Ernest Graves
A:
Oh, yes. In those days, of all the people in the headquarters, they were the ones that
seemed to line up with national views. There were some real exceptions. I can
remember a man named Roger Nortier, a Frenchman who was very international in his
approach. He was a French Air Force pilot with whom I worked very closely on the
standards. But most of the senior French officers, the French generals, were looking out
for the interests of France--much more so than it appeared to us in the case of the
other nationals.
Q:
Because that is something that has continued on through--
A:
I think it is epitomized by their withdrawal, the fact that DeGaulle took them out of
SHAPE.
Q:
It seems to me you came back to a pretty prosaic kind of a job from--
A:
Yes and no, because the challenges in SHAPE were different. The technical challenges
weren't there, but the whole matter of the international relations and how you conduct
affairs on a combined staff where you have all these different nationalities--but that was
a challenge with great political ramifications.
Eisenhower was there when I was first there. [General Alfred M.] Gruenther was the
chief of staff. I was given the job during that first year of setting up the arrangements
for a visit by Vannevar Bush. There was another group of scientists led by Oppenheimer
that came over to tell Eisenhower how to win the war in Europe. I was involved with
the arrangements for them, too. This was when I was in the administrative job, the first
year that I was there.
Q:
Of course, Eisenhower didn't stay there.
A:
He left, that's right.
Q:
Went to the White House.
A:
He came back to run for President. But he was there the first few months I was there.
I made the mistake--I think it was for the Bush visit, but it may have been for another
visitor--of trying to include lunch with General Eisenhower. I went around to his
office. His exec said most emphatically, "No." He never stayed at the office past noon.
Probably went out and played golf.
The exec let me know--I was a major at the time--that I certainly didn't know very
much if I thought that I could presume on Eisenhower's time to meet with Vannevar
Bush any time after noon.
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