The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1948-12-30

HdilS, DiVIuenu NHeCkS anu dA
Bills of Every Individual National
and international Problems Insep-
arabic From Local Welfare
The millions of people, here and
abroad, who read General Eisen-
hower's personal history of the
war, Crusade in Europe, which
Doubleday recently published, will
find items of interest to suit almost
any taste. The accounts of the op-
posed personalities who occupied
high positions, the descriptions of
the campaigns and the incredibly
difficult problems of supply and
logistics which confronted the COM
manders, the awful weight of re-
sponsibility which fell upon those
who had to make final fateful de-
cisions-all Of these add up to
make a cronicle which will certain
ly rank high among the histories
of conflict.
Then there is another phase of
war strategy, which is mentioned
almost casually and at long inter
walls in the Supreme Commanders
book, which is still stirring up
much controversy, and which has
a direct bearing on the present and
future as we'll as the past. That is
the fact that war is fought on two
levels-the military and the polite
al. And, at times, the gulf between
them is almost unbridgeable.
This is best illustrated by what
General Eisenhower says is the
Mongest-sustained" argument he
had with Winston Churchill. Sup
critically, the argument was over
the strategy and tactics the Allied
powers should pursue in subduing
Europe, and destroying Hitler and
his armies. The General had decid
ed to go through Southern France,
as was finally done. The Prime
Minister fought this plan to the
end, and wished to move into the
Balkans. Eisenhower says: cal
though | never heard him say so,
| felt that the Prime Minister'S
real concern was possibly of a
political rather than a military ma
ture. He may have thought that a
postwar situation which would see
the Western Allies posted in great
strength in the Balkans would be
far more effective in producing a
stable post-hostilities world than
if the Russian armies should be the
ones to occupy that region"
1t is measure of Mr.. ChurchilPs
that once the decision
went against him, he ceased all
argument and did everything in his
power to assure the success of the
plan which had been approved. But
the all-important point which un-
derlay this conflict in top policy is
that the soldier and the statesman
must often look toward a given
goal with very different perspec-.
tives. Eisenhower was a soldier,
and he had a soldiers concern for
military victory at the
lowest cost in men, materials, and
time. Churchill was certainly not
insensible of these considerations
yet he felt it his responsibility to
ook beyond the formal peace, into
.he postwar world. Both men, ac-
to their lights and their
were unassailably right.
Hindsight is easy for anyone,
and it is fruitless to argue wheth-
ar, in the long view of history, the
Allies should have accepted Mr..
Churchil's plan and fought the last
war with the dual purpose of de-
'eating the enemy, and at the same
lime strengthening our position in
europe against potential future
enemy who was then an ally sworn
% enduring friendship. This-like
hose decisions made at Yalta and
Potsdam which have proven so pal
)ably wrong-was the most diff
,ult possible matter to decide at
.he time. But the fact that the best
minds and the best polite
Al minds can find themselves at so
great a variance in dealing with
problems of the utmost historical
moment should be remembered as
he events and policies of the pre-
sent evolve.
For example, there is more and
more concern over the emergence
If military men as trainers and ex-
,cutors of our foreign policy. That
S in no way a criticism of these '
mems abilities and characters,
which are of the finest. But it does
,ring into focus the urgent pro-
,lem of whether civilian authority,