Medford mail tribune., April 14, 1963, Image 37

From "obsolescent general" to our No. 1 soldier here's an intimate
glimpse of the pivotal man in the Pentagon By jack ryan
to change this permanently and figured fate was
on his side when he learned only 30 minutes
separated them in age. ("A fact he never lets me
forget," Hrs. Lydia Taylor says nowadays.)
Nevertheless, fate took its time. Or as Hrs.
Taylor puts it: "It was many boy friends and
girl friends later before we married."
For many ambitious young officers, the Army
of the '30s meant mostly slow promotions, un
exciting posts, and seeming stagnation. But not
for the Taylors. Mrs. Taylor recalls only one
major disadvantage: "In 37 years, we made 31
moves. When our sons. Jack and Tom, were
young, this was particularly bad. The younger,
Tom, went to eight schools in four years."
Taylor waited five years fqr his first promotion,
and it wasn't until 1935 that he was made captain.
The years weren't wasted, though. The intellectual
qualities recognized at West Point were being
finely honed. Taylor became a postgraduate of
several Army "think" schools, and military tours
took him throughout the world. For relaxation,
he continued studies in the classics.
World War II and tho Bis Action
In those years, he had held only one command
post. When we entered World War II, however,
Major Taylor lost no time in finding an outfit
and action.
As a division chief of staff and later a briga
dier general, he helped develop our first airborne
force and went into the Sicilian and Italian cam
paigns as artillery commander of the 82nd Air
borne Division. On Sept 7, 1943, he met a history-making
test The Italians had earlier signed
a surrender, and within 48 hours some 2,000
American airborne troops were scheduled to seize
Rome from the German garrison. One question
plagued General Eisenhower: could this force
take the Eternal City by surprise? The man sent
to find out was Brig. Gen. Maxwell Taylor, ac
companied by Col. William T. Gardiner of the
Air Corps.
By corvette, PT boat and curtained am
bulance, the two were smuggled into Rome to
confer with Marshal Badoglio about Italian sup
port. Taylor realized now that help was impera
tive: he had seen the Germans strengthening the
Rome -garrison. But the Italians were uncertain.
They wanted more time. Each procrastination
brought the airborne troops closer to H-hour.
Even today Taylor says: "It was the toughest
decision of my career. First because I wanted
to take the Eternal City with airborne troops.
But second, because it was my decision alone no
advisers, reports, staff discussions. Mine alone."
The decision made, Taylor radioed two pre
arranged words to Eisenhower: "Situation in
nocuous." Within hours of take-off, Taylor had
killed the daring plan, and 2,000 Americans had
been saved from a disastrous drop.
General Eisenhower has said: "The risks
(General Taylor) ran were greater than I asked
any other agent or emissary to undertake during
the war he carried weighty responsibilities and
discharged them with unerring judgment and
every minute he was in imminent danger of dis
covery and death."
Eight months later, Taylor was the do-it-yourself
commander of the 101st Airborne Division
parachuting into France six hours before the
main D-Day landings at Utah Beach. Fog and
winds dispersed his men, and he found himself
alone in black alien countryside. He recalls:
"After 20 minutes of prowling around and
playing cops and robbers with the Germans, I
heard someone moving on the other side of the
hedgerow German or American? Then I heard
a little click-click (the division's recognition sig
nal). I gave a click-click in return. We met at the
corner of the hedge. No soldier ever looked more
beautiful than that tough paratrooper private
with his M-l rifle, bayonet fixed."
Taylor soon rounded up about 70 men. Unfor
tunately, most were majors, colonels, and one gen
eral, McAuliffe. "We had a lot of rank but no
body to go out with M-l rifles and chase Ger
mans," Taylor says ruefully. "Never were so few
led by so many." Nevertheless, by dawn this
strange force was on the move; it took its first
objective, Pouppeville, on schedule, and the 101st
was on its way to one of the most outstanding
divisional records of the war. ,
Mrs. Taylor recalls another momentous day.
"The General had returned to Washington at
General Marshall's order to Bee some new troop
carrying planes. It was Christmas, 1944, and we
were looking forward to a family get-together.
Then we heard that the 101st had been sur
rounded at Bastogne by the German break
through. The General became deeply distressed.
'I must rejoin them,' he kept saying. But because
of the weather there was trouble getting a plane,
and we reminded him about the family get-together.
'I have 10,000 sons over there,' he said."
A Simplo Caso of Bravery
Taylor wheedled a transatlantic flight intend
ing to parachute into the besieged 101st area.
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith refused permission as
"too dangerous," so Taylor commandeered a jeep
and driver and found an open road through the
battle lines. "It was a hairy drive," says one of
his longtime aides. "Either side could have blasted
him but what the devil, if you can't do things
like that you shouldn't be in this business."
After the war, there was distinguished service
in Berlin, West Point, and Korea. West Point re
members him as a commandant who recharged
the academic atmosphere for cadets and trimmed
down faculty fat. In the gymnasium, he had in
stalled a scale and sign : "This scale is to remind
the officers at West Point that a potbelly cannot
lead the Corps of Cadets."
The sign is not visible at the Pentagon today,
but the idea is, hence the crowded gym and the
pack of dietary food near most desks.
In June, 1956, Taylor was appointed Army
Chief of Staff, fought the continuous battle of
Washington and suffered his first defeat. On
one side was a group, led by Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles, which advocated massive
retaliation as our best defense. The "big bang"
philosophers believed that if we concentrated
on building a huge nuclear arsenal, nobody would
dare attack us. Taylor acknowledged the impor
tance of nuclear weapons but felt we were put
ting all our eggs in one basket What good was an
A-bomb in guerrilla warfare? Or an H-bomb in
brush-fire wars? If an ally, asked our aid against
a Communist revolution, were we going to drop a
nuclear device on the country?
After four years of "the usual 4-to-l split
against me," Taylor quit the Joint Chiefs of Staff
with this farewell to arms: "My success has been
definitely limited. I can do only one more thing
for the cause withdraw an obsolescent general
from the military inventory."
Today Taylor says, "I meant what I said then
under those conditions I was indeed obsolete.
And if those conditions existed today, I would
have to do the same. But the climate is different
here now."
After retirement Taylor put his views into the
book, "The Uncertain Trumpet" They were read
by an impressed Sen. John F. Kennedy. When,
as President Mr. Kennedy found himself in
trouble over the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion, he
appointed Taylor Special Military Adviser to the
White House. Last October, Mr. Kennedy named
k- mm -iwr:. - - - . t .
nmb -iM. mi am i . i
Tanav avna if -xmrmmmmimm
i3al "V sWsPRaam LiJ
' 3taAAi jay KflLL-1 Jaks!
-Jvw'.aaw'VjViaH aaCT !S
At home, the General watches Mm. Taylor at
her favorite hobby raining African violett.
him Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, just in time
to join the celebrated executive committee on the
Cuban crisis. On a table in Taylor's home is a
gift from the President, a sterling silver calendar
of October, 1962, with the days of crisis in black.
The Taylors now live at Fort Myer, Va., in an
old-fashioned red-brick building on the post It
is notable for a breathtaking view across the
Potomac to the Capitol and for sunny rooms fur
nished with pieces collected from all over the
world and a simple portrait, too, that of the late
Milton Davenport
( Continued on page 10)
Family WkC, April 14. 1M