McChrystal: What would Eisenhower have done?

In North Africa, Patton had taken the ragged US II Corps, which had been crushed (3,000 dead and wounded, 3,700 prisoners, 200 tanks lost) at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, and within 10 days he turned the Corps into a sharp fighting force that began rolling back the Germans and Italians. Soon after, Patton’s forces performed brilliantly against another German army in a joint US-British invasion of Sicily.

But Patton’s personal missteps seemed interminable. In Britain, he offended the Soviet allies when he reportedly said publicly (he denied it) that Britain and the US would rule the world after the war.

He once threatened to quit if any of his troops were transferred to a British commander. He was blistering in his complaints about Eisenhower – at one point suggesting that Ike wouldn’t push ahead to Berlin because he lacked “any ideas as to what to do next.” He said Eisenhower kowtowed so often to the British that he was “the best general the British have.”

Yet Ike kept him. He wanted Patton in the fight. He saw what both the Germans and Soviets saw.

German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt said after the war: “Patton was your best.” And when Patton’s Third Army knifed through the German lines in 1944, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin said: “The Red Army could not have conceived and certainly could not have executed the advance made by [Patton’s] Third Army across France.”

Generals like Patton and Ulysses Grant and George Washington play a critical role in the success of any army.

Nearly 200 years ago, during a low point in the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson, then living at his estate at Monticello, wrote several letters to friends about the difficulty of finding quality commanders. He said: “Our men are good, but our generals unqualified. Every failure we have endured has been the fault of the general.…”

Days later, he wrote: “The creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first therefore to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.”

Tossing out McChrystal, a battle-hardened general, could have future consequences.

In fact, if Eisenhower were now president, he might use McChrystal the way he did Patton during a forced hiatus after the slapping incident. To fluster the Germans, who deeply feared Patton, Ike sent the general on decoy missions to Algiers, Malta, Tunis, and other strategic locales.

Might McChrystal, a black ops expert, be used in a similar way?

John Dillin covered the Vietnam war for the Monitor in 1966-67 and later served as the newspaper’s managing editor.

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Related:

McChrystal lesson: the price of criticizing your boss

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