Edward L. Rowny
to Europe with him at the time the Marshall Plan was being drawn up. He sowed
the seeds for what later became the political and military policies of NATO.
Gruenther rose rapidly in the Army, moving from one staff job to another. He was
brilliant and worked very hard. However, he worked his subordinates even harder.
Q ..
Can you give me some personal insights into your tour at SHAPE?
A ..
General Gruenther was a Class A, high-pressure type of boss. He loved to give
the impression that everything he did was smooth and easy, that he had total recall,
and that he was a superman. Although he was a brilliant officer, he was no super-
man. What most people don't know is that he did a great deal of preplanning and
spent a prodigious amount of time attending to details.
Gruenther had a habit of waking up at night whenever he had an idea and dictating
a half dozen or more so-called "Gruenther-grams." We would pick up the
Gruenther-grams at his residence when he came down to breakfast. By the time
he came to the office, he expected us to have answers to his questions and plans
for those things he wanted done. These Gruenther-grams became a major source
of our heartburn. He expected us to spring into action immediately and produce
instant results. He left nothing to chance, everything had to be checked and
double-checked.
I remember particularly a Gruenther-gram on General Gruenther's last day on the
job at SHAPE. The Suez crisis was still not settled, causing us a great deal of
work. We received a Gruenther-gram about 0630 which read: "By the time I
arrive in the office at 0830, I want a plan on how to dispose of my toys." A
famous toy manufacturer, Marx, admired Gruenther greatly and over the years
gave him hundreds of toys.
We quickly went to work and devised a basic plan. It would allot toys on a
priority basis first to the children of enlisted men, then to civilians, and finally to
officers. It would give the highest priority to children of officers of the smaller
countries, all worked out on a point system. No toys would go to Americans.
General Gruenther looked over the plan and said, "This is pretty good. You're
finally learning how to operate around here. However," he said, "you've made
some assumptions I don't understand. You've developed one plan on the
assumption that there are 500 toys, another on the assumption that there are 1,000
toys and a third on the assumption that we have 1,500 toys to distribute. Why
three plans? Don't you know how many toys we have?"
" N o , " I said, "we don't."
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