Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith

Author:Jean Edward Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Non-Fiction, bought-and-paid-for, Biography, History
ISBN: 140006693X
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Columbia

Stand Columbia! Alma Mater

Through the storms of Time abide

—GILBERT OAKLEY WARD

Eisenhower stepped down as chief of staff on February 7, 1948, and Omar Bradley was sworn in as his successor. By arrangement with the board of trustees, Ike would assume his duties at Columbia at the end of the academic year, and by agreement with Bradley, he and Mamie would remain at Quarters 1 until he was ready to move to New York.a In the interim, Eisenhower intended to write his memoirs.

Eisenhower had planned to write his memoirs from the time he assumed command of the North African invasion of 1942. Kay Summersby and Harry Butcher had kept diaries for him, Ike occasionally made entries in his own diary, and the staff both at AFHQ and SHAEF had been meticulous in maintaining a record of his activities. Even before the war ended Eisenhower received offers from publishers, but did not take them seriously until toward the end of his tour as chief of staff. “I don’t believe that any man on active duty has the right or the time to undertake the writing of a book of this kind.”1

What Ike did do was set aside evenings at Quarters 1 to reread the Memoirs of Ulysses Grant, which he would use as a model.2 Grant’s lean and elegant prose has often been cited by critics as diverse as Edmund Wilson and Gertrude Stein as the finest nonfiction writing in American literature.3 Grant was generous in his praise and sparing with his criticism, which also appealed to Ike. “I would not indulge in the kind of personal criticism or disparagement of others that had badly marred many military accounts.”4

Negotiations began in earnest in December 1947. Ike was approached by Simon and Schuster and by Harper and Brothers, but eventually signed on with Doubleday, acting in conjunction with the New York Herald Tribune, who made what Eisenhower considered a preemptive offer. Instead of the customary advance against royalties, Doubleday and the Trib proposed to buy all of the rights to Ike’s book in a single package. There would be no royalties, but Eisenhower would receive a lump sum payment of $635,000 upon completion of the manuscript.5 b It was a handshake deal. Ike said a written contract was not necessary.6

Under the arrangement, Eisenhower received roughly the modern equivalent of $6 million, about half of what President Clinton received from Alfred A. Knopf as an advance against royalties for his memoirs. But unlike Clinton’s royalties, Ike’s lump sum payment in 1948 was treated as a capital gain, not as income. That was standard IRS procedure at the time for onetime authors who received a lump sum payment, and Ike received no special consideration.7 It meant that instead of paying income tax at the rate of 82.13 percent, which would have been Ike’s tax bracket, he paid taxes at the capital gains rate of 25 percent.8 That left Ike $476,250, or roughly $4.5 million in today’s dollars, and it made him financially independent. Some biographers

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