The Greatest Soldier-Statesman Since Washington : GENERAL OF THE ARMY George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman <i> by Ed Cray (W. W. Norton: $29.95; 847 pp., illustrated; 0-393-02775-9) </i>

George Catlett Marshall clearly ranks as one of the most extraordinary soldiers and statesmen this nation has ever produced. As World War II Army chief of staff he was, in Winston Churchill’s words, the great “organizer of victory.” As secretary of state from 1947-1949 he played a major role in the formulation of basic U.S. Cold War policies, most notably Containment and the European Recovery Program, which bears his name and led to his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize. As secretary of defense during the Korean War, he helped to re-create U.S. military power while simultaneously reasserting civilian control over it in the Truman-MacArthur controversy.

Marshall’s character was even more impressive than his accomplishments. Contemporaries were awed not only by his leadership abilities, but also by his honesty, commitment to principle, self-sacrifice, and sense of honor and duty. He turned down power, profit, and historical immortality on numerous occasions, refusing to seek elected office, to accept lucrative offers for his memoirs, or to request command of the Normandy invasion that was his for the asking. Harry Truman considered him the “greatest living American.” To Churchill, he was “the noblest Roman of them all.”

Not everyone agreed. Like any public figure, Marshall had his failures and detractors. Pearl Harbor occurred while he was chief of staff, and his 1945-46 mission to prevent civil war in China did not succeed. His policies infuriated the “China Lobby” and the McCarthyites within the Republican Party, who went so far as to accuse him of being a “front man for traitors.” Yet for most of his contemporaries, Marshall remained a figure of towering stature, comparable only to George Washington in the annals of U.S. history.

Over the last few decades, however, Marshall’s reputation has faded. Most college students today cannot identify him at all, save for the fact that he had “something to do with the Marshall Plan.” As Roosevelt feared, people have remembered the battlefield commanders from World War II rather than the soldier/statesman who was their mentor and superior.

Ed Cray, journalist, author, and associate professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, has attempted to rectify this situation with a one-volume biography of Marshall designed for the general reader. He is not the first to do so. Three other journalists have previously published popular biographies of Marshall: William Frye in 1947, Robert Payne in 1951, and Leonard Mosley in 1982. Cray’s effort is far superior to all of these. Unlike the first two authors, he has the advantage of writing after the publication of Forrest C. Pogue’s magisterial four-volume official biography and the first two volumes of Marshall papers as edited by Larry I. Bland. Unlike the third author, he has taken the time (nine years) to immerse himself in this and other relevant material, and to verify his conclusions with scholars. His numerous sources include unpublished as well as published documents, key secondary works, journalistic accounts of the time, oral history transcripts, and his own oral history interviews. The result is an accurate and judicious, as well as a highly readable portrait of a true American giant.

Cray’s title reflects his emphasis. “General of the Army” was a special, five-star rank created by Congress to recognize Marshall and a few others for exceptional service in World War II. Although he held two Cabinet positions afterwards and is most famous today for the Marshall Plan, the focal point of his career remains his extraordinary tenure from 1939-1945 as Army chief of staff. Cray properly devotes two of his four sections and more than half of his narrative, as well as his introductory chapter and title, to this six-year period.

Marshall’s basic character and ideas were of course formed long before 1939, and Cray’s first section clearly traces his personal and professional development from birth in 1880 to the chief-of-staff appointment. Those years were marked by recognition of his exceptional abilities, but lack of appropriate promotion because of the small size of the Army and the fact that his genius at staff work prevented him from obtaining troop command. Not until 1936 would he see his first star.

Marshall’s exceptional managerial abilities would be critical in creating the largest Army in U.S. history between 1939 and 1945. Of at least equal importance in explaining his success during these years, however, was his capacity to grow intellectually throughout the war, despite his age, and consistently to assume more and more responsibilities. The most important of these were political in nature, for war is an instrument of policy and inseparable from political realities. Consequently Marshall found himself constantly dealing with congressmen, presidents, naval and allied counterparts, and leaders of other countries on a host of politico-military issues. So successful was he in these efforts that by 1945 he had become the President’s most trusted adviser and one of the nation’s foremost and respected diplomats as well as soldiers. His shift after the war from military to civilian/diplomatic posts, covered by the author in his fourth and final section, was thus far less dramatic and surprising than one would think.

Cray is especially good in explaining the complex politico-military issues of the war years while keeping his subject in the foreground. His tightly knit narrative weaves together the numerous events that concerned Marshall from 1939 through 1945 without losing track of the man himself. This is an impressive accomplishment for any writer, and especially for one not trained in history.

That lack of training does reveal itself, however, in a few errors and omissions. Historians no longer describe the 1920s as an era of “deliberate isolationism,” for example. On occasion, the author credits Marshall with questionable and undocumented beliefs, uses quotes improperly to describe preceding events, and provides incorrect first names and background information. Although extensive, the bibliography does not include a few pivotal works on strategy and diplomacy during World War II and the early Cold War, or some previously published studies of Marshall. Compared with other popular biographies of major World War II figures, however, this one is remarkably accurate and well researched, and highly recommended for the general reader.

The Marshall Plan might have rebuilt Eastern Europe 40 years ago, had the Soviet Union not stood in the way. See excerpt from “General of the Army,” Opinion section, Page 4.