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defended them on the grounds that they represented the best that could be accomplished. Marshall declared, “If the supreme commander ended up with no more authority than to tell Washington what he wanted, such a situation was better than nothing, and an improvement over the present situation.” The command would be called ABDA—Australian, British, Dutch, American. 11
    Marshall showed Eisenhower’s draft to the President, who approved. To sweeten the pill for the British, Marshall proposed that General Sir Archibald Wavell, a British ground commander, become Supreme Commander, ABDA. The United States Navy objected to Wavell, but Marshall won them over. He then presented the proposal to the next ARCADIA meeting. The British Navy “kicked like bay steers,” but after some backing and hedging, Marshall received their assent. He had achieved his main goal for ARCADIA—agreement on unity of command. 12
    A long discussion over who should give directives to Wavell followed; eventually, following the British lead, the Chiefs agreed that Wavell should report to and receive his directives from a committee—the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS). It would be composed of the Chiefs of Staff of the two nations, and would sit permanently in Washington, where the British Chiefs of Staff (BCOS) would be represented by a permanent Joint Staff Mission, headed by Field Marshall Sir John Dill, former Chief of the Imperial General Staff. In international conferences—such as ARCADIA—the BCOS members would act for themselves. 13 Tocreate a parallel organization to BCOS, the Americans created the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), composed of Marshall, General Henry H. Arnold of the Army Air Forces, the Commander in Chief, U. S. Fleet, and soon to be Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest King, and—somewhat later—Roosevelt’s personal Chief of Staff, Admiral William Leahy. The JCS would be responsible for the higher direction of the American war effort. 14
    This meant, in practice, increased work for WPD, for Marshall was the dominant personality on the JCS. He would now be involved daily in discussions of world-wide strategy, and it was to WPD that he looked for help. The work load was already great enough; as Eisenhower told a friend who was coming to Washington to join the War Department, “Just to give you an inkling as to the kind of mad house you are getting into, it is now eight o’clock New Year’s Eve. I have a couple hours’ work ahead of me, and tomorrow will be no different from today. I have been here about three weeks and this noon I had my first luncheon outside of the office.” Usually he ate a hot dog at his desk. He lived with his brother Milton, a government employee who had a home in Falls Church, Virginia, and not once did he see the house in daylight. He would arrive after dark, have a drink and dinner, play with Milton’s children for a few minutes, and fall into bed. In the morning he left before daylight. 15
    Despite the daily strain and tension under which he worked, Eisenhower bore up well, presenting the appearance of a faceless, tireless staff officer. The mask came off, briefly, when on March 10 his seventy-nine-year-old father died. Eisenhower confessed that he felt terrible. “I should like so much to be with my Mother these few days.” He could not, for “we’re at war! And war is not soft—it has no time to indulge even the deepest and most sacred emotions.” On March 11 his father was buried. For thirty minutes Eisenhower closed his office door and shut off all business, “to have that much time, by myself, to think of him.” Eisenhower thought of his five brothers, of his mother, of his father’s reputation in Abilene, of how proud he was to be his father’s son. “He was a just man,” Eisenhower said, “well liked, well educated, a thinker. He was undemonstrative, quiet, modest, and of exemplary habits.… He was an uncomplaining person in the face of adversity, and such plaudits as