Eisenhower_Becoming the Leader of the Free World by Louis Galambos

Author:Louis Galambos [Galambos, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781421425047
Amazon: 1421425041
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2018-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Part III

Becoming the Leader of the Free World

Nine

A Republican poster from the 1952 presidential election. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Duty, Honor, Party

In 1943, in the midst of the brutal, slow-moving Italian campaign, Ike began to hear stories about his great potential for political office. He could be president of the United States. Or maybe vice president, serving with FDR. By D-Day he was an American hero, and after the German surrender he was the leading American military hero of World War II. As his reputation soared, Eisenhower heard over and over and over again that he should seek high office in America. His efforts to dissuade his admirers were unsuccessful. He had a war to win, and he was consistent and determined in denying political ambitions. But the thought had been planted and would not go away. His admirers made certain of that.

By the summer of 1945, of course, he had more to worry about than political entanglements at home. As the military governor of the US Occupied Zone of Germany, he had all the political entanglements he could stand in western Europe. He had millions to feed and too few ships to supply the food and fuel that were needed immediately. There were survivors of the Holocaust to be taken care of and survivors of Nazi occupations to be helped. He had to find a means of dealing with the black markets that quickly developed in areas where commodities and currency were scarce. He had suddenly been transformed from a military officer into a political leader, and he quickly discovered that the unity inspired by the war against Germany would not carry into the postwar settlements.

He had to move the Allies into their zones of occupation and be certain the three zones were transformed, quickly, into working units of government. He had to establish a new team because many of his experienced officers were sent to the Pacific to finish the conquest of Japan. Others were sent home in honor of their service in the war. His enlisted men were also eager to leave Europe and get home to their loved ones. Families quickly began to turn up the heat on the nation’s political leaders to bring the soldiers home and integrate them into civilian life as soon as possible. Initially, however, Ike did not even have all the ships he needed to transport troops being discharged from the army.

While he continued to enjoy a good working relationship with the British, the French promptly began to create problems for Eisenhower. They were initially upset with the zone of occupation carved out for them. Their pride hurt by France’s minor role in the great victory, they sought retribution from Germany in matters large and small. Eisenhower had to juggle their requests while doing his best to see that he was not starving any civilians, even those whom the Allies and the Soviets had just conquered.

At first Ike approached the Russians as comrades in arms. He got along well with Marshal Zhukov, who had emerged as the Soviet’s leading general by the end of the war.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.