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>> next, from the eisenhower institute, susan eisenhower talks about her grandfather, and dwight d. eisenhower, and his leadership skills. her remarks were part of an all-day symposium commemorating the 75 year anniversary of d-day. this is almost 20 minutes. >> we have a couple of special guests here today. we are fortunate to have general lessee. [applause] lessie's chairman of the eisenhower society board of trustees, and while at west point, a certain john eisenhower class of 1944 taught him how to roll and pack a field pack.

we are privileged to have mr. guy whitten here. mr. whitten jumped into normandy on d-day as part of the 101st airborne. [applause] to both of these men and all veterans in our audience, thank you for coming and for your service to this country. our first speaker -- charlie scott who was on our board of trustees -- i said, i have a few remarks and he said, there is a

high bar for that here in gettysburg. our first speaker today is susan eisenhower. has aappropriate that she unique relationship to dwight eisenhower as a family member and someone who has spent her lifetime scheduling national security and leadership development. she has authored several books and is working on a book about her grandfather's military career. she has a lasting record of paying it forward, from her invited dutch involvement with eisenhower college, and we are fortunate to have her with us. she has carried a torch for do dwight d. eisenhower's legacy while building one of her own. speaker on topics ranging from energy policy to the former soviet union. she is a voice of integrity and

engagement and pragmatism. i cannot do justice in a brief introduction, but the eisenhower institute has benefited immensely from her thoughtful leadership. every year for the past several years, gettysburg college students have had the opportunity to gain a far greater understanding of strategy and implementation to her thoughtful mentor ship. major league baseball started this week, please permit me a baseball metaphor. i can think of no one better positioned to leadoff today's symposium then susan eisenhower. unique opinions. join me in welcoming susan eisenhower. [applause] what a nice introduction.

thank you very much. honestly, i cannot tell you what an honor and privilege it is to be here to open today's symposium. we are grateful to all of our donors, so much appreciated the support you have given us. friends ofny long-standing. i do not say old friends anymore. it is an honor to have a number of distinguished scholars who we will be hearing from later, that are in your booklet. i would like to say, general, thank you for all you do for the eisenhower society. the general is a friend of long-standing as well, of our family. i also want to single out guy whitten, who i have met on a couple of occasions in normandy and a couple of times in gettysburg. i cannot tell you how gratifying as a that you are here

symbol of those important events , how much you contributed to your country is quite extraordinary. second with the 50 parachute infantry group and this is a very important group. the famous picture of bike with the 101st airborne division, it will come up again, many visitsf ike's to the airfields before the paratroopers dropped. the 12th paratrooper in that picture is looking at general eisenhower, who looks extremely intent. it looks like he is telling the paratroopers standing around him what they are about to face. we find out from the tall paratrooper number 23 that ike

was talking about flyfishing. thumb becausee that is like this. wally strobel lived until the ,ge of -- i am not sure exactly when he passed away, but he lived until quite recently and was able to share that story with us. of talking tot paratroopers and other troops about where they came from and where they would be returning to. whyce asked my father, would he be talking about that and not extorting the troops to go in and get hitler, the big peptalk? he said, they knew what they needed to do. he needed to give them an idea of what they had to live for. it is an interesting story because he always asked them, are you well-trained? it is a moving story to have

somebody as distinguished as guy here, who has been a great advocate for world war ii veterans with us today, is just amazing. thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. there are several things i learned about d-day for my grandfather. i thought i would leave the scholarly peaceable this to our scholars -- scholarly peace of all of this to our scholars. i learned one thing, don't sweat the small stuff. ike's younger brother was a bit of a worrier and after ike became president, milton was at penn state university and invited the president to speak. the weather was not looking good. they were going to have a big convocation outside and milton said, what are going to do about the weather? ,hould we move the group inside

which would necessitate a number of people losing an opportunity to hear the president, or should we risk it and stay outside? way, id in an annoyed have not worried about the weather since june 6, 1944. [laughter] susan: poor milton was on his own for that one. i have had very emotional feelings this week because it marks the 50th anniversary of ike's passing. it is hard to believe it is 50 years since his death. i come to realize it was the passing of a giant, really a giant. if i was not fully aware of that as a kid, i know it now after researching my book. say i am overwhelmed at times by e's tenacity, fear -- clear thinking, and vision be an understatement.

i have come to meet an individual who is courageous and compassionate, with an extraordinary level of emotional intelligence. say something today about dwight eisenhower's leadership skills, so let's start with the proposition that not all of leadership can be trained. there is a mysterious element to leadership. god-given,is likability for instance, or a big smile. i have a kind of energy -- i have read this in my research -- kind of energy that could fill an empty room. one of his colleagues called it on loosened physical and intellectual energy -- on physical-- unloosened and intellectual energy.

people were attracted to him, like one scholar said, like a magnet. there was something in his upbringing, humility. this is probably the most basic of all values. i am not sure you can teach humility. you can teach people to pretend to be humble, but to be humble at your core is a different thing. it was forgedand, by the burden of responsibility. instead, he had a kind of iron ratherhich i think is fun since the name eisenhower hewer" or another translation might be "am orpm artost/ core. -- he had an iron

this is the thrust of my comments today. so at todd's with wet -- with he wase which we lived, a genius knowing when to deploy his ego and when to suppress it. this takes a lot of emotional intelligence, but he was brilliant at knowing when to take his foot off the pedal, and when to hit it hard. he deployed his ego, for overlord for operation , his transportation plan, his airborne decision, which had to be one of the most soul wrenching decisions you could imagine. as you know, his airborne mallory,, trevor lee advised against dropping the airborne about a week before d-day. ike decided to go ahead,

understanding the casualties might be unsustainably high, which would not only grind up the airborne troops, but would jeopardize the mission itself. he decided he had to go forward. then as far as his ego is concerned, he suppressed it again in front of his critics, especially the british who attacked him personally and professionally over his strategy for ending the war. and on any other number of small issues. there are times when you read the history of this and he want to say, stand up for yourself. but, remarkably, he won every big fight. he knew just when to turn it on and turned it off. then he would deploy his ego again over disagreements with charles de gaulle, not a minor disagreement. franklin roosevelt did not want to see general de gaulle become the leader of france.

he wanted elections in the midst of french chaos and eisenhower found a crafty way around the president's views. he suppressed his ego again by allowing charles de gaulle and a french division to march into paris as the apparent liberator's of france. he had the courage to look his men in the eyes as he made decisions that would seal their fates. in the way courage he lived and i know firsthand, he had this courage in the way he died. today to remember the iconic operation overlord, a special subject for me. i have been privileged to take three groups of students to normandy. is there a more apt case study on leadership than operation overlord? while we might start out informationally with the tough decisions eisenhower had to make, at the end of the day it

is a story of the fighting men secured those beaches, the beach head for the liberation of europe, and continued to the final day in 1945. so to see kids go to those beaches and to stand there, i always take them at low tide to omaha beach, and i have made a habit of getting to the top of the hill and saying, we will see them when we get up there. it has had, i hope, a lasting impact on many of my students and i. one who is terrified of going into an interview wrote on a piece of paper, this is not omaha beach. i have to say i was proud of my students for helping us solve

one of the local mysteries on the normandy coast, that was the finding of a one private frankie mackey, who saved several airborne troops. he was a medic, and a number of villagers in a small town. up until that time, for more than 70 years, the village did not know the name of this medic. my students and i have had many adventures on the normandy coast and i was hesitant to go back in that capacity. i thought, how long am i going to tell somebody else's story? because i have had a career in foreign policy, and i thought, i don't know. to see the impact it has had on the students is one thing. then i realized the d-day story is part of my story too, and part of this community's story. you had the supreme allied

commander living in gettysburg after the presidency. general nevins, who many of you barremember, was ike's manager. i found out only three years ago when i went to the war college that general nevins had been the the wee hours of the morning when the decision to go was decided. he had played an important role as a deputy to one of the key people on that team. many of you remember sergeant monee who had been with ike throughout the campaign from north africa onwards, who was addressing the general on those mornings when big decisions were being made. finally, sergeant drye, who by the way was the man who drove the 101stto see

airborne division that evening, sergeant dry, who i knew very well, only let it slip once that he was saddened that history had not given him credit for being the chauffeur that day. in any creek -- in any case, these four men never talked about what happened, one of the pivotal moments of history, and they did not talk about it because they did their duty. they did not talk about it because they were humble. they did not talk about it because that is what people did. this, i noticed in a number of places that ike said there will never be another war like world war ii again. we know this is for military and strategic reasons, we will never mobilize again forresources, hu, and financial. it will be a different kind of war if we have one.

times have changed. it is worth looking back to remember the most important asset in our arsenal, the human spirit. it was that mysterious element that dwight eisenhower aroused and summit for the great's -- campaign against naziism. thank you for remembering that because. [applause] cause. [applause] this year is the 75th anniversary of operation overlord. it was on june 6, 1944 that allied troops stormed the beaches of normandy, france. dwightmons talked about d. eisenhower and the naval decisions that led to the d-day victory. mr. simons is author of "operation