CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
Today on THE CHRIS MATTHEWS SHOW, leadership. The country needs it, does Bush
have it? Does Kerry? By the way, who is Kerry? Those big questions and more
on today's show.
Marching with history. Bush poses proudly with FDR, Churchill and de Gaulle.
But does he belong in this picture?
Wary Kerry. Al Gore screams like Dean, but the candidate stays cool, some say
too cool. Time for your close-up, Senator.
Who are you? John Kerry's wanted the presidency since birth, but what's
underneath all that White House ambition?
Plus, part two of my three-part look at Normandy. This week, what made Dwight
Eisenhower the man of the hour.
All that and more with a solid roundtable on your weekly news show.
Announcer: From Congress to the West Wing he's been a Washington insider.
Now he's one of the capital's top journalists: Chris Matthews.
MATTHEWS: Hi, I'm Chris Matthews. Let's go inside.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Profile: Katty Kay, BBC; Jon Meacham, Newsweek; Nina Easton,
Boston Globe; and David Brooks, New York Times, talk about the
presidential race, the Iraq war, and World Wars I and II
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
Katty Kay is the BBC's woman in Washington. Jon Meacham's is Newsweek's
managing editor. Nina Easton reports on politics for the Boston Globe; she's
the author of new biography, "John F. Kerry." And David Brooks is the New
York Times columnist and author of the new book "On Paradise Drive."
First up, marching with history. As Iraq rumbles with uncertainty, President
Bush tries to convince America that he has a plan for success over there.
Meanwhile, a CBS poll shows that three-fifths of the country now disapproves
of Bush's handling of the war. This weekend the president saluted World War
II veterans at the opening of the new memorial. Next week he heads to
Normandy to enlist the ghosts of Roosevelt and Churchill.
Katty Kay, is the president cruisin' for a bruisin' by comparing himself
implicitly with these great leaders like Churchill, Eisenhower, FDR?
Ms. KATTY KAY (Washington Corespondent, BBC): Well, I think in some sense is
that the parallels that he faces are legitimate. The parallels he's drawn in
the scope of the threat after 9/11, clearly President Bush understood the
threat to America, which was huge, of Islamic fundamentalism. But the problem
is in the execution and in the character of lead--of the leadership. He
failed to build the necessary alliances, whether or not you believe it was the
right war. Remember, Churchill traveled 40,000 miles during the Second World
War to keep this curious alliance of the Soviets, American and Britain
together. President Bush, by failing to make those alliances, has--has harmed
America's reputation hugely. He's also failed to plan the war's aftermath,
which was something that they did, Churchill and Roosevelt spent a lot of time
on. Three years before the Second World War ended, they were already planning
for the end of the war; let alone the issue of character.
MATTHEWS: Let's look, David--I want you to start it. Let's look at some of
the factors, because I think there is that comparison in everybody's heart
with the big war, the one we all liked, World War II. First thing, I want to
ask you about the cause of war. Is it a fair comparison, Pearl Harbor and
9/11?
Mr. DAVID BROOKS (New York Times): Yeah, actually if you go back to Pearl
Harbor and look at the media right after Pearl Harbor, less shock among the
populus. There were no parties canceled, no hockey games canceled, no
basketball games canceled. In L.A. some Japanese Americans were playing
baseball with some Hollywood studio people. They heard per--about Pearl
Harbor in the middle of the third inning; they finished the game. A lot less
emotional shock, because the media was different.
MATTHEWS: Is that because it was off in Hawaii and not in New York?
Mr. BROOKS: Because they couldn't see it.
MATTHEWS: Oh.
Mr. BROOKS: They heard it on the radio but they couldn't see it on TV. It
had much less emotional shock. Nevertheless, as events, I think
they're--they're similar.
MATTHEWS: Let me go to Jon Meacham. You've written that great book about
Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. One of the great advantages that
Churchill had and that Roosevelt had is that we were hit clearly hit by the
enemy. The Japanese attacked us. With--within a couple of days, Nazis, Adolf
Hitler declared war on the United States. There were no more questions about
war. We had to fight these two powers. Do we have the same clarity in this
war going against Iraq?
Mr. JON MEACHAM (Managing Editor, Newsweek): No, we don't. We--we have
clarity in the war on terror, and we have less clarity with Iraq, which I
certainly believe in the president's heart the two are connected. I still
think in the country's mind, particularly given what we have not found in
Iraq--ties to terrorism, WMD--they aren't as connected, and I do think--I mean
it is true that they had a little bit easier time, Roosevelt and Churchill,
but it took four long days. The four longest days of Winston Churchill's life
were between December 7, 1941 and December 11th.
MATTHEWS: Because?
Mr. MEACHAM: Because Roosevelt never mentioned Germany; didn't declare war
on Hitler and Nazi Germany until Hitler declared war on us.
Ms. KAY: But isn't--isn't that another difference, though? The fact that
Roosevelt was prepared to listen to Churchill and all throughout the Second
World War he listened. He took advice, and that's the character issue that it
seems to me is the difference between Bush and those two leaders, is that they
did listen to outsiders. They were prepared to change their initial
positions.
Mr. MEACHAM: They lis--they listen--but they both listened...
MATTHEWS: Let's go, and Nina I want you in here. Let's talk about America
now, and not just the big alliance-building, and I think everyone would give
credit to Roosevelt for being the great alliance-builder, better than any
president, certainly with the help of Ike and D-Day. But let me ask you about
the fights in Washington, the lack of internal debate. In this administration
there is a clear ideological line, and that line is we go to war with Iraq.
Has the president suffered from not having a real debate within his White
House before he went to war?
Ms. NINA EASTON (Boston Globe): There's no doubt that--that he suffered.
There's no doubt that he continues to suffer from that lack of debate, but I
also think it's important to go back and look at why conservatives like George
Bush draw on--on Churchill and draw on that rhetoric. It comes out of the
Cold War where--where they saw messy plot lines until Ronald Reagan was
president. He made clean, clear plot lines and in their minds made--made
progress in the Cold War. So I think it's a--it really resonates
(unintelligible.)
MATTHEWS: Why did--again--again, because Roos--because Reagan gets credit for
ending the Cold War, it ended on his watch, and he was a clear anti-communist
with no detente or anything like that messing it up. But why does--again, why
does this president, this relatively young president, George W. Bush, why
does he grasp Churchill as his hero? And we know that from the first day we
heard--we heard about this guy. You want to ask--answer?
Mr. MEACHAM: Well, Bush actually says Churchill has always reminded him of a
Texan. He charged ahead and did what he thought was right. Now, Churchill
would have liked that because he wore a 10-gallon Stetson and carried a gun
with him most of the time. But Churchill seems to be a simple image of
courage and projecting power to fight battles beyond your borders for a cause
you believe is just no matter what. And Winston Churchill looked the--the
English elite in the eye and said, `I'm not going to reach out to Hitler.
He's gone that far, and he'll go no farther.'
MATTHEWS: The...
Mr. MEACHAM: The only question about that is, it's almost as though
President Bush has read "The Gathering Storm" but not the next five volumes.
MATTHEWS: Right. Well, what we're missing, I would argue--and let me ask
you, David, you're an intellectual, right?
Mr. BROOKS: Absolutely, one of the biggest. One of the biggest.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about this. When we went into war with Iraq, did we
have enough debate about the implications of this war to the surrounding Arab
region, to the surrounding world of a billion Islamic people? I mean, we're
not going to defeat a billion Arab people, or 300 million. We're going to
defeat, as we have, one country. But we're stuck in a different situation
than in 1945.
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: When Roosevelt and Churchill and Stalin defeat the Nazis and beat
the empire of Japan, they won a war of capitulation and annihilation. They
were in charge. We're sitting over there in Iraq surrounded by people who
don't agree with us.
Mr. BROOKS: Well, I would say two things. First, they didn't know what was
going to end up after the war. They knew they had to fight a war so they just
went into it and they went in semi-blind, aware of that. The big contrast
between FDR and Bush is that when the war started FDR hired two of the most
famous Republicans in this country, Henry Stimson and Frank Knotts--Knox, and
brought them into the cabinet, so you had nationally unity government in
effect. That was the biggest mistake to my mind that Bush did not bring in
people like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, didn't bring them into the government,
just didn't involve them in ownership of the war to explain the war, to be
involved in the planning, and that was--for that reason it's a much more
partisan debate we're having than we needed to have.
MATTHEWS: Do you think the war was honestly sold, even to the national
audience? Do you think that WMD was the reason for the war?
Mr. BROOKS: I think it was one of the many reasons, and it was honest. They
were wrong about the WMD, but they were certainly honest about it.
MATTHEWS: OK, let's talk about the option here, because we have a
presidential election this year that's coming on, I can't believe--faster than
I can believe. It's almost June.
John Kerry, he faces new pressures. Everybody says should he strengthen his
attack on the president's handling of Iraq, but listen to Kerry. He's still
careful, very sober-minded. Here he is this week.
Senator JOHN KERRY: There's a powerful yearning around the world for an
America that listens and leads again; an America that is respected, not just
feared and mistrusted.
MATTHEWS: What do you make of that? Speaking for the world, Katty Kay,
you're here on behalf of the world.
Ms. KAY: I'll speak for the whole world. Why not?
MATTHEWS: Do you think that that will resonate with Americans in Texas and
across the country that we need allies and we can't afford to be the bully?
Ms. KAY: I think that--that's the big debate. It's certain he's exactly
right, it resonates in Europe. Europe definitely does want an America that
they feel is offering more of a hand than a fist at the moment, and that--and
it resonates in the Middle East, where America has not won itself any friends,
and that's causing harm to American soldiers and to American citizens abroad.
And the big question is, how much does it resonate in the rest of the world.
I think if John Kerry can make the argument coherently, rather than saying,
`foreign leaders support me as the coming president,' which I don't think does
him any favors, I think if he can make that argument coherently that America
is not safer without allies, that actually the country as a whole, the people
are sa--are safer if they have allies.
MATTHEWS: Jon:
Mr. MEACHAM: Church--Churchill said the only thing worse than having allies
is not having allies, and Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, all these guys
understood that if we were going to fight these global wars, hot and cold, we
had to have people with us. There's nothing wimpy about having...
MATTHEWS: Right.
Mr. MEACHAM: ...allies.
Ms. KAY: It's not always what the people want. I mean, the idea of Roosevelt
reaching out to the Soviet Union was not obvious.
Mr. MEACHAM: Well, let's just go ahead--let's just go ahead and be honest.
It's--the French have always been annoying. You know, Churchill said of
Charles de Gaulle, `Don't mention him...'
MATTHEWS: Right.
Mr. MEACHAM: `We call him Joan of Arc, and we're looking for some bishops to
burn him.'
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Mr. MEACHAM: I mean this is in--so just fill in Chirac.
MATTHEWS: Well there--in defense of the French, which I think I'll be alone
on--they did save us at Yorktown and gave us our country.
Mr. MEACHAM: That's true.
MATTHEWS: Let's give them that credit.
Mr. MEACHAM: That's true.
MATTHEWS: Number--number--when they came in to the war after Saratoga and
really won the battle of Yorktown and Lafayette and DeGrass and the French
fleet. We won our independence because of them. And in World War I, despite
all the collaboration that came in World War II and all that embarrassment and
moral humiliation, to put it lightly, they were the great fighters of World
War I. They beat the Germans, and I think we've got to remember,
they--they're not the soft sisters we like to portray them as.
Mr. BROOKS: (Foreign language spoken) The--one of the big differences
underlying this discussion, World War I and World War II were wars within
Western civilization. And the leaders who they fought, they--all they knew
was Western civilization. Now we're expanding out beyond Western
civilization, and that's what I think makes this war fundamentally different,
reduces the importance of Europe, to be honest, and--and just makes it a much
tougher go.
Ms. KAY: We have...
MATTHEWS: OK. Let's take a look at the Matthews Meter for some vo--verdicts
now. We asked 12 of our regulars who won this week. Let's be blunt and
political. Bush or Kerry? Last week our group voted unanimously, which it
hasn't for weeks. This week it's Kerry's again, though. Two votes went to
Bush. Paul Gigot, no big surprise there. Sam Donaldson thought that Bush had
a good week. Thoughts?
Ms. EASTON: I thought that Kerry had a good week.
MATTHEWS: I thought Kerry did good too.
Ms. EASTON: I know that there's a lot of...
MATTHEWS: Because he gave a good speech on Thursday.
Ms. EASTON: He gave--there's a--there's a lot of armchair critics within the
Democratic Party thinking that he should be...
MATTHEWS: Tougher.
Ms. EASTON: ...moving to the left. I think that would be a big mistake.
That would take him back to the primary season of last year, where he looked
like he...
MATTHEWS: I'm...
Ms. EASTON: ...he looked like a flip--he basically self-produced a flip-flop
ad for the Republican Party last year, when he was trying to appeal to the
Deaniac crowd.
MATTHEWS: You know, you're right?
Ms. EASTON: He shouldn't be doing it.
MATTHEWS: No, I think this week I agree. Last week I would have said he's
too timid, but I think it's about right, given the--what's going on.
FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane
FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts
FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane
FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts
Al Gore blasted the president this week over the Iraq war. It reminded me of
the man that Gore wanted to have as our next president. Let's take a listen.
Mr. JOHN DEAN: (From file footage) We're going to California and Texas and
New York!
Mr. AL GORE: Donald Rumsfeld ought to resign immediately.,
Mr. DEAN: (From file footage) And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and
Washington!
Mr. GORE: Paul Wolfowitz...
Mr. DEAN: (From file footage) And Michigan!
Mr. GORE: Douglas Feith.
Mr. DEAN: (From file footage) And then we're going to Washington, D.C., to
take back the White House!
Mr. GORE: Condoleezza Rice.
Mr. DEAN: (From file footage) Yeah!
MATTHEWS: Wasn't that a great chorus there, Jon? Do you think that's
leadership there? I mean...
Mr. MEACHAM: I have a scream.
MATTHEWS: I have a scream. But I think naming all the guys he wants dumped
in the Defense department and states he's going to visit--Katty:
Ms. KAY: I mean, the trouble is that even the Democrats who are criticizing
Kerry at the moment are looking at that and saying, `You cannot go that far.
You cannot do Gore's version of Dean for us. It's not going to help you.'
Mr. BROOKS: The one thing...
Ms. KAY: They might want Kerry to come out tough at the moment...
MATTHEWS: By the way, speaking of the French...
Ms. KAY: ...but they...
MATTHEWS: ...it seems like the French and the Iroquois where the candidate
is--is Kerry. He's the reasonable well-dressed French officer, and he's got
the Iroquois screaming like hell around.
I'll be right back with a full-body frisk of the man who could be the next
president of the United States, John Kerry. Who is he? Plus, part two of my
three-part series on Normandy. General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stick around.
Announcer: THE CHRIS MATTHEWS SHOW is brought to you by...
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MATTHEWS: Do you really know who John Kerry is? Plus, the four-star general
who allied the world against Hitler. Stick with me.
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MATTHEWS: Welcome back. Who's the real John Kerry? Before he headed off to
Vietnam, John Kerry was a loner at the elite St. Paul's Boarding School, but
already charting his course for the presidency at Yale.
Nina, is this a guy that was one of these guys you meet in school, they run
for student council president every year, they're planning to go to Harvard
Law, and the whole thing's about becoming president of the United States?
Ms. EASTON: There is--there's no doubt that that's a piece of John Kerry.
There's a piece of John Kerry that wants to please audiences, which gets him
into this what--what Nixon called the phony. You know, in 1971 Nixon snarling
to--to Charles Colson, you know, this--this--this anti-war protestor Kerry's
a phony but a real effective phony at that.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Ms. EASTON: The thing that people don't realize about John Kerry, he's not
really from a Massachusetts neighborhood. He lived his life--he was always
saying goodbye. He lived his life across a dozen towns in two continents. He
was shipped off to boarding school when he was 11 years old. This is
not--this is somebody who...
MATTHEWS: Why does he talk like a Brahmin then?
Ms. EASTON: It's very funny, by the way, to listen to his--the tape in
1971...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. EASTON: ...his Senate testimony with the high Boston Brahmin accent.
MATTHEWS: He sounds like a Brit--he sounds like a Brit.
Ms. EASTON: Which is gone. It's completely gone.
MATTHEWS: I wonder why he decided that wasn't going to work.
Mr. BROOKS: Thurston Howell III.
Ms. EASTON: Right, Thurston Howell III. No, there's--I think that's the
Kennedy thing. I mean he--he unlike somebody like Bill Clinton, who also
idolized John Kennedy, his world very much intersected with John F.
Kennedy...
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
Ms. EASTON: ...to the point where he dated--he dated Jackie Kennedy's
half-sister and went sailing on the Narragansett base...
MATTHEWS: Janet Auchincloss. That's where he met John Kennedy...
Ms. EASTON: Yes.
MATTHEWS: ...dating Janet Auchincloss at Hammersmith Farms.
Ms. EASTON: Right.
MATTHEWS: He bumps into a guy in the house, it's Kennedy!
Ms. EASTON: You're right.
MATTHEWS: It's President Kennedy.
Ms. EASTON: Right.
Mr. BROOKS: It--listen, I--the most revealing thing I've ever seen about
Kerry, and I've met him a few times, is the book his father wrote. His father
was a diplomatic foreign service officer. He wrote a book, you cannot
understand what the guy is saying. Pretentious, filled with incredibly long
sentences, incredibly cold. You grow up in a household like that you're not
going to have the instincts that a Bill Clinton has.
Ms. EASTON: And another thing about this...
MATTHEWS: And his grandfather committed suicide, and I think that is a--talk
about a chilling effect on your youth. Your father was very much--well, tell
me about it. I read it in your book.
Ms. EASTON: I was just going to say--well...
MATTHEWS: So you ought to talk about it.
Ms. EASTON: ...the grand--the grandfather committed suicide in the Copley
Plaza Hotel in--in downtown Boston. Walked into a washroom, took out a gun,
put one bullet to his head, and this was--he was a successful merchant. So
this was a place where he actually had spent time. This was his world. That
affected the father. The father was cool and aloof. I actually didn't think
that book was as awful...
MATTHEWS: John Kennedy used to...
Ms. EASTON: ...as--it was very internationalist, and it was very reflective,
actually, of a lot of what we hear today in the Kerry...
Ms. KAY: What I don't understand about Kerry is here is a man who's wanted
to become president, it seems, all his life. He's worked in politics fro so
long, but he hasn't managed to master--and this is what David was saying, he
hasn't managed to master that ability to connect with people. I mean, this is
something you can learn, I think. He doesn't have to do these speeches. I
think even the foreign policy speech that he gave this week, there was a lot
of valuable stuff in there, but it didn't--wasn't a speech that got my heart
soaring, thinking, `Right. Here is somebody that's going to lead us in a
safer direction.' Why has he not been able to do that?
Ms. EASTON: Again, I don't th--I think it takes him a while to warm up to
people. He does have close friends that he's been with for 20 years. There
is a side of him that you--you saw that side of him in the Iowa caucus when
the veterans returned, including the one that he had saved...
Ms. KAY: Energy itself...
Ms. EASTON: ...and the energy. There are those human moments.
MATTHEWS: He looked great in Iowa. He looked great in Iowa, but since, he's
been a little cold.
Mr. MEACHAM: Didn't we always--didn't we always underestimate him?
MATTHEWS: Yeah. Let's--let's take a look at the Matthews Meter again. We've
got an interesting question here. We asked 12 of our regulars, does John
Kerry's biography--we're talking about the whole thing, the war record, the
elite background and lifestyle--help him or hurt him? Ten of our 12 people
says it helps. Two said they think it hurts. That's Feinman, Howard Feinman
and Tucker Carlson.
David, do you think it helps coming from that sort of--I mean, he looks like
he's from Mount Rushmore. The guy is perfect for president.
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it helps. Look at who are our
political leaders: George Bush, Howard Dean, Al Gore. You know, you--John
Kennedy. You think having an elite background hurts in this country?
Absolutely not.
MATTHEWS: Yeah. It didn't hurt Stevenson much. It didn't hurt the
Roosevelts. Let's take a look at the likability comparison. Fifty percent of
the country would rather have a backyard barbecue with George Bush; 39 percent
would rather have their hot--hot dogs with Kerry.
David, again, I do think this matters. It's the reason that George W. Bush
was so close to Al Gore last time, despite Gore's resume. Does it still
matter?
Mr. BROOKS: Yeah, when--when...
MATTHEWS: After a war...
Mr. BROOKS: ...if you ask people, Kerry would have backyard stir-fry. It
would be a little fancy.
MATTHEWS: But in a war situation, are people less interested in who's warm
and more interested who's going to get us out of this mess?
Mr. BROOKS: I--I--I think right now they want somebody boring, somebody who
won't be so intense.
MATTHEWS: Jon:
Mr. MEACHAM: Absolutely. I think the sit-down and having no duels was a
factor is going to go way out the window as this war goes on.
Ms. KAY: I think it's the safety factor. They want somebody who's going to
make them feel safe, and they're not convinced at the moment that Bush is...
MATTHEWS: Katty...
Mr. MEACHAM: And maybe a guy--maybe a guy who actually can--can speak in
complex sentences will be appealing.
MATTHEWS: Well, that'll be interesting, because you always want to solve the
problem with the new guy.
So tell me something I don't know, Katty.
Ms. KAY: Well, the war in Iraq is having an effect, a bad effect, on the
Coalition leaders of Poland, Italy, Britain and Australia. They all face
elections soon. If they go down it'll be because of Iraq.
MATTHEWS: So Italy might get out. The government might fall?
Ms. KAY: Two weeks time Berlusconi faces election. If he does badly it's
Iraq.
MATTHEWS: Another Spain. John:
Mr. MEACHAM: I think there's going to be a 2 or 3 percent closet hawk
pro-Bush vote going into the last week of this election in November. They're
going to be even or so, and then I would--I would add two points to Bush
because there are people who are going to treat this as a few-good-men
election. It's going to be a movie--like the movie, where they want him on
that wall but they don't want to admit it.
MATTHEWS: OK. Nina:
Ms. EASTON: The gaming of the campaign finance system does not end with this
week's announcement that Kerry will actually accept the nomination at the
convention like he's supposed to.
MATTHEWS: Right.
Ms. EASTON: Ker--watch for Kerry lawyers to find a way for Teresa Heinz to
write a check to anti-Bush ads.
MATTHEWS: Oh, nice.
Mr. BROOKS: I talk to Republican senators about how Bush is running in their
states. He's now running 20 points behind in a lot of these big Western
states. That shows the weakness of Bush and the GOP right now.
MATTHEWS: I think that's the big story. I think Republicans are turning
against him. Anyway, thanks to a great roundtable. Katty Kay, Jon Meacham,
Nina Easton the rookie, and David Brooks.
I'll be right back with the second part of my three-part Normandy series.
This one's my favorite. How General Eisenhower rose to the challenge on June
6, 1944. Stick around.
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MATTHEWS: It's great getting your e-mails. Keep them coming.
TEXT:
Chris,
I love the show. It's fast paced,
provocative, and informative.
Thanks
-Eugene
Appleton, WI
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Commentary: Leadership of Dwight Eisenhower during World War I
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
Overlord--the code name for the Normandy invasion. A good name, too, for the
man chosen to lead it, General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
His shoulders carried four stars, and for his sterling set of months in 1944
the hopes of the world. Ike--that's what everyone called him--was chosen by
Franklin Roosevelt for the noblest job of the 20th Century, the liberation of
Europe.
It fell to Eisenhower to unite the allies in their greatest joint ambition;
the greatest organizational achievement of World War II, the opening of the
second front against Adolf Hitler.
British Prime Minister Churchill was wary of a cross-channel invasion. `When
I think of the beaches of Normandy choked with the flower of American and
British youth,' he told Eisenhower, `and when, in my mind's eye, I see the
tides running red with their blood, I have my doubts. I have my doubts.'
So there had to be a single supreme leader who could give direction to a
military operation of unprecedented skill and complexity. On that point the
allies, the Russians especially, were agreed. There must be one person in
charge, insisted Joseph Stalin, whose red army was pressing the Vermacht on
the eastern front.
Ike would keep all of them together--Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and the man
who carried the honor of France, General Charles de Gaulle. It was Eisenhower
who assumed the final burden of deciding where to deploy the allied forces,
when to strike, and it was Ike who secretly prepared himself to take the blame
if the invasion failed.
`Our landings in the Cherbourg-le Havre area have failed to gain a
satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack
at this time and place was based upon the best information available. If any
blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.'
That was the letter Ike drafted on June 5, 1944. Thanks to the victory of
June 6th he never had to sign it.
Next week, the enduring power of the Normandy invasion.
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Sign-off: The Chris Matthews Show
CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
That's the show. Thanks for watching. Next week check local listings for
special times due to sports coverage. See you right here.