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All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.

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This is Veterans Radio.

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Welcome to Veterans Radio.

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We want to welcome to VeteransRadio today Michelle Paradis.

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He is a historian and author, a law professor, and he has a new book out called The Light

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of Battle really about Dwight Eisenhower, about Ike Dede, the birth of American superpower.

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It's an interesting and timely read.

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Michelle, welcome to VeteransRadio.

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Thank you so much for having me on.

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It's one of those things we're always good to remind us of our own history.

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But tell us why this book now?

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Yeah, it's a great question.

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I think for me, the real draw was Eisenhower because we have this received image of Eisenhower.

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Almost as everybody's grandfather who loved to go golfing.

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That, I think, does short service to someone who is utterly fascinating.

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Here you have probably the most powerful generals in all of human history who was raised by

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religious pacifists in rural Kansas.

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Here you have someone who wanted to be a general from the time he was a little boy, but convinced

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that he may be forced out of the army at West Point, decided his fallback clan would

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go being a gout show in Argentina.

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You have someone, and I decided to discover in the writing of the book, who is warned

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in advance of D-Day that the Nazis are not only developing nuclear weapons, but there's

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reasons to believe they might even try and use them.

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He's then told that not only can he not do anything about this information, he can't

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tell anyone really either.

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He focuses on the things he can control, which in his mind is the weather.

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You have this person who is as interesting, complicated, and as conflicted as America

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itself in many ways.

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He is just, I think, a deeply underappreciated source of study.

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I think that's particularly important, particularly at a time like now, where I think we also

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need to understand how real leaders use power.

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One of the downsides of his fairly benign Saturday evening post-image that we've inherited

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is that it leads you to misunderstand how it is that a farm boy from the middle of Kansas

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goes on to be the first president to be called the leader of the free world.

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Seeing him closely, I think not only does he deserve what he deserves, but I think it

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also tells us what we should be looking for in leaders, because he's someone who did

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learn to master the art of power under the most difficult circumstances and amid some

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of the greatest personalities and rivals of the 20th century, whether it's DeGaulle or

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Churchill or Roosevelt.

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That to me is, especially this time when the United States is very divided, when the world

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seems incredibly uncertain and we're in a political election here ourselves, thinking

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about what real leadership is, is always valuable.

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I think Eisenhower just provides an invaluable window into someone who really masters the

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art of leadership and the responsible use of power.

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That's one of the reasons, or the reason one should read history, is to learn lessons

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that we can apply in our world today.

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One of those things I got out of reading The Light of Battle was, and you mentioned his

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intersection with all these historic figures now, Roosevelt, Marshall, Churchill, Monty,

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Caddon, Omar Bradley, Jimmy Doolittle, Hap Arnold, Wild Bill Donovan.

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He intersects with all of these folks and really demonstrates a skill in relationships.

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Talk to us about that.

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Yeah.

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You know, Eisenhower never serves in combat prior to World War II.

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He rises up through the army as what was derisively called back then a desk general.

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And yet he goes on to be trusted to command the most powerful military force ever assembled

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in the most complicated military operation ever conceived.

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And how does he do that?

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I think a big part of that is he is liked to use a cliche, Ike is liked.

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And he's not liked in a superficial way.

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He's liked because he understands, I think, two very important things.

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One is, and this is, I think, something that outside the context of the military is important

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for people to hear, is he understands the virtue not just of leadership, but of followership.

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Because throughout his career, he essentially is the trusted mentee to a number of very

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important mentors in his life, to include Douglas MacArthur, to include a guy I write

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about at length in the book, Fox Connor, and to include General Marshall himself.

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And that art of followership is valuable not just because it serves his ambition to rise

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ever higher in the ranks by being a trusted subordinate.

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He understands the value of genuine service.

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And that, in turn, I think, is the second thing that allowed so many people to not

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only just like Eisenhower in a superficial way, but to genuinely trust him.

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And that is, he was never as much of an ego as he did have, to be sure.

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You don't get to that position in the world without having a strong sense of self-confidence

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or something else.

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He always understood that it was never about him, that he was always about the mission.

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And he would always make sure, sometimes just through his good old, hopey Kansas sort of

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geniality, but really in the acceptance of blame and the distribution of credit for when

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things went well, he always kept in mind that if anyone around him ever believed for a moment

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that he was in it for himself, that he was in it for what we would call today clout,

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that not only would people not trust him, the only people who would ever help him achieve

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the amazing things he achieves as the Supreme Allied Commander and then as the Co-Chair of

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the United States are going to be yes men and toadies.

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And almost the worst thing you can have when you have real responsibility on your shoulder,

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shoulders is a bunch of people around you who are unwilling to tell you the unbornish

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truth.

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And so that aspect of Eisenhower, his commitment to something greater than himself, his understanding,

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I think deep in his bones, whether it's he's coaching a football team or leading the Allied

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Invasion of Normandy, that we can always and will always be able to accomplish more together

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than any one person can accomplish and that the only way to collectively achieve what

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seems like it might be impossible is if everyone understands the goal and understands that

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he as the leader is 100% committed to them and the goal, not to his grandiosity, not

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to himself.

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And that kind of skill is a leadership skill to be sure, but it's an interpersonal skill

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because that sense of an integrity is really what drew people to him.

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And it's really that those personal qualities as well as being smart and articulate and being

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able to listen to different sides and make decisions that led him to ultimately being

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command of overlord and the D-Day Invasion.

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We're at the 80th anniversary of D-Day where 4,414 men died on the beaches, including 2,500

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Americans.

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Let's remember that's 400,000 people who died in World War II as compared to say 58,000

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in Vietnam and 2,500 in Afghanistan.

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But it's those personal qualities of his that he had because not everybody wanted him to

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run the show, did they?

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No, quite the opposite.

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The British were never fully convinced of the value of Operation Overlord.

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And for the first two years of the war, the British were very much the senior partner

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of the Atlantic Alliance.

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And they thought the invasion was too risky.

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And in some ways they were right about that, even though we ultimately did pull it off.

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But it also, the British understood that there were essentially long-term opportunities

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to be gained for the British Empire in this war.

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This was neither Britain's first, and I'm sure at the time they did not think it was

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going to be its last war either.

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And so for the first two years of the war, the Allies largely pursued British strategy,

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which was to expand the Allied control over North Africa, then Italy, and the British

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had broader designs on the Eastern Mediterranean, not the least to cut off the Soviets from

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having their own sphere of influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, if and when Nazi Germany

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ultimately fell.

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And so when the decision to finally launch D-Day is May, November of 1943, it's one

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of the most acrimonious fights that you could almost imagine at some of these high-level

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summits, right?

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We had stuff be prepared, formal affairs, and the records we have from it show that

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George Marshall and Sir Alan Brooke, his counterpart on the British Chief of Staff, nearly broke

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out into a fifth fight at one point over the future direction of the war.

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And so Eisenhower, when he's given this job, it's a very sensitive position.

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It's a position where he is now stationed in London, launching a mission at the British

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government stationed also in London, is at best unenthusiastic about.

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And so Eisenhower has to have both wisdom, humility, and frankly, political cunning to

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get the British as on board, and in many respects fully on board with this operation.

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And that's in the sense, one of the hardest parts of his job is holding the alliance together

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and keeping the British in the cross-germ invasion.

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So it's a great success.

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And that's one of those things you learn from reading history is that you realize sometimes

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you're given a job.

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A, nobody wants you to have, maybe B, you didn't want to have.

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It isn't going to be easy, but you still have to soldier on.

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And obviously, we can all relate to that in our life.

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And adversity is part of that.

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You write about the adversity that Ike faces through these years, whether it's the press

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or politicians, or you mentioned Alan Brooke, Jenna Brooke.

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He's just part of it, isn't that part of what builds Ike and highlights his ability to hold

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it all together?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And that's why I'm sure this is slightly controversial in some quarters, but I think

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he was the indispensable man, certainly when it came to the D-Day operation.

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I don't know that there was a single person alive in a position to be given the job who

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could have done everything that it required to have the victory that it did.

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Because chief among that was patience, was an ability to put himself and what people

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thought of him second.

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And that partly is everything that I talked about before, which is just humility and the

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power that one can wield if one is humble about the power at one's disposal.

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But it's also cunning.

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Eisenhower, one of the things that I hope this book offers somewhat of a corrective for

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is this idea of Eisenhower as sort of a just go along, get along nice guy.

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He, when he needs to be, and pardon my French, can be a ruthless son of a bitch, and he understands

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that if he's prancing around, jutting his chin out, trying to show that he's boss, not

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only is that going to not win him any friend, it's going to be deeply counterproductive.

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And so he's someone who can by his time be patient, take the bad press onto himself as

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a way of ensuring that people in a way underestimate him.

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And one of the most important things he does, it's very subtle, but I think it's in some

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sense crucial to his success is he, when he goes to visit British soldiers during inspection

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tours, he wears a British officer's coat to signal to everyone that he does not see

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himself as an American commander, he sees himself as an Allied commander.

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And even on D-Day himself, he's stating to Europe and his announcement of the invasion

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to the European people.

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He doesn't mention the United States once.

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He talks about how the United Nations have come to liberate Europe.

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And it's a genuine point, it's humility.

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He genuinely does understand and believe in the value of what we would now call multilateralism.

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But it's a crucial political move to make in that kind of situation too, because America

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is largely unknown around the world at this time and objectively dangerous.

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Right?

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We are suddenly, not only the world's largest economy, but one of the worlds largest militaries.

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We have the ability to project power all over the world.

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And whether it's in Great Britain or France or China or Africa, you name it.

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The entire world at that point is having to make a judgment about whether or not the United

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States should succeed or should they resist the rise of this new superpower on the world.

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And really there was no even the term superpower, if you will, invented because of this.

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It is.

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It's 1944, is the term that's first invented.

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And honestly I give Dwight Eisenhower a lot of personal credit for understanding that

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in that moment, when this new idea of not an empire, but a superpower is coming onto

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the world stage, that that superpower needed to be different than the great powers of old.

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And an important way of showing that difference was showing that this American superpower

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was committed to working as a team, working for the liberation of people, working for

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democracy, human rights, ultimately decolonization in a way that I don't know that any other

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American figure of the time, maybe say President Roosevelt, could have credibly sold to the

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world the way that Dwight Eisenhower did.

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You mentioned his patience, and I'll just touch on this briefly because you write about

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General Patton's slap of the soldier in Sicily and all the fallout from that.

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And as I'm reading that, I thought, Ike's got incredible patience here to realize the

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value of Patton and not overreact to this, I mean many of us would have said, just fire

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the guy, you know.

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So patience was one of those virtues.

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But he's also deeply human and the pressures get to him, and you write about that a little

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bit and you talk about Kay Summersbee, the Irish Catholic, you know, British service

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woman who's his chauffeur all over Europe.

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So those pressures got to him in a human way, didn't they?

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Oh, for sure.

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He ended up, by the time D-Day comes around, he's smoking three packs a day.

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He develops a sky in his eye, his ear starts ringing, he acquires a cold, right before

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he's appointed to be the Supreme Allied Commander, that he basically never shakes, certainly

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up through D-Day.

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And that to me, one of the ways I wrote this book that I think differs not only from a lot

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of books about D-Day, but even a lot of biographies about it now, rather than go to the received

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stories and the memoirs and other histories and biographies of him, I went back to the

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primary sources and particularly from this period, I pulled out his day planner, which

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I was able to locate in the archives, and went day by day with him just to see what

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he really cared about, what worried him, who bothered him, who liked him, and what he

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dealt with on a day-to-day basis.

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And I just came away from that.

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Like, my blood pressure was going up, that I was reading all of this, because just the

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amount of stress that this man had, the amount of pressure leading up to an operation D-Day

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that his own Chief of Staff, Walter Bedell Smith, projects only a few weeks in advance

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of it, estimates that he has a 50-50 chance of success.

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And that means he has a 50-50 chance of failure.

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And for Aidenhower to be dealing with all of this conflict on every side and to be the

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center of that and to be the one steady post in the storm, just took something superhuman

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in terms of patience.

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One of the things, and I want to get to this before we run out of time, you write about,

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and I categorize these as sort of ethical issues that he as Commander-in-Chief had to

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deal with, with all these other pressures going on, and there are two of them in particular

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I want you to talk about.

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There were a number of racist charges, charges against Black soldiers in Britain that he

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had to deal with, and second, the use of white phosphorus, and particularly both of those

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you don't read much about.

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So I thought, you probably pulled these out of going back to his day planner and saying,

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what did he have to deal with every day?

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Talk about these two issues.

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Yeah, that's exactly right.

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I would never have known any of that had it not been for really just trying to be with

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him on a fly, like a fly on the wall day to day.

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And the one thing that jumped out at me was how much the problem of civil rights just

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dragged everything that he was attempting to do.

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Because here you have, by the time D-Day launches, 1.5 million young Americans being imported

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into the British Isle.

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About 12% of them are Black, but at this time in our history, the Army is segregated.

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And the British see American segregation, really Americans sort of separate but equal

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D-Juray segregation, as morally repugnant and almost inexplicable.

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They can't understand why the United States sort of has this sort of violent racism at

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the very same time it's preaching democracy, equality, and human rights around the world.

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And it's a constant point of friction in the British Isles where Black service members

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are being mistreated by superiors.

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They're not necessarily being given the same access to public recreation facility.

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The whole question of interracial relationships between Black soldiers and white British women

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is not only provocative to a lot of Americans who have sort of retrograde views on race

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at the time, but Eisenhower is quite worried that the British might not respond to this

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with complete equanimity.

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It's a fire tag and he understands that.

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And that complicates his life not just because it's a really important ethical issue that

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he has to deal with, but it's a diplomatic issue.

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At the very same time, all of these controversies about American sort of race relations being

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imported into the British Isles are flaring up.

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He's also having to negotiate with Britain's foreign office about the use of ports, about

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the sending of men abroad, about the access of American soldiers to various facilities,

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the use of water in Great Britain.

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These are lots of delicate diplomatic negotiations that he's having to conduct.

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At the same time, he's attempting to explain the great American shame of segregation.

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And then at the same time, the British are coming to him and saying, as you mentioned,

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we can't support the use of white phosphorus in the D-Day landings, which at that point,

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the US Army had started regularly using not only for its screening effects, but as an

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anti-personnel weapon.

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The British Foreign Office lawyers, apologies as a lawyer for those who find the involvement

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of lawyers in these war time decisions frustrating.

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But lawyers in the Foreign Office determined that this would be a violation of Britain's

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commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which it was a party to, but the United States

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was not at the time, as well as even the Geneva Conventions.

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And the Foreign Office basically says, look, we can't allow his Majesty's Army to be implicated

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in more crimes.

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And so Eisenhower has to essentially negotiate a settlement on whether and how they can use

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white phosphorus in the literal day before D-Day.

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And so these diplomatic stresses that he's operating under, which touch issues of grand

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strategy like empire, but touch really profound and difficult questions of ethics, like the

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use of chemical weapons, arguably, or American race relations, just show the complexity of

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the job he has.

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And frankly, just as a concluding thought, show why he was so well equipped to become

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president.

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It was almost an easier job than the one he had in London.

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It was.

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Yeah.

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We're talking to Michelle Peridis, author, historian, lawyer, who wrote and is now out

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in publication The Light of Battle.

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It's a great update, I'll say, to Eisenhower D-Day and the birth of American superpower.

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Michelle and I were talking earlier.

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He quotes, and I have out of print copy of Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal account of

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World War II called Crusade in Europe on my shelf, which is also a great read, and probably

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one that nobody could write today because it's way too candid for a politician.

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But he didn't view himself as a politician, did he?

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Not quite yet.

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He was keeping his ears in the ground a little bit.

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He writes that in 1946, 1947.

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But he is not interested in running for president in 1948, even though Harry Truman more or

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less offers him the presidency then.

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But he hasn't fully shut the door.

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As humble as Eisenhower is, he's also a man who knows his place in this.

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Absolutely.

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Absolutely.

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A great read.

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Thank you for spending some time today, Michelle, with Veterans Radio to talk about The Light

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of Battle and shed some insight into General Eisenhower and the whole D-Day as we are here

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celebrating or recognizing the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

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Thank you so much, Kevin Lyon, for a really interesting discussion.

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And I want to thank everybody for listening to Veterans Radio today.

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I am Jim Fawcone.

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It's been a pleasure to be your host.

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I'm a Veterans Disability lawyer at Legal Help for Veterans, and you can reach us at

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800-6934800 or legalhelpforveterans.com on the web.

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