store. and we like the look and we like the feel, but we certainly are neither quaint, nor old-fashioned. .. have been doing that for 20 years. if we don't have what you need today we can have it very quickly or even better we can show you something else you might love. these are challenging times. a book seller called it the dark ages. i won't say that. i don't think that is true. we are in a time when the industry is under a big flocks and publishers and authors and booksellers are not sure what our business looks like or how we are going to make money in the next few months. that being said we are finding new young customers on a daily basis who are just discovering us. maybe in part because the big box retailer is no longer available or because the localism has caught on especially with younger people. we get new customers all the time. the customers we had 4 long time are very loyal but their reading habits have changed. we have customers who used to buy many trade books from us who may be buying the books. the nature of the business has changed. every new customer and old customer, we know that and have to be ready to give them personal service we are known for. we want to do that. >> next on booktv military historian jonathan jordan presents a biography of generals dwight eisenhower, george patton and omar bradley during world war ii. the worse it -- personal and working relationships of the three men who were friends and opponents. it is a little under an hour. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the national world war ii museum. of pleasure to see such a pact house and i can tell you you are in for a good show having spent the day with tonight's speaker and having read most of the book. we are pleased to have c-span that wanted to fill mr. jordan's presentation. we had a nice relationship with them over the years. is great that not only will our members across the world view this on our web site but also c-span is going to be airing this hopefully soon. tonight's speaker, jonathan jordan is author of loans star navy, texas league original the fight for the gulf of mexico and shaping of the american west. some of you may have read many or all of his writings on the second world war personalities, battles and weapons such as world war ii magazine, are injured general, military history, and so on. he is a contributing author to the armchair reader, world war ii and the amazing book of world history. he is the editor of the library of texas edition to the people of texas. mr. dorgan is the son of an air force pilot and vietnam veteran who grew up on military bases throughout the country, of ohio and new jersey and the philippine islands. one would think with all of his writings is full time job is as a historian but mr. jordan is a practicing attorney out of that land the, georgia. he is at the national world war ii museum. please give a warm welcome to the author of "brothers, rivals, victors," eisenhower, patton, bradley and the allied victory in europe. mr. jordan. >> thanks very much for that kind introduction. and thanks to the national world war ii museum for letting me share some more stories about three of america's most impressive soldiers. the title of the book is brothers, rivals, victor's. those three where does the only part of the book that weren't revised, cutoff, taken out, put back in, slice and excised and put back to paper in 2006. the reason the title alone survives five years of editorial bloodletting is because those three words brothers bigger still rivals, victor's to me some up a partnership of three american generals who produced one of the most extraordinary results in our nation's history. i would like to spend a few minutes sharing stories about the brotherhood, the rivalry and ultimately the victory in western europe that was eisenhower, bradley and patton. the brotherhood began a century ago this summer in august of 1911 at the united states military academy in new york. it began when a young cadet from kansas for all practical purposes never left the state of kansas before, met another young cadet from missouri who for all practical purposes had never left randolph county, missouri. eisenhower sent omar bradley, more familiarly known as brad, became fast friends at the academy. west point was designed to instill marshall quality and bring out the military sciences in their students, neither were particularly militant in those days. eisenhower was a notorious rulebreaker particularly when they concern cigarettes or curfew. brad was a solid soldier. he ought ranked i by the time they graduated from west point. he wasn't the kind of guy who would stand out in a classroom. he was a quiet guy. these two cadets didn't stand out in the classroom or even in a crowd but they did stand out in one place where they could fight their battles on fields of grass. their love of sports and forced a relationship that would last till the end of their days. as a young man i's sport was football. he was a solid defensive tackle who cracked helmets with jim 4. he was an above average punching bag which we would call a running back. until he injured his knee in a football play, football was his passion. even after the injury derail his sports career at nearly derailed eisenhower's military career he had to ask the doctor who certified him. eisenhower love football. he participated as a cheerleader before his graduation and shortly after graduation he worked as a small town football coach and he was the football coaching mentality that would affect his later style of management when it was more than a game at stake. brad enjoyed football and played with eisenhower but his passion was not on the gridiron. he held the west point record for the longest baseball row and had a mean curveball. his senior year he batted of 383 average swinging the slugger to respectable number that any professional team nowadays including our new orleans would certainly value. there was another thing that brought the two men together that they shared in common. they would mess up the great war. the war to end all wars. the war in europe that so many classmates got excited in. experience and reputation to those men in uniform who were fortunate enough to serve. bradley's regimen spend its wartime from alaska to montana on guard duty. the fourteenth industry got around to settle in to go to france until just after the bell began to ring out in celebration of the armistice in europe. eisenhower spent the war on the other side of the continent. he made a name for himself as a trainer partly because he was such a good football coach but unfortunately that meant the army which like i didn't want him fighting in europe. it wanted him trading under men to fight in europe. so eisenhower rode out during the war to end all wars, can't meet maryland where he trains men fighting in a new group the army put together called the tank corps. the brotherhood grew in 1919 after the first world war ended when lieutenant colonel eisenhower that someone named george patton. patton had a storybook career as an author. he exo in individual sports like running and fencing. he represented the united states in the 1912 stockholm olympics. he was the army master fencer and polo player. he chased pancho villa around mexico with general pershing. patent shipped on general pershing with two great battles and was badly wounded in september in 1918. he was killed on november 11th that year, it was his 30 third that year, it was his 30 third birthday, his hopes for more battle or military glory were dashed. bradley and eisenhower paid lip service to the idea that the casualty lists and come to an end. patton made no bones about it. he had seen his chance, is one g chance for glory taken away from him. at camp meade the additional maryland, his home for revived when he met an optimistic lieutenant-colonel named isaac who was commanding the tank battalion. the two men's love of the unreliable mechanical beasts would cement a friendship that would last to the end of their days and i can't doors as they came to know each other spend many day experimenting with tanks firing weapons coming up nations of men and machines and enjoying their inner warrior years with their two young families. i can and george were the odd couple in many ways. he grew up in an isolated part of california. he came from a wealthy family. he was home schools for a while and went to private schools when he was older. he grew up something of an introvert who drew his energy from within rather than from other people. when pan needed to solve a problem he read, he thought about it, he prayed, he meditated and figured it out himself and executed it. at love reading history and drew his inspiration from historical figures of midi land napoleonic times. but eisenhower by contrast grew up in a large family. seven strapping boy is, no girls. he went to a big public school in kansas, as all america town as you will ever find. he learned to fight on a playground and when he should stand up for himself but also learned when he should cultivate allies like his older brothers. he learned how to relate most import wheat to the man on the street. his family wasn't especially pour but when you have nine mouths to feed money is in tight supply. he could certainly relate to the american middle class. by the end of their assignment to camp meade ike and george had become close personal friends. ike and his wife were frequent guests at the patton house and george patton's giror loved to play with an eisenhower toddler but in 1920 the army broke up the tank. patton went back to the cavalry, to remain with takes awhile longer. the final side of the triangle dropped into place in the 1920s one colonel patton station at the hawaiian division organized a trapshooting deemed toward -- for the division. alarm bradley showed up to try out. brad was one of the great shot. he hunted since he was a young child. he was a crack shot and hit 23 of 25 plays, 23 in a row in rt ct. that was pretty impressive shooting. but patton's simply shrugged his shoulders and said that is fine. they did get off to an auspicious starred they felt a good grab shooting team, the fact was bradley had little in common with the wealthy polo playing circle. brad was a quiet man by nature. he grew up in a small home in missouri. he was an ois iy child and his father, a country school teacher died when brad was ois iy 14 ley waing the family with no mes of income other than the money he could make lan hunting smal game and his mother taking on borders. to head injury to insult when he was 17 bradley was involved in a skating accmilitaryent that sma his teeth and jaw. i don't know if any of us recall how secure or insecure we may have been when we were 17 but a disfigured smile doesn't by pld confmilitaryence. brad's family couldn't afford to get his teeth fitatd and brad went for his young adulthood ashamed of his smile. even after his teeth were replaced he almost never wanted to show his teeth. if he ever smiled it was lut aeo the book jacket. a tight-lipped grimace even to the end of his years. he never got a belly laugh around others and never wanted to call attention to his features. moreover he wasn't a real social lion. has wife was someone who ther pjected to the bathtub gint george and i grew up during prohibition. brad was a simple man with. he loved his ice-cream and drank coca-cola and had food alleo yis that limited him to an unspectacular diet. for that reason bradl a g lost confidence of his socreel peers especially when in sicily and wherthern europe, he ran in circles of the military elite particularly the british whose officers he found to be elegant, well-educated labor still well mawellered and apeoe to speak fluent french. the early ties manifested themseemses in the second world war. as you see from the exhibits in the museum the iweller work arm was very small. the u. s had the seventeenth lao yest army in the world behid bulgaria and belgium even amongst with abundance sweden. eisenhower had a theory. he said if you know the commander intimately you will be able to judge how the unit will act in a given situation. eisenhower was confident he had a real fighter in george patton. one of the combined chiefs of staff ordered him to make three in north africa, ike asked george to leave the landing at casablanca on atlantic coast. the landing for a supposed to be the most difficult of the invasion because it was on that side, particularly dangerous but his luck held. he took casablanca in three days and months later after the americans took one on the chin in castor bean pass, i reached across the continent from tunisia to morocco and asked his friend george if george would take command of the americans fighting in tunisia. george asked ike if he could have omar bradley as deputy commander and with that of the brotherhood at west point, camp meade and hawaii became america's true fighting team. i suppose it was inevitable that when you have three head strong talented guys like this sparks are going to fly. these men started to get on each other's nerves in the close quarters of fighting but they saw each other as rivals of sorts. it was the unique rivalry because it wasn't a rivalry for power or even rank or position because at an, eisenhower and bradley accepted will the war department handed them. this was a rivalry for reputation. it was a rivalry for being right. it was a rivalry to show their ideas and methods for the best way to win the war. this was a rivalry of three men to prove each with america's top soldier. one ingredient of this rivalry was the professional rivalry. to pack in an army -- a horse is a big beautiful strong animal but also we a lot. in a battlefield conditions it is very vulnerable to enemy fire. if you leave a horse standing too long it will get mowed down so you better keep the horse running. and army was subject to the rules of the horse column. attack, attack, attack was george's philosophy. and most of the sicilian campaign, george was so wrapped up in the attack, attack, never thought about the more mundane things were logistics'. and the gas and bullets up to the man in front. he never thought about securing flanks. as brad saw it, george and ran many foolish risks. bradley, by contrast, was the product of the infantry. bradley had a unique appreciation for the vulnerability of the human body under fire and infantry men can't run fast and you have to be careful as a foot soldier. bradley took these lessons from the first world war from his training to heart. he was careful most of the time and was aggressive when he thought the rewards were being aggressive. and use to claim bradley and his corps commanders were somewhat timid. the rivalry didn't just start because of their general outlook of audacity versus prudence. it also extends to their method. these two guys had a different approaches. bradley's father was a schoolteacher and his father with a polo player and they had different mindsets. here is how the book goes through the different thaw processes bradley and patton had. tactics to omar was a type of mathematical problem solving. like a scholar working and algebraic prove he took the known x and wife actors -- why factors to drive the field operation. if everyone did their job the course of events would fall into place naturally. the secret to his success was his ability to grasp all parts of the equation on a monstrous moving battlefield and derive from them a plan in which foot soldiers would have confidence. patent would never think of putting his staff in the driver's seat and sitting back like a figure head. driven by in civil first for approval and overpowering feeling of destiny, he invariably turned toward the the 6 men, and they taught him it was conflicted for requirements of victory. when that happens he would get the boot in favor of whatever work. it was patent's ability to look beyond the rules built over years of study, experiment or prayer was what gave pat and his touch of genius. the third side of this triangle was eisenhower. eisenhower was trained to be a staff officer. his heart was with the infantry but in the end he knew his role in this great game would be the team's general manager. he would fire players and trade them to weather team that actually did that to a general he didn't like. sometimes he would shift around his defense or send in a new player for offense. eisenhower was a lot like bradley and his team outlook but he also knew that george patton was the kind of individual you could use profitably on the team. he could do lot with a man like patton. as eisenhower told general marshall at the sicilian campaign and was an army commander whose troops could not be stopped by ordinary obstacles. if the friction by their philosophical outlook and training had been enough fact is bradley and patent particularly had a style that diametrically opposed. they couldn't click together at a personal level as much as they would have liked. we all know about patent's golf. he had a vocabulary -- he even taught his children to curse. after the war eisenhower, reminiscing on his old friend patten said george patton loved to shock people. any thing that popped into his mind promptly came out of his mouth especially if it was bizarre. he loved to shake members of the social gathering by exploding outrages profanity and if it created an effect he would indulge in more of the same but if no one paid attention he would quiet down. this wasn't something that just happened for effect during the second world war. this is part of who patton was. in 1919 when he was on the boat coming back to america from returning from france his father wrote him an interesting letter where he warned him i have been worried that the gift of gab may get you into trouble. you are now 34 and the dignity going with your rank invest what you say with more importance so i hope you will be very careful and self restraint for your own good. at the was the commander of the third cavalry regiment stationed outside washington d.c.. hat and would sometimes go out for horseback rides with the chief of staff, general george marshall and occasionally take his wife kathryn to ride with him. in the presence of polite ladies most of the other officers tended to be more circumspect but not george. after one particularly profanity late and tirade catherine turned to him and said to him in a way only women can get away with, you can't talk like that. you say these outrageous things and you look at me to say i'm going to smile. you could do that as a captain or major but you are a senior general and the general cannot talk in such a wild way. none of that advice stuck. this was part of a new patent was. shock value or his bluntness was to he was so he knew it was a dangerous game. occasionally he would tell reporters attached to the third army in europe not to print things he was saying about politics or the allied high command. he knew certain things if they made their way into print would get him can the. he hated the press conference because he made so many guests during the war he never knew when his luck was going to run out and get him fired. in this end there was a clash about bradley, he grew to dislike patton. he didn't think the army in sicily which was his second corps reported to. he would send tons of small arms ammunition with final artillery rounds near the beaches. he would do irresponsible things. the seventh army headquarters would forget to run communications wire to the corps headquarters. he might not keep the air service in formed where the infantry was. bradley and patton in sicily also fought about tactics and bradley in the end to top all off with a field commander who received a certain report in 1943 about that and having caused a reference in a field hospital that was under bradley's control. it was not just another george patton problem to deal with. in the spring of 1944 when bradley and i were picking commanders for the overlord invasion bradley was tremendously and happy when eisenhower's elected george to lead the u.s. third army. the army that would come ashore under the twelfth army group about a month after d-day. he was so unhappy at this point that on the eve of the invasion as bradley and his staff were sitting around the uss augusta the night before the boats were supposed to go out, the men spent part of their time swapping their best george patton's stories which were calculated to make pat and look like a buffoon. in the summer of 1944 patent's are mayor arrived in europe and inexplicably almost happen and bradley put aside whatever personal differences they had or whatever stylistic differences they had and became pretty good friends and good partners. patton did whatever brad told him to do and volvo they had disagreements and the beginning on the surface they got along well. as in tunisia and they began to work closely with each other and not only because they were doing well on the ground but there was a certain measure of fear. that was a fear of the british of all people. ever since the sicilian campaign, bradley and patent felt slighted by their british cousins. this was exacerbated in august of september of 1944 when the allies ran out of gas. wasn't that they didn't have any gas. there was plenty of gas. they couldn't get the gas from normandy beaches to the front lines because the allied air services before the invasion of the french rail network to smithereens. they were short of ammunition and there wasn't enough trucking ability to take everybody the ammo they needed. field mall shall bernard montgomery was the commander of the british forces and by this time one of the people in europe, who bradley disliked almost bar none. bradley was concerned when he heard rumors from ike that montgomery had an idea how to win the war. he called it the narrow thrust and under the narrow thrust ibm montgomerie said basically give me some of bradley's army and all of his gasoline, tell brad and patent to go further south and i will go through the north part of europe, through holland, northern france and the low countries and i will carry the union jack through berlin. that was his conception. this would give the lion's share of credit, that is what they were dead set against. eisenhower's view as the team manager was i have to balance my two winnings. he had to consider a patent and bradley who wanted to run into the southern part of europe into germany to win the war their way or keep themselves on the same basic line of advance as the british. in the end eisenhower strongly supported by patton and bradley decided all the allies -- of the broad front approach that ulysses grant used against the confederates in 1864. all the armies would move side-by-side and steamroll the germans in their path and might not get to berlin as quickly but they would get their with fewer casualties. the dispute over allocation of supply came to a head in december of 1944 when hitler launched his quarter million man offensive out of -- a surprise attack the americans came to call the battle of the bulge. the bulge was a term for what it looked like on the map. here we have a map of the 12 u.s. army group's situation in late december. it was actually a salient in the american lines. it was a smash hit by the nazis into the middle of bradley's line. knocked the teeth out of his eighth score that was dead in the center and pushed the americans back almost to the river. that created a real problem for bradley because bradley's headquarters and patton's army were on the south side of the bulge. bradley's two other armies, the first and ninth were on the north side where bradley could not efficiently communicate. what to do about that? eisenhower took a look at the problem and said at the moment of crisis i have to do something about it. i have two armies that cannot be effectively led by bradley so eisenhower did what to bradley was the ultimate slap in the face. he took those two and northern armies and gave them to montgomerie. bradley did not take that very well. to bradley by this time it was all about prestige. not bradley adds prestige. he was not in it for him but for the american soldier. what was bad for brad was bad for the american soldier. so bradley decided this was a last straw. he put up with too much from the british and told eisenhower on december 20th i resign. he called in down, and brad would get his armies back. eventually the armies made it across the rhine river, the last act in europe. by the end of april, in the beginning of may german army capitulated, that was the war's end but eisenhower's career was just beginning. eisenhower was appointed the u.s. army chief of staff exceeding general marshall and it became effectively the ulysses s. grant of the second world war. bradley was sent to run the veterans administration which he did very well. he would eventually succeed his friend eisenhower as protector and mentor of the top general. as patton predicted in a letter to his wife, would be a nuisance. she couldn't just to peacetime life and his comments he had made about being soft on the nazis and hard on the communist came back to harm him. he was fired as commander of the third u.s. army by eisenhower. he didn't want to do it and patton never forgave eisenhower. in the end the three men won not only a victory in western europe but a lasting place in the consciousness of their country. by 1942 there were approximately 1,000 general officers. there were several hundred flag ranked admirals'. how many today besides eisenhower, paton and bradley do most people remember? we remember douglas macarthur and probably admiral chester nimitz and george marshall. some may remember jimmy doolittle orbital joe still well and those who walked around the halls of the museum have seen pictures of beetle smith and other generals. it was eisenhower, the conover of europe and his two forces, bradley and patton whose names adorn fighting vehicles, building the eagles statuary, silver dollars and the roster of american presidents. these three men are figures who by mutual consent we have set in our pantheon of military heroes. men who can be spoken of alongside grant and lee, sam houston, andrew jackson, washington, and a very few others. they won a victory in europe after the years of developing their partnership, it may be their greatest victory, the victory they made in leaving their imprint on the american site. you have been very patient with me. as jeremy indicated this is a discussion not just a monologue. so the pay off to me and to you is i get to hear what you have to say. we have some questions. i would love to hear them. i believe jeremy have a microphone and we will be happy to hear what is on your mind. i am sure there is a lot. >> i am curious. as a young man, which you are, where did your involvement and interest in history come? there was much time, many publications. did your interest in history come from your father? >> much of it did. the question is whether my interest in history came from my father or where it grew up. i was a young boy in the 1970s. as some of you may remember those big budget technicolor films of the 1960s and 70s, midway, torah, for additional anything with kirk douglas, patton, those were being shown on television and they left in imprint. alternately i wanted to find what those guys looked like without the hollywood technicolor screen, without the makeup and costumes with big stars. the point of this book was to find out where our men under the uniform? how are they like as 4 different from us? that was the genesis and as i went through my law career i had an interest in history and that interest, i was very fortunate to have been encouraged by my colleagues in houston and that gave me the drive to continue what i was doing. >> i watched a series on the military channel called commanders that war and it dealt with the battle of the bulge and bradley and they painted bradley as complete the it and in that battle and talked about eisenhower rather die issued the order for patten to attack north and took armies away from bradley and gave it to montgomerie and bradley didn't have a hand in that. could you comment on that? >> during the battle of the bulge, what was eisenhower's role? eisenhower learned a painful lesson. the united states during that battle had a commander who wasn't entirely his fault but was fairly ineffective during the battle and ike learned the lesson that if there is a crisis i have to step in and deal with it. i can't just assume the guys i got and the guys i trust are ones who will take care of it. the bulge was just one of those crises and eisenhower decided i have to step in. he didn't make a snap decision on his own. the decision to take bradley's two other armies and give them to montgomerie originated with the british. the british were two staffers who worked for b. goldsmith who worked for a lake. he was eisenhower's chief of staff and was a miserable guy to work for. these two british guys came up to him and said we need to move the first and ninth armies in to montgomerie's command at least for right now. we know there will be nationalistic problems with that but from a military standpoint that makes sense. what beetle said was your fired. consider yourself gone. than he thought about it for six hours and woke up and basically never apologize to those two guys but made it clear that he wanted them the next day. before there was a chance to pack the bags, they were not fired. he made the recommendation to eisenhower. decision that i can felt he had to make and he did it with the backing of his talented staff. >> i read not too long ago that eisenhower was subordinate to douglas macarthur in world war ii and he studied drama. is that true? had you heard that before? the more important question and it was not a fair question but when you look at eisenhower and douglas macarthur and omar bradley, is it possible you can drink them as the greatest american general among those? >> those are two excellent questions. the first one, did eisenhower say he studied dramatic under macarthur? he was chief of staff to douglas macarthur in the philippines in the 1930s. he said i studied drama under macarthur. eisenhower was the best i ever had. there was no love lost between those two. you can imagine the meeting at the eisenhower white house was an awkward one. how do you rate these guys other than the way the publisher put them on the jacket of a book? how do you tell who is the greatest general? that is a wonderful question and it is one that can probably not be adequately answered because in the days of generals on horseback the general commanded troops and attacked but by the time we get to the second world war we had generals who were supremely good at staff work but they would have been terrible battle tactics. at and would have been an awful supreme commander because that job require diplomacy. george c. marshall, the greatest solar this country ever produced would have been a mediocre battle captain due to his age and lack of experience commanding field troops. is difficult to say who was best but it is fortunate for the allies and america that these were put in the position they were in. some of them in patton's diary, he said i wouldn't want the job of supreme commander. another diary entry he says i would not be satisfied unless i was god and someone probably our ranks him anyway. that is a good question. >> you touched on it when talking about the legacy of these general. i read your book which is quite good. i saw that you touched upon but did not go into a lot of detail about another general who is prominent in the war but received little if any historical credit for it and that is general beavers who was commander of the sixth army group who came through the mediterranean in france. in your book you mentioned eisenhower and bradley had an extremely low opinion of general beavers. yet general marshall had a very high opinion of him. >> where did general jacob beavers, manager of bradley's baseball team in west point, fit into this? he was the commander of the sixth army group and actually quite a good general. but he got on eisenhower's bad side. he was the theater commander in england for the united states army when ike was in the mediterranean and for the invasion of italy eisenhower wanted to get a couple squadrons of heavy bombers to support his invasion. he said we have to keep with our bombing plan. he has also written a couple things that were unflattering about his north african campaign. many years after the war john eisenhower said about his father he never held a grudge as long as he won. in this case, beavers was the victim of a grudge. he was a very fine general but he was far from where the decisive area was and he was not in the inner circle. >> there have been rumors that they came close to court-martialing mark clark. is there any validity to that? >> mark clark was somebody who you get mixed reviews even to this day about his generalship. the problem he had, this is really where the book leaves off with clark, that he was a self promoter. he was an exceptional staff officer but he wanted to be the field commander. he wanted to be in the limelight and that created some bad blood. during his italian campaign there were from time to time questions raised about his generalship and his approach to rome. he was somebody who was not very popular general. it says the medal of honor winner eddie murphy love to wear his medal of honor whenever clark would be around because by military tradition, he was obliged to get the attempt. >> after north africa, in maples, he did not know an american officer who would not have shot clark in the back if he had a clear shot. >> there were plenty of generals who from time to time had some death threats on them. supposedly one of the soldiers clipped a reporter in sicily that there were 50,000 guys who would have shot patent if they had a chance. that with a gross exaggeration and a reflection of the ire some of the news men felt when they found out he smacked around a couple of enlisted men. >> before i walk over there i have a question myself. as a historian how do you sort of filter or sift what you know these generals are riding in their diaries for posterity's sake? they know millions of people will read them after they are long dead. how do you know whether it a the true feeling or vending or what they hope we all think of them 60 years after they're gone. >> that is a very good question. there are diaries and there are diaries. you may have heard winston churchill's a history will be tied to me because i intend to write it. churchill said -- discouraged the use of diaries because allah will do is make you look like you guessed wrong when you are wrong. better to wait when it is over, right your memoir and you are always right. as you go through the diaries and records you begin to see divergence over time. memories fade and this is where the lawyer in me comes out. you compare the evidence of it. i noticed something -- it is not a planted question but this question comes up often. in december of 1944 hitler launched the battle of the bulge. that took the allies by surprise. virtually everybody. in the published version of patton's diaries he had an entry of nov. twenty-fifth, 1944 where he says furthermore, the first army is making a terrible mistake in leaving the eighth course status as it is probable the jurors are building a piece of them. in fact what happened was the germans were building up east of them. the eighth corps was the epicenter of the great bulge attack that took everyone by surprise three weeks later. patent -- patton had a sense what the germans were doing. but we look at the hand written page in the library of congress. the right page has the quote about the first army making a terrible mistake, patton's published or typewritten version in box iii of the patton paper. one of the patton papers have the hand written diary which contains no entry about the first army about any mistake of the first army or the a score or the germans building up there. it is hard to find the genesis of the discrepancy. obviously at some point patent new -- patton new is diaries would be published posthumously as war as i know it. either he or somebody working with him or somebody who came along after him added this bit about the german build up to make him look more preachy and then he really was and that doesn't take away from his technical acumen here. a few weeks later on december 12th after speaking with his very smart intelligence officer patton wrote in his diary we will be ready to assist the eighth corps and less -- in case the germans attacked them. it helped along the way but we see an example of where patton's diaries has been embellished and the type written version was published as the patton papers. you have to do a little bit of historical sleuthing here. yes? >> we will go right here first. >> ulysses s. grant's strategy aside, he tried to circle the germans and make a pocket and cut them off. why do that in the battle of the bulge? that seemed like the obvious counterattack to circle and totally engulfed their pocket and he went back to grant and did the united front. why did he do the circling and cutting off that army? >> why not encircle the bulge? the ball is going into your lines and making a semicircle, why not just cut it off and back a bunch of guys in that circle? eisenhower's first concern at the battle of the bold was to avoid the germans getting past the meuse river. is wary was if they go too far they will cut through our supply lines and stumble across and -- across gas stockpiles and was felt they were trying to get to and work which was a major port supplying the allied army. eisenhower had the option of trying to let all the germans get into the pocket of this giant baseball glove and and closing the glove. that is what happened wanted to do -- what patton wanted to do. we will really chew them up. that is what he said. but eisenhower didn't want any of that. he didn't have a strong theodore reserve. his men were all stretched to the limit. these guys had been beaten up in a few places and were trying to reset. they were cold and hungry and there just weren't enough rifle divisions to throw against them. he opted for the safe play and in many ways that was a reflection of his safe infantry mentality. >> this has nothing to do with the war but about patton. have you ever seen the statues on the plane at west point? >> i have. we may have a picture of one of the patton statues. i am sorry? [inaudible] >> since he is there and they removed the lot and did a lot of work, he was first face in the library. do you know that story? >> i have heard the patton statue was turned away from the library because he wasn't -- >> he is looking at the library because he couldn't find it. he wasn't that good a student. >> you corrected me. the way the patton legend has out strict that of his two contemporaries, eisenhower and bradley out ranked patton for the entire northern european war. it is really patton who we think about more than anybody else partly that is attributable to one gentleman, the patton on the left. we all recall george c. scott's portrayal and that really cemented the patton legend. that was a pretty decent portrayal of much of what has the 11 was like. scott got the right look. maybe a bit more swagger than the real patton had because they had to convince 60 years into a two hour movie but one thing i found interesting was the voice of george c. scott, the command voice which we associate at which every film portrayal has used as its model of the archetype george patton, here is the commanding voice of the hollywood hadn't -- patton. >> i don't want to get any messages say we are holding our position. we are not holding anything. we are advancing constantly and we are not addressed it in holding anything except the enemy. we are going to hold on to those and catch them in the act. >> that is the gruff gravel voice george patton but the real patton had a command voice that was slightly different. here are some remarks patton made to the third infany