If my statement about Eisenhower is defamation, then it was Summersby herself and the late Pres. Harry S Truman who led me astray. As has been widely reported (my source is the Tampa Tribune 2/15/99):
Dwight Eisenhower was dead and, therefore, unable to respond to the 1976 memoir "Past Forgetting, My Affair With Dwight D. Eisenhower" by Kay Summersby, his British driver and personal secretary during World War II. In it, Summersby, who died of cancer before it was published, claimed they carried on a love affair during their time in England when Ike was supreme allied commander of Europe and she was a captain.
Gossip of their affair flamed during and after the war. Former President Harry Truman told a biographer that Ike had written his boss, Gen. George C. Marshall, stating his plans to divorce his wife, Mamie, and marry Summersby. In a blistering reply, Marshall threatened to not only kick Ike out of the Army but also ruin his life.
Truman, a Democrat, said he destroyed the correspondence so that it would not be used against Ike, a Republican, in what became his successful run for
the presidency in 1952. |
