in addition to writing, one of my other duties for the pass 15 years is to co-host and now direct the william e. coli by military writers symposium at norwich university. it's a program that's designed to expose students to great authors and scholars and so it should serve as no surprise to you that two of our participants have been the first two recipient of the andrew j. goodpastor award.

it's fitting that i had a chance to meet general goodpastor in two different settings. in 1994, i was on order to be a member of a group of historians that were invited to the white house to brief president clinton of before his trip to europe to commemorate the 50t 50th anniversary of d-day. and at his side that evening at both the briefings that were given to the president and later at a dinner, was general goodpastor. although the white house include key military staffers, the secretary of state, the secretary the treasury, the one individual that night that the president consistently turned to whenever he had a question was general goodpastor. it was perfectly fitting that a president of the united states would turn to general goodpastor

for advice. by my reck i don't knowing, president clinton was the seventh president that he either served in some capacity, or was an adviser or has been recognized by a sitting president. he has been awarded the medal of freedom. his list of accomplishments is truly awesome for a soldier-scholar to have achieved during his loytime. -- lifetime. when l.b.j. became president, he used general goodpastor as a liaison to dwight eisenhower, and he once described general goodpastor as one of the ablest officers that he knew. for should it serve as any surprise at all that during the darkest days of west point's cheating scandal in 1977, that general goodpastor was called

out of retirement, asked to take a demotion to lieutenant general, in order to become the 51st superintendent of west point. both the cheating scandal and the admission of women to west point were huge challenges for any superintendent of to -- overcome. and during the next four years, overcome them, he did. the admission of women was a divisive issue that general goodpastor addressed by informing the staff and faculty at the military academy that he would escort them to the door with a handshake if they failed to make them welcome at west point. when the eisenhower memorial commission was formed in 2003, general goodpastor was called upon once again to play a key role in formulating dwight eisenhower's legacy. i had the honor to serve under

him on a subcommittee that formulated ike's legacy in the military and the area of military and security affairs. and it was during those occasions that i had a chance to see general goodpastor at firsthand. and i can tell you, that it was an unforgettable experience. and then came the day that my telephone rang. and on the other end was general goodpastor. now, he was calling to discuss some of the issues that we were working through. and the first thing he said to me was please call me andy. but old habits die hard and i think it was the only time that i have ever disobeyed a four star general and i replied, yes, sir.

bless him. he tried again. and once again, i could not bring myself to call him andy. at that point, i think he gave up. and i heaved a sigh of relief. while i have very much appreciated the gesture that i should call the officer who during world war ii commanded an engineer battalion, led his unit across a german minefield under enemy fire, received the distinguished service cross and to call him andy was quite simply to me incomprehensible. but serving on this committee gave me a unique opportunity to honor one great american while learning from another and it is an experience i will always treasure, which brings me to the heart of my talk this evening.

when i began to think about what subjects i should talk about, i asked myself, the very simple question, what would again goodpastor have suggested and of course the answer was obvious. of the many people he served during his many, many years of public service, the person that he was closest to was of course dwight ice you're. -- dwight eisenhower. in 1954, president eisenhower summoned him to serve as a staff officer in the white house. their relationship dated to ike's tenure as nato supreme commander, where general goodpastor served as the assistant to ike's chief of staff, general alford grunther and in that capacity, general goodpastor organized nato and formulated policy in the political and military aims of the alliance. ike had long since come to trust

the soldier-scholar who had graduated second in his class at west point, in his class of 1939. and so important that he become to the president as an adviser and as a policymaker that he was soon known as ike's alter ego. general goodpastor was successful, precisely because he never let his ego get in the way of his cyst. -- his duty, and when he preferred to stay in the background to entering the limelight, he was not afraid to challenge his boss when he believed it was the right thing to do. and during discussions over troop reductions in europe, which eisenhower adamantly wanted, general goodpastor made the point that it was not possible until the europeans possessed the ability to fill a gap that we ourselves had

created. and at that point, ike's legendary temperature pet got the better of him, prompting general goodpastor to seek out secretary of state, john foster dulles, who attested to the accuracy of his judgment. their disagreement though, led eisenhower to be known, foster, i've lost my last friend. -- to let it be known, foster, i've lost my last friend. not so. but it did lead to this observation by general goodpastor that we both knew that it was our duty and the president knew it perfectly well. he was just sounding off. and that was part of our role. to let him relieve some of the pressure but to make sure that he didn't make that kind of mistake. one of the great advantages that i have as a writer, is the freedom to choose my subject. and during the writing and

research of five previous books, eisenhower had been a key player in each of them. and i believed strongly that the time had come to take on the challenge of writing a new biography of his military life. and so in 2002, a journey in to exploring his military life ended with the publication of my book, eisenhower, a soldier's life. in the years that follow, i have moved on to tackle winston churchill's extraordinary military life, but that book includes a great deal about eisenhower, but from churchill's and the british perspective. last year, the eisenhower presidential library did a lengthy retrospective of ike's youth in abilene. and they very kindly asked me to deliver a speech that sort of

summed up his first 20 years in abilene. and that led me to take a retrospective look at eisenhower from the point of view of seven years since ike published that book. and what i came away with was a really a fresh appreciation for the man and for his great accomplishments. i felt really a great affinity for what he did and for what he accomplished during his extraordinary life. "time" magazine said of him in 1952, they saw ike and they liked what they saw. they liked him in a way they could scarcely explain. they liked ike because when they saw him, and her him talk, he made them proud of themselves and all of the of half forgotten bests that was in them and in the nation.

i'm often asked to describe eisenhower, and here's what i reply. he was ambitious, am consolidating, -- cam consolidating, a brilliant organizer who could take virtually any problem and figure out a logical solution. a man possessed of a volatile and terrible temper that made george patton look like a boy scout. a powerful and retentive mind. a man who loved and studied history sew rainsly throughout his entire life and whose high school year book proclaimed that he would one day teach history instead of making it. young ike was something of an inegma, desperately poor and wanting to akeefe a higher education to escape the poverty

of his youth. his graduation from west point in 1911 should have resulted in a serious young cadet and a young cadet who would do everything in his power to achieve success and as many of you probably know, he did no such thing. while at west point, he was a happy go luck i didn'y, irrespoe cutup, who never attempted to excel at his studies, violated a great many academy regulations, some of them expulsion offenses. accumulated more than 100 demerits in his senior year alone. and was a frequent guest of the commandants punishment tourism ward. pouring water on unsuspecting cadets and leaving the grounds without permission were hardly prescriptions for a successful

cadet experience. his most famous exploit, and i think some of you probably know this, was probably on the occasion during his plebe year, when he was ordered to report to an upper class man's room in full dress coat. eisenhower, dewey, reported, clad only in his undercoat, under which he was stark naked. he did how far did take football very seriously, and a severe injury to his knee, very nearly cost him his commission. and in that regard, ike and i share a common experience. ice hour's commission was saved by the intervention of the academy surgeon, who persuaded washington to grant him his commission. my own commission was saved at the fort knox rotc camp, by our

deputy commissioner, who had a discussion after i flunked the eye exam and both of those actions changed the course of our prospective levels, i can tell you. ike entered the army with few career aspirations and a happy go lucky attitude that changed into one of professional seriousness very quickly. so what i'd like to do is spend the rest of the evening talking with you a little bit about some of the examples of eisenhower's character and leadership that i think will illustrate why i regard his legacy so highly. i'll do this by examples of leadership, humility, responsibility, and his remarkable insight. in 1967, a former army chief of staff visited eisenhower at his gettysburg farm.

during the course of their conversation, the general said, heratus wrote about a war that one cannot be an arm chair general 20 miles from the front. afterwards, one of the white house speech writers, who had been present during this conversation, asked eisenhower if he knew the precise wording of the quote. eisenhower replied, first, it wasn't heratus but polanis. second, it was the punich war with carthage and third, he misquoted. and then asked why he hadn't corrected the general, eisenhower replied, i got where i did by knowing how to hide my ego and hide my intelligence. i knew the actual quote, but why should i embarrass him?

a classic example of leadership is one that you're all familiar with. one that i think cemented ike's place in history of above all the rest. and that was his great d-day decision. i'm sure you're familiar with the fact that bad weather was the one criteria that the allies could not control in june of 1944. and bad weather came, as it tends to do. and ike was forced to postpone d-day by at least 24 hours. the weather was a huge factor. and 24 hours later, it appeared that there was a narrow window of possibility for d-day on june 6, 1944. but there were no guarantees. the weather was marginal. and ike was called upon to make one of the great decisions of military history.

whether or not to launch d-day. the lives of 156,000 men were at stake, along with really the outcome of the war as things turn out. and ike unhesitatingly made a decision. he made the best decision that he could based on what information that he had. it was -- it was a decision that took as much guts by a military commander as anything that i have ever read. and what made that decision so remarkable was also the note, the famous note that was found some weeks later in his shirt pocket by his naval aide, harry butcher. and in that note, eisenhower took sole responsibility that

d-day had failed and i find that particularly remarkable, particularly in the climate where we live today, where no one wants to seem to take responsibility for anything these days, that eisenhower would step forward and accept total responsibility for anything and everything that could have or might have gone wrong with d-day. another area that was very chose to ike's heart was the cause of peace and the death of soldiers in combat. he was really a professional soldier who hated war. but few hated war with greater passion than did eisenhower. he regarded his adversaries with nothing short of loathing. men who started wars earned his utter contempt. an example of eisenhower at his best occurred at 2:41 a.m., may

7, 1945, when germany surrendered unconditionally. at cave headquarters in northern france, colonel general alfred yodle signed the documents of surrender for germany. the only sounds in a densely crowded room, came from a hoard of photographers, jockeying for position. but conspicuously missing from this incredible occasion was the man who had orchestrated the events leading up to this historic moment. eisenhower at that moment, evinced his disdain for his enemy by declining to even be present at the surrender ceremony. he designated his chief of staff, walter smith, the task of signing the surrender documents for the allied expeditionary force. under its terms, the german

surrender was to take effect at one minute before midnight, may 8, 1945. the strange thing, wrote general smith, was the lack of emotion that was shown when the surrender was signed. the germans were military correct in their stone-like expressions, but i do not remember that any of the allied officers around the table displayed any emotion or elation. it was a moment simply of l solemn gratitude. and while this surrender ceremony was taking place, eisenhower was pacing back and forth in his office like a caged lion. his driver and confidante, kay summersby, described the atmosphere as electric with impatience. of a wards, the german delegation was summoned to the supreme commander's office, where his chief intelligence

officer, general kenneth strong, acting as his escort and his interpreter, for eisenhower, who stood rigidly behind his desk, looking more military than i think anyone had ever seen him before, and this was a different eisenhower. it was cold, he was brittle. he said very curtly to the two germans, do you understand the terms of the documents of surrender that you have just signed? and they reply, yeah, yeah, they did. and ike declared that they would be personally held responsible for any violation of those terms. and then he said, quite simply, that is all. signaling that the interview was at an end. and the german yodle made a slight bow, saluted and turned to go. then i think the real supreme moment occurred.

and as yodle turned to leave the room, and eventually a date with the hangman, after being convicted of military crimes at nuremberg, from his nearby flames at eisenhower's desk, his dog growled his displeasure at the back of the retreating german and it was only after the germans departed that eisenhower finally unbended and began to relax. as a hoard of photographers were admitted to his office and scrambled to record the scene, ike gathered his key of staff around him. although exhausted, ike's famous grin reappeared at a historic moment. and he signaled a v for victory by holding aloft the two gold pins that were used to sign the surrender documents. he proclaimed that it was a special occasion that merited

champagne, and everyone decamped to his quarters, where, for the next two hours, there really wasn't much of a party. in fact, quite the opposite. there was surprisingly little gayity or joking, or even really a sense of pride. instead, there was a rather somber reamization of the significance of this historic day. few words were said. everyone seemed incredibly weary. kay summersby remembered, there was a dull bitterness about it. everyone was very, very tired. no surprise really, of after fourors of war. but before he fell into bed, exhausted at 5:00 a.m. that morning, eisenhower performed one final duty as supreme commander. during their many nights together, ike and butcher had joked about what language the supreme commander would use to

inform the combined chiefs of staff that the germans had finally surrendered. such phrases as we have met the enemy, and they is ours. as a soldier though, eisenhower understood that it was not his place to announce the end of the war in europe, but a function of the heads of state who would make the formal announcement the following day. beatle smith recounts that in the of after glow of victory and the after glow of that ceremony, the of staff had prepared various drafts of a victory passage, that were suitable for a historic event of that nature. i tried one myself, smith said, and like all my associates, groped for resounding phrases as fitting accolades to the great crusade. general eisenhower rejected all of them, with thanks and without

comment and wrote his own. now, ike was known very often for writing long-winded missages, but on this occasion, he dispatched the briefest cable of his tenure as commander. it was typical of dwight eisenhower that he would not take credit for the allied victory. instead, his message to his bosses, the combined chiefs of staff, was utterly devoid of self-congratulations and as unpretentious as the man himse himself. it was only a single sentence long, and it read thus. the mission of this allied force was fulfilled at 0241 hours home time, may 7, 1945, signed eisenhower. i would submit that only dwight eisenhower would have taken such a humble approach to one of

history's greatest moments. and indeed, world war ii took its toll on eisenhower, a soldier who was as hard boiled in his own way as george s. patton. for all of his military experience, ike detested war, and everything that it stood for. he once said, i hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can. only as one who has seen its brutality, its fry tilt, its stupidity, that ike well understood that sometimes war is inevitable is beyond question. yet, so profound was his experience that as president of the united states, he was moved to state i state in 1953 the fo.

every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not cloth clothed. whether in war or in peace, eisenhower always insisted there was no such thing as indispensable men. 20 years after world war ii, he was aboard the liner queen elizabeth on an nostalgic return to the scene of his greatest triumph, an one night over dinner, he said he'd read a poem that summed up his attitude about indispensability and he reached into his wallet for the clipping and he read it aloud and it ended this way. the moral of this quaint example is to do just the best that you

can, be proud of yourself, but remember, there is no indispensable man. i'd take issue with that last remark. if there was ever an indispensable man, it was dwight eisenhower. and so tonight, it has been my great privilege to pay tribute to two great americans, general andrew goodpastor and dwight eisenhower. through the more than 30 years that i've toiled in the fields of military history and biography, i've been sustained by the honor of not only writing about great men, but also of ordinary soldiers, sailors, and airmen. the men and women who step forward when their nation needed them and did their duty. those that the american veterans center so ably represents. my late father likewise

understood the essence of what duty and leadership were all about. although he, like so many other italians, who lived in the austrian controlled city of trius wanted no part of world war i, he was conscripted into the austrian army and given a commission. when the unit he commanded was left to fend for itself and russia, after russia capitulated in 1917, he brought them all home safely. and his later decision to live in freedom in the united states rather than under fascism is the reason that i am here tonight. thank you so much for inviting me here to receive this wonderful honor and enabling me to help celebrate the memory of two great americans.