American History Hit - Eisenhower: D-Day and the Birth of the American Superpower

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

In June 1944, the joint forces of the Allies began the liberation of continental Europe on D-Day. But was there tension within the ranks?Don speaks to Michel Paradis to find out how Eisenhower's leadership helped win the war. How did he deal with the strained relationship between the fading colonial powers of Britain and France, and the rising superpowers, the US and the USSR? How did he police the behaviour of the American troops in Europe? And why did a summit meeting almost end in a fist fight?Michel is a leading human rights lawyer, historian, and national security law scholar. His book on this topic is 'The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower'.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Max Carrey. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. Not one American is going to die on that goddamn beach. We weren't in that room in Cairo in 1943, but we can imagine the confrontation.

General George Marshall, fist thumping on the heavy wooden table, his furrowed brow casting shadows over his eyes, only underscoring the fury of his expression. Given the famous quote, it's likely Marshall pointed an angry finger at his British counterpart, Alan Brooke. And likely the others in the room, some of the most powerful leaders in the world, like President Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, China's Chiang Kai Czech, and Joseph Stalin shifted uncomfortably in their seats,

witnessing as they were, a showdown between superpowers. It would be a meeting that ended prematurely and without resolution. Hi, everyone, I'm Don Wildman, your host. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. Let's get started. We talk a lot on this series about the emergence of the United States as a true global power in the mid-20th century after World War II. And while absolute military victory in that conflict was the major element of the story, there were many other chapters that contributed to the rise,

the Marshall Plan, the restructuring of the world economy, basing it on the dollar. The United Nations headquartering in New York, the founding of NATO and Cold War resistance to the spread of communism, there's a list. Such sweeping changes required a nation of overwhelming military and economic might to step up. And the U.S. did this. reached the peak of its historical dominance, at least so far. It's an off-told tale, much of which we've covered in past episodes. But broad-stroke history often skips the human element, the pivotal

figures integral to the decisions and strategies that created that history. In this particular modern American period that still in so many ways defines our world, one man looms large, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Today, we talk about Eisenhower against the backdrop of World War II and the emergence of the United States on the global stage with Michel Paradis, a professor at Columbia Law School, author of the brand new book, The Light of Battle, Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of American Superpower. Hello, Michelle, it sounds like you were made for this interview. Thank you so much, yeah.

Thank you very much for that introduction as well. We've set the table. Before we get to Eisenhower, I want to mention an article you wrote for the Atlantic very recently, published in June upon the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. titled On D-Day, the U.S. conquered the British Empire, advancing the idea that Operation Overlord, the invasion and all that follows, not only gave the allies a successful foothold on the continent to fight the way to Berlin, it also finalized a gradual process of the U.S. taking the war over, and in a sense, defeating, really not the word for it, but defeating its own ally. How so? What did you mean? So, yeah, the headline was certainly chosen by the magazine. and made the article quite well accepted, except I got a few flaming responses, as you might imagine, from some of our friends. Yeah, from some of our friends across the pond.

No, the basic point I tried to address in that article, which is one of the meta themes in the book, is like most political historians would look at the Second World War as the obvious hinge point, where we go from the preeminence of the British Empire and the Pox Britannica, which in one way or another had existed for a century before that, to this subsequent period of American superpower and international politics, at least for some time, defined by the Cold War rivalry between the two superpowers, the Soviet. Union and the United States, you know, rapid decay, decline, and collapse of all the other old European empires to include Great Britain. And one of the meta themes of the book that led me to write the article is you can see the trajectory of that culminate very much on D-Day for a number of reasons. For one is, you know, at the start of the war, particularly the United States entrance to the war, Britain is the dominant player, right? Britain is the, as they would say at the time, the senior partner in the transatlantic alliance. And there were a lot of obvious reasons for that, just based upon, if nothing else, the size and experience of the British Empire to that point.

But by 1943, when the Allies finally decide to launch the cross-channel invasion, the United States has kind of against expectations, to be right, succeeded in actually mobilizing its vast economic resources into a coherent political and military force that it is now able to deploy all around the world to stunning world historic effect. And that's why I think you see this transition from, you know, Britain really calling the shots and dictating Allied strategy, not just in Europe, but really throughout much of the world for the first two years of the war, begin to shift with the charge across the English Channel, which certainly Churchill, but most British sort of military planners of the period were deeply skeptical of, indeed, hostile to, both because they thought it was way too high risk. get violated pretty fundamental precepts of British military doctrine, which was to avoid large land wars, if nothing else. And also, it in a sense, did nothing for the British Empire, whereas continuing operations in the Mediterranean very much served Britain's much longer-term imperial goals.

And so the fact that this fight was essentially won with a compromise of continued allied operations in the Mediterranean and this cross-channel invasion was the first, you know, real moment where the United States was given the ball and said, okay, and you actually run the ball down the field. And the success of D-Day was proof that it could. And from that moment, you really do see America taking the reins in the broader war as well. Yeah. I mean, in popular understanding, we are so focused, understandably, on the defeat of the Nazis and fascism in World War II,

that we missed the other effect that it had, as you were explaining, the final vanquishing of European empire, that whole notion of imperialist colonialism, in the world, which had been such a fact of life before the war. The British Empire stretched across the whole world. The Japanese were attempting to do the same thing in the Pacific. This all had begun to disintegrate after World War I, but it took World War II to put the nail in the coffin, right? I mean, that's the bigger idea behind the whole war, really.

Yeah, Richard Overy. So I'm going to give credit very much for where it's due. Richard Overy wrote just phenomenal, really the best book on this. It has a great title as well. I think Blood and Ruins is the title. It came out a couple years ago where he consolidated a lot of the interesting economic work that had been done now for a better part of 80 years, looking at it really in a broader global context and basically makes a compelling, almost indisputable argument that World War II

was the sort of death rattle of the old imperial system. And that old imperial system, let's be frank, had existed for hundreds of years. It wasn't as its fall and collapse was not inevitable. but it certainly was made rickety after World War I, but it had survived many challenges before. And I think one of the main reasons it finally did collapse was the fact that the United States actually emerged as a power, a genuine power in the world, a superpower,

as it started to be called in 1944, no less. Well, and prior to that, the Americans didn't really have an interest. I mean, there was the depression in there, too, but the general isolationist attitude of America was was in play, and this is the change. But that's what I'm curious about is that was this the playbook for Americans, and therefore guys like Dwight Eisenhower, who will talk about in the moment, as the war goes on, are they seeing a growing strategy here, a greater strategy for a future geopolitical fate? So yes and no. I think the yes answer is that from very early in the war, particularly people like

Franklin Roosevelt, you know, was beating the drum of democracy, decolonization, sovereign equality between nations as a rallying cry that we see in the Atlantic Charter, obviously, but, and it becomes, if nothing else, the rhetorical frame around which Roosevelt dictates what he claims is American strategy. But the British, quite explicitly, if you read sort of their more internal documents at the time, they thought that was bullshit, right? Like, it just said, it was pretty talk that made sure that, you know, all of the people in the various colonies in North Africa or Central Asia, China, to say at least, you know, would keep on fighting the Japanese and the Germans and the Italians. And like, it was seen as a combination of, you know, cynical, potentially, but also

just naive, right? To the extent the Americans actually bought this stuff, right? They're like, what, they just don't know enough about the world to think that places like China could ever be democratic or rule themselves, et cetera. Yeah, they were looking down their noses at us, right? Very much. And kind of justifiably. I mean, I'm not, I don't want to be misunderstood as sort of a jingoist on this. The British had been at this a long time. They did have way more international experience. And the Americans had to that point, I think at best, you know, it's often described as isolationism, which is correct, but only if you're thinking about it in terms of Europe. But the United States had engaged in various, you know, semi-successful military adventures in what we would now call the global south for, really since its founding, whether or not it's in North Africa against Barbary Pirates, obviously up through South America and Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine. We had kind of accumulated these colonies from Spain that we were never fully enthusiastic about. So the United States just was never, you know, to put it bluntly, not really a nation state prior to World War II.

It was 48 governments that had not that long ago gone to war with each other. It had a vast common market. its politics were just a complete mess. Some would say its politics are still a complete mess. Also, it was like a nation of immigrants, right? America, certainly by the start of World War II, had experienced this just ungodly wave of immigration from all points in the world that actually made,

you know, prior to America's entry into World War II, made it quite a partisan issue because you had large German populations, large Italian populations in the United States who were basically sympathetic. to the axis and a lot there's a lot of hostility to the british isn't it interesting i'd love to read a book i'm sure there's 18 of them about the language the creed of america being ahead of itself all the time you know like it's always been the case hasn't it from manifest destiny on

we've we've thrown this great idea of america ahead of america itself at every given time chance it's amazing it is well it is there's something i think fundamentally aspirational about America and our own rhetoric. And you even see it in our own constitution, which is as a lawyer, one of my favorite sort of features of the U.S. Constitution is, you know, unlike a lot of constitutions, which when they're written down at all, right, are fairly confident documents, let's just say, right? They're coming down and expressing, you know, the founding of a particular country, whereas the United States is sets out its very beginning, its goal is to make a more perfect union, right? Like, we're just trying to do a little better this time. And, and there's

is this sort of a sense in a lot of American history where our rhetoric very much outruns the reality, that aspiration also does give the country something to strive for so that you have, you know, people like, you know, Third Good Marshall and Martin Luther King in the middle of the 20th century fighting for civil rights and equality in a country that had, you know, treated their ancestors as slaves and, you know, put them under grinding apartheid. And their ability to argue against that came from what Martin Luther King called the promissory note of the constitution, right? We promised equality. Now are we going to live up to that? Yeah, exactly. And so I think you see a similar dynamic with Roosevelt sort of throwing out these

highly liberal ideas about how the world could be run through international organizations and a rule of law and sovereign equality and self-government, including in places like India. And that sounds pretty, but I don't think, certainly prior to the end of the war, that's not something anyone would obviously have taken seriously as anything other than a pipe dream. Well, what I mentioned, the new international order, the Americans will lead, you know, from World War II onward. That's at stake here. And it really finds its purchase in this D-Day invasion, doesn't it? That's the point of that article. The book we're talking about is more about Eisenhower and so forth. So let's get on to him. Eisenhower is such an essential element of the American century, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, then president through most of the 50s.

but he seems to be not getting the attention historically or the scrutiny for that matter that he deserves. A lot of that had to do with his personality, which figures centrally into your story. Yeah, and that's kind of what drew me to him. Maybe it's my instincts as a lawyer, but I think just as much my interests as a writer is, you know, he's someone who is very much taken for granted as just kind of smiling Ike, right? Anytime you mention him, certainly even now in the United States, to the extent people have opinions about him, They think of him as this grandfatherly figure who spent his presidency golfing. And I, again, not to overuse the word, I think I was actually accused of overusing this word in a review of the book.

But that was bullshit, right? Like, he was like a pretty ruthless guy and really quite sophisticated in how he understood the world, how he understood people. And he in some ways was a consummate politician or became one, ultimately, and really learned how to use power in the modern world within. this sort of overarching, you know, effort to establish these ideals as well in a way that, to me, is actually quite stunning, right, in terms of its savvy, in terms of its effectiveness. And again, I'll use the word in terms of its cunning at times. And so to me, that's what made Eisenhower a fascinating figure, is you have someone who was born, you know, in some of the remotest parts of the country at the time, raised by religious pacifists

and goes on to be one of the most powerful generals in all of human history. And then in turn goes on in a period of just, you know, heroic figures, whether or not it's Churchill or Patton or, you know, Roosevelt or Stalin or, you know, you can keep going down the list. But then goes on to become an even more consequential figure in the post-war period, first and probably most importantly by being president of Columbia University and then being the first commander of NATO and then going on to be the president of something called the United States of America. and as president becomes the first American president to be sort of routinely called the leader of the free world, right? That becomes sort of the moniker of the president during Eisenhower's tenure. And that is kind of remarkable for someone who, again, grows up essentially impoverished in the middle of nowhere. And whose rise in the military ranks was also a target of skepticism. I mean, he had a lot of detractors.

The man had never seen combat, for one thing, which is fascinating. Let's talk about his career skipping briefly through it. There's a lot. I mean, it obviously begins before even World War I. But he ends up being an expert of tanks, right? That was his purview. Yeah, and it was kind of a backhanded compliment to him as well because the United States didn't have any tanks.

And so they put him in charge of, you know, it's kind of like being put in charge of our spaceship force or something like that. And yeah, so he spends World War I state size training people on how, to use tanks that we don't have. But that in turn does, I think, in an important way, more seriously, help him think about modern warfare in a way that many of his contemporaries just could not. Because as someone who is thinking deeply about tanks, he's thinking about the power and importance of armor and mobility in warfare, which coming out of the trenches in World War I

is not obviously in the 1920s and 1930s the future, right? No one knows what the future is going to be. I think the biggest advocates of a kind of new type of warfare at that point are probably the air forces who see air power as the new form of war. And they're not entirely wrong. But Eisenhower, I think, understands way earlier than a lot of people, to the point almost of heresy in the army, that the tank is actually going to be the future of army operations as a way of moving men on the ground, taking territory and overcoming some of the obstacles that the no man's land had created. Like so many of these great generals, I think immediately of Grant, Eisenhower is trained in the organization of the military.

His almost a quartermaster mentality of how to move armies around, that's what really Grant was known for. But Eisenhower is well, right? Yeah, absolutely. He becomes sort of at times he's even described as the consummate staff officer, the person who is not the commanding general, but the guy sitting next to the commanding general, writing out the day's orders and making sure that, you know, everyone is there and able to get where they need to go to, accomplish the day's objective. Yeah. And he would have learned from the best, I mean, or at least the biggest egos. Yeah. McArthur and Pershing and all those guys. He moved through those staffs from one thing to the next. At some point, he was in the Philippines. So he was beginning to see the world through his job and understand the impact and sort of the danger of being a world power as well,

the traps you can fall into. You know, his time at McGarthur, I think, is an incredibly formative moment. And one of the things that fascinated me about Eisenhower in putting together, you know, this biography, which as you say, it's focused on D-Day, but, you know, I really do try to give readers a kind of a cradle to at least D-Day view of Eisenhower's life and real development as a leader. And one of the things that Eisenhower is remarkable at is cultivating mentors. He has an instinct for a value that's often, you know, inculcated still in the military, but it's sort of taboo outside of it, which is the idea of followership. Right? Followership being an important value to know that if you are a subordinate to somebody, your job is to ensure that your superior officers, the leaders, goals and objectives are carried out, you know, to the T, to the best of your ability. His relationship with MacArthur, I think, is a classic example of his being able to learn profound lessons from having good skills in followership because, you know, at the beginning of the 1930s, he loves MacArthur. MacArthur is this, you know, charismatic, some would say, megalomaniac, you know, figure who can charm, you know, legions.

And this is a time when the United States is politically a total mess, economically and even greater mess. There's debate about whether or not we should just abolish the armed forces at this point. You know, Eisenhower himself even begins to admire people like Benito Mussolini, as many Americans did, because they were like, you know, with a country in this shape, we need a strong man to get us through it. And so falling in with MacArthur's crowd and becoming part of his inner circle is clear opportunity for him. And so he deploys to the Philippines with MacArthur and really begins to live outside the country for the first time in his life. And slowly sours on MacArthur primarily because MacArthur begins to reveal himself as every megalomaniac does as fundamentally lazy and a narcissist and uninterested in actually the grand accomplishments for which they are. charged and more interested in kind of feathering his nest at the expense of the the Filipinos who are paying him just, you know, the modern equivalent of millions of dollars a

year to be a field marshal of the Philippines. And Eisenhower, you know, is absorbing the brunt of that as being as being as close as he is to MacArthur. And so learns, you know, I think both the seductiveness of the strong man type leader and understands it, right? But he also understands its weaknesses and actually probably leaves the Philippines far more of of a small D Democrat than he was when he left. I'll be right back after this short break. Meantime, if you'd like us to cover anything specifically, if you have any ideas of subject matter, we should be looking at,

send us an email at a.H at history hit.com. We'd love to hear from you. In the midst of World War II, when we are finally engaged over there, it would have seemed more sensible that George Marshall would have been made the Supreme Commander, of all people, right? I mean, that was the going thought. Why did Roosevelt choose Eisenhower over Marshall? Yeah, it's a fascinating story, in part because Marshall was more or less tapped for the job from the very beginning of the war.

Eisenhower actually writes some of the first plans to cross the English Channel and to invade France, what becomes Operation Overlord when he's working for Marshall in the War Department back in 42, and basically writes the plan saying that upon the launching of this operation, the Army Chiefs of Staff should go to England to lead it personally and to lead the ultimate war against Hitler. by the time the Cairo conference comes around and they decide to go forward with this, everyone is kind of assuming that that means that Marshall is going to be brought to England to lead it. And as a consequence, Eisenhower will have to get a different job, probably as chief of staff in Washington, or at least acting chief of staff in Marshall's absence.

But Roosevelt changes his mind, like at the last possible minute. Like literally as he's leaving the Cairo conference in the beginning of December, he switches horses and basically gives the job to Eisenhower instead of Marshall. And there's been a lot of sort of historical speculation about that. I spent an inordinate amount of time digging into this. And part of it was Marshall really was indispensable. Like he is the singular man of World War II in terms of his ability to really understand all aspects of the war. And there was a great deal of concern that Marshall leaving Washington would compromise the broader war,

particularly in places like the Pacific, which Marshall understood and Eisenhower really hadn't done much since the war as early beginning. I think another facet that I was able to uncover in a lot of the private correspondence, which I hadn't seen people really discuss, probably for a lot of reasons, is Roosevelt became deeply concerned that Marshall was not the right man for the job that needed to be done in London because it was a diplomatic job. It was a political job, even more than a military job. And at the Cairo conference, when the Americans and the British are sort of debating the future, course of the war. Like, it gets nasty, like real. Like, like at one point, Alan Brooke, the chief of

staff of the British Army and George Marshall nearly get into a fist fight with each other. The meeting has to be broken up early. And I just sort of laugh thinking about these, you know, 60-some-year-old men in like their formal uniforms, like just coming to blows over a conference table. And the point of contention is that the British are worried about the Mediterranean. They want to focus things down here, whereas the Americans are like, no, that doesn't make any sense. go straight into France. It's closer to Berlin, right? That's right. America wants to get in there and end this war, and the Brits are like, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. And Roosevelt is put in the position, and he complains about it subtly, but it's there in some of his private correspondence home, that he's put in the position of having to be the referee.

And he doesn't like that. And he knows that the Anglo-American alliance is both essential for the success of the war, but also at a very delicate moment in its history, precisely because the United States is now taking. on a much greater role and provoking British resistance to America's rise could be quite dangerous, not just for America, but for the actual war effort. It sounds like Eisenhower becomes Supreme Commander almost by default by keeping Marshall in Washington. I think that's part of it. I also think Roosevelt, for the first time, gets to know Eisenhower in the lead up to the Cairo Conference.

They actually don't know each other that well. They'd only met about two times before, and in neither situation had Eisenhower impresses. Roosevelt all that much. But they have an extended sort of two days, a weekend together, as Roosevelt is heading off to the Cairo and Tehran conferences. And Roosevelt basically hazes Eisenhower to put a fine point on it. One of the first questions out of his mouth to Eisenhower is, how's that British girl, by which he's referring to Kay Somersby, who at the time was rumored to be essentially Eisenhower's mistress in England, and was Eisenhower's driver? And Roosevelt makes a point of dragging Kay Somersby, to almost every conversation he has with Eisenhower to include going on a tour together,

having Kay drive on a tour. And all throughout, like Eisenhower is, he's mentally a tough guy and he can smile his way pretty much through anything. And with this opportunity to really interact with each other up close, I think Eisenhower is seen by Roosevelt for the first time as the sort of skillful politician that he is certainly becoming. And in figuring out who can, who can, who can keep the Anglo alliance together and pull off D-Day. Roosevelt gets a lot of credit in history, obviously. But he doesn't sometimes get credit for the subtleties of the psychology behind these moments and time.

It really sounds like it would have been entirely different American War in Europe. Had we not had Eisenhower, had we not had that kind of Roosevelt ploy, which is, let me put this guy in who's very likable, he's got a big smile, who's got a masterfully benign presence, as you say, it's not really that way, but he's a good presentation. And that has a whole big effect on Americans. And there's 1.5 million troops in Britain. That's a huge impact and a giant pill to swallow for the Brits.

For sure. And it's not just 1.5 million Americans of all stripes. It's 1.5 million American young men by and large. Young men are not known to be the best house guests. Right. And they're all sorts of really delicate problems. that Eisenhower has to deal with with this massive presence in the UK. Like, it's remembered sort of like with a sort of jaunty fondness today and almost a nostalgia,

but it was pretty acrimonious at the time. And one issue that I was really quite surprised to see taking up as much of Eisenhower's time as it did and having as much impact on so many different things he had to do was civil rights. Because the army is segregated at that point. About 10% of the army is black, and he has black, soldiers coming into the United Kingdom who, in many cases for the first time in their lives, are not in a segregated society. Because the Brits, you know, they're not, not racist. Let's be, let's not sugarcoat it. But American racism of that period was, you know, a pretty violent

enterprise. You know, the American form of segregation was a lot like South Africa. And so the Brits find it appalling. Most Europeans find it completely appalling. And particularly inexplicable when America is banging on about democracy and human rights and equality. And so Eisenhower is having to navigate these pretty, oftentimes quite violent confrontations between American soldiers who are used to America's caste system and black soldiers who are, you know,

experiencing freedom for the very first time, being able to go out to nightclubs and, oh, my God, dance with a white woman. Yeah, right. And this is, you know, something that Eisenhower ends up having to deal with an extraordinary amount. And it creates some of the most, intense friction he has diplomatically with Britain's foreign office. At the same time, he's needing

to persuade the foreign office to maintain port security, to having debates over the kinds of weapons they're allowed to use. These are all interlocking issues that he's having to navigate and having 1.5 million rowdy Americans with very distinctly American customs requires a politician's touch, to be perfectly frank about it. Oh, interesting that later on it resonates through to Brown versus a Board of Education. I mean, under the Eisenhower administration, so much happens in the early civil rights. Let's focus on D-Day here for a bit. The book obviously is so much about that.

I just want to make sure that people understand the Americans wanted to go in in 43. It was delayed for various reasons, of course, but really there was resistance from the British because they wanted to attack the island of Rhodes. I don't understand that. Well, Rhodes is like an ancient part. You know, if you read your history books

in Victorian public school, you know, that Rhodes is a very important island. And look, there are a couple of things going on here. I'll be perfectly frank about all of them. One is, right, Churchill had overseen the disaster at Gallipoli. He had almost gotten completely ousted from British politics as a result. And if you look at Operation Overlord and compare it to the Gallipoli operation, they're very similar. So Churchill is relying on his own muscle memory of how difficult, violent, and ultimately unpredictable and amphibious invasion can be.

And so he is genuinely worried. that an attack across the English channel of that scale would be a failing bet. And in fact, right, even weeks before D-Day, Eisenhower's own chief of staff, Walter Bedell Smith, predicts that they have a 50-50 chance of succeeding. And, like, that means they have a 50-50 chance of just catastrophically failing as well. And so that's a major concern of Churchill's that just looms over the Gallipoli looms over the entire six months leading to the D-Day invasion. But like the interest in the Eastern European as well also plays to British strengths, right?

Britain is a superior naval power. It has superior air power as well. And so British military doctrine had long avoided fighting large land battles. And the one time they went against that doctrine was World War I. And what did they get for it? Right. And so just Britain, again, was a way more experienced global player at this point and understood that their comparative advantage was in being able to strike.

the Germans to death while the Russians killed them on the Eastern Front. But then again, the imperial interests are there as well, right? Putting roads in the British crown, like along with Malta and all these other sort of resplendent jewels in the Mediterranean, just had like appeals to some, to a Victorian like Winston Churchill. And not for nothing, too, not to just make it romantic, but the frenemy relationship with the Soviet Union was pretty intense. And Churchill certainly saw that the Soviets would try and expand their reach of, of what became the Soviet block into the Eastern Mediterranean and saw that allied operations in the Eastern Mediterranean

would essentially block the Soviets from getting the warm water ports that Stalin clearly did one. I suppose this is why, in the end, the Americans take the lead in this invasion. But at the same time, an Eisenhower can make this seem multilateral, right? This is his priority is that this is not a United States effort, even though it may be at the heart. He never mentions the word United States in a lot of these communications. He's very determined that this seemed like an allied invasion.

Yeah, for sure. And I think this is probably a big part of the realization of that sort of aspiration we were talking about before, of a kind of a different way of acting in the world. Because, you know, as you say, rather than beating his chest and saying, we are America, we are here to conquer you for your own good. He even goes so far as to chastise his subordinate. sending back reports about French territory conquered in the day after the invasion. He's like, it's French territory liberated.

Interesting. And he's very, like, committed to this idea that this is an allied liberation of Europe, not an American or even an allied conquest of Europe. He would have seen what happened when we had the over there attitude about in World War I, of course, which worked out, you know, in the short term, but then there was the League of Nations failure and all the rest of the, you know, he fell on our face in terms of what we, planned to accomplish by showing up for World War I. He took that away, I would imagine, and said, next time different. Yeah, absolutely. One of his key mentors is a guy named Fox Connor,

who was America's, for lack of a better word, chief war planner during World War I for the American operations in Europe. And one of the main takeaways that he got from Fox Connor was the near impossibility of genuine allied cooperation in warfare because every country was always vying to get the biggest piece of the pie once the war was won. But how disastrous that was because that inter-allied cooperation made it both harder to actually win the war and then when you finally did win the war, there was less pie to go around for everybody. And so Eisenhower very much had that cautionary lesson in his own mind, having studied World War I quite closely, and understood that as long as allied cooperation was the order of the day, that they would

be able to achieve far, far, far more than they could as any one individual military or on behalf of any one individual force. And he was right, right? And that is, I think, why we created in the aftermath. And when I say we, I don't mean the United States alone. I think the allies generally, what were called the United Nations during the war, created an international order that makes multilateralism a defining feature of any sort of foreign military intervention. Well, this is the suggestion of your article and also the book, that this huge invasion, which was a military strategy, military act, might have had an also geopolitical chess move in mind. You know, like this was bigger than even the hugeness of D-Day. Is that a fact or am I totally projecting my understanding onto it?

No, I think that's right. It was a proof of concept, if nothing else. And it was a proof of a highly doubtful and contestable concept. because, you know, and I think the easiest way to understand that is to imagine had the D-Day invasion failed, what would have actually happened? And it doesn't take a lot of sort of science fiction imagination to see very quickly that the United States would have been humiliated. And the United States would never have, or would have taken many more years or some other great event for the United States to ever be seen as a serious player in international affairs. Because this was, you know, the United States' invasion in it. and before we had any credibility, we would have lost it.

The only Allied strategy that would really have been left at that point would be continued operations in the Mediterranean, the British strategy. So the British would have remained the senior partner in the relationship, and that would in turn have left the Soviets as the only major power on the continent. Would the Soviets have continued fighting the Germans? They were taking astronomical losses on the Eastern Front and had the Allies proven themselves essentially incapable of opening a Western Front, Would the Soviets have seen the writing on the wall and cut yet another agreement with Hitler,

basically dividing Europe with fascism in the West and Soviet communism in the East? Would Franklin Roosevelt have been reelected in 1944? It was a close election as it was. It was just unprecedented fourth term. He was incredibly ill. He barely survived a month or two into his first term before Harry Truman takes over his president. So you're dealing with an entirely different world, an entirely. a different balance of power that could have gone in any number of, you know, highly unpredictable

ways. It's a cool counterfactual, isn't it, to think about without Eisenhower, do we win the war? Sure, we win it. But at what cost? There's no memorial to Eisenhower, which is so fascinating in D.C. You would think there'd be a big old thing there. There's only the World War II Memorial in the mall, which is understated, to say the least, you know, in terms of what it's saying, even.

It's just kind of there. Maybe Eisenhower would have approved of that, though. He seems like the guy that doesn't need to have a big statue. shoot to him. Yeah, I think that's right. They created essentially a monument to Eisenhower a couple years ago that was unveiled. It's like a statue of Eisenhower. And it's lovely. But it's sort of out of the way and it's not imposing. And I don't think he, and I think he would have been, I can't give you a seance, but I'm sure he would have expressed embarrassment that even that much had been done. Although I do think he would have appreciated the fact that he was on the silver dollar and JFK was on

the half dollar. Because I do think, I do think he would have agreed that he is worth two JFKs. But I think he would have fully supported the idea that it was a World War II monument because, you know, he always, like a football coach, should be perfectly candid, always understood that no one comes to the game to see the coach. They come to the game to see the team win. And he very much internalized that idea. I think it's fitting to go out with the famous note that Eisenhower wrote before the D-Day invasion in case the operation had failed. I think it reads as a real selfless assumption of responsibility. and worded intentionally to take the onus off of any of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen, certainly, but also even of our allies. I'm going to read it. It's short, but it's very meaningful. Here it goes.

In case of failure message, our landings in the Sherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air, and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone. Wow. Just imagine if that had been the case and imagine that man would never have been president. Let me tell you that. Yeah, for sure.

And one last thought, I'll just tag on to that because I spent a fair bit of time actually with this letter, which he hand writes. And the most poignant part to me, in addition to what he says, is what he doesn't say. And we know what he doesn't say because he crosses a few things out as he's going. And it's always these, you can see it's him saying, sort of like, I had the best information. Well, and then he just crosses it out, right? It's any time he catches himself either making excuses or in some ways making it about him, he stops himself, midline, starts over. And as you say, just takes all the responsibility and blame onto himself and gives credit

to all those who really did, you know, who risked their lives. It's amazing how often in American history there are these individuals. men and women who are just really truly extraordinary characters who have a really unique personalities, never mind capabilities. It's really an astonishing fact of American history. Yeah, and are perfect for the moment. Michelle Paradis is a leading human rights lawyer, historian and national security law scholar who teaches at Columbia Law School. His 2020 book, Last Mission to Tokyo, the Doolittle Raiders, and their final fight for justice will be a future episode of the series, I promise you. His newest publication, The Light of Battle, Eisenhower, D-Day, and The Birth of American Superpower is just released.

And please order it today. You'll be glad you did. Thank you, Michelle. It's been great to talk with you. Yeah, thank you so much. It was a lot of fun. Hello, folks. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. Each week, we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of great content, like mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements, to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode.

By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Bye for now.