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A PIECE OF PAPER
MR. CRONKITE: General Eisenhower, I gather that at one
point you wrote a message that you were prepared to send if there had
been a disaster on the beaches.
GEN. EISENHOWER: Walter, let me tell you something.
What I did was this. From the beginning I had been involved in and
partly responsible for the invasion. I had headed the staff that had
originally outlined this operation way back, more than two years before
it took place. During those two years, I believed in it. I believed it
would defeat Germany. Consequently, I felt responsible not only as a
commander but as the fellow who had been trying to convert everybody to
the need for the operation.
I felt a particular responsibility. So I wrote a short note on the
assumption that we were going to be defeated. But I told no one else
about it. Come to think about it, it must have been my aide (it was
Capt. Harry Butcher) who got hold of this thing.
In that message I just said something like this: "The landing has
been a failure, and it's no one's fault but mine."
I knew it couldn't fail except possibly because of the weather. I
was the one who was responsible for the decision to go and all the fault
belonged to me and that was that.
If it did fail, you know this I was going into oblivion anyway. So
I might as well take the full responsibility.
MR. CRONKITE: When did you write that note?
GEN. EISENHOWER: The evening before D-Day.
The
Note The General Wrote
This is the note Gen. Eisenhower wrote before the June 6,
1944 invasion of Normandy a note which was to be made public only if the
landing was a failure. It was published, after the war, by his naval
aide-de-camp Capt. Harry C. Butcher:
"Our landings in the Cherbourg-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gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops.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."
MR. CRONKITE: It was not at some point of crisis
during the landings?
GEN. EISENHOWER: Oh, no. Everything went quite well. It was only at
Omaha that we had any trouble. And sooner or later we were going to get
past that, too.
MR. CRONKITE: This mote intrigues me because it's
the only sign that you thought there was even a chance of anything going
wrong.
GEN. EISENHOWER: No. I don't think I thought there
was a chance of that. But there's nothing certain in war. Unless you can
put a battalion against a squad, nothing is certain. So I just said, all
right, if this thing goes wrong, there's my statement and that's that.
We did the best we could.
A PIECE OF PAPER
MR. CRONKITE: What was the note written on?
GEN. EISENHOWER:
Just a piece of scrap paper that I stuck into my purse.
It was not an important part of the invasion. As I said, it was just for
my own use in case something went wrong,
I did somewhat the same thing with the R. A. F.'s Marshal
Leigh-Mallory. You remember, he objected to the airborne part of the
invasion. I said to him, "Now, those paratroopers are going to go as
planned. You give me your objections, and I'll give you in writing my
statement recognizing your recommendations to call off the air drops;
and also my statement that you are wrong. If the airborne operations go
all right, tear up the paper. If they go wrong (they didn't), you can do
what you want with it.
"I don't know whether he kept it or not."
[The Greenville News, Greenville, Sc, 12 Jun 1964, Fri, Page 8] |
