FORREST C. POGUE - Murray State University Special Collections

FORREST C. POGUE :
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
H. LEW WALLACE
In 1956 the Murray State College (now University) humor
magazine Fuse had an article chronicling a mock epic soliloquy
of an unidentified professor:
. . . that was in Casablanca where I talked with General Dole, Field
Marshall Zellern and Maharaja Kankilo. We went in President
Choller's private plane to Malta, where Premier Nikolski told me
that the statement given me three months ago by Archbishop Dean
was incorrect. He referred me to the Emperor of Baloolooland, whom
I had last seen at a tea given for me, Governor Kingston and King
Ahab. This tea, you will remember, I referred to in my book on Yalta,
Malta, Potsdam and Paris. That book, you will remember, preceded
the one on the East, the West, the North and the Other Direction,
and . . . 1
Even the most naive freshman could have named the anonymous inspiration of the article. And though done in jest — albeit
with real reverence and respect — the article was essentially
true. He had not been to Baloolooland, but it was difficult to
find many parts of Europe where Professor Forrest C. Pogue
did not have a first-hand working knowledge of the intimate details of everyday life. Conceding that he did not know Premier
Nikolski or had walked with kings (excepting Fleet Admiral
Ernest J. King), Pogue had met and talked with an impressive
array of the world's movers and shapers — Harry S. Truman,
Dwight David Eisenhower, Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, Bernard Montgomery, Charles De Gaulle, George C. Marshall, Lord
Mountbatten, Matthew Ridgway, Omar Bradley, William Leahy,
H. LEW WALLACE, PH.D., teaches history at Northern Kentucky University.
The material in this sketch is drawn to a large degree from taped interviews with Dr. Pogue. The interviews were done over a period of years,
at times when Dr. Pogue could spare an hour or so from his extraordinarily
hectic schedule. When I began the tapes I had in mind only having an
oral memoir for Northern Kentucky University's archives. During the
course of events, I developed the idea of a series of articles on distinguished
historians with Kentucky connections. The tapes thus became of double
value for me. I have supplemented them with a great deal of written materials both about and by Dr. Pogue.
1 Quoted from Fuse in Louisville Courier-Journal, 29 April 1956.
The Filson Club History Quarterly
Vol. 60, No. 3, July 1986
373
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and King. If Pogue dropped names, as the soliloquy suggested,
it was simply because many of the famous names, dates, and
events, particularly of the World War II era were a part of his
life.
In a taped memoir, Pogue conceded that, from the perspective
of seventy years and a long and distinguished career as biographer and military historian, it still seems pretty heady stuff
for a west Kentucky country boy. And the direction his life
took, he concedes, has something of the existential about it. 2
In Albert Camus' book The Stranger, Meursault, the main
character and anti-hero, is walking along a seemingly deserted
beach. Ahead of him are rocks and sand and any number of
possible paths. But because of something, whim, caprice, fate,
he chooses a certain turn, comes upon a rock on which sits an
Arab. He and the Arab exchange words ; Meursault shoots and
kills him, thereby, seemingly without plan or will, setting in
motion the events that carry him first to prison and then to
execution.
Pogue too had his existential moment, though his turn of fate
took him around a shovel not a rock where he met an army
captain, not an Arab, and not to prison and death but to honor
and distinction. "I was in the army," said Pogue, "and although
it's a bit of cliche to say that the army consistently manages to
misfit the man with the job, it is a cliche because it has a lot
of truth behind it. Anyway, there I was, an aging private, a
Ph.D., digging a foxhole in the middle of a field. A first sergeant
came down to where I was. 'Your name Pogue?' he asked. 'Yes,'
I answered. 'The Captain wants to see you,' he said." Pogue,
hot, dirty, sweating, reported. The captain asked, "Are you playing politics in Washington ?" Pogue said no. "You are the first
basic private ever to be ordered out of here by name on orders
from Washington instructing him to report to the Commanding General of an Army."3
Unknown to Pogue, a recent order from the president had di2 Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia, 28 December 1980.
3. Ibid.
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Forrest C. Pogue
375
rected the setting up of historical offices in the major commands. Second Army at Memphis had recently commissioned
Professor Bell I. Wiley of Ole Miss as a lieutenant and appointed
him historian. Wiley had asked for an enlisted Ph.D. in history.
A request to the War Department had produced the orders. Within a few months, Wiley would go to the Historical Section in
Washington and there suggest Pogue as a potential combat historian for Europe.4 And so it was, on a muggy, routine day,
Pogue had stuck his shovel in the ground, walked around it —
and into fields far-flung from those of rural western Kentucky.
Pogue was born in Eddyville, in Lyon County, 17 September
1912, but he spent most of his early years in Frances in nearby
Crittenden County. Pogue's parents were avid readers, and their
love of the written word influenced young Pogue. Another strong
influence on him was that of his grandfather, Marion Pogue,
who taught for many years, practiced some law, ran a farm,
and owned a country store. He had a fairly large library and
read widely. Recalled Pogue, "He interviewed many of the older
people of the county and as a young teacher wrote numerous
pieces for the county paper on early settlers. Perhaps I got the
idea of oral history from that."5
Marion Pogue was also active in politics for many years. Kentucky was — and is — rich in political tradition, a tradition
through which ran the life and times of such colorful and diverse characters as Henry Clay, Cassius Clay, 011ie M. James,
and Alben Barkley. Pogue's grandfather loved the tradition, the
heat, and the drama of politics. Pogue accompanied his grandfather to an endless number of political rallies, dinners, parades,
and conventions. He was also encouraged to read biography and
history. As any semi-respectable psychologist can tell us, the
influences of childhood are the deepest, most subtle and longestlasting of our lives. "The child is father to the man," was the
way William Wordsworth put it, a bit more succinctly than most
psychologists perhaps. As a teacher and a writer, Pogue blends
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
376The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
tradition and the moment, the past with the present, the grand
with the very small, human touches, the analytical with the
anecdotal — all this done with himself as the unobtrusive narrator who manages nonetheless to suggest most subtly that his
listener or reader should make his own special blends and intellectual connections, much as grandfather Marion Pogue must
have done for young Forrest those years ago.
Pogue entered high school when he was eleven, graduating
when he was fourteen. He was ready and willing to go on to
college immediately, but money was scarce and his family feared
he was not mature enough for college, and so he spent a year
studying history under his grandfather's supervision. During
the year he visited relatives in Louisville, and he observed the
state legislature in Frankfort. These were cosmopolitan excursions indeed for the young Pogue. Following his year of reading
and self-education, during which he completed five courses by
correspondence, Pogue entered Murray State College, in Murray, Kentucky. Murray was a small, slow-paced town, southern
in outlook and philosophy, a town that embodied a host of southern, small-town virtues as well as several of the vices — provincialism, parochialism, inclusiveness, and watchdogism. The
school reflected the traits of the town, both positive and negative. But the town and the school were perfect incubators for
the social and intellectual development of Pogue. Younger than
his schoolmates, bookish, disinclined towards sports and roughhousing, Pogue grew up somewhat isolated from the cares, concerns, and styles of Crittenden County farmboys. He was shy,
reserved, a boy more comfortable in the company of adults and
ideas than in that of people his own age. Murray provided Pogue
with the best of several worlds. Though only one day past sixteen he was accepted as a social equal by older students who
shared both his rural background and intellectual aspirations. 6
A debating team was started the first week of school, and
Pogue was the only freshman selected for it. A new debating club
6 Louisville Courier-Journal, 18 March 1973; Paducah Sun-Democrat, 28
May 1969; Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia, 28 December 1980.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue
377
was organized during the second week. Pogue turned out to take
part; he was elected its first president. He became active on the
college newspaper. At the end of the second semester, still short
of seventeen, he became editor. As head copyreader of the paper
and assistant to the director of publicity, he was able to pay his
last years through college. Speaking gave him new confidence,
and Pogue soon became a campus politician, becoming president
of every organization he belonged to, including the honorary
French society. He began speaking at every opportunity, a practice that grew after he began to teach. As an expert on international relations, he became so much in demand in the three
years before World War II that he was averaging sixty speeches
a year in addition to his full teaching schedule.?
Beginning at Murray, Pogue had been fortunate to be
"adopted" by three outstanding professors, L. J. Hortin, Herbert
Drennon, and C. S. Lowry, all of whom were to have long and
distinguished careers. Hortin, primarily a teacher of journalism,
was also a practicing journalist who instilled in his students the
idea of bringing personal experiences to the process of writing
to give it flair and depth, qualities that were to be hallmarks of
Pogue's works. Drennon, a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago,
a meticulous, painstaking scholar, head of the English department, also had a deep and abiding influence on Pogue. 8 He had
been an instructor at Vanderbilt when the Fugitive Group there
was making a literary stir.
But Lowry left an even larger and lasting impression. Lowry
taught history and political science. Small southern colleges of
years past tended to have faculties that were home-grown, that
shared, too often uncritically, a body of mores, manners, and
attitudes. Lowry was one of the exceptions. He had studied at
Harvard and, although his heart was in small town America and
the South (he and Pogue grew up in the same county), he kept
a reading schedule and lifelong interest in politics and world
7 Pogue, author interview, Washington, D.C., 28 December 1980.
8 Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia; Paducah Sun-Democrat,
28 May 1969.
378The Filson Club History Quarterly
[July
Forrest C. Pogue
Ken Ross, Memphis State University
history. Tough-minded, salty, profane, irreverent, Lowry became
one of those professors who passes into folklore and legend.
Lowry stories still abound in the Murray community, and although a few are apocryphal most of them are indeed true. A
puritan in his personal life, Lowry nonetheless felt a duty to
1986]
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Forrest C. Pogue 379
explore every subject in the classroom. Often such exploration
offended the tender limits and delicate manners affected by female undergraduates. Many a young lady reddened in embarrassment when "Doc" dissected a taboo subject, and not infrequently
one would storm out of a class in rage. And many a young male
undergraduate, tall and tough, would quail under Lowry's prosecuting attorney style. It was a mistake to show embarrassment,
anger, or fear in Lowry's classes. It was a sign of a lack of
poise and sophistication. Once so identified students were
marked. Lowry would go after them until they fought back or
dropped the course. Learn or leave was Lowry's simple but
tough-minded motto, and he gave no quarter. Semester after
semester Lowry, using the Socratic approach, prodded and
goaded his students, pursuing excellence, demanding it. He was
no respecter of false values, inflated egos, or titles, and many
an administrator, holding his office by virtue of contact rather
than talent, became a target for the Lowry wit.
These were all tools of the trade for Lowry ; but it was the
trade which was really of importance. Pogue felt that Lowry
was one of the finest teachers he had ever met, one who helped
his students develop a sense of history and a reverence for accuracy in fact and detail. That Lowry was a warm, decent, caring man, one who hid an essential shyness beneath his barbed
bon mots and crusty ways, Pogue and generations of students
came to realize. Lowry went for the ego, not the jugular.
It was not, in truth, Lowry's scoring off incompetents that
influenced Pogue. It was his absolute insistance on exactness,
truth, the heart of the matter. Lowry took a dim view of Pogue's
gift for gab, his tendency, as he developed speaking and debating skills, to talk without knowing exactly what he was talking
about. When Pogue handed in one of his first examination
papers, Lowry promptly awarded him an "F." Pogue had done
better than that, but Lowry wanted to make a point. Said Lowry,
"Damn you, I am going to make you come to the point if I have
to flunk you." Lowry taught his students to question all glib answers, even if they were his own. "He soon had several of us
380The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
S
dragging in books to class to demonstrate where he was wrong,"
recalled Pogue, who learned his lesson wel1. 9 And Lowry's last
word on one of his most famous students was — "brilliant."
And brilliant he was. And young. Pogue graduated from Murray at eighteen, entered the University of Kentucky, and had his
M.A. at the age of nineteen. He had two outstanding professors,
Paul Clyde, expert on Far Eastern history, and Amry Vandenbosch, the great political scientist. Clyde taught him how to
work with foreign relations documents, and Vandenbosch unlocked the mysteries of political theory. Pogue's well-received
M.A. thesis was about 011ie M. James. He also was one of the
two Kentucky representatives for the Rhodes Scholarship in
1935. Although he and the other candidate as well lost out in
Chicago, Pogue always believed that it was his good showing in
the Rhodes competition that later netted him a Clark University
fellowship and, yet later, an American Exchange Fellowship in
international relations and diplomacy at the University of Paris. 19
After teaching for a spring term at Western, and three full
years at Murray, Pogue had applied for and been accepted for
graduate work at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts,
in 1936. In retrospect he thought himself most fortunate to have
done his work there rather than at one of the larger universities.
At the time Clark had more of a reputation in geography and
psychology than in history. It had, however, a general reputation as a progressive university and as an excellent teaching institution with eminent full professors priding themselves on personal relationships with students. Several professors had great
influence on Pogue. He was in Dwight Lee's seminars on the
origins of World War I and Russian history. H. Donaldson Jordon introduced Pogue "to the tremendous world of British Empire history." Ray Billington, the masterful teacher of American
history, was then at Clark, and Pogue sat in on his stirring course
on Western expansion in preparation for his orals. Dr. George
9 Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia, 28 December 1980.
10 Courier-Journal, 29 April 1956; Pogue, author interview, Arlington,
Virginia, 28 December 1980.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue
381
Blakeslee had a great impact on Pogue. He was a man of affairs
as well as a scholar. An expert in diplomatic and Far Eastern
history, he had been the advisor to General Frank McCoy on
the Lytton Commission set up by the League of Nations to check
on the Japanese attack on China. He was secretary of the Far
Eastern Commission during and after World War II, and he did
a briefing book for Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference on Pacific
islands. He was also a man with a calm and cool outlook on the
often hectic and frustrating affairs of everyday academic life. 11
Pogue recalled an incident proving the point: "I was just
about ready to finish my work at Clark. In the next week I had
to deliver an abstract of my thesis plus preparing for my final
orals. I wrote and rewrote the abstract, which would not come
out right. I was also a grading assistant, and I had seventy term
papers that had to be graded. I had done none of them." Late
one evening in the midst of despair, having thrown up his dinner
in worry, Pogue decided to call off his degree. Blakeslee listened
to Pogue's tales of woe. He was silent for a moment and then
said : "Forrest, if your life depended on it, would you get those
papers marked ? You know those students, and you know you
will be fair to them. You also know what your dissertation is
about. Can't you sit down and write a two-page summary? It
doesn't have to be brilliant prose, but it will read fine because you
write well." Blakeslee told Pogue not to worry about the orals,
saying that his professors knew how good his work was and that
they would not have let him get to the end of his work just to
flunk him on his orals. Blakeslee reviewed Pogue's work, reminding him that he had told him that he could never do all that he
planned to do in one year, but that Pogue had proved he could.
"So now finish it," said Blakeslee. Pogue did. He wrote the abstract, graded the papers carefully, and got enough reviewing
done for the orals to pass with distinction. Blakeslee's advice,
said Pogue, "struck me as eminently sensible advice, and I never
forgot it. It was a lesson I relearned in the army, where you
11 Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia, 28 December 1980.
382The Filson Club History Quarterly
[July
are given more than you can ever do, but some way, if you get
on with it, you can do it. I never forgot." 12
With his new degree and his recent study in Europe, Pogue
settled back down to teaching at Murray. He enjoyed teaching ;
he liked Murray, and he would have been content to teach there
the rest of his life. Pogue was a thorough, meticulous, painstaking teacher who developed an affection for his students He developed a special affection for one, Christine Brown, a vivacious
art student from Fulton, Kentucky. Years after she was in his
class, they met again — in Europe. Pogue was by this time working at U.S. Theater Headquarters in Heidelberg. Christine was
travelling with an art history study tour. Feeling the affection
still there after those several years, Pogue joined her tour for
several days in Rome; he then rejoined it several weeks later in
Paris. Soon afterward, they were engaged, and they were married in New York City soon after Pogue returned to the United
States in 1954. Said Pogue: "The dean used to tell me when I
first began teaching that I shouldn't date the students — but I
don't suppose his warning applied this long after." It was twenty
years between meeting and marriage.13 Both had been busy
carving out careers in teaching and travel.
For Pogue, the second stage of the travels from Murray was
involuntary. He was drafted into the army in 1942. He was a
professor, a Ph.D., and a private, a combination that was sometimes amusing but sometimes not so easy to handle. In the inimitable, time-honored ways of the army, much humor was generated by Pogue's Ph.D. "I would receive correspondence from
friends, or my New York Times would be delivered and you
would hear DOCTOR Pogue ring out," he recalled. The early
army days were neither hard nor easy for Pogue. He just felt
misplaced, to be marking time — a not uncommon feeling. Sometimes he looked for things to do. He was serving for a time under
a sergeant, a career man, crusty and vigorous, but not articulate.
Roll call was hell for him. There was a mixture of names —
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
ti
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue
383
Polish and Spanish in particular — that the sergeant would
mangle so that complete silence was sometimes the only response.
Finally, Pogue volunteered to call the roll, a task the sergeant
willingly gave up. He did so well that when he tried to transfer
to another unit, his commanding officer told him he could only
go as a basic private. (Pogue had never had basic training but
had worked up to sergeant in the reception center through which
he had been processed a year earlier). Pogue wanted the transfer more than his sergeancy, so he gave up his stripes and became a basic private again. He was soon manning the army's
basic tool again, the shovel, which he was doing that memorable
day at Fort McClellan, Alabama when his captain told him he
was being assigned to the Second Army."
Pogue's first job as an army historian was helping to write
a training history of the Second Army. He stayed at Memphis
nearly a year soon regaining his sergeancy. In the spring of
1944 Pogue was recommended to be one of a small group of combat historians sent to England to accompany troops on the D-Day
invasion. He was transferred to the Pentagon in March 1944
for three weeks of briefing. He was one of the first eight combat historians sent to London and one of three assigned the task
of interviewing men who were to attack Omaha Beach. He went
aboard an LST at a small port in Cornwall on 2 June, attached
to a reinforced company of infantry, which crossed the Channel
on the night of D-Day. When the fighting elements went ashore,
the LST became a hospital ship anchored off Omaha Beach and
wounded men were brought for minor surgery. Pogue and his
fellow historian stayed aboard to conduct interviews. There
were a number of wounded, and it was 8 June, two days after
the invasion, before Pogue landed on Omaha. He was serving
with units of the First Army, commanded at first by General
Omar Bradley and then by General Courtney Hodges. In order
to get clear, immediate impressions of battles, combat historians
had to be near the front, certainly within hearing distance of
14 Paducah Sun-Democrat, 28 May 1969; Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia, 18 December 1980.
384The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
battle. Sometimes, as the front shifted, they came under fire.
But Pogue tried not to be a hero. "I tried to stay away from the
center of action," he said. "The Army wanted a live history and
live historians." Yet he did stay close enough to win the Bronze
Star and the French Croix de Guerre for his "front line interviewing." He also earned a bronze arrowhead and four battle
stars, the former for participating in the invasion at Normandy.
As combat historian he covered the fighting at Normandy, the
entry into Paris, the holding of the north flank of the Ardennes,
the fight for the Roer dams, the capture of Leipzig, and the U.S.Soviet linkup at Torgau. This was being close to many key
events — from the bowels of an LST, onto Omaha Beach, and
on through the remaining major confrontations to the end of
the war, which found him in the outskirts of Pilzen, Czechoslovakia.15
The European war was over, but the history of the war was
just beginning. Pogue was one of the historians brought back
to Paris to begin a narrative history of the European Theater.
Shortly after the Japanese surrendered he was asked to stay on
in France for a time. In October he took a discharge and was
hired by the army as a civilian at a simulated rank of colonel.
Pogue worked as a historian for the Department of the Army
from 1945 to 1952 and as an operations research analyst with
the Operations Research Office at Johns Hopkins University
under contract with the U.S. Army with assignment to Head15 Courier Journal, 18 March 1973; Friends Magazine, July 1968; Pogue,
author interview, Owensboro, Kentucky, 12 September 1981. While in the
Ardennes area Pogue continued his interviews. Years later Pogue was
talking with Charles P. Roland, the distinguished Alumni Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. Pogue was interested in the interviews Roland was conducting for his work on A. B. Chandler. He happened to mention some of the interviews he had done during the war.
Roland then recalled that he had been interviewed by a combat historian
while serving as infantry captain with the 99th Division. He wondered
if Pogue could have been that historian. Pogue thought it most likely, given
the time and place. Later Pogue checked the files of the Historical Division in the National Archives. There he found his hastily and badly typed
notes of his interview with Captain Charles P. Roland, verifying that the
two men, long since friends but unknown to each other then, met briefly
in the flux of war.
-
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Forrest C. Pogue
385
quarters in Heidelberg, Germany, from 1952 to 1954. His first
major assignment in November 1945 was at Frankfurt to write
a short official history of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). 16
He finished by June 1946. Then in July at the Pentagon Chief
of Staff General Eisenhower, former commander of SHAEF,
directed Pogue to write the definitive official history. Eisenhower gave Pogue full access to his personal papers and saw
that papers of the great conferences, the War Department, and
the Joint Chiefs of Staff were opened for him. Eisenhower also
urged him to interview in the United States and abroad on the
widest possible basis.'?
It was a big job. Undaunted, perhaps remembering his herculean efforts during his Ph.D. work, Pogue began, working
first in the U.S. and then in Europe for his thorough study of
the men and events associated with Eisenhower's command. In
Europe he retraced the steps the Allies had taken during the
war. Pogue continued the techniques of oral history which he
and other combat historians had used during the war. There
were no portable tape recorders at the time. He depended on detailed notes from interviews which were then checked against
documents. This was truly a pioneering effort. Though oral history later became an accepted historical technique, Pogue was
one of the first to raise it to legitimacy in the profession, grounding oral memoirs in extensive stenographic notes (forerunner of
taped interviews) as well as authenticated documents. 18
Pogue also brought into his work personal experiences that
gave added measure of insight and observation to his writing.
As a student in Paris in 1937-38 Pogue had studied under some
of the outstanding professors in Europe, Renouvin, Andre Siegfried, and de la Pradelle, experts in the origins of World War I,
politics, foreign affairs, and maritime law. He attended debates
16 Courier-Journal, 6 June 1984; Pogue, author interview, Owensboro,
Kentucky, 12 September 1981.
17 Pogue, author interview, Owensboro, Kentucky, 12 September 1981.
18 Washington Star, 5 March 1967.
far totr.g.W.CiaAlsair.141411.11•11111 ,97. Mae
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leitirehitaiiii 386The Filson Club History Quarterly
[July
in the Chamber of Deputies, there hearing the famous men of
French politics, Daladier, Reynaud, Chautemps, and Leon Blum,
debate and delineate post-World War I problems. He also traveled widely during holidays through Europe. Thus he gained a
special feeling for a Europe in which old patterns and arrangements had been shattered by World War I. And, of course, he
was a first-hand observer of the holocaust of World War II
which irrevocably altered what was left of pre-1914 patterns.
Pogue was able to incorporate the concept of the phoenix of
Europe rising out of the ashes of the wars into his work, thereby
making his volume on The Supreme Command much more than
a specialized military history. 19
His book was, of course, also that — a study of military strategy, of global strategy, of grand decisions and high command.
Here Pogue was able to bring into subtle play another part of
his personal experiences. Grand strategy is constructed in map
rooms, in countless meetings of top brass, from memos, from
diverse economic, political, and national points of view. It is
bloodless and abstract and theoretical in composition. Yet it is
always played out in the human arena of men and arms, in blood
and sweat and tears. Pogue never overrated his combat experience, but he never underestimated it either. He said once that
"we [combat] historians . . . did absorb much of what war is
all about, even though I personally never had the experience of
sitting with an infantry unit in a position and knowing that in
a few hours half of us would be dead." Yet he did experience
life near the center. "We did come to know the cold weather,
rations, the sleepless nights, the endless griping." He also came
to know the small, human touches of war. He once recalled crossing the flooded waters of the Elbe River in a racing craft poled
by a drunken Russian soldier in which were riding also a Russian
mother and her baby — and wondering what would happen to
all of them if the soldier lurched the boat. 2 ° From such bits and
19 Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia, 28 December 1980;
Courier-Journal, 18 March 1973.
20 Courier-Journal, 6 June 1954; Pogue, author interview, Owensboro.
Kentucky, 12 September 1981.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue 387
pieces Pogue was able to test war from the top as it appeared
at the bottom as strategy grand and global worked its way
through tactics, through small units, and through the lives of
those for whom war is, in Pogue's words, "the hot breath of history." Most certainly "the hot breath of history" ran through
Pogue's completed volume The Supreme Command. In a nicely
detached analysis, Pogue aptly summed up his performance:
"The book I have done is as much political as military. It is the
story of a great coalition which had to be made up of political
decisions and national interests and dealings with great powers."
He added, "In the war, my focus was on small units but afterwards, the focus was on army groups and above. It may be the
best way to write history. During the war, I wrote of day-today events and questioned men on why they had done certain
things. After the war working on the book, I was able to find
the answers." 2 '
Critics agreed that he had found the answers and that, for an
"official history" the book contained a wealth of poignant
touches and human frailties. Typical was the review of Charles
Poore in the book review section of the New York Times. "Your
reviewer" wrote Poore, "spent more than a year as a staff officer in its (SHAEF) peripatetic catacombs, and he had only
a mild idea of what in thunder was happening up there on the
imperial command decision levels until he read Forrest C.
Pogue's illuminating and definitive book The Supreme Command." Poore continued : "There is room for just about everything that happened under SHAEF's big top in Mr. Pogue's expansively organized book. . . All the big pieces are here — the
major campaigns, the medaled commanders, the months and
months of wrangling, agreeing, sacrificing, politicking, objective and subjective fighting. You have some amazingly intimate
exchanges between General Eisenhower and Prime Minister
21 Pogue, author interview, Owensboro, Kentucky, 12 September 1981.
Pogue first used the phrase "Hot breath of history" in a speech "History
While Its Hot" at the Southern Historical Association meeting in Nashville, Tennessee in 1957. This was the first session on oral history offered
by a major historical association.
388The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
Churchill, some briskly frank fusillades between President
Roosevelt and General Charles de Gaulle." Pogue, said Poore,
"seems to have read everything and seen everybody ; he has
sifted and searched all the friendly or embattled sources. He tells
the infinitely complex story of SHAEF with a superior blend of
freedom, clarity and authority. "22
Other reviewers were equally laudatory. The book was by all
standards a critical success. But perhaps the supreme compliment
was that paid to him by the book's main character. When Pogue
went to the White House on 8 May 1954 to present the first copy
to President Eisenhower, he responded by giving Pogue an
autographed photograph, inscribed, "With best wishes and warm
regards to a distinguished historian."
The success of his book whetted his ambition for writing. He
returned to Murray to teach, believing that the relative quiet
and solitude would be a pleasing contrast to the frenetic and
harried pace he had maintained earlier. He began first of all
to work on three sections of a book entitled, The Meaning of
Yalta (1956). Beneath the surface of Pogue's early writings,
one sees at work several of the assumptions basic to his view
of history. The primary task of the historian is to light up the
past for his reader. To do this he must read himself into the
past as well as read the past into the present. But how this is
done differs with every man who writes history. Every writer
re-creates history in a different way; each lights up the past by
his own special lamp ; each approaches the past with some philosophy of history in mind, whether that philosophy is consciously
or unconsciously held. Though Pogue does not particularly care
to talk about his philosophy of history, it is apparent, from reading his early writings, that certain basic assumptions were —
and are — clearly held.
His ideal of history seems much like that of Morris Cohen
who described it as "an imaginative reconstruction of the past
which is scientific in its determination and artistic in its formu22 Charles Poore, review in New York Times Book Reviews, 8 July 1954.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue 389
lation."23 He is also close to Allan Nevins who said that "the writing of history, while a difficult and responsible undertaking,
ought to be kept a reasonably free and joyous pursuit, unsaddled
by dogma, and varied, mutable, catholic, and progressive in
character," adding that the best history is "a work on which
infinite labor has first been expended to obtain and utilize the
materials, and infinite pains have then been expended to hide the
labor."24 These words apply quite well to the three long sections
Pogue did for The Meaning of Yalta (Baton Rouge, 1956), during his second tenure at Murray. Analytical, controlled, outlined
against wide historical backgrounds, Pogue's narratives flow so
smoothly and easily that the pains of obtaining the materials,
no small task, as editor John L. Snell makes clear in the "Preface", and the labor of writing, particularly under the unusual
time pressures placed on the authors, are well hidden indeed.
When, in addition to his heavy teaching schedule, Pogue finished "The Struggle for a New Order," "The Big Three and
the United Nations," and "Yalta in Retrospect," he was ready
to slow down his pace of days.
But that was not to be nor was he long to enjoy the bucolic
pleasures of Murray. In 1956 he was chosen to be director of
the Research Center at the George C. Marshall Research Foundation — and official biographer of General Marshall. The pace of
days was about to quicken even more. Everything to do with
the Marshall Library and Research Center was new, and Pogue
was deeply involved with every facet of development. He consulted with architects, collected documents, gave fund-raising
speeches, and — one of his most important and delicate tasks —
got to know General Marshal1. 25
Marshall was never a reluctant warrior, but he was a most
reluctant biographee. It took an act of a president to get the
Marshall Library started. President Truman around 1951 was
23 Morris Cohen, The Meaning of History (La Salle, 1947), 42.
24 Allan Nevins, The Gateway to History (Chicago, 1963), 7.
25 Topics: An Occasional Bulletin, George C. Marshall Research Library,
Number 12, September 1974; Washington Post, 19 June 1969; Pogue, author
interview, Arlington, Virginia, 19 July 1982.
;
r.?",.. JO.M.S .1 1111.81
390The Filson Club History Quarterly[July
making plans for his own library. An admirer of Marshall, he
suggested to Marshall and others, that there should be a Marshall Library. Marshall was not interested. Nor was he interested
in writing his memoirs. In fact he was adamantly against the
idea. But Truman persisted in his undertaking to have the
Marshall materials available to future scholars. Officials at the
Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Marshall's alma mater, and
Washington and Lee had expressed an interest in having these
materials deposited at VMI. Truman's interest further sparked
ambitions in the Virginia schools. Truman authorized vast materials in the Washington area to be copied and put on deposit
on the VMI campus. Mrs. Marshall also sent artifacts to VMI.
"Bring two trucks," she said, when asked how much material
she had. At the same time Marshall agreed to some interviews
in the future should there be a need for them. This was 1953. A
real enthusiasm had been generated for a Marshall LibraryResearch Center. More slowly, the Marshall Foundation was
formed and began to acquire funds for construction. There also
began talk about a permanent director and a job description for
such director.26
Pogue heard about these matters and was mildly interested,
not in the job but in the fact that he might have a chance to
interview Marshall as a private historian. He had asked Marshall
for interviews when doing the work on The Supreme Command
but had been turned down. What Pogue did not know was that
his name had been appearing on lists of candidates for the director's post as those lists were put together over a two-year
period. Some illustrious names were on the lists — Samuel
Bemis, the renowned diplomatic historian, Hanson Baldwin, military historian, S. L. A. Marshall, general and historian, and
McGeorge Bundy. Pogue modestly accounts for his emergence
as the top candidate by saying that many of the leading candidates were simply not interested : "They couldn't touch the bulk
of those people. They weren't paying that kind of money, and it
26 Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia, 19 July 1982.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue
391
required giving up positions to take the job, for it wasn't going
to be a part-time job." But there were other reasons than default
behind the hiring of Pogue. He was recommended over and
over by leading historians, including Bemis, Baldwin, and
S. L. A. Marshall." No one more perfectly fitted the job description. They wanted "a man who had a Ph.D. in diplomatic
or military history and who had written in one of the other
fields, who had experience in oral history, particularly with the
British and U.S. Chiefs-of-State in World War II, experience in
the fighting in World War II and who knew the history of
World War II well enough that he could start within one month
interviewing Marshall." A number of people had some of those
experiences. Pogue had them all. He was called for an interview
in early 1956 just before the spring semester finals.
Pogue came off well in the interviews and was offered the
position. Pogue was interested, but at the same time he was
reluctant to make a final commitment. He had signed a contract for the 1956-1957 year at Murray. He had turned down
an offer from the University of Kentucky, tendered by Thomas
D. Clark, in order to stay at Murray. His wife also had a contract with the college. The Yalta material was behind him. He
intended to pursue a number of writing projects and was afraid
that the Marshall assignment might bog him down in administrative work at the expense of writing. With the job in hand,
Pogue became more reluctant. "I was not about to leave Murray
and the chance to do more writing," he recalled, "to take on a
job that entailed only endless administrative duties. I said that
I insisted that I would get a book out of the assignment or that
I was willing to come and do the interviews for one year." 28
Pogue's terms were met, but he was not yet convinced. He
insisted on talking to various people in Washington. By June
1956, Pogue was near signing. "Well, I came up [to Washington]
and talked to the Archivist of the United States, talked to various people in the Pentagon, sat in the outer office of the Secre27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
392The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
tary of Defense, met with the Defense and Army historians, met
with Marshall's aide, Colonel C. J. George, talked to the people
at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia, who had
the actual Army documents, and to the man in the White House
who had written the letter President Eisenhower signed to continue Truman's letter authorizing the copying of Marshall's
papers.29 Pogue was convinced that he would have materials
and, equally important, time to study them. After he had made
clear that the acquisition of Marshall papers might take years —
that, in effect, he would not be under the pressure of time that
non-historians might place on acquisitions and could work in
privacy — Pogue accepted the job.
In August 1956 he assumed his duties as director, taking an
apartment near the Pentagon as temporary residence (a residence that became both home and office where he still lives
these many years later). In October 1956 Pogue began his first
tentative interviews with Marshall. Marshall was at first stiff
and formal. He was skittish about the tape recorder. "I don't like
the damn thing," Marshall told Pogue. Mrs. Marshall added her
thoughts on Pogue's undertaking : "You know, Dr. Pogue, I
did not favor this." Said Pogue, "I thought the General was
favorable to it." Replied Mrs. Marshall, "Well, he has been talked
into it by his staff, but I think he's too tired, and it's going to
be an imposition on him." Recalled Pogue: "That was not too
encouraging a start."39 Mrs. Marshall, however, changed her
attitude before the interviews were over, feeling that the sessions had a therapeutic effect on her seventy-six year old husband. The general, too, came around even sooner, his interviews
taking on a quickness and an animation as time went on.
It was not a straightforward evolution however. "Once," said
Pogue, "after we had done several interviews, I called on General Marshall, and he said 'It's a bad day. I'm going to listen
to the World Series.' " Recalled Pogue: "I can't remember
whether this was the first time the Dodgers had won a pennant
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue 393
in years, but it was near that time. So we sat around and listened to the World Series games before we put a word on paper.
This may not have been orthodox interviewing, but it does indicate a very human side to Marshall." 31
1The early interviews, despite the human side of Marshall,
were not unqualified successes. There were frequent interruptions, ringing telephones, and Marshall's reluctance to believe
that the interviews were really worthwhile. The breakthrough to
Marshall came in November 1956. Marshall spent every winter
in Pinehurst, North Carolina. In November 1956 Pogue joined
him in Pinehurst to continue the interviews begun in his other
1
home at Leesburg, Virginia. Pogue, gradually winning Marshall's
confidence, began to get him to use the tape recorder. "I finally got him to turn on the machine," recalled Pogue. "He
grabbed the mike and made all kinds of racket into it." Said
Pogue, "You don't have to do that !" Little by little Marshall relaxed — for Marshall, Pinehurst put him into a good frame of
mind. Pogue got a powerful microphone for his recorder, al) lowing him to put the "infernal machine" across the room from
Marshall. Eventually, Marshall even got to the point where he
would talk on tape while Pogue was gone, using his orderly as
prompter. Marshall, although candid, avoided what he conconsidered "controversial" material. He also tried to avoid "personal" materials. Of course, "controversial" and "personal" materials are the heart of military affairs. So, slowly and tactfully,
:11 Pogue elicited a wealth of such material from Marshall. "I would
say," said Pogue, "well, Eisenhower said this, or Alan Brooke
said that. And Marshall would feel that it was appropriate to
respond, as long as he felt he wasn't initiating." 32
"The results of those interviews were invaluable," says Pogue,
"for General Marshall discussed details of major policy decisions
he made at the height of his career. He also mentioned incidents
from his childhood and days as a young officer, happenings that
no
it one else would have recalled. Things we discussed sent me to
LI
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31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
61
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COM WO 1.111,11,11.41MM Ai 394The Filson Club History Quarterly
Ml
[July
pertinent files and documents I might never have found." 33 It
was an exhaustive job to gather and sort the files and documents. Pogue and his assistants handled millions of documents,
gathered 4000 or so photographs, bundles of newspaper clippings, and thousands of articles, books, and periodicals. Much of
the paperwork, including Marshall's 250,000 personal papers,
had been condensed on thousands of cross-indexed cards. Pogue
directed, in short, one of the most thorough biographical research efforts of the World War II and post-war period.
He was at the same time extending his list of interviewees.
Besides Marshall he interviewed over 400 wartime leaders,
friends, and associates of the General. These interviews were
conducted not only with top generals and political figures, but
also with enlisted men, cooks, gardeners, anyone who could illuminate any aspect of Marshall's life. Pogue seized the moment,
wherever the moment might find him. Some of the interviews
took place in crowded airports, in kitchens, in exclusive clubs,
in the Pentagon, and in the British House of Lords.34
The multiple roles of archivist, curator, librarian, and interviewer, however important and however time-consuming, were
means to an end, and that end was the biography of a general,
one of the most important in military history. In the midst of
his herculean research labors and the turmoil of building the
Library-Research Center, Pogue began the task of the biography,
the first volume of which was Education of a General. When
published in 1963 the volume won immediate praise as a vivid,
highly readable study of Marshall and the influences that shaped
him. Pogue worked methodically on the all-important first
volume. He worked out a method he would use on all the writings. He wrote the first draft in longhand on yellow legal-size
tablets, filling up the margins with additional notes and comments. "The first version," says Pogue, "comes from documents
and reports and papers. It's dry, but the outline and narrative
33 Ibid.
34 Washington (Sunday) Star, 6 March 1967; Pogue, author interview,
Arlington, Virginia, 19 July 1982.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue 395
are in place." In the rewritten versions Pogue drew on the interviews, pulling in the anecdotes and human touches that delineate
character and illuminate events. 35
For example, he relates what could have been a career-ending
incident for Marshall. Marshall (then a captain) was a training
officer of the 1st Division when General John J. Pershing came
to inspect it. While watching a regimental demonstration, Pershing, for some reason, "raised hell," dismissed all attempts by
several officers to explain the situation "with an expression of
contempt and turned to leave." "Marshall," wrote Pogue, "stung
by the manifest injustice, tossed aside the caution that a junior
officer could be expected to feel on such an occasion." He started
to talk to Pershing, who turned his back on Marshall. Marshall
stopped him by taking him by the arm, much to the frozen
amazement of onlookers. "General Pershing," said Marshall,
"there's something to be said here, and I think I should say it
because I've been here longest." Pershing stopped and asked him
what he had to say. "Exactly what the irate captain had to say,"
wrote Pogue, "was not recorded and afterward he could not remember." What was remembered was that friends of Marshall —
and perhaps Marshall himself, though he had no regrets — were
sure he was finished. He was not. To the contrary, Pershing
never mentioned the incident, and thereafter treated Marshall
with respect and liking. 36 This incident, briefly and matter-offactly related by Pogue, tells the reader a great deal more about
the character of Marshall — and Pershing, for that matter —
than pages of psychoanalyzing might.
Pogue painstakingly built, through shades and degrees of the
light and the dark, the complex character of Marshall that few
men knew. Some knew "a" Marshall. He was "a positive character, one who bred positive reactions ; he was respected, worshipped (though rarely loved), belittled or hated, depending
upon how his actions affected, influenced, or impressed the in35 Pogue, author interview, Arlington, Virginia, 19 July 1982.
36 Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education of a General:
1880 1939 (New York, 1963), 151-53.
-
396The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
dividual concerned." Marshall, as Pogue demonstrated, could be
ruthless. He could hold a grudge a long time. He was, later in
his career, the keeper of a "black book," in which he eliminated
every officer he considered unfit or who failed to measure up
to his exacting standards of performance (and, in fairness, also
listed those marked for future positions). 37
Marshall, Pogue also showed, could see clearly in other men
qualities he too possessed, but was blind to in reference to himself. One of Marshall's favorite stories, wrote Pogue, concerned
a time when he and Pershing were on a train with Senator
George H. Moses from New Hampshire. "Pershing and Marshall
were traveling together in a drawing room from Boston to Washington. The senator, they observed, had a Pullman berth in the
next car. The general and his aide sat up talking and finishing
a bottle of real Scotch the general had been given. Well after
midnight Pershing remarked that there was just enough left
in the bottle to give Senator Moses a drink. Whereupon they
poured a glass, and together went down the aisle, Marshall, like
a good junior officer, carrying the glass and leading the way.
On reaching the space they thought was the senator's, Pershing
scratched at the green curtain, whispering, 'Senator Moses.' "
There was no answer, so Pershing lifted the curtain, and found
himself face-to-face with an irate young woman, who asked,
"What do you want?" General Pershing retreated in great confusion. As Marshall told it, said Pogue, Pershing "ran against
me and we spilled the Scotch between us and over us as we raced
up the aisle. I had a hard time keeping out of his way because
he was running right up my back. But we got to the stateroom
and got the door shut. Then he just sat down and laughed until
he cried." Marshall, wrote Pogue, "liked the story because it
showed Pershing in the gay, relaxed, and 'youthful' afterhours
spirits which were in strong contrast to the public image of
him as a 'very severe character.' " "In fact," continued Pogue,
37 Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope: 19391942 (New York, 1966), 93-96; Hanson Baldwin, review in New York Times
Book Review, 1 January 1967.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue
397
"both Pershings existed, and the gulf between them was absolute — as Marshall found after the hilarity of the Boston train.
`When we got back to Washington and after he had gone home
and changed . . . and come back to the office, I came in to see
him ; he was just as stern as though we had never been together at all.' "38 Marshall was somewhat bemused by the "two"
Pershings. What he did not perhaps realize was how often others
saw "two" Marshalls — and were equally bemused.
The work on Marshall became a monumental task ; it was
Pogue's main occupation, and, one suspects, preoccupation. By
1969, with two volumes behind him, Pogue had worked with,
lived with, written about Marshall for thirteen years, and, according to his wife, dragged Marshall into every conversation.
Though his job sometimes may have seemed unending, Pogue
never found reason for complaint. The more he discovered about
Marshall, the more he was convinced that "Marshall was a
unique man." Marshall accomplished so much, said Pogue, that
he could have written a book about phases of his life that he
had to cover in ten or twenty pages.
Pogue, too, was accomplishing a great deal, a great deal more
than just writing books. His reputation as a man of grace and
honor grew apace with his reputation as a biographer. When
his third volume, Organizer of Victory, was published in 1973,
Stephen E. Ambrose said that the work reflected as favorably
on Pogue as on Marshall. "In almost every description of Marshall," said Ambrose, "two words are used — character and integrity. Marshall had both in abundance, and so does Pogue." 39
Pogue evoked a fundamental trust that drew people, including
Marshall himself, to him. That quality, implied Martin Blumenson, author of The Patton Papers and a Pogue reviewer, was
basic to one who could write biography with the novelist's touch
and who yet could expand and broaden general history at the
same time. Said Blumenson : "History and biography are not the
same, but here [in Pogue's third book] is a superb example of
38 Pogue, Marshall: Education, 224-25.
39 Quoted in the Louisville Courier-Journal, 11 February 1973.
^-11"
I ILICIL ELLIALLA. EL, —Us- L____L-L4-1_ 2'":22P4f0672_
398The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
how the best of both can be amalgamated into a highly readable
account that ranges from global policy discussions to poignant
moments of individual grief." 40
In spite of the inroads the work of the Marshall Library and
the biography made into Pogue's working days, he nonetheless
found time for an unbelievable number of other projects : he
lectured at George Washington University on a part-time basis ;
lectured at the Army War College at the Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania and occasionally at the Navy War College, Air University, and various service academies ; held the Mary Moody
Northen Chair in Arts and Sciences at VMI in the second semester of 1972; he continued for years to make speeches on behalf of the Marshall Foundation — and to move in title and
duties to Executive Director, George C. Marshall Research
Foundation and Director of the George C. Marshall Research
Library.41 On a trip to Europe in 1961, he was invited to speak
at Oxford, the University of London, and to the Military Commentators Circle in London. In 1967, he spoke on the 20th anniversary of the Marshall Plan at Brussells, Essen, and
Wuppertal.
He held positions in historical societies and on advisory boards
that he could have held only in an honorary way but into which
he put much time and effort. A sampling illustrates the scope,
breadth and importance: Advisory Board for the Office of Naval
History Department of Navy ; Member of the Advisory Boards
of the Naval Historical Office, the Center for Military History,
and the Air Force Historical Office; Committees on the Publication of the Eisenhower Papers; Honorary Fellow : U.S. Military History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Adjunct Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars; Active Trustee, U.S. Capitol Historical Society ;
40 Ibid.
41 Topics, Marshall Library, September 1974; Pogue, author interview,
Arlington, Virginia, 19 July 1981; Pogue, author interview, Washington,
D.C., 18 April 1983.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue
399
Chairman, American Committee on the History of the Second
World War ; President, Oral History Association ; President,
American Military Institute; Regent, Omar H. Bradley Foundation; Trustee, U.S. Commission for Military History ; Trustee,
Harry S. Truman Library Institute; Chairman, Advisory Committee, Senate Historical Office. 42
He still found time for occasional writing beyond the Marshall works. He contributed to Command Decisions (1959) ;
Total War and Cold War (1962) ; D-Day: The Normandy Invasion in Retrospect (1970) ; The Continuing Revolution (1975) ;
The War Lords (1976) ; and he was contributing editor to the
Guide to American Foreign Relations Since 1700 (1983). Many
of his speeches and lectures were printed, the written text retaining the eloquence and scholarship that marked their delivery.
Perhaps one of the most interesting of Pogue's occasional pieces
was his review of William Manchester's book on General MacArthur, American Caesar, which appeared in the journal, International Security, sponsored by the Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, in the spring of 1979.
Pogue's review is noteworthy for several reasons. It is at twentytwo pages perhaps one of the longest book reviews on record. It is
a most devastating review. It is a review in which the reviewer
disassembled the author's thesis, then recast and reshaped it
and made the reconstructed thesis valid and believable. Further,
Pogue maintained throughout the review a tone urbane, detached, and scholarly, without even the slightest hint of the
veiled malice that often marks such reviews. And Pogue constantly gave Manchester credit for his ability to write, his ability
to describe with intense feeling, drawn from his experience and
terrible wounds as a Marine in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945,
"the horrors of the jungle and protracted or needless fighting." 43
But with telling accuracy Pogue pointed out Manchester's er42 Pogue, author interview, Washington, D.C., 18 April 1983.
43 Who's Who in America (43rd edition, 1984-85), Volume II; Pogue,
author interview, Washington, D.C., 18 April 1983.
400The Filson Club History Quarterly[July
rors and omissions : unsupported statements, blanket footnotes,
placing the wrong people with the wrong rank at the wrong
place. Small things these, in some ways, conceded Pogue, pointing out, however, "It is this slippage in accuracy in the handling
of small matters that makes one wonder about Manchester's
treatment of broader issues." With equally deadly aim, Pogue
then focused on the broader issues. He gave particular focus to
the protagonist-antagonist myth of a MacArthur-Marshall controvery "leading to a final earth-shattering confrontation between MacArthur and Marshall." Pogue was particularly surprised to find his own book cited in one of Manchester's key
paragraphs in his development of the MacArthur-Marshall hostility. One of the things Pogue was cited for, particularly for
his third volume published six years before Manchester's book,
was the fact that he had put the MacArthur-Marshall controversy in proper perspective, had traced and demolished the
exaggerations that so colorfully, but falsely, perhaps, attributed
to the conflict between the two men."
What is also interesting about Pogue's review is what it reflects of Pogue himself, of the consistency of his view of history
and the writing of history. Pogue, too, relished the small touches,
the small, personal dramas of character and conflict, the role
the petty and mundane play in shaping great and shattering
moments and events. But to Pogue, the bits and pieces of evidence have to be thoroughly sifted and documented as accurately
as possible. Never, for a moment, for any reason, would he subscribe to plausibility as a reason for perpetuating a spurious
story, to perpetrate a myth for the dramatic. To Pogue character is drama, truth is color, and integrity is theater. These
qualities mark the man and his work.
Another appealing characteristic of Pogue, or perhaps a composite of the above mentioned qualities, is one that is easy to
sense but difficult to describe. Often, perhaps too often, a man
who attempts much, accomplishes much, and reaps rewards and
44 Especially see Baldwin, New York Times Book Reviews, 1 January 1967.
1986]
Forrest C. Pogue 401
honors finds his inner eye narrowing as he looks at life and
feels jaded and cynical. In A Place To Come Home To, Robert
Penn Warren, in chilling undertones, depicts knowledge and experience as the awful prices one pays for life. Yet there are
those who do not pay these prices. Pogue seems to be one of
those people. When he left his position at the Marshall Library
to accept the job as Director of the Dwight David Eisenhower
Institute for Historical Research at the Smithsonian Institution
in 1974, he brought to his new position the concern and enthusiasm he had shown for the Marshall position eighteen years
earlier. He retired from this position in 1984. Now well into the
final volume on Marshall, and after twenty-seven years of the
subject, Pogue finds his task as fresh and as challenging as in
the beginning. Yet though the Marshall work has long been his
occupation and, as mentioned, his preoccupation, it has never
become his obsession. Pogue enjoys quiet home life, art, music,
theater, travel, ideas, good cuisine, and the measured glass.
Pogue, furthermore, has a deep and abiding feeling for Kentucky, still finds it, in a special way, very different from the
meaning Warren gave to the words, "a place to come home to."
He gives as unstintingly of his time and presence to Kentucky
projects as he does to national and international ones. He helped
Murray State University establish its oral history program,
served on the Kentucky Bicentennial program, and served on
the Kentucky Oral History Commission. Kentucky universities,
commissions, students, fellow historians — all have drawn on
Pogue for various generosities. Pogue is a teacher with a movable classroom. He finds time for the concerns, projects, and
ideas of an incredible range of people. He has had his share of
honors—honorary degrees from the University of Kentucky,
Washington and Lee, Murray State, and Clark University; a distinguished Alumnus Award from Murray State and a Distinguished Alumnus Centennial Award from the University of Kentucky. He received a Certificate of Achievement from the U.S.
Army for his military writings. Murray's Special Collections Library, which has a portrait of him by his wife, was named for
402The Filson Club History Quarterly [July
him three years ago.45 He wears his honors proudly but lightly
and seems to take equal pride in a book this person has published,
a promotion that another one has received. Of all the thousands
of items in the Marshall Library, the one he most treasures is a
portrait of Marshall — painted by his erstwhile student and
wife, Christine Brown Pogue. He remains a member of the First
Presbyterian Church, Murray, founded in 1931, of which he is
the only surviving charter member. He retains a quiet sense of
pleasure in small things — remembering how far it is from
town to town in a western Kentucky he left years ago; houses,
town "characters," the unspectacular beauty of rural western
Kentucky, configurations of clouds across the sky, a spray of
birds across a field. Warren is right — in part and about some.
But there are other slants and angles for some men. "It takes
life to love life," wrote Edgar Lee Masters. Those words measure Pogue quite well.
Upon reflection, it is quite possible that he did meet Maharajah
Kankilo and interviewed the Emperor of Baloolooland.
45 Topics, Marshall Library, September 1967; Who's Who in America
(43rd edition, 1984-85), Volume II; Pogue, author interview, Washington,
D.C., 18 April 1983.