GEORGE C. MARSHALL: Organizer of Victory, 1943-1945

The third cornerstone in Dr. Pogue's official and surely definitive George C. Marshall biography which commenced in 1963 -- earlier volumes were subtitled Education of a General, 1899-1939 and Ordeal and Hope, 1939-1943 and contained, as does this one, a foreword by General Omar Bradley, Marshall's colleague and friend. As expected, Organizer of Victory follows the format and style established in the previous works, that is a heavily documented text which incorporates or quotes from the Marshall papers and related material (Pogue is Director of the George C. Marshall Research Foundation and as such has immediate and complete access to the extensive archive in Lexington, Va.); in addition, the emphasis on the professional career continues while still attempting to build a portrait of the human being behind the braid. The 194345 period marked Marshall's emergence as both an instantly recognizable public figure (Time's ""Man of the Year"" in 1943, etc.) and a formidable military-political star thrown up by the war in Europe (Churchill, for instance, valued his strategic advice above any other American general's). There is, naturally, a great deal on Marshall's generalship, the intrigues surrounding the Supreme Commander position (losing it to Eisenhower was his ""one major personal disappointment"" during these years, says Pogue), and the pronounced Marshall philosophy of separation of political and military authority. No great or stunning revelations are proffered; rather this continues the detailed, stately march through that calm, dedicated, supersubstantial call to national service which here ends with the German surrender in May of 1945 but is to be continued on the diplomatic shoals.