moved up the chain of command to the Supreme Commander, his deputy, and his chief of staff, but in practice Tedder’s role was usually advisory and he seldom served as an executive agent. The principal sections included the deputies to the chief of staff, the Allied naval commander, the air commander in chief (a position that disappeared in late 1944 when Leigh-Mallory left), the secretary, General Staff (the record-keeping agency), and the five G-divisions. Most of the men Eisenhower relied upon for advice and information could be found in one of these sections, officers like Humfrey Gale, the chief administrative officer (a deputy chief of staff), Morgan (also one of Smith’s deputies), Whiteley (G-2 and later G-3), Bull (G-3), and Strong (G-2). SHAEF had twelve additional divisions and five “missions” (to France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Norway).

In order to administer the bureaucracy effectively, Eisenhower had to make firm decisions about those matters to which he would give his personal attention and those problems which he would leave to the various divisions. Smith’s role was crucial. The chief of staff had to see to it that the divisions did their work, that SHAEF functioned efficiently, that the Supreme Commander did not waste his time, and that Eisenhower did deal with those matters on which only the Supreme Commander could make the decision. General rules often did not apply, and Smith frequently had to make fast, intuitive judgments as to whether to make a decision himself or to present it to Eisenhower.
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The process of bringing an issue before Eisenhower began at nine-thirty in the morning, when Smith held his regular conference. The heads of the G-divisions attended, along with Smith’s deputies, other officers who had business to bring up, and, in the most important role of co-ordinator, the SGS (Secretary, General Staff). SGS decided upon the daily meeting’s agenda. As in Algiers, Smith rode SGS hard, and in seventeen months three SGS heads resigned because they could not endure his browbeating. SGS kept a copy of all incoming and outgoing messages which were originated, seen by, or sent to Eisenhower, Smith, or the deputies, and a copy of all reports from the divisions. These logs and records, plus a daily summary of decisions made, gave Smith and Eisenhower a means of checking on the SHAEF divisions. Smith also had SGS bring into the meetings the relevant files, so that if he wanted to check back on an issue he could do so right there. After
discussion, Smith would either bring the matter to Eisenhower, act himself, or send the problem back to the SHAEF divisions concerned with it. In the case of a matter requiring the Supreme Commander’s attention, since Eisenhower was out of the office, visiting the front lines, almost as much as he was there, Smith—who ordinarily stayed behind to mind the store—often just had to delay. One of the first things Eisenhower would do when he returned from a trip was go over the log of incoming and outgoing cables.

After his own conference adjourned and if Eisenhower was in, Smith would go to the Supreme Commander’s office (he was the only SHAEF officer who had the right to walk in without knocking) and lay before Eisenhower the problems that required the Supreme Commander’s attention. Smith also brought along those officers he thought Eisenhower would want present to help deal with a given matter. Ordinarily Eisenhower dealt personally with all operational matters involving the army groups, so Bull, the G-3, usually attended. If the issue involved De Gaulle the head of the SHAEF Mission to France would be there; if it concerned supplies G-4 would attend. After discussion Eisenhower would make his decision. If the matter were important enough, or if he were so inclined, Eisenhower himself would dictate the outgoing message that initiated action, but more often the officer concerned prepared the message for Eisenhower’s signature.

Every message that went out from SHAEF carried Eisenhower’s signature, but obviously he did not see more than a fraction of the enormous number of cables and telegrams that bore his name. SHAEF had strict rules to govern the procedure so that Smith, SGS, and Eisenhower himself could quickly check back to find out whether or not Eisenhower had been aware of a given message. The SHAEF message form had a space for the name of the originating division or drafter. In addition, personal pronouns were used only when a message was prepared by the Supreme Commander, when it was prepared at his specific direction (Bull, for example, drafted most of the directives as well as the sitreps to CCS, but only after full discussion with Eisenhower), or when Eisenhower had personal knowledge of the matter at hand and approved of the context of the message.

SHAEF had the strengths and weaknesses common to most bureaucracies. It helped organize the Anglo-American military effort, provided order, system, and predictability, gave Eisenhower the information he had to have in order to make decisions, and made it possible for him to check on how well his decisions had been implemented. At
the same time, however, it discouraged initiative and encouraged caution. Ideas and suggestions generated within SHAEF moved slowly up the chain of command, subject to protests all along the way. The tendency was to find consensus, which meant compromise, which in turn usually meant caution. SHAEF seldom presented split position papers to Eisenhower; rather, all protests were first taken into account and disposed of, so that by the time Eisenhower saw a proposal it had nearly universal support from his staff. But the support, more often than not, was negative rather than positive—if it made few men happy, it left almost no one unhappy.