Partners in Command

June 1, 2007
The ever-expanding literature explaining World War II often focuses on command relationships. This examination of the two most important figures on the American side, George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, deals almost exclusively with the two generals' relationships with each other. Reporter and foreign policy analyst Perry ("Grant and Twain") tracks their frank and extensive correspondence before and throuout the war and analyzes their enduring, if largely professional, friendship. Chief of Staff Marshall was a brilliant thinker and planner, remote and somewhat paternal to Eisenhower, never calling him anything but "Eisenhower." Eisenhower was outgoing, gregarious, popular, and infinitely persuasive. Marshall needed a new kind of soldier who could deal with the complexities of coalition warfare and in his proté gé found exactly the right man. While the author generally relates the course of the war through the two principals' diaries and messages, he does not reveal more in their relationship than that Marshall recognized talent and pushed Eisenhower and that Eisenhower exceeded his expectations. Recommended for comprehensive subject collections. (Notes and bibliography not seen.)Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS

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