Details
5EISENHOWER, DWIGHT D., President. Autograph letter signed ("Ike") as Supreme Allied Commander, to his wife MAMIE DOUD EISENHOWER, n.p. [Algiers], 26 December [1943]. 3 pages, 4to, written on rectos only, lined stationery.
[With:] Autograph free frank ("Free"), with signature as Censor ("Dwight D Eisenhower"), on a typed envelope addressed to his wife in Washington, D.C., black postmark "New York, N.Y. Jan 1 1944 3 30 PM," with purple circular handstamp "Passed By Examiner Base 0313 Army."
"WHEN WE GET THIS WAR WON OUR LONG PARTINGS WILL BE AT AN END"
A long, intimate letter to his wife written just two days before his promotion to Supreme Allied Commander was publicly announced: "My darling, I came down to the office bright and early this morning to write you a special letter...Your present to me is lovely...the nicest thing I've had since I left home...During the past few weeks I've led the existence of a travelling man. Been to Cairo (Jerusalem for a 2 hr visit) Tunis -- Italy -- Sicily -- Oran -- etc. Some places I stayed 2 hrs -- some a whole week. You can see that I've had little time for routine existence! My latest trip to Italy was completed last night -- it lasted a week...I think I've had a good case of homesickness lately. Nothing has been exactly right & everybody about me is having a tough time. I try to hang on to some shreds of a good disposition, but it does get tough at times. Now with a move staring me in the face I don't know what I'm going to do with some of the people I've depended upon. For example, the darkies that live in my house [apparently African American G.I.s]...If I have to live in a London hotel a while these boys will be out of a job -- yet I'll need them later! Oh well...Xmas as such falls pretty flat here -- all days seem to be the same. I truly hope next year we'll be together; and I hope further that when we get this war won our long partings will be at an end..."
Published (with the omission of the passage mentioning "darkies") in Letters to Mamie, ed. J.S.D. Eisenhower, 1978, pp. 159-160.
[With:] Autograph free frank ("Free"), with signature as Censor ("Dwight D Eisenhower"), on a typed envelope addressed to his wife in Washington, D.C., black postmark "New York, N.Y. Jan 1 1944 3 30 PM," with purple circular handstamp "Passed By Examiner Base 0313 Army."
"WHEN WE GET THIS WAR WON OUR LONG PARTINGS WILL BE AT AN END"
A long, intimate letter to his wife written just two days before his promotion to Supreme Allied Commander was publicly announced: "My darling, I came down to the office bright and early this morning to write you a special letter...Your present to me is lovely...the nicest thing I've had since I left home...During the past few weeks I've led the existence of a travelling man. Been to Cairo (Jerusalem for a 2 hr visit) Tunis -- Italy -- Sicily -- Oran -- etc. Some places I stayed 2 hrs -- some a whole week. You can see that I've had little time for routine existence! My latest trip to Italy was completed last night -- it lasted a week...I think I've had a good case of homesickness lately. Nothing has been exactly right & everybody about me is having a tough time. I try to hang on to some shreds of a good disposition, but it does get tough at times. Now with a move staring me in the face I don't know what I'm going to do with some of the people I've depended upon. For example, the darkies that live in my house [apparently African American G.I.s]...If I have to live in a London hotel a while these boys will be out of a job -- yet I'll need them later! Oh well...Xmas as such falls pretty flat here -- all days seem to be the same. I truly hope next year we'll be together; and I hope further that when we get this war won our long partings will be at an end..."
Published (with the omission of the passage mentioning "darkies") in Letters to Mamie, ed. J.S.D. Eisenhower, 1978, pp. 159-160.