Kay Summersby

Relationship with Eisenhower[edit]

There is a question whether Summersby consummated a romance with Eisenhower during the war, as there is no definitive evidence as to the matter. Many people knew both of them during the war but none alleged there was an affair. In Eisenhower Was My Boss, Summersby's 1948 memoir of the war years, written with journalist Frank Kearns, she made no mention of any affair. Her 1975 autobiography, Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower, was explicit about there being a romance, although it also said they had not actually had sexual intercourse. However, she did not dictate the text. Past Forgetting was ghostwritten by Barbara Wyden while Summersby was dying of cancer.^[14] This book was contracted after Eisenhower had died in 1969. The text states the omission of the affair from the 1948 book was due to her concern for Eisenhower's privacy. Summersby reportedly stated shortly before her death: "The General is dead. I am dying. When I wrote Eisenhower Was My Boss in 1948, I omitted many things, changed some details, glossed over others to disguise as best I could the intimacy that had grown between General Eisenhower and me. It was better that way."^[15]


Those who dispute the claim of an affair maintain that the second book's description of the relationship was simply fabricated, presumably by the ghostwriter. By the book's account there were two unsuccessful attempts to have intercourse.^[15] Instead of sex, wrote Summersby, the affair mostly consisted of "stolen kisses" during walks or on aeroplanes, holding hands, and horseback riding or golfing together. She kept a note from Eisenhower that asked, "How about lunch, tea, & dinner today?" the note says. "If yes: Who else do you want, if any? At which time? How are you?"^[7] Red Cross volunteer and writer Margaret Chase was one of the authors discounting the affair in her 1983 book.^[16]


Eisenhower himself only mentioned Summersby once in Crusade in Europe, his 1948 memoir of the war, in a list of aides.^[7] Historian Carlo D'Este notes that members of Eisenhower's staff denied that there was ever an affair between them, and dismisses Summersby's book as "fanciful".^[17] However, rumours and jokes about their relationship were common among soldiers who did not know the two. Eisenhower's son John, who briefly served as an aide, described her as "the Mary Tyler Moore of headquarters. She was perky and she was cute. Whether she had any designs on the Old Man and the extent to which he succumbed, I just don't know."^[7]


Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery wrote in his diary that Past Forgetting "should have never been written, it can do Eisenhower no good. If American generals were in the habit of dealing with women secretaries and drivers as Eisenhower did and others appear to have done if this book is true, then their characters slump in the eyes of the world. This book makes it clear that Eisenhower discussed with Kay Summersby, his woman car driver, his views on Generals under him, and disclosed to her the most secret matters; all this is now given to the public in her book. Her views on world figures are enlightening, since they are obviously Eisenhower's views."^[18]


President Harry S. Truman reportedly told author Merle Miller that in 1945, Eisenhower asked permission from General George Marshall to divorce his wife to marry Summersby, but permission was refused.^[15] Truman also allegedly said he had the correspondence between Marshall and Eisenhower retrieved from the Army archives and destroyed.^[19] However, Truman's account of the Summersby controversy has been rejected by most scholars.^[20][21][22] Historians say Truman had a mistaken recollection, and emphasise that Eisenhower had asked permission to bring his wife to England. Others have speculated that Truman was not truthful about Eisenhower because of animosity between the two men that intensified during the Eisenhower presidency (Truman stated that Eisenhower did not invite him back to the White House during his administration).^[23] Historian Robert H. Ferrell stated he found that the tapes of Miller's interviews with Truman contain no mention whatever of Summersby, and concludes that Miller concocted the story.^[24]


Eisenhower biographer Jean Edward Smith wrote, "Whether he and Kay were intimate remains a matter of conjecture. But there is no question they were in love." Smith accepted Miller's account because Garrett Mattingly, who as a naval officer in Washington censored outgoing cables, told a similar story to his Columbia University faculty colleagues in the early 1950s. Smith cited several other people who believed in or were told of the existence of an affair. Omar Bradley in his autobiography wrote that the two were in love and that "Their close relationship is quite accurately portrayed, so far as my personal knowledge extends, in Kay's second book, Past Forgetting". James Gavin wrote that when he asked Chicago Tribune reporter John Thompson during the war whether Eisenhower and Summersby were having an affair, Thompson replied "I have never before seen a chauffeur get out of a car and kiss the General good morning".^[25][26]