Good evening. Im Steve WiebergPublic Affairs staff at Kansas City Public Library and thank you so much for being here tonight. Its great to have you. Its great to have david mills our speaker. Tonights programs has been a long time coming. He was originally scheduled to be here in february but was granted by bad weather, Winter Weather and we are so happy he hung with us and we are so happy to have him here now. This happens to be kind of a happy confluence of Kansas City Public Library programming. It is the latest in our series with us command and gen. Staff wrecking 75 years since world war ii. It also comes in the middle of the partnership of the library from january through may with the eisenhower president ial library and foundation in abilene. It is on the 20 eisenhower exhibit up in the second floor art gallery here in the library, the mountain gallery. We have a series of programs running on Dwight Eisenhower through may. One of those in fact is next wednesday. Tonight we focus on eisenhower and george marshall. The army chief of staff who targeted for advancement of a military offer, among others he spotted George Patton and omar bradley and mentors as the army chief of staff from 19391945. He went on to become secretary of state and win a Nobel Peace Prize. David mills is an assistant professor of military history and has a phd in history from north Dakota State University and the distinction of being the first person to earn a doctorate in history from the school in 2009. He spoke at the library two years ago on operation snowbound. About the mammoth federal respondent response to the blizzard of 1949 that stretched from kansas to the canadian border. We are so happy to have him back tonight. Please welcome david mills. [ applause ] things everybody for coming out tonight as steve mentioned. I was supposed to be here a few weeks ago so it looks like we will have some increment weather tonight. That may look like a pattern to you but believe me its just a coincidence. Thanks for coming out and im going to go ahead and incorporate some of the information i was going to talk about a little earlier. It looks like at some point i wander off on tangents talking about marshall, and thats probably why. This is the story of two great men. Both were revered as well as famous. Since world war ii it could be argued that gen. Dwight eisenhower has probably eclipsed gen. Marshall in fame at least as it comes to what each of them did. Most people know that gen. Eisenhower was the commander of the invasion of france during world war ii but they would probably be hard pressed to tell you exactly what gen. Marshall did. He built the army that eisenhower used to defeat the germans. Both men were from humble backgrounds and both were extremely patriotic driven by a desire to end the war quickly rather than seeking glory for themselves. This is their story. Gen. George marshall was born 1880 in uniontown pennsylvania and graduated from the Virginia Military institute in 1901. He served as the chief of staff in the army during world war ii and as the secretary of state and secretary of defense after the war was over. He advocated the Marshall Plan and hoping to recover economically from the war. One thing you may not know is that he loved to ride horses. This is how he called relaxed and called it great x or although i would imagine it would be better exercise for the horse but what do i know. His personal life was difficult. He graduated in 1901 in 1902 he married lily carter calls who was born with a heart defect so he had to be very careful and was a very doting husband always trying to make sure he was come she was comfortable and had everything she needed. She died in 1927. They never had any children. He married Catherine Boyce templer in 1930. She was a widow with three children of her own and marshall became very close to the children. Two of the boys in fact were Army Officers during world war ii and the youngest alan was killed by a sniper in italy during the war. His stepdaughter was also married to an army officer who served although he never used his position to influence their careers. He was above all an honorable man and would never do anything that he thought would tarnish that. Marshall served in a variety of positions upon graduation. Before world war i promotions were slow and coming but marshall did really well. When world war i broke out he went in the summer of 1917, was a member of Division Staff for the First Infantry Division. His plan was planning and training draftees and National Guardsmen that rounded out the First Infantry Division. There were took of significant episodes that were pretty risky careerwise but really made a difference for marshall when he was endeared to two very influential men. Some of those began during world war i and thats when gen. John j pershing came to check on training. Youve got to understand that he was under a ton of pressure from the friends french to get the american ready to take a position in the trenches so hes looking at training and he is not happy. He thinks training is too slow and not very challenging and hes really upset what he sees. He proceeds to take it out on the division commander, a guy by the name of william siebert. He proceeds to chew him out. Marshall thought this was extremely disrespectful and as a lowly captain he grabbed the maj. Gen. And proceeds to tell him angrily that he thought that was totally uncalled for. When he was done gen. Pershing pulled his arm away, mumbled something and stormed off. All of his friends shook his hand, wished him farewell, because his career is over. But dont you know when gen. Pershing came back to check on the First Infantry Division he would go find marshall and ask him how things were going. The two actually formed an important relationship that would affect both of them throughout the lives. In 1918 he went through aef staff and work directly for gen. Pershing. After he became an aide and as a matter of fact he was the best man in marshalls wedding when he got married the second time. After the war he ended, he finished as a Lieutenant Colonel and is reverted back to meijer but did pretty well in the interwar period commending a regiment, then he division and 35 ccc camps throughout oregon and washington. In 1938 he was brought to washington as a brig. Gen. By then chief of staff of the army. He wanted marshall to succeed him as chief of staff so he made him chief of the War Plans Division and eventually made him deputy to the chief of staff. Becoming chief of staff was really a dream job for marshall. Lets talk about marshall and roosevelt and a little bit about churchill. Roosevelt and marshall worked very well together although the two were never close personally. They were almost exact opposites. Marshall confessed he didnt really like roosevelt very much when he first moved to washington. Gen. Marshall was very guarded. He was formal, serious, and above all value dignity. Sorry, so marshall valued dignity and nobody would ever call him funny and there were very few pictures of him ever smiling, although if you notice the first picture i showed you was marshall smiling, so dont leave anything that you read. There just arent that many pictures of the man with a smile on his face. Roosevelt however was a politician. He never met a person he wouldnt want to shake hands with. He was always smiling and laughing. He also had that politician deepseated aversion to ever answering a question with a straight answer. He didnt want to get tied down to one particular answer. He always wanted plausible deniability and to be able to change his mind and go a different direction which drove marshall absolutely nuts because as a military guy he needs decisions and to know what direction the country is going so he can actually make things happen. Marshall also never let the president get too close to him personally. He never left at any of the jokes, never allowed the president to call him george, and never went to visit the president at his home in hyde park new york. Marshall was also an army man whereas the president was a navy man. He served as the assistant secretary of the navy. He loved the navy, he loved to see and was an accomplished sailor himself. At one point he had to ask the president to stop saying they when talking about the army and stop saying we went talking about the navy. [ laughter ] so he had succumbed to the suggestion of airpower and the promise of airpower. He thought that all of americas problems could be solved through buying more airplanes. So hes constantly trying to purchase more airplanes at the expense of the army specifically but other branches as well. Marshall object. He thought there should be a more balanced approach to how we procure he quit went. One specific example. In november 1948 he had a meeting and off the top of his head said america ought to buy about 20,000 airplanes and that would keep us safe and we all ought to give a couple thousand to england for being a good ally. You know how it is when your boss comes up with an idea everyones like, great idea boss. Everyones shaking their head and then off the top of his head he turns around and said dont you think so george . So marshall winced because he called him george. Marshall never allowed anyone to call him george except for his wife and fundamentally disagreed with the president and told him so. He said mr. Pres. Im sorry. I dont agree with any of that at all. The president was rather surprised and during the meeting they got up and left and once again wishing him good luck because your career is over. But roosevelt never held it against him. This was the second episode in his life that proved to marshall and reinforced the idea that his values were something he should always stand up for. Churchill also have Great Respect and very rarely challenged him directly. If he was doing something churchill didnt agree with he would talk to eisenhower or roosevelt or anybody but marshall and tried to get them to change his mind but that doesnt mean he didnt have Great Respect for marshall. In fact churchill called marshall the organizer of victory and wept openly when he visited marshall and his deathbed in 1959. April 23, 1939 roosevelt brought marshall into his office and offered him the dream job. Chief of staff of the army. And although it was a dream job he had a list of demands if you will. He says mr. Pres. , i will work as hard for you as i can and do the best job that i can but i need to be able to come in here and speak honestly with you. I need to be able to bring you bad news. Roosevelt apparently reluctantly agreed to that but roosevelt also pointed out that he had some demands. He expect to get the very best that marshall had so they came to an agreement and marshall became the acting army chief of staff. This was in april 1939. He was acting in that capacity up until 1 september 1939 when craig retired. The day that germany attacks poland, world war ii begins, marshall becomes the chief of staff of the army. Germany attacks poland in 1939, france in 1940 and the loss of friends is a shock to the United States. It begins to bring the United States out of complacency. Not out of isolationism. Congress and the American People wanted absolutely nothing to do with a war in europe but congress understands they have to begin preparing for war. So the louisiana maneuvers held in 1940 and 1941 were designed to see how well the army performed and the answer was not well. The exercises revealed a number of equipment problems such as iron pipes being labeled cannons and trucks being labeled tanks and singleseat planes being labeled bombers and that sort of thing so the army was not only understaffed, there were about 200,000 soldiers total in the army at this point. We also had a number of equipment problems as you can see. Marshall determined it was time to Start Building up the army so in a number of 1940 after this first series of exercises, he and the president go to congress and an act the Selective Service act bringing 900,000 draftees into the army and also activating the National Guard initially there is a large number of soldiers for marshall to train but soon, they are only in the army for a year so their term of enlistment is almost up and no one is more excited about that than the soldiers themselves. So the louisiana maneuvers of 1941 were fundamentally different excuse me. His insistence on preparation and realistic training had paid off. He said repeatedly he wanted mistakes made in louisiana rather than in europe so it in the 1941, exercises consisted of 400,000 service members, twice the number in the army the year before. You have 19 divisions actively out there participating in these wargames. 1941 the wargames are over, we are well on our way to creating a better army but its about to go away with the expiration of the Selective Service act. Marshall and a number of members go talk to congress and get them to extend the Selective Service act for 18 months which will guarantee that we keep getting soldiers into the army. Theres one other aspect of the louisiana maneuver that deserves to be mentioned. That is that he came around and was watching. He was always on the lookout for talent. When he spotted someone with high potential and talent he would write the their name down and one of the people he identified in these maneuvers was col. Dwight eisenhower who is responsible for the blue force coming up with planning and training and an exercise with an overwhelming victory for eisenhower. Another person he identified in these exercise was maj. Gen. George patton. A number of other folks who supposedly have their names in the book were folks like omar bradley mark clark, Courtney Hodges and maxwell taylor. This little black book has never been found so did it exist . Did it not exist . If there was no note that marshall must have kept those names in his mind but these are the folks identified and groomed for higher command once the war broke out. So, england had been at war with germany since 1939 and above all they were intent on preserving the British Empire after the war. The imperial gen. Staff or the british general staff are also thoroughly and completely rejecting the idea of ever having a cross channel attack and confronting the germans in europe itself. They preferred an approach that attacked the periphery of germany. In other words, their navy would blockade german ports restricting the amount of trade coming in and the Bomber Campaign would keep hitting german cities night after night. What churchill believed is that this would undermine morale. You didnt need to confront them directly. You could attack them in places like north africa or italy on the borders, on the periphery of the german empire. Marshall fundamentally disagreed saying the only way youre going to defeat germany is to fight germany. This is going to be a fundamental confrontation between the americans and the british throughout the war. When germany invaded the soviet union both churchill and roosevelt believed we had to supply everything that we could to the soviets to keep them in the war. Marshall fundamentally disagreed. He didnt believe the soviet union was going to be able to survive the attack by the germans. The Russian Air Force was largely eliminated in the first few weeks of the war. Millions of men were killed or taken prisoner. The germans are on the outskirts that he fundamentally didnt believe there was any way the soviets could survive so why waste that equipment when the us and british were going to need it . If the soviets were knocked out of the war its going to be up to the americans and the british to defeat these german armies. You are probably wondering when the eisenhower piece was ever going to actually kick in. Lets talk about gen. Eisenhower. He was born in texas october 14 he was born in texas october 14, 1890 and is the third of seven boys. Here are the eisenhower brothers with their mother. The family moved to abilene kansas in 1892 but never had a lot of money. He and one of his brothers agreed they would alternate years going to college. One would work, one would go to college and then they would switch so they could find enough money for tuition. After a couple of years they figure out the only way hes going to get to college is if someone else pays for it. He applied to west point and became a member of the class of 1915. 59 members were to achieve general officer rate. While at west point he makes the varsity foot wall team but not the baseball team. He is supposedly devastated by that and meets in 1916 asking for condo duty continuously when world war i breaks out. Finally they say okay and he is scheduled to get on a ship in 1918. Needless to say he never makes it to france so he thinks his career is over for not having seen combat. So his career was actually not bad. Not great but pretty good for not having been in contact. He was a brig. Gen. And spent five years working for Douglas Macarthur. Not surprisingly he doesnt get along well with Douglas Macarthur but he made his bosses look really good. Even though he and eisenhower did not get along great he still would not let eisenhower go because he was such a great staff officer. While others were being weeded out of the army particularly during the Great Depression eisenhower continued to get promoted ready steadily. During the Great Depression and the lead up to world war ii hes looking for a commander who could work with senior commanders and organize a diverse interest. He had