survival against Germany without harboring some
ulterior motives of their
own. Yet the Allies, and certainly the Americans, were sincerely doing every-
thing in their power to come to the aid of their beleaguered ally. Even while
the Americans and British were undergoing costly and humiliating defeats
at the hands of the Japanese in early 1942, General George C. Marshall, U.S.
Army chief of staff, was advocating an Anglo-American invasion of France
with the object of forcing Hitler to withdraw vital divisions from the Eastern
Front. Although that operation was never executed, the Allies sent supplies
to Archangel and Murmansk in dangerous and costly convoys. We managed
to deliver a great deal—for example, a half million General Motors 2
1
⁄
2
-ton
trucks. The Lend-Lease supplies we sent may not in themselves have saved
the Soviet Union from defeat, but they went a long way to help.
Throughout the time they fought as allies, the United States, Britain,
and the USSR attempted to coordinate their war efforts. The relationship
between the United States and Britain was extremely close, and the Soviets
cooperated as best they could within the restrictions imposed by their secret
society. It is important to note that American political policy, laid down by
President Roosevelt, was one of complete friendship with the Soviets in
their joint war against Germany. That policy explains many actions the Allies
later took that appeared naive once the spirit of wartime cooperation ended.
It is interesting to note Roosevelt’s exaggerated confidence in what he
was sure would be his ability to contend with the Soviets after the shooting
stopped. “Don’t worry,” he promised, “I’ll take care of Uncle Joe.” That bit
of hubris has usually been quoted in a humorous context. And yet it is
intriguing to conjecture whether the Cold War might have been averted had
Roosevelt survived. As it was, he died at Warm Springs on 12 April 1945, just
a month short of victory in Europe.
The Honeymoon
The end of the war in Europe witnessed a strong but brief era of goodwill
among the three principal victors. I personally was a witness, both at the
working level and in the halls of the powerful.
My personal exposure to the Soviets started out on a rather frightening
note. As a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division in Czechoslovakia, I joined
four other officers a few days after the end of the war for a joyride to Carls-
bad, behind Soviet lines. As we drove into the town and turned a corner, we
encountered a handsome but very dirty young Russian soldier, who although
drunk was sober enough to recognize our party as Americans. Exuberantly,
he tried to kiss all five of us. I was spared because of my position in the jeep.
But we were careful. He was brandishing a Luger, and a dead German civil-
ian was lying in a pool of blood beside us.
Later exposures were more pleasant. In August, three months after V-E
Day, my father, General Eisenhower, was invited to visit Moscow in his capac-
ity as supreme commander for the Western powers in the war just finished.
He sent for me to accompany him as his aide.
The striking aspect of the visit was the lavish reception the Russians
gave the commander of a foreign nation’s army. Georgi Zhukov, General
A Personal Perspective
5
Eisenhower’s Soviet counterpart in Berlin, met us at Tempelhof Airport for
the flight to Moscow in Ike’s C-54 (DC-4) four-engine aircraft. Zhukov, as
the official host, was the soul of hospitality and congeniality. By this time
the two commanders, Eisenhower and Zhukov, had been representing their
countries in the four-power government of Germany, and they had become
friends—as close of friends as public life permits.
In Moscow the party first attended a parade. Significantly, my father
was invited to undergo a four-hour ordeal atop Vladimir Lenin’s tomb with
Zhukov and Stalin. He was, I later learned, the first foreigner ever accorded
that honor. One evening, the entire party was entertained at dinner, with
Stalin himself officiating, acting friendly enough but mysterious as always.
During the following three days, there were tours of collective farms, aircraft
factories, and even the Moscow subway. Together at the American embassy
during the evening of 15 August (V-J Day), Soviets and Americans celebrated
the news of Japan’s surrender. In Leningrad the ceremonies drew to a close.
As a final gesture, my father invited Zhukov to pay a return visit to the
United States. Ike could not accompany the marshal, he said with regret, but
he would provide his personal airplane and send me along as Zhukov’s aide.
Zhukov was delighted. “If Lieutenant Eisenhower goes along with me,” he
said, “then I know the plane will not go down in the Atlantic.”
It was not to be. In mid-September 1945, almost the day of the sched-
uled departure, word came from the Soviets that Marshal Zhukov had become
sick and could not make the trip to the United States. To my mind, although
the term “Cold War” had not yet been invented, this represented the end of
the honeymoon.
The Early Days of the Cold War
With the cancellation of Zhukov’s trip to the United States, we in Europe
were concerned, but we could not foresee how serious the rift between East
and West was to become. Before my father left Germany to become army chief
of staff in late 1945, we mused together over the new developments and
expected only a reasonably short period of tension. We were, of course, wor-
ried about the fate of Zhukov and conjectured that he had overplayed his
hand. His popularity perhaps had gone to his head, and Stalin, who brooked
no competition, had put his foot down.
Early 1946 saw the forces in Europe preoccupied with the trials and exe-
cution of the top Nazis in Nuremberg. In the United States, however, the big
news was Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton. The United
States continued to enjoy a monopoly on the atomic weapon, and we unreal-
istically hoped we could keep that monopoly indefinitely. In fact, the Soviets
had begun working on the project and tested their first weapon in 1949.
The year 1946 also witnessed another event: the formulation of Ameri-
can policy for dealing with the Soviets during the years ahead. Based on a
telegram by George Kennan from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, it visualized
simply holding the communist world within the borders it then occupied.
The West would not attempt to take aggressive action against the Soviet
6
A Personal Perspective