working together to end the war on drugs and to move us closer to the dream of a more perfect union. thank you very much. [applause] >> okay, thank you everyone. >> welcome to c-span2's book tv. every weekend we bring you 48 hours of books on history, biographies and public affairs by nonfiction authors. ..

core the complete booktv schedule at booktv.org. >> next on booktv military historian jonathan jordan presents a biography of general eisenhower, george patton and omar bradley. the author explores the personal and working relationships of the three men, all graduates of west point who were equally friends and opponents. it is a little under an hour. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the national world war ii museum. of pleasure to see such a pact house tonight and i can tell you you are all in for a good show after having spent tonight with the speaker and redding most of the book, don't tell him have rattle of it yet but most of the

book. we are pleased to have c-span who wanted to come down and fill mr. jordan's presentation. we have had a nice relationship with them over the years and is great that only not william our members viewed as on our web site but also c-span will be airing this hopefully soon. tonight's speaker, jonathan jordan, is the author of the award winning book loans star navy, texas, fight for the gulf of mexico and the shaping of the american west. some of you may have read one, many or all of his writings on the second world war. personalities legal battles and weapons which it appeared in numerous publications like world war ii magazine, are shared general, military history magazine and so on. he is a contributing author to the book the armchair reader:world war ii and the armchair reader:the amazing book of world history and is also the

editor of the library of texas edition to the people of texas. mr. jordan is the son of an air force pilot, the imam veteran. he grew up on military bases throughout the country, ohio, museum -- and alabama. one would think with all his writings his full-time job is as a historian but mr. jordan is actually a practicing attorney out of atlanta, georgia. we are pleased to have him at the national world war ii museum so please give a warm welcome to the author of brothers -- "brother, rivals, victors," eisenhower, hand and, bradley and a rivalry that drove the allied partners. mr. jordan. [applause] >> thanks very much for that kind introduction and thanks to

the national world war ii museum for allowing me to come out for a few minutes and share some more stories about three of america's most impressive soldiers. the title of the book is "brother, rivals, victors". that title, those three words are the only part of the book that were not revised, cut out, taken out, put back in, and excise since i put pen to paper back in 2006. the reason the title alone survives five years of editorial bloodletting is because those three words, "brother, rivals, victors," to meet some up a partnership of three american generals who produced one of the most extraordinary results in our nation's history. with that i would like to spend a few minutes sharing stories about the brotherhood, rivalry and ultimately the victory in

western europe that was eisenhower, bradley and patton. the brotherhood began almost a century ago this summer in august of 1911. and the united states military academy in new york. it began when a young cadet from kansas, and never left the state of kansas before, met a young your cadet from missouri who and all practical purposes had never left randolph county, ms. laurie. dwight eisenhower universally known to his friends as ike and omar bradley known more familiarly as brad became best friends at the academy. the work point was to instill marshall quality and bring out the military sciences, neither i can nor brad lidge were

particularly militant back in those days. eisenhower was a notorious rule breaker particularly when those rules concerned curfews. brad for his part, actually out ranked ike by the time they graduated from west point. wasn't the kind of guy who would stand out in a crowd. he was just a quiet guy. these two cadets didn't stand out in the classroom or even sometimes in a crowd but they did stand out in one place where they could fight their battles on fields of grass. their love of sports brought them together and forge a relationship that would last until the end of their days. as the young man skycaps sport was football. he was a solid defensive tackle who cracked helmets with a gym for. he was an above -- we would call

a running back. until he injured his knee in a football play football was like's passion. even after the injury derailed his sports career and nearly derails eisenhower's military career he had to ask the doctor to certify him and that took some talking. eisenhower loved football. he participated as a cheerleader before his graduation and shortly after graduating he still worked as a small town football coach and it was this football coaching mentality that would affect a later style of management when it was more than a game at stake. brad enjoyed football and he played with eisenhower but his passion was not on the gridiron. it was on the diamond. he had a rockets row of an arm. omar bradley held a west point record for longest baseball for 0. and he had a mean curve ball. his senior year he batted a 383

average. that is a very respectable number that i think any professional team nowadays including our new orleans would certainly value. there was another thing that brought the two young men together, and other trade they shared in common that occurred after graduation that they would mess will war to end all wars. war in europe that so many of their classmates got to fight in. this was a war with a lot of promotion and experience and reputation to those men in uniform who were fortunate enough to serve their. bradley's regiments and its wartime spread from alaska on guard duty. his regiment, the fourteenth industry -- infantry didn't even a symbol to go to france until just before the bells began to rang out in celebration of the

armistice in europe. eisenhower spend more on the other side of the conference, made a name for himself as a trainer partly because he was such a good football coach but unfortunately for ike that meant the army didn't want him fighting in europe. it wanted him to training other men to fight in europe. so eisenhower wrote out his days during the war to end all wars, in maryland where he trained men who were fighting in a new group called the army put together called the tank corps. the brotherhood group in 1919 after the first world war ended when lieutenant colonel eisenhower met someone named george patton. patton until that time had a storybook career as an officer. he had excelled at individual sports at west point like running and fencing.

he represented the united states in the 1912 stock electric's -- olympics. he was the army's master polo player and redesigned the army's cavalry saber and he chased pancho villa around northern mexico with general black jack pershing. when war came to america's shores patton shipped overseas with general pershing and participated in two great battles and was wounded in september of 1918. he was recovering from his wound on november 11th that year, a date that was doubly significant to patton for it was his 30 first birthday and the day his hopes for more battle were military glory were dashed as germany capitulated to the allies. patton returned home in 1919 and depressed man while bradley and eisenhower paid lip service to the idea that they were glad the casualty list had come to an

end. patton made no bones about it. he had seen his one big chance for glory taken away from him. at camp meade, maryland patton's hopes were revived when he met a young optimistic colonel now i'm -- named ike who was commanding a tank battalion. that two men's love of these mechanical beasts would cement a friendship that would last almost an end verdes. and bike and george as they came to know each other spent many a day experimenting with tanks firing new weapons coming up with combinations of men and machines and generally enjoying their inner warriors with the two young families. i can and george were in many ways the odd couple. patton grew up in an isolated part of southern california. he had one sibling, a sister, and came from a wealthy and the

where family. he was home school for a while and then went to private school when he was older. as a result he grew up something of an introvert by which i mean a person who drew his energy from within rather than from other people. when pan and needed to solve a problem he prayed and meditated and figured it out himself and executed. patton love reading history and drew many inspiration from evil -- midi land napoleon times. but ike eisenhower by contrast grew up in a pretty large family, seven hungry strapping boys, no girls. and an all-american town that you would ever find. he learned to fight on the playground, learned when he should stand up for himself but also when to cultivate allies

like his older brother. his family wasn't especially for, money was always in tight supply. he can certainly relate to the american middle class. by the end of their assignment to camp meade, i can and george had become close personal friends. i can and his wife were frequent guests at the patton house and george patton's girls loved to play with a little eisenhower toddler. in 1920 the army broke up the tank corps, went back to the cavalry and i went in to the infantry to remain with the takes awhile longer. the final side of the triangle dropped to place in the 1920s when colonel patton got traction for the division. a gun and unknown major named

omar bradley showed up to try out. he had hunted since he was a young child with a spring shield rival and hit 23 of 25 plays. that was pretty impressive shooting patton looking over brad's shoulder shrugs his shoulders and said that is fine. it will do. they didn't get off to an officious start. the fact was bradley had little in common with the wealthy polo playing patton. brad was a quiet, shy man by nature. he grew up in a small home in rural missouri. he had a stepbrother and his father, a country school teacher died when brad was only 14 leaving the family with no means of income other than the money brad could make by hunting small game and his mother taking on

borders. at at injury to insult, when he was 17 brad wasn't a skating accident that smashed up his teeth and jaw. i don't know if any of us recall how secure or insecure we were when we were 17 but a disfigured smile doesn't build confidence. brad's family couldn't afford to get his teeth fixed and he went to through his young adulthood ashamed of his smile. even after his teeth were replaced by dentures' he almost never wanted to show his teeth. if he ever smiled it was like a book jacket, a tight lid grimace even to the end of his years. the fact is brad stifled the urge to laugh too walid. never got a belly laugh around others and never wanted to draw attention to his features. moreover he wasn't a real social lion. his wife mary was a teetotaler who objected to the kind of

bathtub gin and beer that george and i had in prohibition. he was a simple man with simple tastes. for that reason bradley lacked the social confidence of his peers as especially when in north africa, sicily and northern europe brad ran in the circles of the military elite particularly the british, elegant, well educated, well mannered and able to speak fluent french. the early ties as we will see later manifested themselves during the second world war. as you can see from some of these visits in the museum the inner work army of the united states was very small. the u.s. had the seventeenth

largest army in the world behind bulgaria and belgium. even behind switzerland and sweden. there were more guys running around with red pocket knives that america had in uniform. in a group that small the officer had plenty of time to get to know each other. general marshall or admiral king or president roosevelt, when mike was called to duty he began to look back to his early years when he got to know the officers as people. eisenhower told one of his classmates he had a theory, if you know the commander in -- you know how he will react in a given situation. he had a real fighter in george patton and when the combined chiefs of staff made three landings in north africa, i asked george to leave the

landing on the atlantic coast. it was the most difficult invasion because africa was particularly dangerous but patton's luck held and it was a success. he took casablanca in three days and months later after the americans took one on the chin, reach the continent from tunisia to more rocco and asked his friend george if he would take command of fighting indonesia's. george asked bike if he could have omar bradley as deputy commander and with that the brotherhood that west point, became america's true fighting team. i suppose it was inevitable that when you have three had strong talented guys like this that eventually sparks would going to fly. these men ultimately started to

not only get on each other's nerves in the close borders of fighting but saw each other as rivals. it was a unique kind of rivalry because it wasn't a rivalry for power the three men had or even a rivalry for rank or position because patton, eisenhower and bradley accepted the role of the war department handed them. this was a rivalry for reputation. rivalry for being right. it was a rivalry to show that their ideas and methods were the best way to win the war. this was a rivalry of three men to prove each was america's top soldier. one ingredient of this rivalry was their professional outlook. patton grew up in the cavalry. to patton and army is a lot like a horse. a horse is a big strong animal but also eats a lot and in a

battlefield commission is very vulnerable to enemy fire. if you keep the horse standing in one place too long in a battle it will get mowed down so you better keep the horse running. patton felt an army was subject to the same rules as the patton -- as a horse. george's philosophy gave omar bradley fits for most of the sicilian campaign because brad thought that george was so wrapped up in attack, attack, attack that he never thought about the more mundane and less dramatic things like logistics'. how do we get the gas and bullets and biscuits to the man in a front? he never thought about safe, secure fleet to avoid being attacked from the side. george patton ran too many foolish risks and other men he knew would have to pay the price

for patton's freshness. bradley by contrast was the product of the infantry. an infantryman doesn't have a tank to protect him or a horse's speed. bradley had a unique appreciation for the vulnerability of the human body under fire. and infantrymen can run fast and you have to be careful as up foot shoulder. he took a lesson from the first world war. he was careful most of the time and he was aggressive only when he fought the rewards justified the risks of the aggressor and breaking the rules. patton use to claim that bradley and his corps commanders were somewhat timid. rivalry didn't just start because of their general outlook of audacity versus prudence. it extended to their methods. these guys had different approaches. bradley's father was a schoolteacher and patton was a polo player and they had two

different mindsets. here's how the book goes through the different thought processes bradley and patton had. tactics to omar bradley was a mathematical problem solving. like a scholar working and algebraic proof brad took the known x and what factors and use them to derive the field operation. if everyone did their job the course of events would fall into place naturally and predictably. the secret to brad's success, the engine of his genius was his ability to grab all parts of the equation on a monstrous moving battlefield and derive from them a plan in which the foot soldier could have confidence. patton by contrast would never think of putting his staff in the driver's seat and sitting back like a figurehead. driven by a sense of self aggrandizement and insatiable thirst for approval and an overpowering feeling of destiny

george invariably turned toward the logistics' man began. george's outstanding performance taught him that accepted doctrine of the army was a fine thing to fall until it conflicted with the requirements of victory and once that happened doctrine would invariably get the boot in favor of whatever worked. it was patton's ability to look beyond the rules, a-6 fence built over years of study, experiment and prayer that gave patton his touch of genius. the third side of this triangle was eisenhower. eisenhower was trained to be a staff officer. in the end he knew his goal in this great game would be the team's general manager. he would fire players. he betrayed them to other teams. he did that with generals he didn't like. he made the big calls. sometimes he would shift around

his defense. sometimes he would substitute a new player for offense. eisenhower was a lot like bradley and his team outlook but he also knew that george patton was the individualist you could use profitably on a team. he could do a lot with a man like patton and as eisenhower told general marshall at the sicilian campaign's close patton was a commander whose troops could not be stopped but ordinary obstacles. friction by their philosophical outlook and training hadn't been enough, bradley and patton had a style that were diametrically opposed. they couldn't click together at a personal level as well as they would have liked. we all know about patton's filthy mouth. he had a vocabulary--he even

taught his children to curse. after the war eisenhower reminiscing on his old friend patton said george patton loved to shock people. any thing that popped into his mind promptly came out of his mouth especially if it was bizarre. he loved to shocked members of a social gathering without rages profanity. he would indulge in more of the same. if no one paid attention he would quiet down. this wasn't something that just happened for effect during the second world war. this is part of who patton was. when he was on the boat coming back to america after returning from france his father wrote him an interesting letter where he warned him that the gift of gab may get you into trouble. you are now 34 and a colonel and the dignity going with your rain invests what you say with more importance so i hope you will be

very careful and self restraint for your own good. in the late 1930s patton was commander of the third cavalry regiment which was state and outside washington d.c. and as commander of that regiment patton would go for horseback rides with the chief of staff general george marshall and they would take marshall's wife kathryn to ride. most of the other officers tend to be more circumspect but not george. after one particularly profanity laden tirade catherine turned to him and said him in a way only women can get away with, you can't talk like that. you look at me to see if i'm going to smile. you aspire to be a senior general and a general cannot talk in any such wild way.

none of that advice ever stuck. shock value, was with who he was although patton knew it was a dangerous name. he would tell reporters attached to the surge army in europe, not politics or the allies high command but certain things made their way into print, he hated the press conferences he had to do from time to time because he made so many deaths during the war he never knew when his laugh was going to run out and get him fired. in this end there is a clash about -- bradley grew to dislike patton. he didn't think patton was managing the army of sicily very well. to bradley patton would send tons of small arms ammunition and keep the vital artillery

rounds near the beaches. he would do irresponsible things. the seventh army headquarters would forget to run communications wire to the corps headquarters. he might not keep the air services in formed where the infantry was. bradley and patton also fought about tactics and bradley and an end to top all off with a field commander who received a surge in report at the end of august 1943 about patton having caused a ruckus in a field hospital that was under bradley's control. was just not another george patton problem he wanted deal with. in the spring of 1944 when brad and i were picking commanders for the overlord innovation bradley was tremendously unhappy when eisenhower selected george to lead the u.s. third army. the army that would come ashore under brad's twelfth army group

after d-day. brad was so unhappy with patton at this point that even on the eve of the invasion as bradley and his staff were sitting around the uss augusta the night before the boats were supposed to go out, the men spent part of their time swapping their patton stories which were calculated to make patton look like a buffoon. in the summer of 1944, patton's army arrived in europe and inexplicably patton and bradley put aside whatever personal differences they have or whatever stylistic differences they had and became pretty good friends, certainly good part is. patton happily did what brad told him to do and although they had some minor disagreements in the beginning at least on the surface they got along well. as in tunisia they began to work closely with each other and it was not only because they were doing well on the ground but

because there was a certain measure of fear and that would be fear of the british of all people. ever since the sicilian campaign, bradley and patton felt slighted by their british cousins and this problem was exacerbated during august and september of 1944 when the allies basically ran out of gas. it wasn't that they had gas, there was plenty of gas but they couldn't get the gas from the normandy beaches, the allied air services before the invasion bombed the french rail network to smithereens. the guys on the front lines were short of biscuits, socks and ammunition and there wasn't enough tracking ability to get everybody the ammo they needed. so in came field marshal bernard

montgomery, commander of the british forces and probably by this time one of the people in europe aside from hitler to bradley disliked bar none. bradley was concerned when he heard rumors from ike that montgomerie had this idea how to win the war because -- under the narrow thrust idea of montgomerie said basically give me some of bradley's army and give me all of his gasoline, tell brad and patent to sit on their rears further south and on will go through the north of europe through holland, northern france and the low country and carry the union jack all the way to berlin. that was his conception. this would give the lion's share of credit to the british and that was exactly what patton and bradley were dead set against. eisenhower's view as the team's manager was i have to balance my

two wings. he had to consider patton and bradley who wanted to read into the southern part of europe into germany and win the war their way or at least keep themselves and the same line of advance as the british. in this end eisenhower strongly supported by patton and bradley decided all the allies advanced together. tea called the broad front approach. the same approach ulysses grant used against the confederates in 1864. all the armies would move side-by-side. they would steamroll the germans in their path and might not get to berlin as quickly but they would get there with fewer casualties. the dispute over allocation of supplies came to a head in december of 1934 when hitler launched his quarter million man offensive, a surprise attackx bn offensive, a surprise attack the

americans came to call the battle of the ball. the bold and of course was a term for what it looked like on the map. here we have a map of the twelfth u.s. army group situation in late december. the bulge smashed into bradley's line andulgnocked the teeth out of his eighth score and put americans back to the news river. bradley's army was on the south side of the bulge and his other armies were left on the north side of the bulge where bradley could not efficiently communicate with them. what to do about that? eisenhower took a look at the problem and said at the moment

of crisis i have to do something about it. i have two armies that cannot be effectively led by bradley so eisenhower did the ultimate slap in the face. he took those two northern armies and gave them to montgomery. bradley as you can imagine didn't take that very well. to bradley by this time it was all about prestige. not about bradley's prestige. he was in it for the american soldier and what was bad for brad was bad for the american soldier. so bradley decided this was the last straw. toe put ue owith too much from e british and told eisenhower on dece u.er 20th i resign. fortunately for the allies eisenhower ignored bradley's resioo ation, calm him down and assured his friend that after they erased the bulge bracket

would get his army back and after a lightning attack by george patton in late dmetember that is exactly what they did. eventually the army's made it across the rhine river by the end of march and were set for the last act of europe. by the end of april hitler was dead. by the beginning of may the german army had capitulated. that was the war's end but eiseve tower's career was just beginning. eisenhower was appointed u.s. army chief of sted bf succeedin general marshall and he became effectively the ulysses s. grant of the second world war. bradley meanwhile was set to run the veterans administration which he did very well and he would eventually sadleceed his friend eisenhower, his protector and mentor as the army's top general. has patton predicted in a letter to his wife, would be a nuisance.

he could did just a peacetime life and comments that he made toere and there about being sof on the nazis and hard on the communists came back to haunt him. he was fired from the third army by eiseve tower. and patten never forgave eisenhower. in this end the three men won not only a victory in western europe but a lasting place in the cony'siousness of their countrymen. by 1942 there were 1,000 general officers on the army's roll. there were 700 flag ranked but of that host, how many besides eiseve tower, patton and bradle do most people really reme u.ero we remember douglas macarthur of course and probably admiral chester nimitz and geoge e marshall. some may remember jimmy doolittle or vinegar still well.

and those who walked around halls of the museum have probably seen aprctures of beete smith and other generals but in the main it was eisenhoweini conqueror of europe and his two lead horses, bradley and patton whose names are figmasing vehicles, buildings, tanks and silver dollars and of course the roster of american presidents. these three men are figures det by mutual consent we sat in our pantheon of military heroes. men who can be spoken of alongside grant and lee, sam houston, black jack pershing, washington, sheridan and a few others. they won a victory in europe, after years of develoaprng thei partnership, i think their greatest victory was the victory they made leaving their imprint on the american psyche.

you have been very patient with me and i think jeremy indicated this to be a discussiogn not germst a monologetl. so the payoff to me and to you hopefully is i get to hear what you have to say. we have some questions, i would love to hear them. pr believe jeremy has a microphone and we will be happy to hear what is on your mind. i am sure there's a lot. >> you have written many publications. did your interest in history come from your father? >> much of it did. the question is whether my

interest in history came from my father or where it grew up. i was a young boy during the 1970s and as some of the may remember those big budget technicolor films of the 1960s, midway, anything starring kirk douglas, patton, those were being shown on television and they left an imprint on me like they left on a generation. ultimately i wanted to find out what those guys really looked like without the hollywood technicolor screen, without the makeup and costumes with big stars. the point of this book was to find out what are the men underneath the uniform? how are they like us? how are they different from us? that is the genesis. as i went for my long career i continue to have an interest in history.

i was very fortunate to have been encouraged by some of my colleagues in houston and that gave me the drive to continue what i was doing. >> i watched a series of the military channel called commanders that war produced by the british and it dealt with the battle of the bulge and bradley and basically painted bradley as completely inactive in that battle and talk about eisenhower which issued the order for patton to attack north and eisenhower took the army away from bradley and gave it to montgomerie and bradley didn't have a hand in that. could you comment on that? >> the question is during the battle of the bulge, what was eisenhower's role for bradley? eisenhower learned a painful lesson at caterina press -- pass. the commander who was in the entirely his fault but was

fairly ineffective during the battle. ike learned the lesson that if there is a crisis i have to step in and deal with it. i can't just assume the guys i trust want to take care of it. the bulge was just one of those crises and eisenhower decided i have got to step in. he didn't make a snap decision on his own. the decision to take bradley's two other armies and give them to montgomerie originated with the british. the british were two staffers who worked for beetle smith. beetle was eisenhower's chief of staff and he was a miserable guy to work for. these two british guys came up to be land and said we really think you need to move the first and ninth are reason to montgomery's command at least for right now. we know there will be nationalistic problems from the military perspective.

what beagles' said what you are fired. consider yourselves on. he thought about it for six hours overnight and then woke up and never apologized to those two guys but made it clear he wanted them the next day. before they had a chance to pack their bags they were and fired again. he made the recommendation to eisenhower, it was a decision like felt he had to make and he did it with the backing of his talented staff. >> i read not too long ago that eisenhower was subordinate to douglas macarthur before world war ii and he studied drama on douglas macarthur. is that true? more important question, maybe this isn't a fair question but when you look at eisenhower and douglas macarthur and omar bradley and patton is it

possible to rank them who was the greatest american general? >> those are two excellent questions. the first one is did eisenhower say he studied dramatic under macarthur? he was chief of staff under douglas macarthur in the philippines in the 1930s and he said i studied drama under macarthur. mccarter said eisenhower was the best student i ever had. there was no love lost between those two and you can imagine the meeting of the eisenhower white house was an awkward one. as far as how do you rank these guys other than the way the publisher put them on the point of the book how do you tell who is the greatest general? that is a wonderful question and one that can probably not be adequately answered because in the days of generals on horseback the general commanded troops and attacked. by the time we get to the second

world war we had generals who were supremely good at staff work but would have been terrible battle captains. patton would have been an awful supreme commander because that job require diplomacy. george c. marshall, the greatest soldiered this country ever produced would have been a mediocre battle captain due to his age and lack of experience commanding field troops. it is very difficult to say who was best. we can say it is fortunate for the allies and america that these three gentlemen was put in the position they were in. some of them, patton have a diary for instance, personally i wouldn't want the job of supreme commander. another diary entry he said frankly i would not be satisfied unless i was god and some liberal probably out ranks him anyway. that is a good question.

>> you touched on it when you were talking about the legacy of these three generals. i have read your book which is quite good. i saw that you touched upon but didn't go into a lot of detail. another general who was prominent in the war but received little if any historical -- general deaver who was commander of the sixth army group who came for the mediterranean into france. in your book you mentioned eisenhower and bradley had an extremely low opinion of general deaver and yet general marshall had a very high opinion. could you talk about that? >> where did general jacob beavers, actually the manager of bradley's baseball team, where did he fit into this.

beavers was commander of the u.s. sixth army group. he was quite a good general. but he got on eisenhower's bad side. he was the theater commander in england for the united states army when ike was in the mediterranean and for the invasion of italy eisenhower wanted to get a couple squadrons of heavy bombers to support his invasion. we have to keep our bombing plan and next that. he also said some unflattering things about ike's north african campaign. many years after the war john eisenhower said about his father he never held a grudge as long as he won. in this case beaters --deevers was the victim of a grudge. but he was far from the decisive area and he was not in the inner

circle. >> there have been rumors that they came close to court-martialing mark clark. is there any validity to that? >> mark clark was -- you get mixed reviews even to this day about his generalship. the problem he had, this is where the book leaves off with clark, he was something of a self promoter. he was actually an exceptional staff officer but he wanted to be the field commander. he wanted to be in the limelight and that created some bad blood. during his italian campaign there were from time to time questions raised about his generalship particularly about his approach to rome, they never ended up going anywhere. he was not a very popular

general. it is said that the medal of honor winner marty murphy loved to where his medal of honor whenever clark would be around because by military tradition clark was obliged to salute murphy who was wearing a medal before murphy had to salute him. >> my uncle said that he did not know an american officer who would not have a shot clark in the back if he had a clean shot. >> there were plenty of generals who were from time to time had some death threats on them. the soldiers crept to a reporter in sicily that there were 50,000 guys who would have shot patent if they had a chance. i think that is a gross exaggeration and a reflection of

the ire the newsmen felt when they smacked around. >> i have a question myself. how do you filter or sift what you know these generals aren't writing in their diaries for posterity's sake? they know millions of people read them after they are long dead. how do you know whether it is the true feeling or a vending or what they hope we all think of them 60 years after they are gone? >> that is a very good question. there are diaries and then there are diaries. you may have heard winston churchill's a history will be kind to me because i intend to write it. churchill actually said -- discouraged the use of diaries because all this is going to do is make you look like you guessed wrong with your wrong. wait till it is over and write your memoir and you all look

right. as you go through the diaries and records you begin to see divergences overtime. memories fade. this is where the lawyer in me comes out. you have to compare the evidence of this. there was a time when i was at the library of congress that i noticed something interesting that we will see if we can bring it up. that is not a planted question but this question comes up plenty. as you may recall in december 1944 hitler launched the battle of the bulge. that took the allies by surprise. virtually everybody. in the published version of patton's diary he has an entry of nov. twenty-fifth, nineteen forty-four, where he says furthermore the first army is making a terrible mistake in

leaving the eighth court static as it is highly probable the germans are building up east of them. in fact what happened was the germans were building up piece of them. the eighth corps was the epicenter of the great bulge attack that took everyone by surprise some three weeks later. patton obviously had quite a sense of what the germans are doing even though that wasn't part of his sector. but we look at the hand written page. these are both library of congress. the right page which has the quote about the first army making a terrible mistake, and the typewritten version of the diary. box 1 has his handwritten diary which contains no entry about the first army, about any mistake of the first army or the germans building up. it is hard to find the genesis

of the discrepancy. obviously at some point patton knew his diary would be turned into a book that was published posthumously as war as i know it and either he or somebody working with him or somebody who came along after him, the german build up to make him more prescient than he really was. that doesn't take away from his technical acumen. a few weeks later on december 12th after speaking with his very smart the 2 intelligence officer patton wrote in his diary we will be ready to assist the eighth corps in case the germans attacked. he had some help along the way but we do see an example of where patton's diary had been embellished and ultimately the typewritten version was published as the patent papers -- patton papers that you have

to do some historical sleuthing. >> we will go right here first. >> i am sorry. >> ulysses s. grant's strategy aside, he tried to circle the germans and make a pocket. why did he do that in the battle of the bulge? that seemed like the obvious counterattack to flank and circle and an bulge that pocket and he went back to grant and did the united front? why did he do the circling and cutting off that army? >> good question. wide not encircle the bulge? if the bulge is going into your line and making a semicircle why not cut it off at the neck and the bulge in that circle? eisenhower's first concern at the battle of the bulge was to avoid the germans getting past

the river. his worry was let them go too far and they will be able to cut through our supply lines and stumble upon some gas stockpiles and it was thought that they were trying to get to and work which was a major port supplying the allied army. eisenhower had the option of trying to let all the germans get into the pockets of the giant baseball glove and closing it and that is what patton wanted to do. patton urged them to go to paris and then we will chew them up. but eisenhower didn't want any of that. he didn't have a strong theater reserve. his men were stretched to the limit. the guys had been beaten up in a few places. they were trying to arrest. they were cold and hungry and there were not enough rifle divisions to throw against them. so he opted for the safe play

which was a reflection of his safe infantry mentality. >> this has nothing to do with the war but about patton. have you ever seen the statues on the plane at west point? >> i have. we may have a picture of one of the patton statues. i am sorry? [inaudible] >> since he is very and they removed a lot of them and did a lot of work, he was first facing a library. do you know that story?

>> i have heard that the statue was facing away from the library because -- >> he is looking at the library because he couldn't find it. >> you corrected me. is interesting away patton legend has outstripped that of his contemporaries. eisenhower and bradley out ranked patton for the entire northern european war. it is really patton who we think about more than anyone else. partly that is attributable to one gentleman. the patton on the left. we all recall george c. scott's portrayal and that cemented the patton legend. and i think that was a pretty decent portrayal of much of what patton was like. scott got the right look. maybe a bit more spatter than

the real patton because they had to convince 60 years into a two hour movie but one the things i found interesting was the voice of george c. scott, the command voice which we have associated and every film portrayal has used as its model of the archetype george patton, here is the commanding voice of the hollywood patton. let's see if we can bring up. >> i don't want to get any messages saying we are holding our position. we are not holding anything. we are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy. we are going to hold them by the nose and catch them in the act! >> that is the gruff gravel voiced george patton but the real patton had a command voice that was slightly different. here are some remarks patton

made to the third infantry division after the capture of messina, one of the high points in his military career. >> i appreciate men like you. it is a pleasure to accompany you. i cannot find words with which to express my admiration of your drive and enthusiasm nor to express my appreciation of the magnificent fighting qualities and superhuman and dorrance. i certainly thank you. >> we see that while hollywood got it right most of the time the real george patton had something more of a voice that was kind of a blend of an elderly southern belle and a martian from bugs bunny. george c. scott has the voice patton wished he had. >> that is a good note to leave

it on. thank you for coming. [applause] >> for more information visit the author's web site, jonathan jordan.com. >> maureen beasley recall the lenore's--eleanor roosevelt's years as first lady and her involvement in politics and her transformation of the position of first lady from one that was not acknowledged to prominent political actor. this beasley speaks and takes audience questions for a little more than an hour. >> our speaker today, maureen beasley is professor of merit of journalism at the university of maryland and as i was reading her bio i noticed the connection with the state of missouri. she attended university of missouri's journalism school which if you know anything about