On September 1, 1939, the day World War II broke out in Europe,
Gen. George Marshall was sworn in as chief of staff of the U.S.
Army. Ten months later, Roosevelt appointed Henry Stimson secretary
of war. For the next five years, from adjoining offices in the
Pentagon, Marshall and Stimson headed the army machine that ground
down the Axis. Theirs was one of the most consequential
collaborations of the twentieth century. A dual biography of these
two remarkable Americans, The Partnership tells the story of how
they worked together to win World War II and reshape not only the
United States, but the world. The general and the secretary
traveled very different paths to power. Educated at Yale, where he
was Skull and Bones, and at Harvard Law, Henry Stimson joined the
Wall Street law firm of Elihu Root, future secretary of war and
state himself, and married the descendant of a Founding Father. He
went on to serve as secretary of war under Taft, governor-general
of the Philippines, and secretary of state under Hoover. An
internationalist Republican with a track record, Stimson ticked the
boxes for FDR, who was in the middle of a reelection campaign at
the time. Thirteen years younger, George Marshall graduated in the
middle of his class from the Virginia Military Institute (not West
Point), then began the standard, and very slow, climb up the army
ranks. During World War I he performed brilliant staff work for
General Pershing. After a string of postings, Marshall ended up in
Washington in the 1930s and impressed FDR with his honesty,
securing his appointment as chief of staff. Marshall and Stimson
were two very different men who combined with a dazzling synergy to
lead the American military effort in World War II, in roles that
blended politics, diplomacy, and bureaucracy in addition to
warfighting. They transformed an outdated, poorly equipped army
into a modern fighting force of millions of men capable of fighting
around the globe. They, and Marshall in particular, identified the
soldiers, from Patton and Eisenhower to Bradley and McNair, best
suited for high command. They helped develop worldwide strategy and
logistics for battles like D-Day and the Bulge. They collaborated
with Allies like Winston Churchill. They worked well with their
cagey commander-in-chief. They planned for the postwar world. They
made decisions, from the atomic bombs to the division of Europe,
that would echo for decades. There were mistakes and disagreements,
but the partnership of Marshall and Stimson was, all in all, a
bravura performance, a master class in leadership and teamwork. In
the tradition of group biographies like the classic The Wise Men,
The Partnership shines a spotlight on two giants, telling the
fascinating stories of each man, the dramatic story of their
collaboration, and the epic story of the United States in World War
II.
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