This is the story of the life and mind of George C. Marshall, soldier and statesman, as told by a distinguished writer whose own background makes him particularly qualified to discuss some of the more controversial aspects of General Marshall’s work since World War II. Robert Payne carefully places George Marshall against the Virginia background from which he came and takes him from there through his education at V.M.I., his experiences as a young officer, the first indications of his genius in World War I, his work between the wars, his colossal achievement as one of the architects of victory in World War II, his ill-fated mission in China, his contribution to the Marshall Plan and his work in the military effort. Showing in quite an extraordinary way how Marshall represents the strengths and weaknesses of the American tradition, this book’s study of the life of a great contemporary American illuminates the American scene with an insight rarely equaled in a biographical work. The Marshall Story is neither a “white wash” of General Marshall nor an attack on him. His errors of judgment are studied at some length, partly because the same pattern of behavior is visible in each of these errors, but chiefly because the consequences of error were disastrous. But against these errors are set his triumphs: the first a personal one, the others impersonal and prodigiously important because they affected the conduct of the war and the conduct of the peace—his generalship and the Marshall Plan. In this book, Robert Payne’s subject is a man who has been described by President Harry S Truman as “the greatest living American.” And Payne’s treatment of the subject makes The Marshall Story a study of a man who knew exactly where he was going, went there, made mistakes, and seemed perhaps not to belong to our own time. This book will shatter some illusions about George C. Marshall, but it will also place him in the perspective of his time and demonstrate that he may be even greater than many of us have thought him to be.
