I BEGIN MY review of George Catlett Marshall's history with

the winter of 1941 and 1942, when the comprehensive out-

lines of Anglo-American strategy were drawn. During the

Christmas holidays of 1941 Winston Churchill, attended by

his military advisers, came to Washington and held a series of

conferences at the White House with President Roosevelt and

his military advisers. Japan had struck at Pearl Harbor on the

7th of December. Our fortunes were then joined with those of

the British and the lesser powers engaged against Japan and

Germany. We faced, for the first time in our history, global

responsibilities. We were everywhere on the defensive. The

British occupied a precarious foothold in Egypt. We still held

Corregidor and Bataan, although the end there was in sight.

Singapore had not yet fallen, but the Japanese were well

advanced in their southward drive. Germany, master of the

continent as far as the Pyrenees and the North Cape, was still

marching toward the east into Russia.

counselors, agreed then upon a strategic plan embracing the

globe. Included in this plan was a provision for the invasion

of the mainland of Europe at some time during 1943. It was

rightly considered that we would lack the men and the equip-

ment to cross the Channel before 1943. What came to be

known as the second front was allotted its appropriate place

in the world-wide scale as this conference came to a close in

the middle of January. It was at this time that the enormously

destructive battle of the Atlantic began -- the ruthless subma-

rine warfare aimed at our shipping -- which was to hamper

our war effort far mere than the conferees at the White

House had expected.

seeching the British since the preceding summer to attack

Germany across the Channel as a means of relieving their dire

pressure. After the White House conference known as Arcadia

ended, the efforts of the Russians to promote a diversion in

Western Europe were redoubled. The pressure was not

alone maintained against our government; it took the form

of public propaganda, in which the Communists both of

England and America, and their friends and well-wishers, took

a leading part.

the first of April, General Marshall, who was then, as we

remember, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, had prepared

in the War Department Planning Section a plan for the

invasion of Western Europe in 1942. This planning section

was under the command of Col. Dwight D. Eisenhow-

er. I might say, parenthetically, that at Arcadia in a closed

session among the President, the Prime Minister, and Ambas-

sador Litvinoff, the President had, with characteristic impul-

siveness, given Litvinoff some cause to hope that the western

allies might find it possible to mount this invasion in 1942. At

Arcadia the President had proposed an intermediate attack in

North Africa for the purpose of gaining command of the

Mediterranean and threatening the Nazis from the south. It

was over these two projects that the violent disputes of the

next three months were to wage, disputes largely hidden from the

public at the time, but in which General Marshall and the Prime

Minister played the leading roles.

the late Secretary Stimson as "the brain child of the American

Army." There can be no doubt that it was General Marshall's

plan. He fought for it with the utmost vigor, a vigor going far

beyond the call of duty of a purely military adviser. As Mr.

Churchill once put it in a cable to Mr. Roosevelt, the matter

was "a political, more than a military, issue." The text of

this cable may be found on page 43 of Mr. Churchill's book,

the Hinge of Fate. By March 9, 1942, we are told by Mr.

Robert Sherwood, the President had fallen in to some extent

with the Marshall plan, cabling Churchill on that date:

I am becoming more and more interested in the establishment of a new front (on the European continent) this summer.

By the first of April, Mr. Roosevelt had been induced, as

Sherwood explains on page 521 of his book Roosevelt and

Hopkins, by Stimson, Marshall, and Hopkins to supersede

the North African venture known as Gymnast in favor of the

Trans-channel operation. By then, as Sherwood puts it, "Roose-

velt was attaching great importance to the political impor-

15

tance of this in relation to Russia." Hopkins and Marshall

were sent to London to persuade Churchill. The Americans

found Churchill reluctant. With his customary eloquence, the

Prime Minister explored the difficulties of the operation. They

lacked the landing craft necessary, they lacked the air

and the naval support. The venture would be costly, the

Prime Minister believed, and he foresaw the channel turned

into a "river of Allied blood." Should it fail, said Churchill, it

would not only expose our friends on the Continent to great

disappointment, it would hearten the Nazis and prejudice

subsequent attempts to invade the Continent. However, the

British agreed to give the matter careful study, which they

did.

ly to plan for a "second front now" until early in June, when

disquieting news reached Washington with the arrival of Lord

Louis Mountbatten. He reported to the President that the

British military experts could find no feasible method by

which the invasion could be mounted. By this time the inva-

sion bore the name Sledgehammer. Churchill followed Mount-

batten to Washington, and under his representations of the

difficulties, the President weakened, returning to his preference

for Gymnast. When the President sought to moderate Mar-

shall's views, "he met with," as Mr. Stimson put it, on page

424 of his book On Active Service in Peace and War, "a

rather robust opposition." The general quickly submitted a

new paper in support of the "second front now" and against

Gymnast.

White House conference "very stirred up and emphatic over a

British War Cabinet paper vetoing Sledgehammer and calling

for Gymnast." Still following Mr. Stimson's version of the

occasion, Marshall

British will not go through with what they agreed to, we

will turn our back on them and take up the war with Japan.

in this venture," it should be noted. The Army Chief of Staff

acquired the support of his colleagues, Admiral Ernest J. King

and General H. H. (Hap) Arnold. This is the appropriate

time to point out that during the war Admiral King's preoccu-

pations were almost wholly with the Pacific theater. He had

16

little or no interest in the strategy of the war in Europe and

Asia and only exercised himself there when the claims of

those theaters infringed on his own supply of ships and men.

I find no evidence in the sources I have consulted that Gen-

eral Arnold ever took a leading part in thee strategical questions.

To all intents and purposes it is quite clear that General Marshall

spoke the voice of the Joint Chiefs in matters of

over-all strategy. Returning to the Sledgehammer quarrel,

Marshall submitted to the President a paper, signed by all

three chiefs, proposing that we withdraw from the

war in Europe unless the British acceded to his plan. Here I

quote Mr. Stimson, page 425:

Stimson came to describe as a "bluff by Marshall

was never tried. Furthermore, Stimson knew that the President

had a "lingering predilection for the Mediterranean," and the

Prime Minister had shown on his last visit that he, too, knew

the President's feeling; on June 21 he "had taken up Gym-

nast, knowing full well I am sure that it was the President's great

secret baby." The quotation is from Stimson.

594 -- recalls that Roosevelt described the Marshall showdown

as "a red herring," a phrase that has a familiar ring; Sher-

wood does not agree with Stimson that it was a tactical

maneuver in the struggle between Marshall and Churchill,

saying, "It is my impression that the plan was far more than a

bluff in General Marshall's mind and in Admiral King's. Indeed

the first step in it -- the assault of Guadalcanal - was approved on June

25, the last day of Churchill's stay in Washington."

Hopkins, and King to London to have it finally out with the

Prime Minister and his advisers. They arrived in Scotland on a

Saturday, finding the Prime Minister's train and an invita-

tion to Chequers, the Prime Minister's country place, awaiting

them. Rather mystifyingly Marshall, who was so obviously the

guest of the Prime Minister, bluntly declined his invitation to

stop at Chequers and insisted on proceeding directly to Lon-

don. Churchill protested this "rudeness" in talks with Hop-

kins. Marshall, it was clear, did not want to put himself under

the persuasive fire of Churchill. Sherwood testifies that those

were tense days for the Anglo-American Alliance. Marshall

found heavy going in London. Before long Admiral King had

been alienated by representations of the Royal Navy that the

French coast would become a lee shore in September and

hence difficult to invade.

Sledgehammer was dealt by a general who was taking no sides

in the political question, Mark Clark. Clark was then in

command of all American Army forces in the British Isles.

Rather belatedly, it seems, he was called before the Combined

Chiefs of Staff and asked by Marshall what American forces

could be contributed to a "second front now." I quote from

page 34 of Clark's book Calculated Risk his version of that

occasion:

the Thirty-fourth Division then in North Ireland. * * *The

Thirty-fourth, however, had little amphibious training, it

lacked antiaircraft support and it had no tanks. The First

Armored Division, also in Ireland, was not yet fully

equipped, nor would any other units scheduled to arrive

before September 15 be prepared for battle. * * * There

would be a difficult problem getting the men and equip

ment together and * * * there seemed to be no possibility

that invasion boats would be ready * * * to say nothing of

bad weather conditions prevailing at that time of year * * *

the American forces will be ready to contribute compara-

tively little until spring of 1943.

shall had virtually nothing to contribute in support of his

plan. What he was, in effect, doing was calling upon the

British to execute an operation in which they firmly disbe-

lieved with scarcely any support from his own forces.

I leave it to the reader to characterize the general's zeal. We

were to learn later that as far along as the spring of 1943, the

Nazis had 1,300,000 troops in France and the Low Coun-

tries.

abroad in 1942 were, as we discovered in North Africa,

insufficiently trained for combat. It is no reflection upon them

to say that in the first weeks of the American Corps' venture

into battle they did not behave as hardened veterans. Indeed,

General McNair, who unhappily lost his life by misdirected

American air fire in the Normandy invasion, observed to

General Clark after a visit to the North African front, "the

American soldiers are not fighting in Tunisia." This may be found on

page 168 of General Clark's memoirs. He qualified that in favor

of the First Division. McNair attributed their lack of battle

stability to the failure to inculcate discipline in their training

here at home. We have been assured times without number that General

Marshall's greatest achievement in World War II was the organization and

training of our armies. When our forces in

North Africa had become battle-hardened and General Clark

and General Patton had put them under advanced training,

they behaved in the best tradition of the American Army. But

what would have happened had we thrown the green troops

of Kasserine Pass against Hitler's Panzers in the fall of 1942?

We find a curious retrospective glance at that incident in

Sherwood's recollections, where, on page 807, he quotes Hop-

kins to this effect:

across the channel successfully in 1942 or 1943, you have

got to answer the unanswerable question as to whether

Eisenhower, Bradley, Spaatz, Patton, Bedell Smith, and also

Montgomery and Tedder and a lot of others could have

handled the big show as they would if they hadn't had the

experience fighting Germany in North Africa and Sicily.

global strategy" went awry and the Combined Chiefs settled

on Gynmast. Sherwood recalls that "General Marshall had

firmly opposed it and so had General Eisenhower, who is quoted

as having described the day when the decision was

made by Roosevelt as possibly the blackest day in history."

In this connection, I should like to summon as a witness

Hanson W. Baldwin, the distinguished military critic of the

New York Times, whose strategic insights are universally

recognized.

fervent determination to cross the Channel in the fall of 1942

or the spring of 1943 is open to grave doubts. It was, in fact,

the first of a series of major decisions made by this "master of

global strategy," some of them producing consequences which

today increasingly threaten the well-being and survival of

West. In his book Great Mistakes of the War Baldwin says on

page 33:

Western Europe in 1942 was fantastic; our deficiencies in

North Africa, which was a much-needed training school for

our troops, proved that. The British objection to a 1943

Cross-channel operation was also soundly taken militarily;

we would have had in that year neither the trained divi-

sions, the equipment, the planes, the experience, nor (par-

ticularly) the landing craft to have invaded the most

strongly held part of the Continent against an enemy whose

strength was far greater than it was a year later.

that a disaster on the French coast due to a hasty, reckless

invasion might have proved "the only way in which we could possibly lose

this war." That Churchill remark appears on page 590 of Sherwood.

which Marshall pushed his plan, that Roosevelt superseded

him in the military circle around the White House. The

President chose Admiral Leahy, a naval officer of eminent

achievements and the saltiest of common sense, as his personal

Chief of Staff. Leahy became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

and thus, nominally, Marshall's superior, although, as we shall

see, Marshall overcame him at several of the most critical

junctures. Although Leahy came on the scene, having been

our Ambassador at Vichy, too late to participate in the

discussions of Sledgehammer, he was familiar with their gen-

eral setting. He wrote on page 110 of his valuable book of

memoirs "I Was There" his own judgment of that sorry and

provocative incident. Leahy wrote:

than our own Army people. * * *There was much grum-

bling about Britain and much criticism of Winston Church-

ill. The Prime Minister was convinced that England was

not ready to undertake such a major effort and I did not

think that we were either. He [Winston Churchill] wanted

to have much more assurance of success than General

Marshall could give him.

shall intended to make his mark on the political and strategic

decisions of World War II. The next assertion of his will came

late in August 1942 when, without advance notice, the Ameri-

can Chiefs of Staff -- meaning Marshall -- served notice on the

British that they opposed the hitherto agreed upon plans to

invade North Africa by way of the Mediterranean as well as

the Atlantic coast of Morocco. "The Army," as Admiral

Leahy wrote, "was not well disposed toward the adventure."

The North Africa expedition had by now been christened Torch. The news

reached Churchill on the 25th of August.

for landings at Casablanca on the Atlantic, Oran, which is at

the western end of the Mediterranean coast of Algiers, and

at a point or points farther east toward Tunisia. Suddenly the

American chiefs notified the British that they now believed

the Mediterranean landings too hazardous to undertake.

had been ditched by Marshall and his associates, Churchill

wrote a disparaging letter to Hopkins. This was on the 4th of

September and the text of the letter appears on page 540 of

The Hinge of Fate. He wrote Hopkins:

this. I thought there was agreement with Marshall and that

King bad been paid off with what he needed for his Pacific

war. But now it seems there is a bad comeback from the

professional circles in the American Army and I have a

deep and growing fear that the whole of the President's

enterprise may be wrecked bit by bit. With it will fall the

brightest hope of the Allies and the only hope this year.

could reach the letter box he had a cablegram from the

President announcing that he had overcome the opposition of

his staff and that the bell could again be rung for full speed

ahead on Torch. Had Roosevelt not overruled Marshall at this

critical time, undoubtedly Russia would enjoy the same domi-

nation over the Mediterranean area which she now enjoys over

the other unhappy areas behind the Iron Curtain. As early

as the White House conference known as Arcadia, the President

had given his full support to North Africa, saying at

that time, as quoted by the late General Arnold in his mem-

oirs Global Mission, "We must get into North Africa before the

Germans." In this connection it may be mentioned that

Stimson remarked in his book that 'The Mediterranean Basin

always fascinated Roosevelt." Sherwood likewise recalls the

President's strong preference for this operation, basing it upon

Roosevelt's "naval mindedness," and his knowledge that by

ridding North Africa of the Nazis we would free the lifeline to

the Middle East and the Far East by way of Suez, thus

obviating the long voyages around the Cape and providing for

ourselves a whole new theater from which the assault against

the Nazis could be carried out.

War II had we abandoned Torch or curtailed it by landing on

the Atlantic alone. There was strong British sentiment to land

in Tunisia as well as Tangiers at that time. A proposal from

British quarters suggested that several thousand soldiers could

be flown from Malta into Tunisia, which was only weakly

garrisoned by the French, to coincide with the landings in

Morocco and Algiers. This was vetoed. As it turned out, Hit-

ler was able to send more than 100,000 of his best troops into

Tunisia. These forces, With Rommel's army retreating before

Montgomery, made a formidable opposition, and it maybe

assumed that without the overpowering strength in the air

which the Allies were able to command, the war in North

Africa might, have dragged on indefinitely. Suppose we had

not landed in Algeria, suppose that the battle of North Africa

had continued for months on end and engaged ever larger

numbers of our forces -- in whose interest would that have

been? By winning the war in North Africa and by our

subsequent conquest of Sicily and Italy -- enterprises which

were unflaggingly opposed by Marshall -- we, instead of Russia,

were able to hold postwar command of at least the

Mediterranean away from the Red armies. The European

picture as of today would have been far different if the Red

armies had themselves received the surrender of Italy. As it

stands, we have Italy and a foothold on the opposite shore of

the Adriatic at Trieste, a foothold which is no doubt today a

reassurance to Tito.

than Marshall again began to press his views in opposition to

what Churchill called the exploitation of the prospective victo-

ry. In spite of Churchill's most eloquent pleading, Marshall only very

reluctantly agreed to the attack on Sicily and Eisenhower, who had become

commander in chief in North Africa, was Marshall's firm supporter.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EASTERN EUROPE

We now come to what was without question the most signi-

ficant decision of the war in Europe; the decision by Marshall

which was made against Roosevelt's half-hearted wishes and

Churchill's bulldog determination, to concentrate on France

and leave the whole of Eastern Europe to the Red armies. This strategical

struggle was pursued with great vigor, some-

times very violent on both sides. It only reached its

terminal point at Teheran, as we shall see, where the com-

bined weight of Stalin and Marshall defeated Churchill. I

cannot dwell too urgently on this great decision. Its military

effects were of no very great importance although the un-

necessary invasion of southern France, enjoined by Stalin and

Marshall gave Kesselring a welcome breathing spell in north-

ern Italy and protracted Mark Clark's campaign for the Po with an

attendant 1oss of American lives. It is the political

consequences of this controversy which stand forth in all

their stark implications for us today. I will attempt to sum-

marize the debate briefly.

over North Africa, had been intent on carrying the war into

the Mediterranean. Their motives were mixed. Foremost per-

haps was their desire to relieve their forces in Egypt, which

had suffered several crushing blows. Secondarily, they wanted

the use of the Mediterranean for very obvious purposes of

communication. Thirdly, the British have had for many gener-

ations a paramount position in the eastern Mediterranean and

had wide interests both in those lands and in the Suez Canal

as a gateway to India and their great possessions and depend-

encies in the Orient and the Southern Seas. There was a further

and personal factor, which Marshall frequently charac-

terized as the Prime Minister's preoccupation with eccentric

operations, such as the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign in

World War I with which Churchill's name will be forever

associated. Overshadowing and of much more importance of course,

as we see it now and as we get glimpses in the writings

the principal actors of those times, was a steady desire on the

part of the British to reach Eastern Europe and the Balkans

before the Red armies.

correct when he stigmatizes our military planning in this

connection as short-sighted. Churchill, with his intimate and

profound knowledge of the continuing drama of Europe

knew that a war is only a phase of history. Victory is one

thing; where you stand at the end of a war is another. He had

the ability to foresee what Europe would look like as a result

of certain policies.

Conference in August 1943 with reference to this question.

That conference marked the end of Churchill's sway the

great decisions of the War. Thereafter the policy of the United

States in the European war was wholly and without deviation

the policy announced by Joseph Stalin. There was a break in

the relations between the two English-speaking powers, who

were carrying the brunt of the war, and the United States

thereafter was found always on the side of Stalin. To obtain

this result, Marshall bore down on British preoccupation with

the Mediterranean. I. have enumerated some of the basic

factors in the British position. Marshall ignored all of them

except the one addressed to British self-interest. He minimized

and derided the British position, likewise ridiculing the Prime

Minister's strategical judgment by frequent references to the

Dardanelles.

States and Great Britain signified by this decision was one of

the most fateful changes in world relationships of our times. It

embittered our relationships at the first Quebec meeting, at

Cairo, and at Teheran.

all odds the critical year of the war, casting its shadow over

the whole postwar period in which we now find ourselves

convulsed by anxiety and doubt. It was in February of 1943

that the Russians achieved victory over the Germans at Stalin-

grad. In fact, it can, I believe, be safely stated that World War

III started with the Russian victory at Stalingrad. Thereafter

they opened their diplomatic war against the West when they

gave every evidence of turning upon the Polish armies, the

Polish people, and the loyal and devoted Polish government in

exile in London.

spring of 1943, was the touchstone of this whole period, and

it was at the Quebec Conference that the whole dangerous

policy of the United States toward the Soviet Union was

forecast and prefigured. At Quebec the decision was made to

invade southern France and keep the weakened American

Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army indecisively engaged

in Italy. It was at Quebec also that the most amazing and

indicative document that has so far emerged from the volumi-

nous records of World War II was brought to bear. This

document, a memorandum entitled "Russia's Position," affords

us clear insight into our subsequent surrenders at Teheran and

Yalta as well as at Potsdam. The document appears, and only

there in Sherwood's book about Hopkins. It is on page 748.

The memorandum is ascribed there to "a very-high-level

United States military strategic estimate." Sherwood reports

that Hopkins had it with him at Quebec. Can it be doubted

that this document emanated from General Marshall, whoever

drafted it? The question of its authorship is extremely impor-

tant. I hope that some day its authorship will be fixed for

all to see.

Here it is in full:

Russia's postwar position in Europe will be a domninant

one. With Germany crushed, there is no power in Europe to

oppose her tremendous military forces. It is true that

Great Britain is building up a position in the Mediterranean

vis-a-vis Russia that she may find useful in balancing power

in Europe. However, even here she may not be able to

oppose Russia unless she is otherwise supported.

Russia is the decisive factor in the war, she must be given

every assistance, and every effort must be made to obtain

her friendship. Likewise, since without question she will

dominate Europe on the defeat of the Axis, it is even more

essential to develop and maintain the most friendly relations

with Russia.

to consider in relation to Russia is the prosecution of the

war in the Pacific. With Russia as an ally in the war against

Japan, the war can be terminated in less time and at less

expense in life and resources than if the reverse were the

case. Should the war in the Pacific have to be carried on

with an unfriendly or negative attitude on the part of

Russia, the difficulties will be immeasurably increased and

Operations might become abortive.

Sherwood understood the memorandum's significance. He wrote,

'This estimate was obviously of great importance as

indicating the policy which guided the making of decisions at

25

Teheran and, much later, at Yalta." What this document is, in

effect, is a rationalization of the whole policy of submission to

Russia during the remainder of world war II and, most

notably, in our relationships with China thereafter. What it

said was that as a result of the utter destruction of Germany

which we had erected into s policy at Casablanca with the

phrase "unconditional surrender," Russia would be the un-

questioned "top dog" in Europe after the war, and that it

bebooved the great, enlightened, and truly progressive English

speaking peoples therefore to cater to, to placate, and, in fact

to submit to the will of the Kremlin thereafter. It said unmis-

takably that the British endeavors in the Mediterranean, which

Marshall had succeeded in blocking, were aimed at balancing

Power in Europe vis-a-vis Russia.

insisted that we must carry this attitude of solicitude and

deference beyond Europe. We must bow to Russia in the Far

East as well. It is here that we find the fist explicit delineation

of the policy which produced the shameful betrayal of China at Yalta, the

blackmail paid by Roosevelt to get Russia into a war which she

had already announced her eagerness to wage.

at the White House late in May of 1943 when Churchill again

crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of a common objective. He

found that Marshall was opposed to any action in the Medi-

terranean beyond taking Sardinia after the occupation of

Sicily, and that then all of our subsequent efforts were to be

devoted to what the late Sir John Dill, who was Chief of the

British Military Mission in Washington, once referred to in a

letter to Churchill as "Marshall's first love" -- the transchannel

invasion. Roosevelt was pulled and hauled on this issue as

much as on any in the war. His inclinations, based upon his

knowledge of geography and his adventurous strategic desires,

were toward expanding the war into eastern Europe. Ultimate-

ly, however, Roosevelt went along with Marshall.

have his views prevail that he induced Roosevelt to send

Marshall with him to North Africa for a further discussion

with military leaders in that theater. I gather from The Hinge

of Fate that it was at this point that Churchill realized that his

great antagonist in the war was Marshall, that he and Mar-

shall were virtually contending for the mastery of their views

over the impulsive will of the President. It was in connection

with this journey by Churchill and Marshall to North Africa

that the Prime Minister wrote in The Hinge of Fate, pages 812 and

813, a tribute to the general as a "statesman with a penetrating

and commanding view of the whole scene." It maybe noted that

Churchill did not ascribe to Marshall a correct and trustworthy

view of the whole scene and it may be wondered in

light of their great conflicts, whether the Prime Minister

was not perhaps indulging his rather frequent taste for irony.

who invariably sided with Marshall, the whole

battery of persuasion of himself and his military subordinates.

The views of the British were made more persuasive by the fact that

they had carried the major burden of the war in

North Africa. Marshall resisted, remaining, as Churchill com-

ments, "up 'til almost the last minute, silent or cryptic." The

upshot was that Marshall insisted upon deferring the decision

until Sicily had been made secure and "the situation in Russia

known." The quotation is from Churchill's report of the conference.

We recur to the Quebec Conference of August 14, as Admiral

Leahy reports it on page 175 of his book:

Marshall was very positive in his attitude against

a Mediterranean commitment.

Churchill did, however, temporarily prevail, and we invaded Italy;

but Marshall and Stalin won out in the end when Roosevelt sided

with them at Teheran, where there was thrown a

way the advantage of the Italian campaign. We are indebted

to Mr. Sherwood for the fullest account of the Stalin position

at Teheran. This account was obtained, of course,

from Hopkin's oral and written recollections. At one point, quoted

on page 780 of Sherwood's book, Stalin urged that the "entry

of Turkey into the war -- a development to which Churchill

was passionately committed, and which the Russians

had been previously urging -- might be helpful in opening the way in

the Balkans, but the Balkans were far from the heart Germany,

and the only direct way of striking at that heart was through France."

Here Roosevelt suggested that it might be useful

if the Americans and British marched east in con-

junction with Tito's Partisans into Rumania and joined with the Reds

at Odessa. Stalin inquired if that would affect the thirty-five

divisions earmarked for the transchannel invasion of France.

Churchill replied that it would not. Sherwood com-

ments, however, that "nothing could be further from the plans

of the United States Chief of Staff." It was then that Stalin

brought his powerful guns to bear to conclude the controver-

sy. I am quoting from Sherwood -- and he wrote:

Stalin expressed the opinion that it would be unwise to scatter

forces in various operations through the eastern

Mediterranean. He said he thought Overlord (the name

given to the crosschannal invasion) should be considered

the basis of all Operations in 1944 and that after the cap-

ture of Rome, the forces used there should be sent into southern

France to provide a diversionary operation in sup-

port of Overlord. He even felt that it might be better to

abandon the capture of Rome altogether, leaving 10 divisions

to hold the present line in Italy and using the rest of

the Allied forces for the invasion of southern France. He

said it had been the experience of the Red Army that it was

best to launch an offensive from two converging directions,

forcing the enemy to move his reserves from one front to

the other. Therefore, he favored simultaneous operations in

northern and southern France, rather than the scattering

of forces in the eastern Mediterranean.

upon Marshall's ears with the authority of revelation. It was

made abundantly evident at Teheran that Marshall had

earned the warm approval of Stalin. On page 783 of the

Sherwood record, the author notes that both Stalin and

Voroshilov obviously recognized Marshall as the supreme

advocate of Overlord and therefore their friend.

of Overlord, Voroshilov turned to him and said admir-

ingly,. "If you think about it, you will do it."

On page 791, in discussing the moot question at that time

of who was to command Overlord, Sherwood repeats a report

that Stalin in discussions with Roosevelt, made evident his con-

viction that "no wiser or more reassuring choice than Mar-

shall could be made.

fondness for no other American at Teheran with the single

exception of Hopkins, with whom he had a personal ac-

quaintance dating from Hopkins's visit to Moscow in August

of 1941 upon an errand which must have gratified the tyrant's

heart. It was then that Hopkins offered the bountiful support

of the United States to the Kremlin's resistance of the Nazi

invaders without stint, quid pro quo, or any reservations

whatsoever.

because of illness, himself commented on the reports as he

received them. His comments will be found on page 465 of

Global Mission. Said Arnold:

Apparently Uncle Joe had talked straight from the shoul-

der about how to carryon the war against Germany, and

his ideas, it seems, were much more in accord with the

American ideas than with those of the British.

giving his own version of the Stalin speech I have quoted from

Sherwood. He wrote, and this is on page 204 of his book.

The Soviets and Americans seemed to be nearly in agree-

ment as to the fundamental strateglc principles that should

be followed.

invasion of southern France was given the name Anvil.

Although Churchill and his advisers continued to

fight for the eastern operation, it was manifestly a losing

struggle. Churchill himself employed his stormy eloquence on

Mark Clark as that great American general was fighting his

way up Italian peninsula, assuring Clark that, given his

way, the Western Powers could "slit this soft under-belly of

the Axis." The Prime Minister was pursuing a lost cause. After

the capture of Rome, the Fifth Army which had become, as

Clark proudly asserts, "a tremendous fighting machine" with

"horizons unlimited," was disrupted. Over Clark's strong pro-

tests, he lost the Sixth Corps and seven crack French divi-

sions, all withdrawn for Anvil. Clark was compelled to

abandon his drive to the Po, giving Kesselring respite, a deci-

sion that puzzled the German high command, as we were to

discover after their surrender. Writes Clark on page 371 of

Calculated Risks: "It was s decision that was likely to puzzle

historians for a much longer time." In considering his impres-

sion of that period when he sat down to write his memoirs

after the war, Clark says, on page 368:

Stalin, it was evident throughout the Big Three meeting

and negotiations at Teheran, was not one of the strongest boosters

of the invasion of southern France. He knew ex-

actly what he wanted in a political as well as a military

way; and what he wanted was to keep us out of

the Balkans, which he had staked out for the Red Army.

If we switched our strength from Italy to France, it was

obvious to Stalin * * * that we would turn away from cen-

tral Europe. Anvil led into a dead-end street. It was easy

to see why Stalin favored Anvil at Teheran and why be kept

on pushing for it.

with what lay before Clark and was denied him by Marshall

in collaboration with Stalin. Says Clark:

After the fall of Rome, Kesselring's army could have

been destroyed if we had been able to shoot the works in a

final offensive. Across the Adriatic was Yugoslavia * * *

and beyond Yugoslavia were Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

armies came to rest, there they stayed and there they remain

to this day. The Red armies have not relinquished one inch of

the soil upon which they stood at the defeat of Germany.

General Clark continues:

There was no question that the Balkans were strongly in

the British mind, but so far as I ever found out, American

top-level planners were not interested. It was generally

understood that President Roosevelt toyed with the idea

for a while but was not encouraged by Harry Hopkins.

After the fall of Rome, we "ran for the wrong goal," both

from a political and a strategical standpoint.

to judge the consequences because he served with the utmost

distinction as the American military governor of Vienna after

the war. It was there that he felt the iron determination of the

Soviet imperialism to prevail over eastern Europe. It was there

that be had ample opportunity to consider how differently

things might have been bad we proceeded east from the valley

of the Po instead of turning our forces into the trivial and

wholly unnecessary operations in southern France. General

Clark concludes on page 3 of his book, and I here summarize

him as the most highly qualified witness in this matter:

Yet, I believe our mission was fulfilled and, save for a

high-level blunder that turned us away from the Balkan

states and permitted them to fall under Red Army control,

the Mediterranean campaign might have been the most de-

cisive of all in postwar history.

blement of his campaign in Italy -- and this is on page 368 -

Clark writes:

A campaign that might have changed the whole history of the relationship between the Western World and Soviet Russia was permitted to fade away. * * * The weakening of the campaign in Italy * * * was one of the outstanding political mistakes of the war.

to the nonmilitary post of Ambassador to the Vati-

can, at this writing not yet confirmed, was Mark Clark,

a man pronouncedly in his military prime, a man of great achieve-

ment in Italy and of outstanding political and diplomatic

accomplishment in Austria? After his return home from Vi-

enna, General Clark was consistently relegated to secondary

commands.

prime, likewise a soldier of great brilliance and great devotion

to his country.

of General Marshall in his history-making deci-

sions, Clark in Europe, Wedemeyer in Asia.

Where is Lucius Clay? Like MacArthur and Clark, a great

proconsul; young as generals go, brilliant and steadfast in

devotion not to party but to country. Clay insisted on resisting

the Russians at Berlin.

leaders of our establishment. A prudent officer, looking for-

ward to his continued career and his pension, certainly has to

think twice before he expresses an objective and disinterested

opinion of strategy or of the conduct of our military opera-

tions.

mination of Marshall to rule our politico-military policies now

as he ruled our policies in World War II. The evidence is

overwhelming that at Teheran we had no political policy. It so

appears in the recollections of Major John R. Deane. After observing,

an page 43 of his book The Strange Alliance, that "Stalin advocated the

American point of view in our differences with Britain" and again

that "Stalin's 'position' coincided with that of the American

Chief of Staff and every word he said strengthened the sup-

port they might expect from President Roosevelt in the ulti-

mate decision," Deane continues:

Stalin appeared to know exactly what he wanted at the

conference. This was also true of Churchill, but not so of

Roosevelt. This is not said as a reflection on our President

but his apparent indecision was probably a direct result of

our obscure foreign policy. President Roosevelt was think-

ing of winning the war; the others were thinking of their

relative positions when the war was won. Stalin wanted the

Anglo-American forces in Western and southern Europe;

Churchill thought our postwar position would be improved

and British interests best served if the Anglo-Americans, as

well as the Russians, participated in the occupation of the

Balkans. From the political point of view, hindsight on our

part points to foresight on Churchill's part.

Hansen Baldwin, was never so glaringly manifested as at

Teheran -- if, indeed, it was political immaturity and not the

consequences of some hidden, and so far undisclosed, in-

fluence binding us to Stalin's world policy.

Teheran dwelt only on the pleasures and tasks of the day with

no thought for the morrow? Could they not envisage what

was so clear to many other minds, that after the conclusion of

hostilities the Soviet Union, conscious of its vast and violent

world mission, might be ranged against us in every quarter of

the globe? Or did Marshall and his supernumeraries on the

Joint Chiefs at Teheran think of England instead of Russia as

the future enemy?

conflict over the most important phases of the recent war, I

shall cite another example of the ruthlessness with which

Marshall prosecuted the rift. It should be noted that Church-

ill, who is an indomitable adversary in the House of Commons

and elsewhere, fought on against Anvil long after

his was a lost cause.

American side met before proceeding to that Black Sea

conference, the British chiefs still persisted in the hope of

accomplishing some Mediterranean operations while pre-

paring for the attack across the Channel. In Sherwood's book,

page 848, is a revealing passage concerning those discussions

of the combined chiefs:

The arguments reached such a point that Marsball, ordi-

narily one of the most restrained and soft-spoken of men,

announced that if the British plan were approved by the

Prime Minister and the President, he would recommend to

Eisenhower that he bad no choice but to be relieved of his

command.

front now," Marshall was threatening summary action unless

his will prevailed. Why was it so important to Marshall that

the British, as a full partner in the Anglo-American war effort,

should be prevented from creating that balance of military power in the

Mediterranean spoken of in the memorandum circulated by Hopkins

at the first Quebec conference?

us consider instances in the management of American military

affairs in World War II where Marshall's actions operated

directly against the interests of the United States.

Marshall. He was Marshall's protege, having served as secretary

of the combined chiefs in Washington until Mar-

shall sent him in the fall of 1943 to Moscow as chief of our

military mission in Russia. It should be noted that we had

withdrawn our military and naval attaches from Moscow

because, in fulfilling the time-honored and expected duties of

military attaches, they had aroused the resentment of the

Kremlin. Those duties include discovering and reporting to the

home government all information that can be obtained legiti-

mately regarding the armed forces of the country to which the

are accredited. The information thus sought has to do

with weapons, tactical programs and methods, and the size,

training and disposition of that country's military forces.

he had a long interview with General Marshall, in which the

Chief of Staff cautioned Deane to seek no information about

these matters for fear that he might "irritate" the Russians. We

were then devoting a substantial part of our military pro-

duction to Russia's war effort, and doing so in entirely good

faith. It was not long after General Deane reached Moscow

that he began to be impressed with the extraordinary contrast

between the Russian attitude and our own. This he describes

on page 49 of his book:

We had thousands of Soviet representatives in the United

States who were allowed to visit our manufacturing plants,

attend our schools, and witness tests of aircraft and other

equipment. In Italy, and later in France and Germany, Rus-

sian representatives were welcome at our field headquarters

and allowed to see anything they desired of our military

operations. Our policy was to make any of our new inven-

tions in electronics and other fields available to Russia

* * * each month I would receive a revised list of secret

American equipment about which Russia could be informed

in the hope that if it could be made available, it might be

used on the Russian front. We never lost an opportunity to

give the Russians equipment, weapons, or information which

we thought might help our combined war effort.

countered the Iron Curtain long before Churchill coined the

phrase. Toward the end of the war, when our always excessive

solicitude seemed to him no longer warranted, he advised a

more resolute attitude toward the Russians. Each time he

suggested that we demand a fu1f1llment of an agreement - and

they broke virtually every agreement we made with them - he

was called off in Washington. By whom? Deane's reports went

directly to General Marshall.

American; or at least an allied, corridor to Berlin? Why are we

at the mercy of the Russians in our access to the joint capital

of the occupying powers? Why was it possible for the Rus -

sians to produce the blockage of Berlin with a simple set of

instructions with which General Clay found it impossible, as a

man of honor and a great American soldier, to comply?

foresight upon the late John G. Winant. As our Ambassador

to London he sat on the European Advisory Commission,

which worked out under the direction of the respective gov-

ernments the zoning of Germany for occupation purposes.

Winant cannot answer our questions now. General Clay, in

his report on his great career as the American governor in

Germany, Decision In Germany, accepts the version that

shoulders the blame onto Winant. Subsequently, on page

26, he himself takes the final blame. He was in Berlin in late

June of 1945 arranging with Marshall Zhukov for the entry of

American forces into their occupation position in Berlin.

The Russians were, as usual, hard to deal with. Clay was

eager to get his occupation going and to have American

forces on guard in Berlin. Instead of pressing the matter of a

corridor under American rule, guarded by American troops,

with supply and communication beyond the reach of Russian

interference, he accepted an oral understanding with Zhukov

that nothing would ever occur to impede American access to

Berlin. Our zonal border, it will be recalled, had been set a

distance of 100 miles from Berlin.

sibility for this tragic blunder in postwar arrangements has

been vigorously challenged by Hanson Baldwin, who fixes the

responsibility not on Winant but squarely on the War Depart-

ment. "War Department" at that time meant George Catlett

Marshall. From the fall of 1939 until the fall of 1946, Mar-

shall was, in effect, the War Department. I cannot find in

Mr. Stimson's memoirs any occasion on which he opposed the will

of General Marshall.

that "the blame for Berlin cannot be laid exclusively, or even

to a major degree - upon the shoulders of Winant." Two

pages later, in reviewing the background of this deplorable

situation, Baldwin notes that the State Department at the end

of 1943 proposed that the zones of postwar occupation "be so

drawn as to bring each into contact with Berlin." I hasten

to add that Cordell Hull -- not Marshall or Dean Acheson --

was then Secretary of State.

For some reason that defies logical understanding now,

the War Department rejected this suggestion, which would

have solved nearly all our postwar Berlin difficulties, so that

it was never even broached in the EAC.

In February 1944, the British informally suggested that a

corridor o Berlin be established and defined, but the War

Department again objected, stating that this was not a

subject for the EAC, but that the entire question of access

to Berlin was a military matter which should be settled at

the proper time by military representatives.

And this eventually was the solution, but the military

representatives made a botch of it. In May 1945 our allies

stood deep on German soil. The zonal occupation agree-

ments for Germany * * * placed Berlin in the Russian zone

* * *. In May 1945 ECA's work was done and SCAEF was

briefed as to its accomplishments.

were told that the War Department had blacked any consider-

ation of it by EAC and were advised that the EAC staff

believed we should have an indisputably American corridor

under our own military supervision and guard. As we have

seen, neither Marshall nor Eisenhower made provision for a

corridor; General Clay concluded his improvised agreement

with Zhukov, and the fat was in the fire.

at the mercy of the Russians in Berlin? Why did not our forces

march first into Berlin? Why was General Patton not allowed

to take Prague? We have only glimpses of the inner reality

behind these questions. We gather from General Bradley's

memoirs that Eisenhower's decision not to reach Berlin first

was conditioned to some extent by the vagrant quarrel that

had arisen between Bradley and General Montgomery. In his

version of the matter, appearing on page 69 of Life magazine

for April 30, 1951, Bradley relates a discussion with Eisen-

hower wherein it was decided not to allow Montgomery the

forces with which to push on to Berlin. Eisenhower was

principally concerned at the moment lest the armies of Russia

and the English-speaking powers should meet in a head-on

collision somewhere in Germany. I quote Bradley on how

Eisenhower solved the problem:

around the Ruhr, Eisenhower radioed Stalin through the

United States Military Mission in Moscow of his plan to

push east with a powerful force in the center to the line of

the Elbe.

that he would bring the American armies to rest. Eisenhower

fixed this highly important point, be it noted, with Stalin. It is

clear from Bradley's recollections that Eisenhower acted on

this highly political question without consulting with Churchill.

Whether he consulted Roosevelt and Marshall is not men-

tioned by Bradley. Certainly he must have consulted Marshall.

I continue to quote Bradley:

Although Churchill protested Eisenhower's radio to Mos-

cow as an unwarranted intrusion by the military into a

political problem; he reserved his angriest vituperation for

the plan Eisenhower proposed. The Prime Minister, accord-

ing to Eisenhower, was greatly disappointed and disturbed

that SCAEF had not reinforced Montgomery with Ameri-

can troops and pointed him toward Berlin in a desperate

[sic] effort to capture that city before the Russians took it.

We gain another bit of insight into this situation -- which

provides a somewhat more startling example of command

discretion than any displayed by Macarthur in Japan -- from

Edward Ansel Mowrer in his book The Nightmare of Ameri-

can Foreign Policy, in which he relates having been personally

told by the White House that "the Joint Chiefs of Staff advised

Truman to let the Russians take Berlin." The Joint Chiefs of Staff,

of course, meant Marshall.

We have been reviewing General Marshall's record as it applies to the war

in Europe with an eye to his competence and the extent to which he

backed up Stalin in political decisions. The Democrats

in Denver proclaimed him "a master of global strategy." The term,

of course, implies much more than purely military planning.

As we have seen, when you reach the upper levels of command

inhabited during the recent war by Marshall, Churchill, and Roosevelt,

the military decisions blend everywhere with the political. They

cannot be disassociated. A war is not conducted merely as a means of

killing the enemy, although during the late war Mr. Roosevelt

expressed so much joy over Russia's accomplishments in that

line that it might be questioned if he always understood the

the nature of war. We have seen recently in Korea where, beg-

gered of any respectable and intelligent war purpose, our

forces were led to believe from Marshall's testimony that the

only objective of war was to kill the enemy. I put aside

the ethical considerations raised by such an attitude and point

out that the enemy's extermination is not enough. Of course, it

is necessary to have the enemy's submission. But, also, great

powers must have some understanding of what that submis-

sion portends and what they intend to do with the world over

which they will exercise sway once the enemy is defeated.

allied cause had Roosevelt accepted Marshall's persistent de-

mand for a "second front now." We have seen the equivocal

and dangerous nature of his counsel with reference to the

North African invasion. We have observed how closely he

fitted his views into those of Stalin over every major issue of

the war. We have seen further how, in his instructions to

General Deane, his refusal to exercise foresight over the corri-

dor to Berlin, and his wish that the Russians might first enter

that great and shattered city, General Marshall's decisions

paralleled the interests of the Kremlin.

appraisal of General Marshall's attainments as a strategist.

The question that arises, after examining the facts we have

enumerated and those we shall enumerate, is, in whose in-

terest did he exercise his genius? If he was wholeheartedly

serving the cause of the United States, these decisions were

great blunders. If they followed a secret pattern to which we

do not as yet have the key, they may very well have been

successful in the highest degree.

THE YALTA SELLOUT

38

The intervening years saw a steady encroachment by Japan

39

40

What does this whole sordid transaction teach us about the

Why, merely this, that in their minds the imperialism of the

41

42

43

44

45

The Secretary of State lost no time in cabling the promise

In his reflections over Yalta--Hull had by then resigned -

The fourth assurance from Stalin regarding the Far East

What was the war situation in the Pacific in January of

Yet at Yalta, Marshall redoubled his endeavors for