Eisenhower D Day Quotes

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of the way and let them have it.

How far have we come in man's long pilgrimage from darkness toward light? Are we nearing the light—a day of freedom and of peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us?

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

One day the people of the world will want peace so much that the governments will have to get out of their way and give it to them.

Gen. Eisenhower once said: "Always take your job seriously, never yourself.

There are guys bleeding to death who don't know it, they're smiling, they're talking, they don't feel pain because they're in shock, they ask you for some water and then they're dead. On D-day I ran past a guy lying on his spilled guts with his eyes closed and his thumb in his mouth. Eisenhower's speech had been read to us over the loudspeaker by our commander when we crossed the channel that morning. What valor and inspiration were in his words- all about how we were embarked on a great crusade, that the hopes and prayers of a liberty loving people were going with us....I got gooseflesh when he asked for the blessing of almighty god on this great and noble undertaking. But how to reconcile that with spilled guts on a beach and flies in the eyes of some dead nineteen year old kid who traded his life for some words on paper?

As supreme commander, Eisenhower had to balance political and personal rivalries, while maintaining his authority within the alliance. He was well liked by Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and by General Sir Bernard Montgomery, the commander-in-chief of 21st Army Group, but neither rated him highly as a soldier.

they’d been handed an order of the day from General Eisenhower. “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade,

When my father died and was buried in a chapel overlooking Portsmouth—the same chapel in which General Eisenhower had prayed for success the night before D-Day in 1944—I gave the address from the pulpit and selected as my text a verse from the epistle of Saul of Tarsus, later to be claimed as “Saint Paul,” to the Philippians (chapter 4, verse 8): Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. I chose this because of its haunting and elusive character, which will be with me at the last hour, and for its essentially secular injunction, and because it shone out from the wasteland of rant and complaint and nonsense and bullying which surrounds it.

No matter how bad things got, no matter how anxious the staff became, the commander had to “preserve optimism in himself and in his command. Without confidence, enthusiasm and optimism in the command, victory is scarcely obtainable.” Eisenhower realized that “optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction.” He learned that a commander’s optimism “has a most extraordinary effect upon all with whom he comes in contact. With this clear realization, I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory—that any pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my pillow.

Lise was on only the first day of what would be a three-day bicycle ride over small back roads “through thick enemy formations” to the combat zone. She slept in ditches when she tired, then picked up her vélo and began traveling again to her headquarters. She was nowhere near a radio when the communiqué from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces, aired for the people of Normandy: The lives of many of you depend on the speed with which you obey. Leave your towns at once—stay off the roads—go on foot and take nothing with you that is difficult to carry. Do not gather in groups which may be mistaken for enemy troops. The largest armada the world had ever known was minutes away from landing on the northern beaches of France. The hour of your liberation is approaching.

a top hat—a deliberate act of rebellion on Ike’s part that shocked the protocol mavens. For their part, the Eisenhowers had refused to enter the White House for a pre-inauguration cup of coffee, choosing instead to wait in the car that would take both the president and president-elect to the ceremony. At least Ike didn’t meet Truman at the Capitol steps, as he’d threatened. But it was a very uncomfortable car ride. “I’m glad I wasn’t in that car,” head White House usher J. B. West said.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the global media to film the unspeakable hell of the Holocaust. General Eisenhower feared there would come a day when there would be “Holocaust deniers” who would declare it never happened.5 Today, Iran's radical Islamic leaders, who have promised to wipe the Jews off the face of the map, are indeed Holocaust deniers.6 Sadly, their venom is gathering international support. From the tears and tragedy of World War II came the rebirth of the State of Israel in May

In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower returned from his inaugural parade and entered the White House for the first time as president late in the evening. As he walked into the Executive Mansion, his chief usher handed Eisenhower two letters marked “Confidential and Secret” that had been sent to him earlier in the day. Eisenhower’s reaction was swift: “Never bring me a sealed envelope,” he said firmly. “That’s what I have a staff for.” How snobbish, right? Had the office really gone to his head already? Not at all. Eisenhower recognized the seemingly insignificant event for what it was: a symptom of a disorganized, dysfunctional organization. Not everything needed to run through him. Who was to say that the envelope was even important? Why hadn’t anyone screened it? As president, his first priority in office was organizing the executive branch into a smooth, functioning, and order-driven unit, just like his military units had been—not because he didn’t want to work himself, but because everyone had a job and he trusted and empowered them to do it. As his chief of staff later put it, “The president does the most important things. I do the next most important things.

SHAEF had prepared for everything except the weather. It now became an obsession. It was the one thing for which no one could plan, and the one thing that no one could control. In the end, the most completely planned military operation in history was dependent on the caprice of winds and waves. Tides and moon conditions were predictable, but storms were not. From the beginning, everyone had counted on at least acceptable weather for D-Day.

AUTHOR’S NOTE The First Assassin is a work of fiction, and specifically a work of historical fiction—meaning that much of it is based on real people, places, and events. My goal never has been to tell a tale about what really happened but to tell what might have happened by blending known facts with my imagination. Characters such as Abraham Lincoln, Winfield Scott, and John Hay were, of course, actual people. When they speak on these pages, their words are occasionally drawn from things they are reported to have said. At other times, I literally put words in their mouths. Historical events and circumstances such as Lincoln’s inauguration, the fall of Fort Sumter, and the military crisis in Washington, D.C., provide both a factual backdrop and a narrative skeleton. Throughout, I have tried to maximize the authenticity and also to tell a good story. Thomas Mallon, an experienced historical novelist, has described writing about the past: “The attempt to reconstruct the surface texture of that world was a homely pleasure, like quilting, done with items close to hand.” For me, the items close to hand were books and articles. Naming all of my sources is impossible. I’ve drawn from a lifetime of reading about the Civil War, starting as a boy who gazed for hours at the battlefield pictures in The Golden Book of the Civil War, which is an adaptation for young readers of The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton. Yet several works stand out as especially important references. The first chapter owes much to an account that appeared in the New York Tribune on February 26, 1861 (and is cited in A House Dividing, by William E. Baringer). It is also informed by Lincoln and the Baltimore Plot, 1861, edited by Norma B. Cuthbert. For details about Washington in 1861: Reveille in Washington, by Margaret Leech; The Civil War Day by Day, by E. B. Long with Barbara Long; Freedom Rising, by Ernest B. Ferguson; The Regiment That Saved the Capitol, by William J. Roehrenbeck; The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell, by Thomas P. Lowry; and “Washington City,” in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1861. For information about certain characters: With Malice Toward None, by Stephen B. Oates; Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald; Abe Lincoln Laughing, edited by P. M. Zall; Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries of John Hay, edited by Tyler Dennett; Lincoln Day by Day, Vol. III: 1861–1865, by C. Percy Powell; Agent of Destiny, by John S. D. Eisenhower; Rebel Rose, by Isabel Ross; Wild Rose, by Ann Blackman; and several magazine articles by Charles Pomeroy Stone. For life in the South: Roll, Jordan, Roll, by Eugene D. Genovese; Runaway Slaves, by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger; Bound for Canaan, by Fergus M. Bordewich; Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, written by himself; The Fire-Eaters, by Eric H. Walther; and The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, by Robert E. May. For background on Mazorca: Argentine Dictator, by John Lynch. This is the second edition of The First Assassin. Except for a few minor edits, it is no different from the first edition.

Keen to bring about a cease-fire, on November 6, Election Day, Eisenhower unleashed an impassioned campaign of personal diplomacy aimed mostly at Whitehall. But it was old-fashioned power politics that enabled him to get the job done. He mobilized world opinion against England and France through the UN Security Council—an embarrassing project that placed him in alignment with his Soviet counterparts against his lifelong friends. Ike knew his best play was to exploit Britain’s fiscal weakness, which was driving Prime Minister Eden’s notably deteriorating domestic political situation. Britain was running out of financial reserves. Refusing to repatriate dollars that Britain had supplied to the International Monetary Fund, Eisenhower muscled Great Britain into

we are reminded of the words of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, on the merits and limitations of planning for the D-day landings: “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”1 We don’t believe that your Plan A is useless, actually. But it’s probably off target in more ways than one,

The person in charge of the invasion was United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he had to make the final decision to say “go” to the invasion.

• While Rommel was going to see Hitler to beg for more tanks and a tighter command structure, Eisenhower was visited by Churchill, who was coming to the supreme commander to beg a favor. He wanted to go along on the invasion, on HMS Belfast. (“Of course, no one likes to be shot at,” Eisenhower later remarked, “but I must say that more people wanted in than wanted out on this one.”) As Eisenhower related the story, “I told him he couldn’t do it. I was in command of this operation and I wasn’t going to risk losing him. He was worth too much to the Allied cause. “He thought a moment and said, ‘You have the operational command of all forces, but you are not responsible administratively for the makeup of the crews.’ “And I said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ “He said, ‘Well, then I can sign on as a member of the crew of one of His Majesty’s ships, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ “I said, ‘That’s correct. But, Prime Minister, you will make my burden a lot heavier if you do it.’ ” Churchill said he was going to do it anyway. Eisenhower had his chief of staff, General Smith, call King George VI to explain the problem. The king told Smith, “You boys leave Winston to me.” He called Churchill to say, “Well, as long as you feel that it is desirable to go along, I think it is my duty to go along with you.” Churchill gave up.

refused any aid until the oil issue was settled. Matters came to a head in August when Mossadeq for three days, backed by the Communist Party, seemed the irresistible dictator of Iran. . . . But fortunately the loyalty of the Army and fear of communism saved the day. —President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech entitled “Peace with Justice

I refused any aid until the oil issue was settled. Matters came to a head in August when Mossadeq for three days, backed by the Communist Party, seemed the irresistible dictator of Iran. . . . But fortunately the loyalty of the Army and fear of communism saved the day. —President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech entitled “Peace with Justice

Eisenhower had run the Army; he knew all the ways decision making can go off the rails, and insisted on collective debate precisely to prevent senior officials from freelancing, or putting their departmental interests first. For all the formal machinery, Eisenhower was very literally the commander in chief, making the key decisions himself and monitoring closely how they were carried out. Even years after D-Day, when critics needled him for not being on the front lines with the invading forces, he retorted, “I planned it and took responsibility for it. Did you want me to unload a truck?

It was to be the longest flight I had ever made in my young life and one of the most interesting. Having always been interested in the magic of aviation I knew that the DC-6B, I boarded was an approximately 75 seat, trans-ocean, Pan Am Clipper. It would also be the last long distance propeller driven commercial airliner. The only difference between it and the DC-6A was that it didn’t have a large cargo door in its side, and it was also approximately 5 feet longer than the DC-6A. 1955 was a good year and people felt relatively safe with Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House. “I like Ike” had been his political motto since before he assumed office on January 20, 1953, even many Democrats held him in high esteem for his military service and winning the war in Europe. Eisenhower obtained a truce in Korea and worked diligently trying to ease the tensions of the Cold War. He did however fail to win over Georgy Malenkov, or Nikolai Bulganin who succeeded him, as Premier of the Soviet Union in February of 1955. As a moderate Conservative he left America, as the strongest and most productive nation in the world, but unfortunately because of his lack of diplomacy and love of golf, failed to prevent Cuba from slipping into the communist camp. WFLA inaugurated its broadcasting in the Tampa Bay area on February 14, 1955. The most popular music was referred to as good music, and although big bands were at their zenith in 1942, by 1947 and music critics will tell you that their time had passed. However, Benny Goodman was only 46 in 1955, Tommy Dorsey was 49 and Count Basie was 51. So, in many sheltered quarters they were still in vogue and perhaps always will be. I for one had my Hi-Fidelity 33 1/3 rpm multi stacked record player and a stash of vinyl long play recordings shipped to Africa. For me time stood still as I listened and entertained my friends. Some years later I met Harry James at the Crystal Ballroom in Disneyland. Those were the days…. Big on the scene was “Rhythm in Blues,” an offshoot of widespread African-American music, that had its beginnings in the ‘40s. It would soon become the window that Rock and Roll would come crashing through.

There was only one justification for the use of troops; to uphold the law. Though Faubus denied it, I, as President of the United States, now had that justification and the clear obligation to act ... the 101st Airborne Division, from nearby Fort Campbell, Kentucky, arrived in Little Rock; another five hundred moved in later the same day.

Militarily, they felt, their difficulties came about because of internal political weaknesses. One French businessman said to me, “We defeated ourselves from within; we tried to oppose a four-day work week against the German’s six- or seven-day week.

While Eisenhower and his staff agonized over D-Dsy at Bushy Park, a frenzied carnival atmosphere took hold in overcrowded, clamorous London. Traffic was gridlocked, restaurants and clubs were packed, and it took days, sometimes weeks, for newcomers to the capital to find a vacant hotel room or flat. Many of the new arrivals were American journalists, flooding in from all over the globe to be on hand for the biggest story of the war. Ernie Pyle, who had come to London from Tunisia, wrote: "I decided that if the Army failed to get ashore on D-Day, there would be enough American correspondents to force through a beachhead on their own.

To a certain extent,” he explained, “a man must merely believe in his luck and figure that a certain amount of good fortune will bless us when the critical day arrives.”30 Throughout the war Eisenhower trusted in his luck along with his preparations, and it never failed him.

I devoutly hope that we will never again have to see such scenes as these. I think and hope, pray that humanity will learn more than we ... learned up to that time. But these people [allied soldiers during D-Day in Normandy] gave us a chance, and they bought time for us, so that we can do better than we have done before.

Julie and I had met several times and played together as eight year olds in January 1957, at the time of the second Eisenhower-Nixon inauguration. On Inauguration Day, a photograph was taken of us on the reviewing stand with Granddad, Vice President Nixon, my seven-year-old sister, Anne, and Julie's ten-year-old sister, Tricia. Julie, who had lost control of her sled the week before and crashed into a tree, had a skinned nose and dramatic black eye. At one point when the cameramen gathered to take pictures, Granddad had turned to her and whispered, "Look this way and they won't see your black eye." In the resulting photograph, I am staring intently at Julie and she is looking at me.

Ike was so effective on the stump that Kennedy grew worried. “With every word he utters, I can feel the votes leaving me,” he told his friend Paul “Red” Fay. “It’s like standing on a mound of sand with the tide running out. If the election were held tomorrow, I’d win easily, but six days from now, it’s up for grabs.

It was the night of the New Jersey primary; General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who happened to be in Brussels, had defeated “Mr. Republican,” Senator Robert Taft. The very same day, Adlai Stevenson, who would eventually lose to Eisenhower in November, announced he had no intention of running for president.

Kennedy picked Clark Clifford, who’d been President Truman’s counselor, to be his liaison with the outgoing Eisenhower staff. An astute observer of men and power, Clifford recognized early on John Kennedy’s ability to detach himself from himself. You’d see him sitting at meetings, Clifford once told me, and you could almost imagine JFK’s spirit assuming a form of its own and rising up, the better to look down on the group and assess its various members’ motives and agendas. It was the same uncanny detachment Chuck Spalding had seen in Jack on his wedding day.

Twenty years after D-Day, Walter Cronkite interviewed Eisenhower on a bench in the US military cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer in Normandy, where 9,000 American bodies were buried. Gazing at the gravestones, Eisenhower explained to Cronkite, “These people gave us a chance, and they bought time for us, so that we can do better than we have before. . . . So every time I come back to these beaches, or any day when I think about that day 20 years ago now, I say once more we must find some way to work to peace, and really to gain an eternal peace for this world.

In the United States the fate of veterans was also fraught with problems. In 1918, when they returned home from the battlefields of France and Flanders, they had been welcomed as national heroes, just as the soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are today. In 1924 Congress voted to award them a bonus of $1.25 for each day they had served overseas, but disbursement was postponed until 1945. By 1932 the nation was in the middle of the Great Depression, and in May of that year about fifteen thousand unemployed and penniless veterans camped on the Mall in Washington DC to petition for immediate payment of their bonuses. The Senate defeated the bill to move up disbursement by a vote of sixty-two to eighteen. A month later President Hoover ordered the army to clear out the veterans’ encampment. Army chief of staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded the troops, supported by six tanks. Major Dwight D. Eisenhower was the liaison with the Washington police, and Major George Patton was in charge of the cavalry. Soldiers with fixed bayonets charged, hurling tear gas into the crowd of veterans. The next morning the Mall was deserted and the camp was in flames.7 The veterans never received their pensions.

Since January, when he had arrived in England to command Overlord, Eisenhower had been under crushing, ever greater strain. Now it had all boiled down to this decision. Eisenhower alone—not Roosevelt, not Churchill—had the authority to give the final command to go, to “enter the continent of Europe,” as his orders from on high had stated, and “undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.”3 He alone could pull the trigger. Marshaling the greatest invasion in the history of war had been, at times, as terrifying as the very real prospect of failure. The last time there had been