General George Catlett Marshall is widely accepted as this nation's most esteemed 20th century military figure and as a paragon of professionalism and officership. Marshall, the soldier, and his military career serve as a comforting reference point for thoughtful officers to guide upon when they feel they are in danger of losing their ethical and professional bearings.

His was a career that paralleled America's rise to and acceptance of global responsibilities. Marshall was a creator not only of America's awesome military power as Army chief of staff in World War II but also of its major foreign and global strategies as a postwar Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense. Statesman as well as soldier, his character and accomplishments are so exceptional that he is regularly placed in the company of George Washington when parallels are sought.¹

Marshall's character casts a giant historical shadow. His leadership qualities, sense of duty and honor, selflessness, and abiding commitment to the Constitution and the American civil-military tradition were so extraordinary that virtually every individual with whom he worked, from president on down, felt duty bound to recount and comment upon those traits in hushed tones of veneration. In today's context it is almost impossible for us to imagine that such a man ever existed.

My task is to bring this historical monument to life, and to relate various aspects of Marshall's remarkable life to the themes of this conference. I’ll first sketch a portrait of Marshall's character and moral habits developed during the interwar years. His experiences during these years, we now know, prepared him for the enormous responsibilities he would assume as the organizer of Allied victory in the Second World War.

Focusing on the prewar period may be thought to be a little unusual; I believe, however, that the prewar years served as a crucible that forged Marshall's character and strengthened his special relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Congress, and the citizens of America.

Next, I'll link our understanding of the kind of officer Marshall had become by the time he was appointed the Army chief of staff in 1939 to the theme of readiness by analyzing his role during the difficult months between the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and American entry into the war in December 1941. Those twenty-seven months were also the first twenty-seven months of Marshall's tenure as chief of staff and coincided with stunning Axis military victories and the subsequent need to prepare the United States for war. Marshall later called these years the most difficult of all during the war.² The challenges of preparing for a global coalition war and of mobilizing and integrating every aspect of the nation's resources into that effort were unprecedented in the American experience. Marshall also found the task made more difficult by the fact that he had to accomplish it while Americans were sharply divided over the nature of the nation’s role in that war. And finally, Marshall's task was complicated in the period 1939-1941 by the formidable presence of his enigmatic Commander-in-Chief, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Marshall's most pressing role during this period was to win presidential and congressional approval for a crash effort to bolster American preparedness through the building of a balanced military capability. As Marshall saw it, rearming America was an absolute priority. Yet in the days following the fall of France and with the rearmament process barely under way, Roosevelt concluded that the nation must simultaneously aid Britain in its lonely struggle against Germany. Fears that the modest gains in American readiness thus far realized would be dissipated by FDR's eagerness to sustain Britain brought Marshall into conflict with the president--and into the harsh glare of partisan politics--when congressional opponents of Roosevelt’s policies sought to draw Marshall into the foreign policy debate.

Marshall's actions during those twenty-seven months provide useful insights into the relationship between ethics and readiness. Moreover, as a demonstration of how Marshall was able to stand steadfastly for his beliefs while at the same time maintaining his loyalty to his civilian Commander-in-Chief, his actions during that period are also an emulatory perspective on American civil-military relations.

The Shaping of Marshall's Character

Immediately after World War I, making good on his promise to share insights on his successes in World War I with cadets at his alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute, Marshall provided VMI's superintendent his observations on what successful leadership in combat in the American Army in France.

Optimism, stamina, love of one’s soldiers, determination and loyalty were qualities for Marshall that distinguished successful officers from the common pack. They were the solid qualities on which a commander could depended, qualities that would make a large organization function effectively, qualities that would be the bedrock of readiness. "When conditions are difficult, the command is depressed and everyone seems critical and pessimistic, you must be especially cheerful and optimistic," he wrote. Especially then, leaders need to lay aside "any thought of personal fatigue and display marked energy in looking after the comfort of [their] organization, inspecting the lines, and preparing for tomorrow." This ability to reach deep within one’s personal reserves of stamina and perseverance to lift up and inspire exhausted and dispirited soldiers during such low points was an important Marshall hallmark of leadership. Indeed, more alarming and disastrous the situation, "the more determined must be your attitude." Finally, Marshall valued loyalty enormously as a leadership virtue. The most successful officers, in his view, made "a point of extreme loyalty, in thought and deed, both to their superiors personally and to one’s efforts to execute their superior’s plans or policies. There could be no role for individual ego in a soldier’s respect for superior authority, he counseled. Indeed, "The less you agree with the policies of your superiors, the more energy you must direct to their accomplishment."³

From his vantage point in the War Department's Operations Division in 1941, then-Brigadier General Dwight D. Eisenhower saw Marshall every day and noted the types of personalities that did not win favor with his boss. Eisenhower believed Marshall viewed with particular distaste "self-seeking officers" who sought to bring pressure to bear on their own behalf. (In the competition in 1939 as FDR was seeking a new Army chief of staff Marshall had been true to this trait. "My strength with the army," he told friends seeking to promote his candidacy, "has rested on the well known fact that I attended strictly to business, and enlisted no influence of any sort at any time. That, in army circles, has been my greatest strength in this matter of future appointments, especially.")⁴ Another category that vexed him, he told Ike, was officers who could do detailed work but would not take the responsibility for making decisions. Similarly, he objected to men who immersed themselves in minor details and so lost sight of general issues. The group in disfavor also included those who loved the limelight and those who had trouble getting along with others. Nor could he stand pessimists. He would never give command to an officer who was less than enthusiastic about the post or operation in question.⁵

Of all these qualities of leadership the one most prized by Marshall and perhaps most reflective of his character was that of candor. Frankness of expression and the inability to quibble were in his mind directly related to trust and sincerity, elements that reached to the very core of one's integrity. Simply put, Marshall gave--and expected to get--the unvarnished facts of a case and he developed early in his career a reputation for straightforwardness and integrity that in his later career gave him enormous credibility with Roosevelt, the Congress and the American people. Three brief anecdotes from Marshall's early career illustrate how this reputation for candor developed and suggest how his resulting credibility became a priceless asset for Marshall in the execution of his wartime duties.

The first occurred in France in 1917 where then-Major Marshall was serving as a staff officer in the American 1st Infantry Division. During an inspection, General Pershing became unhappy with the level of training in the division and criticized the division commander in front of his subordinates. Loyal to his commander and convinced the humiliation was unjustified Marshall rose to his defense. When Pershing tried to ignore his protests and depart, Marshall exploded, placing his hand on Pershing's arm to prevent him from leaving and, according to Marshall's own recollections, practically forcing the general to listen. An extraordinary lecture followed, which identified Pershing's Headquarters as the source of the problems. Pershing’s offer to look into the situation did not satisfy the now thoroughly-aroused Marshall, who figured he was already in it up to his neck and "might as well not try to float but to splash a bit." There was no need to look into it, he told Pershing, "it's a fact."⁶

Marshall's fellow officers were horrified with the scene, but Pershing took the major's tirade calmly, reminding Marshall that he needed to appreciate the troubles GHQ had. Marshall shot back: "We have them every day and many a day and we have to solve every one of them by night."⁷

That ended the conversation and Pershing's visit. Convinced Marshall would be immediately relieved, his fellow officers all bade him farewell. But they had severely misjudged Pershing. Marshall had in fact won his respect by his candid outburst; rather than relieving Marshall, the AEF commander frequently consulted him thereafter on First Division problems. By the summer of 1918 Marshall had been promoted to colonel and assigned to Pershing's own staff and within two years had become the general’s personal aide. A long and vitally important relationship had been forged.

For Marshall, the experience served as a highly instructive lesson in leadership. Pershing's reaction to candid counsel was unusual; Marshall had never before seen a man who would listen so intently to severe criticisms. "Pershing never held it against you personally," he marvelled. "He might not agree with you in any degree, but he listened to very, very frank criticisms in regard to his actions."⁸

Another later episode again illustrates Marshall’s commitment to providing frank and independent advice to his superiors. As the Army's deputy chief of staff in 1938 Marshall harbored ideas about the need to rearm the nation that clashed with isolationist fears that the United States would be drawn into the impending European war. In the aftermath of the Munich appeasement Roosevelt saw as clearly as anyone that there would soon be a war but adopted the attitude that Britain and France should be encouraged to defeat the Germans by themselves when war came, with the great American arsenal providing them the resources necessary to accomplish that task. But such a strategy, if made public, would expose the President to the wrath of the isolationists who would surely charge him with unneutral behavior and putting the nation's security at risk.

On November 14, 1938 FDR convened a conference at the White House at which he proposed to build 10,000 war planes, the ostensible aim being the bolstering the strength of the Army Air Corps. Marshall and his chief thought they were in attendance to discuss that program. FDR's real purpose was to supply the planes to the European democracies in the hope that such assistance might forestall the impending war, and thereby American involvement.

Attending his first conference with the president, Marshall was shocked by FDR’s plan and astonished that no one else had questioned the president’s proposal. After his presentation, FDR indicated that he thought that he had made a good case for his program. The discussion then ran around the room, finding much soothing support for the proposal, until FDR turned to Marshall sitting quietly off to the side. "Don't you think so, George?" he asked.⁹

Marshall later admitted a flash of irritation over "such a misrepresentation of our intimacy." He was never a first-name man. "I don't think the President ever did that again," he said later. At the time his response was more direct: "I am sorry, Mr. President, but I don't agree with you at all."¹⁰ Accounts by participants recount that a startled look came over FDR's face and the conference abruptly ended. Afterward, Marshall's associates, who had been eyeing him in silence, once again came by to shake his hand and to offer condolences. "Well, it's been nice knowing you," said Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau. As with the rest, Morgenthau made it obvious that he believed that Marshall's bluntness had just ended his army career.¹¹

In fact, it had not. FDR never again referred to the incident nor did he display any resentment toward Marshall. "Maybe he thought that I would tell him the truth so far as I was personally concerned," Marshall speculated later, "which I certainly tried to do in all our conversations."¹² As with the earlier Pershing incident, Marshall’s bluntness impressed rather than alienated his superior. FDR apparently valued an officer who would tell the truth rather than what he thought the president wanted to hear.¹³

Marshall's relationship with Roosevelt rested on the belief that frankness and candor were essential elements of his advisory position. He would best fulfill the responsibilities entrusted to him by the nation by establishing and demonstrating that he was a professional soldier and a man of integrity. "I never haggled with the president," he recalled later. "I swallowed the little things so that I could go to bat on the big ones. I never handled a matter apologetically, and I was never contentious."¹⁴

The record soon showed that predictions of an early end to Marshall's career were widely premature. In the spring of 1939 Roosevelt began the search for a replacement for Army chief of staff General Malin Craig who was due to retire on 1 September. In April FDR decided for Marshall. Without informing anyone else, Roosevelt summoned Marshall to the White House to give him the news. "General Marshall," he said, "I have it in mind to choose you as the next Chief of Staff of the United States Army. What do you think of that?"

"Nothing, Mr. President," Marshall replied, "except to remind you that I have the habit of saying exactly what I think. And that, as you know," he added, "can often be unpleasing. Is that all right?"

Marshall recalls that Roosevelt grinned and said, "Yes." Marshall remained persistent. "Mr. President, you said yes pleasantly. But I have to remind you again that it may be unpleasant." The President continued to grin. "I know," he said. But he did not add "George."¹⁵

At the outset of their relationship as commander-in-chief and chief of staff, the two men had staked out an area of understanding marked by candor. Marshall had not connived for the position (though he had coveted it) and he had neither covered up any of his views nor professed opinions that were not genuine. And to his credit, FDR had not invited any such behavior. The job of chief of staff came to Marshall without strings, with his integrity intact, and he was therefore positioned to provide his commander-in-chief candid advice insulated and independent from the wizardry of FDR's beguiling personality.

The Ethical Dimensions of Aid to Britain, 1940-41

Just how much ethical independence existed in the FDR-Marshall relationship was tested in the period after the fall of France in the summer of 1940 by the tension between Marshall’s deep commitment to improving the army's readiness and Roosevelt's commitment to providing Britain the resources necessary to ensure its survival.

From the beginning of the war Marshall had sought to convince the president, Congress and the public that the United States was in a bad way in terms of its military capabilities. The army in November 1939 contained fewer than 175,000 men in nine understrength divisions and ranked only nineteenth in the world, trailing, among others, Spain, Portugal, and Bulgaria.

Roosevelt was not opposed to preparedness, however his concept centered on airplanes rather than a balanced force. For his part Marshall proposed a $675 million dollar crash program that called for the creation of a balanced force of 1.25 million men by 1941, the bare minimum needed in his mind for a nation still at peace but prepared for war.

When Marshall and Treasury Secretary Morgenthau went to the White House to ask FDR for the necessary authorization, the president breezily dismissed the program. Morgenthau then asked the President if he would hear Marshall. "I know exactly what he would say," Roosevelt replied. "There is no necessity for me to hear him at all."

According to Morgenthau's diary, Marshall, his face red and his temper barely under control, then asked the president for three minutes to speak. Marshall then passionately presented a warning about the threat faced by the dire straits of its armed forces. "Did the president not understand the danger? Did he not understand that his inaction was putting the nation at risk? If you don't do something," he concluded, "I don't know what is going to happen to this country." Two days later Roosevelt sent the program to Congress and the Congress soon after appropriated $900 million dollars for it.¹⁶

The presidential and congressional shift on defense expenditures were clearly also influenced by the disastrous defeat of the French in the summer of 1940 and the isolation of Great Britain as it stoically endured the Battle of Britain through the summer and fall. Opinions were nonetheless divided on how best to deal with this threatening development. Should the United States provide substantial military assistance to Great Britain to ensure its survival? Must the United States become a belligerent itself or should it decree that a German victory resulted in no clear and present danger to American vital interests and that it should maintain its historic isolationist policy toward European war?¹⁷

Marshall found himself at the center of the debate. Instinctively supportive of FDR's interventionist perspective, Marshall nonetheless wrestled with the troubling question of whether aid to Britain should take precedence over the readiness of American forces.

This question was brought into sharp focus when FDR pressed Marshall in the days after Dunkirk to use American military equipment and ammunition to replenish the lost British stocks. Torn between sympathy for Britain and the necessity of meeting his own defense obligations, Marshall struggled with a matter of conscience that would not be completely settled until the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. The Neutrality Acts forbade the sale or transfer of munitions and implements of war to belligerent powers. Moreover Marshall believed only a few items—mostly obsolete weapons and ammunition from World War I--could be spared; otherwise he saw little help for the British. "The shortage is terrible," he explained to FDR, "and we have no ammunition for antiaircraft guns and will not for six months. So if we give them the guns they could not do anything with them. Antitank guns, the situation is similar...50 caliber, our situation is the same."¹⁸

After some legal gymnastics the Roosevelt administration used a loophole in the neutrality legislation to transfer these reserve stocks to Britain, where they were quickly consumed by the British war machine. Believing further diminution of resources unwise, Marshall appealed to FDR to consider more carefully the effect of such transfers on the readiness of American armed forces. FDR proved more prescient than his military advisor in this case. He was convinced the survival of Great Britain was vital to American national security and thus just the place to be investing scarce American military resources.¹⁹

Marshall believed FDR was ignoring the main point of his argument: the question as to whether Britain could survive at all. Ironically, Marshall's thinking seems to have mirrored that of Winston Churchill when he had withheld Royal Air Force squadrons during the Battle for France to preserve them for the Battle for Britain. Marshall feared that so committing America’s meager munitions reserves ran the risk of falling into the trap of providing resources inadequate to the task of saving Britain, while at the same time increasing American vulnerability.²⁰

As if anticipating this dilemma, Congress in June forbade the sale of additional surplus materiel unless the chief of naval operations and chief of staff certified that it was not "essential" for American defense. Given his fears, Marshall faced an ethical dilemma. It was possible--but not provable--that the nation could improve its defensive position by sending additional aid to Britain. If Britain fell, however, it would be very difficult to justify the diversion. One of Marshall’s staff put it more bluntly: "If we were required to mobilize after having released guns necessary for mobilization and were found to be short, everyone who was a party to the decision might expect to be hanging from a lamp post."²¹

As Britain weathered the German blitz during the summer and fall of 1940, FDR increasingly demanded that the Army allocate a larger share of American war plane production to Britain. In fact, he expected that every other B-17 be turned over to the British as it came off the assembly line. Expert by now at finding legal loopholes, Roosevelt blandly suggested that the Army send bombers to Britain for "combat testing." Trapped between the congressional requirement for certification and his commander-in-chief's policy, Marshall was not the kind to ignore the spirit in favor of the letter of the law, and his conscience was troubled. He spent many hours riding his horse along the bridle paths at Fort Myer pondering the issue. Finally, after wrestling with his doubts, he told FDR that he would recommend the transfer, and immediately felt better about it.

"We turned over fifteen Flying Fortresses to the British for experimental purposes," he recalled later. "I was a little bit ashamed of this because I felt that I was straining at the subject to get around the resolution of Congress." He added, "Actually when we got into it and did it, it soon became apparent that the important thing was exactly that--to let them have planes for experimental purposes. And we should have done it earlier because we found difficulties with the planes that the Air Corps had not perceived at all."²²

Such recollections might easily be characterized as juicy rationalizations, perhaps, and I am willing to concede the point. What is striking here is that this occasion is considered by Marshall to be the only "duplicity" of his career. And Marshall could have taken comfort in the fact that the Congress soon followed suit, taking its sympathies as well as its doubts into the Roosevelt camp in March by passing the Lend-Lease Act, and thus ensuring Great Britain full access to America's arsenal of democracy.

During this time period Marshall's influence with the Congress grew enormously. In congressional hearings he projected an image of cool professionalism, thorough mastery of the facts, truthfulness, and nonpartisanship. Marshall's candor--his refusal to avoid ugly facts--only added to image. "He would tell the truth even if it hurt his cause," Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn remembered. "Of all the men who ever testified before any committee on which I served," Rayburn said, "there is no one of them who has the influence with a committee of the House that General Marshall has." The reason was simple, he continued, "It is because when he takes the witness stand, we forget whether we are Republicans or Democrats. We remember that we are in the presence of a man who is telling the truth, as he sees it, about the problems he is discussing."²³

Speaker Rayburn's commentary reminds us once again of the priceless value of one's integrity.

 

Marshall and the Ethics of Civilian Control

Partly obscured by differences separating Roosevelt and Marshall over readiness and aid to Britain is the manner in which the commander-in-chief and his senior army advisor resolved their problems. Marshall clearly was not alone in seeing aid to Britain as a dubious proposition. Many sources of influential support for his position existed outside the administration, yet he chose not to exploit the opportunities offered by such allies. Instead, he directed his objections forthrightly to the president and he loyally accepted FDR's decision when it was reached. Once the decision was made, Marshall did his utmost to make the president's policy a success. As he remarked later, "I had early made up my mind that I, so far as possible, was going to operate as a member of the team, political and otherwise military; that while it would be difficult at times and [there] would be strong pressures for me to appeal to the public, I thought it was far more important in the long run that I try to do my convincing within the team, rather than to take action publicly contrary to the desires of the President."²⁴ Neither by footdragging nor by coy maneuvering would Marshall presume to challenge the legitimacy of the president's authority.

Roosevelt deeply appreciated Marshall's abiding loyalty to the principle of civilian control. Responding one day to Speaker Rayburn's praise of Marshall's integrity and effectiveness with the Congress, FDR insisted that no one admired Marshall more than he did: "I'm not always able to approve his recommendations and history may prove me wrong. But when I disapprove them, I don't have to look over my shoulder to see…whether he's going to the Capitol, to lobby against me, or whether he's going back to the War Department. I know he's going back to the War Department, to give me the most loyal support as chief of staff that any President could wish."²⁵

The passing years have brought increasing emphasis on Marshall's role as a soldier-statesman who believed that civilian authority should control the military and that armed forces should exist to aid in carrying out the foreign policy outlined by the president and Congress. He was comfortable about the American constitutional system as he found it. He believed that military men had a duty to explain the needs of their services and the requirements of their forces to carry out assignments directed by the commander-in-chief. A responsible officer had the right to question a policy he considered wrong or mistaken and to discuss thoroughly a proposal. But there was no right to challenge publicly the wishes of the commander-in-chief. Refusal to accept that rule on the part of an officer meant the destruction of his own power to command. To Marshall, such resistance of the armed forces to the president weakened the fabric of a democratic society.

Marshall's restrained and professional behavior during the politically-explosive tangles with FDR over the tension between readiness and aid to Britain provides a polar star for members of America's armed forces to guide upon as they consider their civil-military responsibilities. He did not attempt to advance his cause through leaks to favored journalists. He did not attempt end runs of FDR to the president's congressional critics. And he did not publish in the New York Times or Washington Post op-ed pieces articulating alternative solutions to the administration's policies.²⁶ Instead he privately provided his commander-in-chief independent and candid advice, not partisan advocacy of alternative policies, and he loyally supported and actively assisted their execution once the president had decided.

Marshall's thoughts on civilian control and military subordination to civil authority remain to me the most articulate I have read on the topic. "[The American Armed Forces] have a great asset," Marshall observed, "and that is that our people, our countrymen, do not distrust us and do not fear us. They don't harbor any ideas that we intend to alter the government of our country or the nature of this government in any way. This is a sacred trust....We are completely devoted, we are a member of a priesthood really, the sole purpose of which is to defend the republic. We concentrate our time and attention on that subject. That doesn't mean that we don't understand other things, but it simply means that we devote our time and attention exclusively to this. I don't want to do anything...to damage the high regard in which professional soldiers in the Army are held by our people...."²⁷

Conclusion

I have tried in an impressionistic way to illustrate how the record of Marshall's interwar career provides such useful insights to those in the profession of arms. General Marshall appreciated the priceless nature of his own integrity and credibility and seemed to understand that his behavior was interpreted by others as a larger reflection of the integrity of the armed forces in general. Indeed, his every action seemed governed by these considerations.

In his poem, "George C. Marshall (1880-1959)," Thomas Hawkins Johnson, an Army officer himself, captured nicely the central role that integrity played in Marshall’s life:

In the photograph there are two rows of men,
Twelve or thirteen in all. Their drab uniforms
Look stiff in the midday glare: boots, riding
Breeches, thick wool blouses over khaki
Shirts strapped in with polished Sam Browne belts.
Hatless, they seem to squint at the cameraman,
Though it may be only the poor focus—still,
One recognizes all of them slowly—Bradley,
Patton, Bedell Smith, even the young balding
Eisenhower smiling at some lost remark.

In the rear row, on the end, stands Major Marshall,
Sober, impassive, his gaze impenetrable.
Perhaps such a photograph exists, taken,
Say, 1931 at the Infantry School,
Fort Benning; or perhaps it’s only pasted
In the nation’s worn album of apocrypha.
Because many events have intersected we
Allow that inference: cause: a small, dull army,
A few ambitious men trapped in
A generation of waiting, and one careful
Demon of integrity. The picture snapped,

They stroll toward toward the officer’s club for lunch,
Their conversation stunted in the heat.
Marshall, walking behind, keeps staring back.²⁸
"One careful demon of integrity:" the ethical legacy that George Catlett Marshall left for the American profession of arms.

 

NOTES

1. Forrest C. Pogue, "George C. Marshall on Civil-Military Relationships in the United States," in The United States Military Under the Constitution of the United States, 1789-1989, ed. Richard H. Kohn (New York, 1991), 193.

2. Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939-1942 (NY, 1966), xiv.

3. Thomas Parrish, Roosevelt and Marshall: Partners in Politics and war (New York, 1989), 37-38.

4. Pogue, Ordeal and Hope, 303-304.

5. Leonard Mosley, Marshall: Hero for Our Times (New York, 1982), 127.

6. Marshall interview, 5 April 1957, George C. Marshall Interviews and Reminiscences for Forrest C. Pogue, ed. Larry I. Bland (Lexington, Virginia, 1991), 197-198. (Hereafter Marshall interview and date, Bland, Interviews and Reminiscences, with appropriate page number.)

7. Ibid.

8. Marshall interview, 6 March 1957, Bland, Interviews and Reminiscences, 111.

9. Mosley, 121.

10. Marshall interview, 6 March 1957, Bland, Interviews and Reminiscences, 109.

11. Mosley, 122.

12. Marshall interview, March 6, 1957, Bland, Interviews and Reminiscences, 109.

13. Mark A. Stoler, George C. Marshall: Soldier-Statesman of the American Century (Boston, 1989), 65.

14. Pogue, Ordeal and Hope, 23.

15. Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants & Their War (New York, 1987), 109.

16. The preceding paragraphs pertaining to this incident rest on Pogue, "George C. Marshall on Civil-Military Relationships in the United States," 206.

17. David G. Haglund, "George C. Marshall and the Question of Military Aid to England, May-June 1940," Journal of Contemporary History 15 (1980): 745-760.

18. This and the following discussion rest upon Pogue, Ordeal and Hope, 50-53.

19. A. J. Bacevich, ""Civilian Control: A useful Fiction?" Joint Forces Quarterly (Autumn/Winter 1994-95): 78.

20. Haglund, 745-760.

21. Pogue, Ordeal and Hope, 53.

22. Marshall interview, 15 January 1957, Bland, Interviews and Reminiscences, 288.

23. Parrish, 137.

24. Marshall interview, 22 January 1957, Bland, Interviews and Reminiscences, 297.

25. Parrish, 137.

26. Bacevich, 78.

27. Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943-1945 (New York, 1973), 458-459.

28. Thomas H. Johnson, "George C. Marshall (1880-1959)," no date, unpublished poem, in author’s possession.