The Eisenhower years; 3; West Point and Beyond

The following program is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Some by onlookers are trying to say I didn't want to want to do this is great. Singer and I was going to go to school. Good cadet you know but frankly everybody very popular with the cadets and known very well people every time you're out of that room there was some I could get to scream at you and get your chin back and hold your head up get your shoulders back and keep running to old soldiers remembering their days at the point you collect the merits of West Point very easily by leaving a handkerchief on the table during morning inspection or forgetting to shriek behind the door or something else and that was where I had strength anyway but I got a lot of merit for things like that you know but I wasn't I was I say I wasn't a careful cadet but I was far from being a trouble maker and he was kind of sergeant which took.

I had to carry that reputation of being well dressed you know what I'm standing up straight. No I would have probably gone been quite high because I paid no attention I go to sleep when my roommate would be working you know and then in the morning you get up to say you know I think about this lesson that as a No what is TELL ME AND I GO TO SCHOOL that way. We knew we had a good class because we had a lot of athletes in the class and you know quite often do these become leaders their class would be known as the class the stars fell on it would produce 59 generals two of them would earn five stars and one would have a direct hand in shaping the mid 20th century world. Are on. The Eisenhower years. Chronicle in sound of the Life Extension Radio-TV at Kansas State University. This week.

West Point and. Some biographers have tried to say I didn't want to want to do that crazy or that I was going to go to school but I had some money and I stayed out of school two years in order to help my brother who is two years older Bedouins who high school with me during the two years. An old friend of mine from way back in high school days or earlier came back to town. His name was his that he had taken the examination to Annapolis and he. Failed came back and was studying because he got a reappointment from the local congressman. Tell me about these two counties and they got me steamed up about it. So the two of this began studying together and we did it by getting the old examinations that these schools had been putting out for years.

They had the answers and so on and so we studied and re-examine each other and in the meantime I had to get busy to try to get an appointment and that's when Senator Bristow said all right if you take good care of examinations and this was about I guess late in 1910 I took it and I've applied for both. Proud I took both Annapolis and West Point well to my amazement I came out of line all right in the Navy and navy but to West Point and then they found out that I was too old for Annapolis. Now the only place to go in West Point but it was a fellow ahead of me and he. Failed physically. And so this put me in West Point so it was that Dwight Eisenhower went army instead of Navy. He was ecstatic about his acceptance to West Point a free education being quite a bargain. But his elation was somewhat dampened by his mother's reaction.

She didn't like it but she never made the fuss about it that some people have tried to do. She thought that for one of her boys to go into the army as something to work for and so was she. She just felt sad rather wicked and I know that she was sad not realizing more than she was sad about it. But she never made any. I still enjoy 1911. A young man from Abilene Kansas said goodbye to his mother and youngest brother Milton and set off suitcase in hand for the train station boarding an eastward bound train. A bad farewell to the only world he'd known thus far and eagerly if not a little apprehensively looked forward to an exciting new one at the same time. So did another new cadet to West Point Omar Bradley. I had no idea what West Point like. I had read about general and successful leaders in West Point but I had no idea what the Course was like until I had decided to try to go when I got a catalog and see what the various subjects were but

even then I couldn't visualize the life of the cadets cadet Eisenhower was older than his classmates and this together with the independent self-reliant life he'd led in Kansas and his excellent physical condition put him ahead of the others. In fact he was able to relax and enjoy the strenuous physical demands of West Point and to good naturedly shrug off the exacting disciplinary standards and traditions of a military institution. Every time you're out of that room there was some to scream at you and your church and back you know your head up yet your shoulders back and keep running double time there Mister everybody called Mister don't guard Mr. Duke and all that part of the game. Ike's conduct record could never be held as a sterling example to later cadets. Gave you demerits for being late to formation for a little dust in your corner of your room while your litter not piled properly in your locker and all that. Well I couldn't be bothered with such things so I got lots of demerits but but

I didn't get many demerits for for vicious and just for example I never got anything I never quit drinking or anything I guess much very easy to pick up to marriage at West Point. Doesn't mean he was bad just that he got caught in some carelessness or something. I had a roommate and I lived all four years with and he couldn't see things that are wrong he'd go off to start off the class leaving a handkerchief on the table for example and he didn't see it. I don't wish to get him out of the room and take one last look before I go to class. However I knew I might get to remortgage that weekend I get to marriage for it thanks to marriage for things like that. Mostly I wasn't a careful cadet but I was far from being a troublemaker and cheerful defiance of the rules I would sometimes indulge his whimsical sense of humor by playing pranks on his seniors. One of his favorites was the time

he and a classmate were ordered to report for disciplinary action in full dress codes. These were cut away coat with long tails and back tailored straight across the waist in front. Having decided to literally obey that order the two jokers appeared before the corporal wearing the required coat and not a stitch more. Their fellow classmates loved it but the corporal failed to see the humor and severely reprimanded them. While I could steadfastly resolve to get a college education his interest in academics was decidedly lacking. Well the first year I think of my my best I think I was about 50 out of about 200 something like that but I ended up but I think telling you 61 out of 162 people my diameter probably gone been quite high because I paid no attention I go to sleep when my roommate would be working you know in the morning get up said You know I think about this lesson that as a No what is it you tell me and I go to school with the intention and motivation missing from my school work and conduct were poured into sports and he succeeded in winning a place on the football team.

His all consuming devotion to football earned him a New York Times accolade as one of the most promising backs in eastern football in 1012. He had his name emblazoned on a bronze plaque on the wall of the Westpoint gymnasium. He worked hard and long at improving himself. But all his efforts and expectations were shattered during an army game in 1912 where playing toughs and what happened I was eyes on John I was a punching back and I went through and with first pretty fair game fair game. But as I went past a man got ahold of me on my foot and wasn't his fault but me wanting anxious to get every last foot I run to the head and my foot was twisted. You see so and I really helped him and he I was really the one that hurt myself because my foot this twisted around like that well I assume I will weight the power. And I can feel something replied I didn't particularly hurt I get to hear it and see it and I got up the next time and I went on on for another player to then they had the ball and they came to

us and I went back with a pitcher does my job and I went to turn and I fell and I realized something happened I couldn't get up so they took me off the field and I never got back on that as a player again. The injury was a crushing blow to Ike and he seriously considered dropping out of West Point. When I found I couldn't do anything and I was just going to be somebody on the sidelines or sitting up in the chairs it was just too hard for me to accept profile. That's when I started to smoke and every spoke before then and I began my own classmates made me the cheerleader for my last year and things like that but it was only their persuasion that kept me from resigning because I'd written the paper to us in time but then they talked me out of it and so I had been permanently weakened by the football accident. It was further weakened by a riding accident so much so that I very nearly lost his commission.

They knew about his injury because I had been back and forth in the hospital a number of times. I twisted and I did. For a day or two. And so Colonel Shaw a very fine man was actually deeply concerned about the possibility that I would be Commission then would have to retire in a year or two and would be a permanent liability on them on a I me. So the question was to commission or not commission. Well they called me up and I said well I didn't care too much I said I'll just take my savings that they made for savings I must add because I never would have done a problem. But I said I'd take to Argentina. Somebody always had this this even going to see the Argentine. He said to me over and think it over. Then in a few days he called me back and he said he realized that my my a great part of my injury was in

writing. I mean that's a serious issue. So he said Mr. I's Now if you will not ask for a mounted service I will recommend you for a commission I said that's all right to me I want to go in the infantry anyway and so I just my preference sheet came around about two or three weeks for graduation or maybe two three months ever gotten. I said I am going to do everything with me when I got there for no one would have guessed at the time that I class would be the one most stars fall on. Years later he and many of his classmates would rank among the great American generals. One of them General Omar Bradley we knew we had a good class because we had a lot of athletes not clashed quite often need to become leaders and we had a large class that graduated up to that time in the annals of West Point Dwight Eisenhower would not be remembered for outstanding academic achievement or for example conduct.

Instead he would be warmly recalled for his engaging personality his friendliness good humor fond regard for his fellows and his natural abilities as a leader. Suspended precariously in mid-air. Second Lieutenant Eisenhower vainly tried to persuade the irate colonel but he be allowed to climb to the top of the cable and touch the flagpole before it came down. The Colonel was adamant in his demand that Eisenhower get down immediately. Whereupon he was dressed down as foolhardy and dignified untrustworthy undependable and ignorant. The colonel had failed to appreciate the challenge to skill and endurance that had prompted Ike and his friends to bet $5 that he could climb one of those cables anchoring the 60 foot flagpole using hands only. Having delivered his reprimand

the colonel stalked off leaving behind a very sheepish Ike who was forced to call it a draw. Bus ended a day in the life of Second Lieutenant Eisenhower of the nineteenth of a great Fort Sam Houston Texas. Gambling luck was running pretty thin. Upon graduation from West Point he had a couple of friends each bet $10 that he would be the last to marry but Ike was the first to go. Totally smitten by the pretty and by bassist maybe Geneva Dowd of Denver and Senate. One day I was sent on guard duty you know when the guy did all serve as ground inspector a sentinel post and then I was just starting my quarter out of my quarters to do this with the belt on you know with my pistol and I was thinking I was across the street was a lady that I knew is you own one of the officers wives and she said I came over here and

I said I'm sorry you know Ms Harris I really got to go. Respect the guard says I don't want your many come over you don't have afternoon I want to meet some people I met this girl and on the way over quoting what I was told later she said the woman the woman hater of the post. Well I don't know as I go down I don't how I got that name I didn't know I did because I surely I didn't hate women but in any event that in most intrigued this girl so and I said well I'm going to inspect the post now and if you'd like to go on I'd like to be long. She just walked off. When we started prior to meeting maybe I could applied for service in the aviation section of the army. He was fascinated by the airplane for seeing it strategic and tactical value for the military and excited by the dangerous new adventure of flying about the same time that he and me became engaged. Ike received his acceptance to the aviation section but his prospective father in law didn't share his enthusiasm that time the Air Force was called the

aviation division of the corps and was accepted and when I did become engaged my. Mother may not have been so but her dad has never known I never liked he go never know this thing was. There he just said you know you get married and the next you know because you know you're going to suicide quite well and they're like I was 30 and far too deeply in love to lead change in my career ruined my marriage so I said all right I give it up so I reviewed my application and so I never got here but I did find a way. Maybe he many years later. I did it and.

I learned enough about flying that I soloed a while and around you know it was very convenient over their married life for the Eisenhower's was not made easy by the army throughout Ike's military career they led an almost nomadic existence seemingly always on the move. Sometimes forced to separate. Maybe he would return to her family home either in Denver or San Antonio until Ike was stationed someplace where conditions permitted her to join him wherever they were able to make it home. However temporary It became the gathering place for officers and wives of all ranks. They were a popular couple remembered for their genial hospitality graciousness and friendship. The couple had two sons of whom the first little Eckie died of scarlet fever at the age of three for Ike. It was the greatest personal tragedy he ever suffered. The. Bigger the hand of fate

would seem to have guided Ike in the long years following West Point and leading up to World War 2 preparation for his role in that war began with the training of men for service in the first world war. As a professional soldier he had felt duty bound to be on the battlefield himself. Already some of his classmates had won distinction. A few had died. His attempts to go overseas were frustrated though by an endless series of assignments from one training camp to another. Every job he did with speed efficiency and hard work and his military record began to accumulate the first of many superior ratings he would receive throughout his career. After the war Ike worked closely with then Colonel George S. Patton in developing a comprehensive tank doctrine instead of tanks being used as merely slow moving cumbersome adjunct to the attacking infantry as they were in World War One. Eisenhower and Patton believe tanks should have an important role of their own that they should have speed reliability and firepower but they should be employed en masse attacking the enemy

by surprise and breaking through and enveloping his defensive positions. But I can patent were widely criticized for impractical and dangerous ideas. They are a solidly entrenched in traditions of warfare lack the foresight of these young creative officers. If one person directly influenced Ike's attitude toward himself and his future in the Army it was General Fox Connor. Ike was stationed in Panama as Connors staff officer in the early twenties Eisenhower historian Stephen Ambrose author of the supreme commander. The Warriors of General Dwight Eisenhower speaks of Foxconn are one of those unfortunate. Individuals in. Military life unfortunate in the sense that he was really too young to go to the very top in World War One. And it was too old. By the time World War to. Counter. Service persons T3 officer in charge of operations a staff officer in charge of operations and. In France in World War. 1.

And had there been another war in the next 10 or 15 years Connor certainly would have been the head of the US Army for. His reputation throughout the Army. Was on excelled. I think thing impressed me most was. More than once in interviewing. Eisenhower in the mid 60s. Which is to say interviewing a man who had been twice present United States. Supreme command of the allied expeditionary force. And in the process had gotten to know. Really all of the great men of the. Middle third of the century. Any of the great world leaders that one thinks of. For the middle third of the century. Eisenhower knew. And yet in the mid sixties and interviews he would say Foxconn it was the ablest man I ever knew. Hey Connor ahead of all of them Connor acted as teacher philosopher and historian and led to an appreciation and understanding of the will and conduct of men.

Stephen Ambrose what kind of did for him was. To get him. Interested in his profession. In a way for the first time in his life. He really got into what being a soldier was all about. Kind of had him read a lot. Kind would give him. A kinder in fact came of course in military history and military strategy. And he would read enormous amounts of material. From Alexander the Great on. Through Napoleon in the American Civil War and into World War 1. And then sit around wrap with Connor about it. After dinner. For five nights a week. And had a brilliant mind. It's. Probably the impression I have of Connor is that he would have been a. Really outstanding teacher. Connor used to tell him that there's a next war to everything when the next war do everything you can to hitch up with George Marshall. Because Marshall is the

guy that's going to be the head. The American army the next time we fight. They emphasize very strongly that Eisenhower learned to think in global terms. Because the next war would be a global war. Foxconn are steadfastly believed even as early as the 1920s that the world would see another major war. He was convinced that Ike would play a major role in it and urged him to be ready. Biographer Kenneth S. Davis. I think that like Connor did make him feel that there was there was going to be another war and there were going to need generals and that he was a guy who could very well be a great man. I think he did feel lists that there was this chance and he wanted to be ready for it. You take advantage of it if it came because he didn't he did after Conor and there's quite a few. If you think about Ike's career there was there was a certain difference between him before Conner and after Conner he was much more serious about his job after Kyron and

before I could kind of. That along with life. Into his mid 30s. And Sonny with Connor he had to confront himself and decide whether he really wanted to be a soldier and. He said he did. Ike's military education came from several areas he learned of strategy tactics and command at the Command and General Staff school. He placed first in his class. The textbooks were put to use in the easy Ana where he served as chief of staff to the Third Army in the largest field maneuvers in American history. Eisenhower's wartime aide Harry butcher Gen X attained a good deal of prestige out of those maneuvers because they referee found that he was able to move his man and his equipment and get over bridges and around across rivers etc. more quickly than the others and showed promise. It also happened that one of the

observations was a secretary of the general staff then Colonel I believe Beedle Smith who later became general and who also later became the secretary general staff under Gen X allied commander. Beetle Smith reported back to Washington the John Marshall the dirty work of this upcoming Colonel Eisenhower and also about the same time Pearson and Allen who had a merry go round column came out with a four column extolling of quality leadership and accomplishment of this unknown Colonel which was a pose I suppose you could call a fortunate circumstance for an unknown colonel in 1928 as author of the guidebook to Battle Monuments of the First World War. I got a first hand look at the people politics and terrain of Western Europe. He

would remember them Sixteen years later as he prepared the invasion of France. One of the best intellectual jobs he ever did in his life was that guidebook to the battlefields of Europe I stressed this in my book because I think it's true but it is a wonderful book it really is. Considering that you know I've done enough reading to know how to what a difficult job of organization that was and it was a first class job the intellectual operation and he. He could do things like that. But you see also this is very revealing about Ike he was one of the few guys in the Army in Prague not the only one who realized that this was important because pushing was head of the battlefield Monuments Commission. From his service as assistant to General Douglas MacArthur the military adviser to the Philippines preceding the war Ike became personally acquainted with politics and diplomacy. His experience would later stand him in good stead during the North Africa campaign and preparations for the cross-channel invasion. But in the 26 years following West Point there were many times when I felt he was going nowhere in the army. Twice he considered

quitting when he received offers of lucrative civilian jobs. He once drew a long graph of his career and the army he was illustrating. To me that he had been in grade as a major longer than most anybody I think it was 13 years in World War One. He had risen to the rank of colonel and then when the war was over he became a major and as I say of 13 years he had become over age in grade which is a term that means that you're sort of a has been and want to work Thomas you will be and you'll be passed over for younger man. So he didn't expect to have promotion and was rather surprised when he died. They eventually choice of Eisenhower as Supreme Commander of the greatest allied expeditionary force ever

assembled was a natural one. He brought to that job a background richly diverse and knowledgeable in all areas of military experience. He carried with him the wisdom advice and solid learning of some of the greatest American military figures. And he offered an awareness of the history that had gone before that great event and a premonition of what would follow should it not be resolved in the favor of democracy. I. The Eisenhower years produce by extension Radio-TV a Kansas State University on a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They produce their narrator is Ralph Titus West Point and beyond. It was researched and written by Anne Frank. Music for the Eisenhower years was composed by Gail Kubrick performed by the Kansas State University Chamber Symphony conducted by Luther Leben.

Our thanks to the following for materials used in this week's broadcast National Educational Television. CBS News WOFL and radio Philadelphia and the Eisenhower Presidential Library. Next week. Torch to overlord. This is Paul Ding. Dong and. This is the national educational radio network.