Sue Sarafian Jehl
2/13/91
This is an oral history interview with Sue Sarafian Jehl,
conducted at her home in Maitland, Florida on the thirteenth of
February, 1991. The interviewer is Mack Teasley of the
Eisenhower Library.
MR. TEASLEY: I think we should probably just begin by having you
tell me some of your background; where you were from, what you
did before the military, and where you were born, when you were
born and why you ended up joining the service.
MRS. JEHL: I was born in Malden, Massachusetts and we moved to
Detroit when I was two years old. And I went through school and
two years of junior college. It was during the Depression and my
father had a grocery store and he lost his business so I had to
quit school and look for a job. And I got temporary jobs with
the federal government, Chamber of Commerce, a few of those, just
little temporary jobs for three or four months. Then I got a job
with an insurance company and worked for them for five years. I
became the head cashier, as they called it. I ran the office.
And when the war started--I came from a family of five girls, no
boys and I was the oldest--and my reason for enlisting was purely
patriotic. I felt like one from our family should go. My mother
and father were immigrants from Armenia. They were very, very
proud of me. I was in that first WAAC training center in Des
Moines.
Q: What was the date? Do you remember?
MRS. JEHL: August of '42 is when I enlisted and September of '42
I reported to Fort Des Moines. I would like to have gotten a
commission but I did not. It was even hard to get in as enlisted
then, they screened you very, very carefully. You had to have a
good reputation or they wouldn't take you. Because I wasn't a
college graduate I couldn't become an officer. So I went as an
enlisted. We were in Fort Des Moines for nine weeks and our
company was moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, where we started the
second WAAC training center. And then we were alerted while we
were in Daytona, that we were going to be the first group of
WAAC's, 150 of us, to be ever sent overseas. So they transferred
us to Camp Kilner, and we left for, we didn't know where, on
January 13, 1943. And we went in a convoy, zig-zaging across the
ocean. All of us got very sick. And it took eighteen days and
we ended up in Oran, North Africa. From there we went to
Algiers. And I don't think they should have sent women there at
that time. It was still a battle zone. And now they are talking
about women in the battle zone, well, our company; and we still
get together, we have reunions every two years, and whenever we
get together we still talk about it. We were the first ones in
the battle zones. They would be dog fighting in the air, and we
would look out of the office windows and watch them. I worked
with the inspector general for two months and I got a call one
day to go to the Commanding General's office, which was down the
hall from me, and I didn't know who the Commanding General was.
I didn't know a thing about him. All I knew was the inspector
general, and what we did and it was very, very interesting work.
I walked down the hall and there were two guards standing at this
door. They told me to identify myself and I did, and they went
in. And the aide came out and got me and took me in. It was
Captain [Harry] Butcher, and he interviewed me. And he said,
"Yes, I think you'll do. How would you like to come work for
us?" And I said, "I do not want to. I like my job." He said,
"Do you realize what an honor this is going to be? You are going
to be working for the Commanding General." I said, "I like
Colonel Hill, and I love my job, it is very interesting and I
would like to stay with him." And the tears were coming out of
my eyes by then. And he said, "Well, you go back and talk it
over with Colonel Hill." And on my way back, he had called
Colonel Hill. When I got to the office, Colonel Hill said, "You
are very silly to turn that down." He said, "You've got to go,
this is an opportunity of a lifetime." So I went.
Q: There is a note here about, Edith Davis was the WAAC
Commander. Was she the WAAC Commander at that time?
MRS. JEHL: Yes.
Q: Did she get involved with making assignments?
MRS. JEHL: Nothing, she had nothing to do with it. Absolutely
nothing. It was headquarters command. Someone named Major
Bemus, I knew, because when my boss, the inspector general, was
going to go and inspect, pull, a surprise inspection on all these
troops within a radius of about fifty miles of Algiers, he worked
with Major Bemus. And, of course, I did a lot of the legwork, so
Major Bemus is the one who recommended me. Major Davis had
nothing to do with it.
Q: How do you spell Bemus?
MRS. JEHL: B-E-M-U-S. And he used to work for Campbell Soup
Company up in New Jersey somewhere, I don't know. Hammill Bemus,
I don't know how I remembered his first name.
Q: Well, there was a pool for drivers, but was there a clerical
pool that was similar?
MRS. JEHL: No. There was a clerical pool for all the other
offices, but not for the General's office. SGS had a clerical
pool and they called on the girls.
Q: So when was this that you went in to Eisenhower's office?
MRS. JEHL: I think it was the first of March of '43. And
Margaret Chick took the dictation from Captain Butcher on the
diary. Oh, the General's main secretary was a warrant officer
named Walter Marshall and he was the speediest typist and
stenographer I have ever seen in my life. And we enjoyed working
with him. We were all together in this little office but he
disappeared all of a sudden. He had a boyfriend who used to come
and they'd go to lunch together, these two warrant officers, and
we called him "Uncle Walter" and he was one of the girls, we
loved him truly. And we was a fine, fine secretary. But one
morning we came in and Tex Lee came and said, "Walter will no
longer be with us." So that left the three of us.
Q: There was [Margaret] Chick, and ....
MRS. JEHL: Chick, and Nana Rae and me. And then they decided--
at the entrance they always had the two guards--and they decided
they needed someone to kind of screen people as they came in
instead of one of the guards having to go into the office and
bringing one of the aides out. So they put a desk right there
inside that door, and that's where I sat. That was, I guess,
about after the Italians surrendered. And I sat out there, so I
was sort of a receptionist as they walked in, besides doing,
Nana and I did all the General's dictation.
Q: What that in a separate room?
MRS. JEHL: It was the foyer, it was the foyer. Then to the
right was the aide's office where Tex Lee sat and Colonel Gault,
a British ....
Q: Jamie Gault?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, James Gault. And then Captain Butcher had his
own office and then the two WAAC secretaries were back there but
I stayed at the entrance.
Q: Where was Eisenhower's office from there?
MRS. JEHL: To the right was the aide's office, and to the left
was the General's office. And he had a balcony, and I have
pictures here, snapshots, where when he was gone we'd go out on
that balcony. But anyway, I think it was December of '43 that he
went to the Advance Command Post, which was in Amilcar, and it
was close to Tunis. And he took me with him this time. He took
turns taking Chick, Nana Rae, or me. And this time he took me.
It was when Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had a conference and
I forgot which conference it was.
Q: Teheran?
MRS. JEHL: Teheran, I believe. And they decided that Eisenhower
was going to be Supreme Allied Commander. Churchill got sick,
the General had an office in this house and then his home where
he was living was about three blocks away and it was white brick
and we called it "the little white house" where he lived. And I
lived in a little camper right next to the office, all by myself.
I was in the office, the General was in the office, and Captain
Butcher came in and he said, "Look at this cable." And we looked
at it, and it was informing the General that he was going to be
Supreme Allied Commander. So, of course, he was very happy over
that and we flew back to Algiers and started getting ready to
move to England. And we moved to England almost a year after we
had arrived in Algiers. And he took the three WAAC secretaries,
Pearlie and Kay, those are all women, and then his house boys.
We all went to England in his B-17. And the war was still going
on and I remember how cold we were on that airplane because they
had to have, what do you call them, open so the gunners could
have their guns out?
Q: Waist gunners?
MRS. JEHL: Waist gunners, yes. I remember my feet got like
pieces of solid ice. The General was in Washington and so I
found a pair of fur-lined boots that said "Ike" on them and I put
them on and wore them all the way across the ocean to keep my
feet warm. And when we got to London we were there six months
and there were a lot of air raids going on, you know, we worked
in the Grosvenor House, I guess that was the headquarters there.
We were there about six months and then we moved to Bushey Park
and our offices were in a camouflage thing where it looked like a
little hill in this big park and we lived in nissen huts. And
then ....
Q: Quonset huts?
MRS. JEHL: Quonset huts, yes. And then we moved to Portsmouth
and lived in tents in Portsmouth and our offices were in trailers
and the General lived in a trailer.
Q: Was this right before the invasion?
MRS. JEHL: Right before the invasion, yes. And then after the
invasion, I don't remember what the date was that he took the
three of us over to the Apple Orchards, to the Advance Command
Post. I think it was in July of '44. We went to the Apple
Orchards and that was the Advance Command Post and we lived in
tents there. The General lived in a trailer and we had tents for
our offices. We didn't have any bathroom facilities. We had to
use the same thing the men used. They had a separate one for us.
No bathing facilities, so Mickey [Michael McKeogh] found a hose
somewhere, I don't know where it was, and he set up ropes and
stuff and put some sheets over it and when one of us was ready to
take a shower we'd turn the hose on and the other would hold it
over us. Then from there we moved to Jullouville. And in
Jullouville we lived in a schoolhouse, a dorm and that's when I
inherited the dog, "Monty". Larry Hansen decided he couldn't
keep him anymore and he gave him to me. And our offices again
were in a trailer. And I think we were in Jullouville and
Granville, what, about a month or two and moved into Versailles,
into France.
Q: When you were with the General what kind of office equipment
did you have?
MRS. JEHL: You know, they were talking in this questionnaire
about the sophisticated files systems and stuff. We just each
had our own typewriter and we had one portable that when we went
to the Advance Command Post we would carry the portables with us,
but we had our typewriters, and nobody ever touched our
typewriters and just a regular old filing system. That was it.
If it was "secret," or "eyes only" classified we kept all that in
the safe.
Q: And what size safe was it, was it a four drawer?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, it was a big, tall safe and I remember when we
were ....
Q: Was there just one of them?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, just one. And when we were in Bushey Park in
the, what were those things they shot over from Germany? V-1s
and V-2s were coming over. Every time we got the warning we had
to stop and at night we had to lock all our shorthand notebooks
in the safe, our carbon paper, everything, we locked in the safe.
But one day, and the General happened to be in the office that
day, I think we had to go into the shelter eighteen times. And
eighteen times we had to lock everything up in that safe before
we got out to the shelter. This was in Bushey Park.
Q: How many filing cabinets were there, do you recall?
MRS. JEHL: At first there was just one, and the more well-known
he became the bigger our mail became. We had just these regular
old, big drawers and I think I had three of them. And it was
strictly fan mail and I got to know who his personal friends were
and ones that he would like to answer himself, or ones that he
wanted me to answer and give him to sign, and then just the
regular fan mail. And then of course we got letters from a lot
of parents looking for their sons they hadn't heard from in so
long. Well, all of those I would write the parent and say that
the General was looking into it and they would hear from someone
shortly. And I would send it over to Chief of Staff's office and
that's why they had duplicates and I noticed that in your letter.
The Chief of Staff would send it over to SGS and SGS would look
into it and answer these people. But the General always insisted
on answering himself first and letting them know that it was
being looked into and worked on.
Q: The interim letters like that, were those signed by the
staff, I mean, did you sign some of those?
MRS. JEHL: Oh yes. I signed some. Some he signed, but not very
many. Most of those I would sign and say that the General was
having it looked into and they would hear from someone shortly
and then I'd send it over SGS.
Q: What were the primary duties of the three of you that were
there in the office?
MRS. JEHL: Taking dictation from Captain Butcher and the
General, and the fan mail. You know, when the General dictated
to us it was all strategic, all "top secret" stuff about the war.
Q: Did you all three do all three things?
MRS. JEHL: Yes. And they asked questions in that thing about
messengers with the "top secret" messages. Well, we not only had
"top secret" in Algiers, but some of the messages were "eyes
only" and the "eyes only" messages, when the General would send
one to Marshall, whoever took the dictation and typed it up would
take it down to the signal center and give it to the "eyes only"
officer, that was one officer down there. And when they got a
message, if the "eyes only" officer couldn't deliver it, he would
call one of us and we would go down and get it and bring it up
and give it to the General.
Q: So it was hand-carried?
MRS. JEHL: Hand-carried, by either one of the secretaries,
sometimes one of the aides when we were too busy to do it, or the
"eyes only" officer down in the message center, in signals.
Q: You have this fan mail of a personal nature and then you had
the official files. Were there two separate filing systems or
filing cabinets?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, the official ones we didn't file, we sent over
to SGS. They filed those.
Q: So official correspondence, the files copies went to SGS?
MRS. JEHL: Went to SGS, yes.
Q: The incoming with the carbons, the outgoing ....
MRS. JEHL: Yes.
Q: Did you use carbon paper?
MRS. JEHL: Oh yes, oh yes, and that's why we even had to put our
carbon papers in the safe at night. And I remember one time in
England--and to this day we all swear that it was Tex Lee who
forgot to lock the safe, not one of us--but in the morning when
we got there the safe was open. This was at Grosvenor Square at
Grosvenor House and Tex blamed it on us and he grounded us for a
week. He wouldn't let us go out of the--he'd sent word to
whoever our commanding officer was in London and said that we
couldn't go anywhere for a week because that safe was left open.
But to this day I think he was the one that left it open.
[Laughter] The working hours were long and difficult and hard.
Q: That was what I was going to ask you.
MRS. JEHL: Very, very hard. The General was an early riser and
he liked to be at the office, at the latest, by eight o'clock in
the morning. So we were always there at 7:30. We had to be
there before he arrived. He never left before six o'clock at
night. We could not leave until after he had left. Our mess
halls served lunch at noon, the General didn't go to lunch until
one o'clock. We couldn't leave until he left. So they had to
make accommodations for us. We a lot of times ended up with
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the mess hall because we
couldn't go during mess hours. And they were very, very strict,
hard on us. And there was no room for error, no room for error.
We had to be extremely careful.
Q: Who was supervising you day to day?
MRS. JEHL: Tex Lee. He was in charge of us.
Q: How many days a week did you work?
MRS. JEHL: Seven. Holidays, Sundays, didn't mean a thing, we
worked seven days a week. And even in the Pentagon after the war
I worked seven days a week. That was another reason I wanted to-
-because civilian workers didn't work seven days a week and I
wanted to get out of the service and when I told him he talked me
into taking that commission and still working seven days a week.
And not getting all that overtime pay they were paying any
civilian whoever worked that long.
Q: You mentioned the long hours and so forth, how much contact
did you have with Eisenhower during any given day? You'd go to
his office and have appointments and be on the phone.
MRS. JEHL: You know, almost constant. We never were in there
when, well, when he was dictating to us, when we went in to have
him sign it. Whenever he dictated something to us, to one of us,
and we finished it, we, ourselves, took it back to him. Either
the rough draft or the finished copy for him to sign.
Q: When he wanted something to be dictated did he pick up the
phone and say, "So and so, please come in"?
MRS. JEHL: He had a buzzer, he had a buzzer. And whichever one
of us was available would answer the buzzer and go in.
Q: The buzzer would buzz ....
MRS. JEHL: Into our office.
Q: And you would just get up and go into his office, with your
steno pad?
MRS. JEHL: And one of us would get up. Yes, yes.
Q: And then go back and type it up and then ....
MRS. JEHL: Then we would go to the aide and say, "This is the
letter and we're taking it in to have it signed," and if there
was someone in there with the General, we had to wait until they
left before we went in. In the Pentagon, Colonel Stack had a
small hole drilled into the door of the General's office so he
could look in there and make sure that no one was in there
because there were other accesses to his office. Like from my
office, the Secretary of War could go in. So he had that little
peephole made and the General, I don't believe, ever, ever knew
that it was there. And he'd look in to see if the General was
free so we could take it back in.
Q: When you took a double-spaced draft back in to the boss then
would you just leave it with him and then he marked it up and
sent it back out?
MRS. JEHL: Marked it up and sent it back out to us and his
handwriting was atrocious, terribly hard to read. But, of
course, after a while we got used to it and were able to read
it.
Q: He was noted for his editing, I mean, as a President, so I
imagine that ....
MRS. JEHL: He was wonderful. And anybody who says he had
ghostwriters while he was overseas is sadly mistaken. He wrote
all his own speeches, everything. Very articulate, he was really
one of the most intelligent people I've ever met in my life. And
when he knew he was coming back for the victory parade, he typed
up his speech, his address to the Joint Session of Congress, and
sent it to General Marshall for approval. General Marshall
didn't like some of the things the General had said. So General
Marshall wrote a speech and sent it back to the boss and said,
"This is the speech you're going to make." And the boss said,
"Like hell I am." And he wouldn't do it. That's why I was
caught taking that dictation all the way across the ocean,
because he was determined he was not going to make General
Marshall's speech. He was going to write his own and he did.
I'm sure he had ghostwriters when he was president, but not while
he was the general, ever.
Q: He has a good reputation as a writer, I think.
MRS. JEHL: We arrived in Bermuda at four o'clock in the morning,
it was still dark, I remember. And Captain Butcher, whoever it
was that came to our plane to meet us, said, "The secretary has
to get an escort for her and take her to an office where she can
sit down and type." I had to make the final copy and when I got
to this office they had four typewriters and the General liked
his speeches double-spaced and new ribbon, so it would be dark,
the print would be dark. And none of those typewriters had a new
ribbon in it. And you know, like 4:30 in the morning, where am I
going to find a new ribbon in a strange office? I had a rough
time of it but I finally got somebody to bring me a new ribbon I
could put into that machine and do a final copy. And then when
we left Bermuda I got on our airplane with Larry Hansen and our
crew. President Truman's airplane, you know, was the first one
into Washington, we were the second ones in. I did not go, I
only went from Paris to Bermuda on President Truman's plane.
Q: You were talking about eating lunch on the run because you
couldn't go to lunch until the General had gone to lunch, so then
you'd go grab a sandwich or something, did you go eat at the mess
hall?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, the WAAC mess hall. Always the WAAC mess hall.
We were not allowed into the men's mess hall at all. When we
were ....
Q: Was this at Bushey Park now?
MRS. JEHL: Wherever we were, except ....
Q: Grosvenor House, was that the hotel building at Hyde Park?
Where was that?
MRS. JEHL: Grosvenor House, Grosvenor Square. There was a
Grosvenor Hotel and our, we had a six floor mansion that they had
made into barracks for us, put four or five of us in each one of
the rooms of the six floors of this old mansion. And then it was
a long walk to Grosvenor House. I would say about six blocks.
And I think they had a big mess hall, a combined mess hall in
Grosvenor House and we ate there. But when we were in Versailles
they had everything over by the Palace, the whole headquarters,
except the General's office, which was next to the Petit Trianon
where Marie Antoinette lived. And about a half a block from
there was this building that used to belong to the German Air
Force and we made that into the General's office, our offices and
there was an upstairs and the plane crew lived upstairs. Then
there was a servant's quarters right across the way from there.
And on the bottom floor of this servant's quarters was this sauna
bath and a little reception room. Then there were six bedrooms
upstairs and Kay [Summersby] had the largest bedroom and Pearlie
[McKeogh] and Nana and Chickie and I lived in the other bedrooms
up there. Well, it was too far for us to go to the WAAC mess
hall over where the big headquarters was, it wasn't walking
distance. And because we were enlisted, we couldn't eat in the
officer's mess in the Trianon. So they opened up a little room
downstairs and fed us there. When we were at the Advance Command
Post we ate with the General, at his table, because there wasn't
any place else for us to go. When we were in Rheims at the
Advance Command Post it was on a golf course and the General
lived in this big, big clubhouse and we had little rooms. I had
this one little room and Kay was in the little room next to me
and we had no heat. It was winter and they brought in little
kerosene burners to keep us warm. And then we had a great room,
I guess it was where all the golfers gathered at the "19th hole".
And it had a fireplace that I swear was about half the size of
this room. At night after--we ate at the general's table there--
and at night after dinner we went up and either read, or Kay,
Colonel Gault was with us, and Captain Butcher and the General,
they played bridge. I would read or go to my room, turn that
kerosene stove on and a little lamp I had and read there. And it
was very difficult because we were enlisted and they were
officers. I didn't play bridge. It made it awkward. I remember
the first time I went to that Advance Command Post in Rheims,
they hadn't figured that there wouldn't be any place for me to
eat and I was left downstairs with the houseboys, who were all
black. And I said something about it to Kay, I didn't appreciate
having to sit there and eat, and immediately I was invited to eat
at the General's table. Kay was good to us, she really was.
When we needed anything, we couldn't ask anyone, but we could ask
her, she was good to us.
Q: Were Nana Rae and Chickie with you at that time too?
MRS. JEHL: No, he took turns. He never took all three of us.
Q: That's right. And how long would you be there at the Advance
Command Post?
MRS. JEHL: A week.
Q: A week?
MRS. JEHL: Yes. It was funny. It was quite a long drive from
Versailles to Rheims and we'd go in three or four cars because he
took all the houseboys and Mickey and Kay and me this time. And
we have to have a pitstop. And you stopped on the side of the
road and the girls went behind the trees on one side of the road
and the General and the men went on the other side of the road.
[Laughter] But it was still strictly official, I mean, you know,
nothing funny about it.
Q: That's interesting.
MRS. JEHL: We were listening to the radio one night when it was
real cold and this golf course had a lot of chestnut trees. And
we were harvesting them, you know, picking them and we'd throw
them into the fireplace and the minute they popped we'd get the
poker and pull them out and eat them. That was fun. But anyway,
Kay and I were listening to the radio in that room and we heard
that Elliot Roosevelt had just married, was in the states, and
had just married Faye Emerson. And Kay screamed and I screamed
because he was engaged to [Major Ruth M.] Ruth Briggs, Beetle
Smith's secretary. Given her a lovely ring and then he had to go
to Washington on business and he married Faye Emerson. And we
screamed and the General looked up, he was reading. He said,
"What's wrong?" And we told him and then Captain Butcher and the
General practically screamed too. And poor Ruth Briggs, I
really, really felt sorry for her. Because everybody in
headquarters knew that they were engaged and going to be married,
and he came back already married to Faye Emerson.
Q: Was he a colonel or something?
MRS. JEHL: Yes. When he had Telegraph Cottage, let's see, where
were we stationed then when he had Telegraph Cottage? I'm trying
to think, I believe it was at Bushey Park and he used to drive
over to Telegraph Cottage or maybe it was London, I don't
remember. Anyway, Kay didn't live with us then, she lived with
Ruth Briggs and one other WAAC officer, I don't remember who it
was. Elliot bought Ruth an Irish wolfhound as a gift and brought
it over. It was the size of a little pony. I had never seen--
well, I think it's the biggest dog in the world. I had never
seen a bigger dog. And they had their bedrooms upstairs and the
first day she had him he followed her upstairs to her bedroom and
in the morning he couldn't get down the stairs. So they had to
get four GIs to come and carry that dog back down the stairs.
[Laughter]
Q: I'm sure General Eisenhower had a busy appointment schedule.
Who kept his appointments, was that Tex Lee?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, Tex Lee.
Q: Did you get involved in that at all?
MRS. JEHL: Occasionally, yes.
Q: You were sort of the reception point, too?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, but he did ....
Q: What was a typical day for him, would you say? It's hard to
say what typical is but ....
MRS. JEHL: Well, most of it was receiving messages and sending
out messages and sending reports to Marshall and seeing generals
and the office staff, his G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4 that reported to him
every day in person. And he stayed busy, very, very busy. He
worked hard.
Q: He would usually be in the office until six?
MRS. JEHL: Six at least, if not later, every day, seven days a
week.
Q: And you would quite often stay later than that if there was
something?
MRS. JEHL: Yes.
Q: I think I saw in one file, one of the letters indicated that
the diary copy was--I was wondering if there was a diary being
kept all along?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, this is it.
Q: G-3 War Diary.
MRS. JEHL: Oh no, I don't know anything about that.
Q: That's probably something that ....
MRS. JEHL: That was G-3's whatever it was.
Q: G-3 is ops.
MRS. JEHL: The only diary was Captain Butcher's and that was
with Eisenhower's help. A lot of times when Butch was in doubt
about something he would send the draft into the General and say,
you know, "is this okay?" and Butch was a very articulate man.
Did you know he was vice-president of CBS with Bill Paley? Yes.
And he'd have Eisenhower okay every page of that diary. And we
kept that in the safe too because it did have a lot of strategic
things that the General was planning and doing.
The first thing, when Roland [Jehl] brought those German
generals to sign that first surrender, we were in a little red
schoolhouse. I have a picture of the red schoolhouse and the
last two windows on the second floor were the General's windows
and our office was behind that. And Captain Butcher tells in
here [page 825, My Three Years With Eisenhower] how Chickie and I
were hanging out the window watching those generals come in, let
me find that. "Shortly after five o'clock I saw Sergeants Chick
and Sarafin [sic]," he always misspelled my name, "were craning
their necks out the window, and, sure enough the Germans were
arriving. They were met by Brigadier Foord, G-2, and Lieutenant
Colonel Mornice, assistant secretary of General Staff." And the
ones that came were, as I say, the Von Friedeburg and three of
them.
And then, let me see here, page 867, when we came back
across the ocean. Here it is. "Ike growled. He had no
ghostwriter, why should anyone think he had?" This article had
been put in that he had a ghostwriter. "This hasn't been a
pleasure trip for the Supreme Commander. He was faced with an
exacting task. He has to address the Joint Session of the House
and Senate, enough to disturb the peace of mind of any man. He
has been working on the text, the only address face to face with
an audience that he will have read since I have been with him.
He wrote his speeches but he never read them except this one.
This fact itself bothers him. Sergeant Sue Sarafian, one of the
WAAC's who has faithfully served him since Algiers has been
taking his dictation and typing and retyping his speech. As we
cross the ocean she worked most of the night. Ike slept less
than two hours. We reached Bermuda before dawn."
Q: You slept less than that, probably.
MRS. JEHL: I didn't sleep at all, but I did get into bed and
feel those satin sheets. And then he was really upset about this
because otherwise he would have had his speech memorized and he
wouldn't have had to read it. He had a marvelous, marvelous way
of speaking. And during the night, he sat up, he was in his bed
and doing most of the dictating and you know, the drafting and
everything. And he sat up and he looked at me and he said, "What
do you think of this speech?" And I was speechless when he said
that, you know, he never really said any personal things to us,
ever. And I said, "I think it's a wonderful one, and I like it
better than Marshall's," and of course, that's all he needed to
hear, to get a little assurance.
Q: And this was on the plane?
MRS. JEHL: On the plane, yes.
Q: So you were taking dictation, he was sitting in bed.
MRS. JEHL: Yes, and reading it and re-reading it and trying to
memorize it. It was hard on him, but he did have to read it to
Congress. And then when we got to Bermuda, we were all in winter
clothes and they had summer chinos, or whatever they were,
khakis, for everybody on this convoy, except me. And there I was
in Bermuda with 90 degree weather in June, in winter uniform.
And I think his name was Miltenberger, I think that's who that
Milt was on that thing, he was the general in charge of supply.
And I've forgotten what supply was, I don't remember whether it
was G-4 or G-5. And he looked at me in Bermuda and he said,
"Didn't you get any summer uniform?" I said, "No, sir." And I
said, "I don't know what I'm going to do when I get to
Washington." And he said, "Don't worry about it. I'll take care
of it." And when we got to Washington, whoever came out to meet
us, he found somebody, I don't know who, some officer, a major,
to take me to the supply depot for the WAACs and have alterations
people there ready. They had to alter a whole new uniform and I
didn't leave the place until they finished it and I put it on and
walked out. And that was because of General Miltenberger.
Q: You had to go through quite a bit as an enlisted person? A
woman and an enlisted person. All sorts of hardships.
MRS. JEHL: Very, very, very much so. Very much. And especially
because I was the only woman on that trip and it was hard. And
then all the wives, including Mamie, you know, came running to
the airplanes. I remember Betty Hansen, Larry Hansen's wife, and
Betty turned out to be my best friend. Our son Larry is Larry
Hansen's namesake. And all through the years we kept in touch
with them and I love Betty. But anyway, all the wives ran out to
meet everybody and there I stood. I didn't have anybody to meet
me. But General Miltenberger came up with this major and said,
"He's going to take you ...." Oh, and that's another thing, I
didn't have shoes to wear with this new uniform. So this poor
major had to take me to a shopping center so I could find some
brown pumps. It was weird. [Laughter]
Q: At least they took care of you finally. I was going to ask
you some of the more detailed questions about the filing system
in Eisenhower's office and we'll see how memory serves on this
one but as Tom Branigar of our staff indicated, Ike's personal
papers were kept in four series of binders: official cables,
personal cables, official correspondence and personal
correspondence. Typed summaries of all the documents were kept
in the front of each binder and he was wondering, first of all,
who decided whether a document was official or personal and what
criteria were used?
MRS. JEHL: Well, I kept all the personal myself. The rest of it
went to SGS and they did it all, the cover sheet and everything.
We never saw them after that. And then when we were in the
Pentagon ....
Q: As far as deciding what, that it was personal, was that just
an obvious thing?
MRS. JEHL: It was obvious because I was the one who answered the
letter or typed it and had the General answer it and I did fan
mail. I called, what did I call my files? Some slang name for
the fan mail and the personal mail. And I kept that and
haphazardly. You know, alphabetically, and then when it got too
bad where I couldn't file it myself, Colonel Tex Lee had a boy, a
sergeant, Arthur VanOstenburg, he was, you know, my man ....
[Interruption]
MRS. JEHL: He was sort of an orderly for Tex Lee, even though
Lee wasn't entitled to an orderly. I got Van, we called him Van,
to start helping me file. And then I told Tex Lee, "I can't keep
up with this, the fan mail is getting too much, I cannot file
anymore." So then he got Pearlie to help with the file. So it
was Van and Pearlie filing. Mickey never, never worked in the
office. Mickey never did anything in the office except court
Pearlie, but his work was all at the house.
Q: What had Pearlie been doing before this? Was she also ....?
MRS. JEHL: I have no idea, I don't know.
Q: What was her maiden name, do you know?
MRS. JEHL: Hargrave.
Q: Hargrave, that's right.
MRS. JEHL: And as I say, we saw a lot of them on the trip. We
requested rooms next to each other and then she called me last
week and we talked. We've kept in touch through the years
because of this original company from Algiers. Now the SHAEF
headquarter girls, I don't remember any of them. We had nothing
to do with them, but the Algiers girls, we've had reunions every
two years for the last four years. We have one coming up in
North Carolina in May and I'll be going up to that.
Q: Does Inez Scott go to those too?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, Inez Scott. Now, Inez was in the driver's pool
and, poor Inez I think, has Alzheimer's, I don't know whether
she's going to be able to come to this May thing or not. Inez
never had anything to do with the office at all. I don't think
she ever stepped foot in there. Pearlie started coming into the
office only .... No, as a matter of fact, I believe we took my
files out, those metal drawers out, and put it in the drivers
pool office and Pearlie started filing in there. And Van would
go in there and file the things for me.
Q: So it over flowed from your office into the ....
MRS. JEHL: Yes, into that office.
Q: The incoming fan mail, who sorted the incoming mail? Did
that come from the SGS or did it come right to the General's
office?
MRS. JEHL: It came right to the General's office in sacks.
Q: If it came in those sacks, was it already, sort of, fan mail,
or was there official mail mixed in it?
MRS. JEHL: Oh no. No. At the signal center, wherever, anything
that was official was put into different sacks. So, in the
Pentagon, I didn't do any filing. I would send it in to the
civilian secretary, anything of the General's that I had taken
dictation from him, and the fan mail that I had written, I would
send to her. And they had the Dewey decimal system, which I
didn't even know. And files were kept, all his personal letters,
in that office with the aides and everything, in the files there.
And then the official mail went to Colonel Bowen [Lt. Col. John
W.], who was SGS in the Pentagon and then later on when we were
stationed at Pope Air Force Base, he was the commander of Fort
Bragg and he was a three-star general. And I never had the
nerve, I went to several receptions and I never had the nerve to
go up and say, "Hi, General Bullin, do you remember me?" I never
did.
Q: I bet he would have appreciated that. There were some
summaries that were typed up, that describe the contents of the
document and I don't know whether that's ....
MRS. JEHL: You know, we didn't do that, we didn't do at all.
None of those summaries.
Q: Was that done by the SGS or something?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, the SGS.
Q: And then the log, did you have copies of the log in the
office though if you needed to refer back to things?
MRS. JEHL: No. We called them and asked them.
Q: So if you needed something retrieved from the SGS files you
just picked up the phone and called?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, called them and they'd send it over to us.
Q: With a messenger?
MRS. JEHL: Yes.
Q: Were they in the same building?
MRS. JEHL: They were right next to our offices. Right down the
hall. SGS and Chief of Staff was always right next to us.
Q: So you could keep the official files to a bare minimum in
your office?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, yes. And when ....
Q: Did they use the decimal system there, in that ....?
MRS. JEHL: In the Pentagon.
Q: Do you know whether they used it over in England?
MRS. JEHL: I have no idea what they did. I truly don't know.
When we were doing the plans for Overlord, taking dictation on
that, it was at Bushey Park. And we kept, as I said, everything
in the safe and we didn't know it until after the invasion. They
confined Chickie, Nana and I to Bushey Park, we couldn't go out
into London. About a week before we moved down to Portsmouth,
they made us stay close to home. We didn't know it, but we found
out several weeks before that if we ever went into London we had
the equivalent of SOS, or Secret Service, or whatever it is,
following us, for our safety, I guess. And then in Portsmouth,
the same thing. But of course, we were in a camouflaged forest
in Portsmouth, we never saw the sunshine. The trees were so
densely overgrown that from the air you could not tell there was
anybody down there. And at night we had to use flashlights and
do this [hand covering motion] so you couldn't be seen from the
air. And even there we were followed all the time so that no one
could get to us.
Q: When you went down to Portsmouth, did you know then that the
invasion was close at hand?
MRS. JEHL: Oh, of course, of course, oh yes. We had been taking
dictation on it. We knew the date, of course. And all three of
us moved down there with him. As a matter of fact, the whole
headquarters command, SGS, everybody and it was a big tent city.
And we never saw the sunshine. We were there about a month. It
rained a lot and it was muddy so they finally built wooden
walkways from our tents to the showers. And they gave the WAACs
the shower privileges twice a week. And we put our bathrobes on
and walked down this wooden plank to the showers and all the GIs
would be looking at and yelling at us. It really wasn't fun and
then we'd wash our underwear and hang it and it wouldn't dry for
days. You know, for days we'd have to put wet underwear back on.
Q: Because it was so damp.
MRS. JEHL: Yes.
Q: There is some indication that there was duplication between
the SGS and Eisenhower's files, due to production of extra copies
of the same item?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, well see, in that case there were. I don't know
whether they are talking about official or classified material
but the fan mail would have been duplicated because I had sent it
to them. I had written a letter to the family, acknowledging it
and then sent a copy to them to investigate it. And then they
would answer the family and we'd have a file in our copy and
they'd have a file in theirs. So that may be what they're
talking about as duplication. And the General very seldom ever
followed through on those. He knew, he was confident that they
would take care of it. And he never wanted a reply from SGS
saying we took care of so-and-so. In some cases where I had a
personal interest in the person, like friends of my family wrote
to the General, their son was lost in action and they wanted to
know some more about it, two of them. And I told the General, I
said, "These are my friends and I would appreciate it if you
would sign the letter instead of me signing it." And he signed
it and then I followed through on that to see whether, and of
course, they had both been killed. But the General never saw
duplications, okay, he saw it once and that was it. Unless it
was a personal friend of his then he'd follow through.
Q: As far as access to Eisenhower's personal files, or I guess
even his official files, that was just limited to people there in
the office?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, that's absolutely all. The aides and the three
secretaries, no one else.
Q: Was there an official filing cabinet and then the safe or was
everything ....?
MRS. JEHL: No.
Q: The fan mail went in these filing cabinets and some
eventually ....
MRS. JEHL: Yes, filing cabinet drawers and you know, it didn't
matter who saw those. But I remember that we had keys to some of
the files and those must have been some official papers that he
decided to keep in his files instead of sending them off because
there were keys that we had to put in the safe at night. But
I've forgotten what it is that went into those files.
Q: They were locked filing cabinets. Would those have been
located in the office with the three of you?
MRS. JEHL: No, they were in the aide's office. These wasn't
room enough in our office.
Q: The aides office, was that Tex Lee's office?
MRS. JEHL: Yes.
Q: And was he in with Butcher?
MRS. JEHL: No, in Algiers, Tex Lee had his own office, which was
part of that reception office. Butcher had his own office.
Q: You know what I might ask you to do, do you think when we are
through here you could sketch just roughly a floor plan of the
different places?
MRS. JEHL: I think so.
Q: I don't know that we have that or not but I think it might be
interesting to know who was in the office with whom and maybe
where, just very roughly ....
MRS. JEHL: It was this big Saint George Hotel that we were in,
in Algiers, and this must have been a very, very large suite that
we were in. Either that or they tore down walls and made it into
a large suite, I don't know. But I do remember that it was the
corner office of the Saint George Hotel and then along this way
were Chief of Staff and SGS and then right next to it was a tiny,
little room. And that Van, Colonel Lee's orderly, had double
bunks and he slept there. And then across the hall was another
room that was about twice the size of his and that was the room
that the car pool people stayed in, men and women. Oh, and
Sergeant [Leonard] Dry was another driver, he drove the General
more than Kay did.
Q: I think I've heard that name.
MRS. JEHL: He went to the White House with the General. And he
was also from Detroit.
Q: Did you have much contact with Ruth Briggs when you
were ....?
MRS. JEHL: Yes. I think I'd see her at least once a day.
Either she'd come into our office or I'd go into her office and
then when she and Kay lived together, we used to go over about
once a week and visit with them at night.
Q: What rank was she?
MRS. JEHL: Captain. Very, very smart lady, very. But you know,
socially, it was just that once a week we'd stop over or
something and probably to ask Kay to do something for us.
[Laughter] But as I say she knew me and I knew her but I can't
say we were close friends like we were with Kay.
Q: Since you've mentioned Kay, I was going to ask if you
wouldn't mind just talking about your relationship with Kay and
how you found her to be and how ....
MRS. JEHL: Well, the first time I met her, I thought she was one
of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, and very gracious.
And then it was shortly after that, she got word that, I forgot
what the, Arnold, Lieutenant or Captain, her fiancee was killed.
And she was a human, you know, she cried on our shoulder and we
cried with her and it took her a long time to get over him. When
she finally started dictating some of the fan mail to me. As a
matter of fact, there was one letter in there that I thought, if
the General ever saw that letter. It was not grammatically
correct. He would never have affixed his signature under that
letter, but everyone loved Kay, all the Generals, everybody who
came. When we were in Frankfurt, she was his receptionist. She
had her office across the hall from ours and then access to his
office from her office, plus the main entrance, the big double
doors down this corridor.
Q: Was that at the I.G. Farbin Building?
MRS. JEHL: I.G. Farbin Building. And every person who came to
visit the General would always stop in and see Kay first. They
all loved her, she was a very likable person. She was good to us
and if we needed little things we always went to Kay. In front
of us the General was very official with her, but we do know that
she had dinner--ate at his table a lot, played bridge a lot, rode
horses with him. Oh, and his dog Telek was more her dog. I mean
she had entire care of Telek. I don't know what else to say.
All I know is that whatever was in that book was not true. She
was his official hostess. When we were in London, John had just
graduated from West Point and came over to London as a brand new
lieutenant and the General never accepted any social invitations,
ever, ever. He didn't go anywhere socially. He had to have
something to do. And that's why he would have her over and have
the bridge games and things. He had Ruth Briggs over quite a bit
too because she was a good bridge player. But John came to
London and they decided they wanted to see a play and this is the
only time I remember the General ever going anywhere socially in
London unless he was invited to the King's or Queen's or Winston
Churchill's. And Kay went, but her mother went with her, and
John. It was perfectly harmless, and the General ....
Q: And that's the scene they showed in that movie.
MRS. JEHL: That's the scene in the balcony. You know, they show
it and they made a big ....
Q: The crowd goes ah, or something. But Kay's mother was there,
and Eisenhower's son was there?
MRS. JEHL: Kay's mother and Eisenhower's son was there.
Q: You had mentioned that Mickey McKeogh got Eisenhower out of
bed in the morning and put him to bed at night and would have
been very ....
MRS. JEHL: He would have known, and if he told anybody at all he
would have told Pearlie and Pearlie would have told us. And to
this day Pearlie and I talk about it and you know, get upset
about it when people say things. And I really get upset about it
because I truly feel that--and how could they lie and say the
General wrote to General Marshall and Marshall wrote to Truman
and, you know, tried to put a stop to this. That was ridiculous.
There was never any letter written.
Q: I think that's been pretty well discounted. What was the,
were there feelings about this at the time? Or talk about it?
MRS. JEHL: No, in headquarters, no.
Q: No eyebrows were raised?
MRS. JEHL: No, not in headquarters. At least not in front of
us, never. Nothing was ever said, no one ever asked us, is she
sleeping with him or anything? And there was a lot of that going
around too. I mean, most of the officers removed their wedding
rings after the first year and would try to date us. And we'd
have searches made of their background to make sure they weren't
married, before we'd even consider dating them. But as I say, in
my office we had to be especially careful, we were examples. We
were Eisenhower's girls and we were examples. At the I.G. Farbin
compound we lived in the houses that the Germans who worked for
I.G. Farbin had to evacuate. I think they were given like two or
three hours notice and they were allowed to take one suitcase out
of their apartments, out of their houses. And these are the
houses we lived in. When we first moved in, out of the kitchen
there was a door and a stairway into the basement. And all that
was in the house were cots for us to sleep on. But we went down
to the basement and oh my, you know, every belonging they owned
was down in that basement. Silver, china, whatever, furniture,
everything. And a lot of the girls, in their houses, took
souvenirs, but not us. Not one thing. Never. And the only way
I got this Hitler stuff was because Craig Cannon gave it to me.
Q: At the very end?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, at the very end. As a matter of fact, I think
he packed the box and Charlie Bennett was coming to the states
and he gave it to Charlie and Charlie brought it to the states
and mailed it to my family. I didn't even bring it back.
Q: Well, then, in retrospect, I'm wondering what you might think
of Eisenhower at that time. I mean, later on he became President
and so forth, but at the time you were working there for him,
what was your view of him? As an individual? What were his
attributes, what were ....
MRS. JEHL: He was intelligent, honorable, a wonderful
strategist. And yet knew how to get along with everybody. And
it was a hard position for him because he had the French and the
British. And Montgomery was a thorn in our sides. He fought the
General all the way and the General would get so upset over it,
but never to his face, he was very diplomatic, very diplomatic.
He was a brilliant man and I think there wasn't any one else who
could have been the Supreme Commander, except him. Montgomery
would never had made it, he would have had wars between the
French and the Americans and the British.
Q: Did you experience Eisenhower's temper first-hand?
MRS. JEHL: Oh yes, a lot. And he swore, he loved to swear. Oh,
yes. Very much. When he got mad he would swear, and, in front
of us. But that was the army. And we got used to it, we never
paid any attention to it. But as I said, it was strictly formal,
strictly business, strictly army, official. But the few times
that we ate with him he was charming and he told jokes. He was a
good storyteller. But we were afraid of him. Not exactly
afraid, but shy in front of him. I don't know how to express it.
But I remember at one of the Advance Command Posts Chickie was
with me and we were sitting at his table to eat. And the soup
cars came out and they had melba toast. And we each took one.
It was passed around, we each took one, ate our soup and no one
else took another one. And after we finished eating and we were
out of the room Chickie and I both said, "Oh god, we would have
loved to have eaten that whole plate of melba toast." We hadn't
seen melba toast in two years, you know, things like that. It
was hard on us really. A couple of weeks ago, one of my bridge-
playing friends whose husband is a retired officer, and I don't
know how she ever made it through the military as a wife, said
something about, she was talking about this. I don't talk about
working for Eisenhower. I'm very reluctant, never mention it.
And she said, "Sue, when you worked for Eisenhower, what did you
call him?" I said, "What do you mean what did I call him?" She
said, "Did you call him Ike?"
I almost fell out of my chair. How could I ever call him Ike? I
said, "Millie, you're out of your mind." It was either "yes,
sir," "no, sir" or when he spoke to me I stood at attention. And
that's the way--even when he came up his elevator in the morning
he'd say, "Good morning, Sue," and I'd stand up and I'd say,
"Good morning, sir," and he'd walk into his office. At night
when he left he'd say, "Good night, Sue," and I'd say, "Good
night, General." And he'd leave. And we referred to him as "the
boss," to this day, Mickey still calls him "the boss."
Q: And that's what you referred to him among each other, "the
boss?"
MRS. JEHL: Yes, and the aides did too.
Q: And you went back with him to the Pentagon after the war.
You worked on Crusade in Europe there ....
MRS. JEHL: Yes, I took all the dictation. He had started after
the war while we were in the I.G. Farbin building. He had
started it then.
Q: Had he been approached by Doubleday then already, I suppose?
MRS. JEHL: No, I don't think so. Not at all. And he would
dictate to all three of us. And then in the Pentagon it was me,
strictly. And sometimes I think about, there was nothing secret
about it, it wasn't classified and I think about these pages and
pages of his corrections and his double-spacing, all his writing.
And everything that I had thrown in the wastebasket. If I had
foreseen, I should have kept a few of those pages, just to have
all his little scribbles. It would have been worth something of
value to the Library, if nothing else.
Q: We do have some manuscripts like that.
MRS. JEHL: Oh, do you?
Q: But I don't know if it's Crusade in Europe it's probably the
later volumes, it's probably ....
MRS. JEHL: At Ease?
Q: At Ease, and then his two volumes from the White House period
that he wrote at Gettysburg, but you're right, it would have been
of value historically and ....
MRS. JEHL: Yes, my wastebasket used to be full every night and I
always took them to the center where they shredded them, you
know. Never let the janitors take those wastebaskets. But it
never occurred to me to take one sheet.
Q: When did you become a warrant officer?
MRS. JEHL: At the Pentagon. I came back as an enlisted, I was a
tech sergeant.
Q: And was he involved in getting you the warrant commission?
MRS. JEHL: Oh yes. Who else! It wasn't the aides or anything,
they couldn't do that, it was him. I know why he gave me the
warrant officer. I was at Fort Lee, they had a WAAC company and
all I did was sleep there. You know, at night go to bed, in the
morning get up and leave. I didn't know anybody or anything that
went on there. But one day they said I had to have orderly duty,
you know, stay up all night in the orderly room, company office,
or whatever it is. And so I told the General, "I can't come to
work tomorrow, I have to pull orderly duty." He said, "Like hell
you do!" [Laughter] And he really got furious. So he went in
and talked to the aides. He said, "What can we do about it?"
They said, "Well, it's the army, you know." And he said, "Make
her a warrant officer." So they made me a warrant officer and I
moved out and got a little apartment. And then worked my seven
days a week. [Laughter]
Q: And then how long were you a warrant officer before you got a
lieutenant's commission?
MRS. JEHL: I don't remember.
Q: Several months or a year?
MRS. JEHL: A few months. A few months, and then I got tired of
that and I said, "No, I'd like to be a civilian. Civil service."
And that's why he wrote up that job description or had SGS or I
don't know who, and I was going to get that civil service rating.
Which at that time was going to be a seven [GS-7]. And then by
the time they finished, Colonel Bowen said, "I think we're going
to get you a nine [GS-9]." And I was very excited about that
because that was pretty good beginning civil service rating. At
the last minute he called me in and said, "I can't stand the
civil service workers." And that included Mona Nason. He
inherited her from General Marshall. She was General Marshall's
secretary and he had specified that he didn't want anybody fired.
He was considerate that way, he didn't want the whole office
force to go just because he was coming in. Like the SGS, it
wasn't his SGS, Bolen was General Marshall's SGS. Anyway, he'd
get mad at Mona Nason too because she didn't care. She was civil
service, she wasn't military. She folded up that typewriter.
She was a little, I shouldn't say sloppy, but careless with her
letters, her erasures, her corrections. He couldn't stand it,
but she was civil service, there was nothing he could do about
it.
Q: And that's when the solution was to make you lieutenant?
MRS. JEHL: Yes.
Q: Still have you twenty-four hours a day? [Laughter]
MRS. JEHL: Yes. And only once he came down to my level--should
I put it that way, I don't know quite how to say it. It was
spring, and he said something about, "Sue," he said, "I know how
hard you've been working, you haven't had any time off, your
cheeks are pale." He said, "Why don't you go out and play golf
tomorrow?" He knew I loved to play golf. I was a golfer before
I went into the service. He said, "Why don't you go out and play
golf tomorrow?" And I said, "Thank you, I would love that." But
that's the only time he ever, ever did anything like that.
And another thing, Mamie resented me and I can't blame her.
She resented all of us when we came back because of all the
rumors that had gone on about Kay. And we were connected with
Kay. The General decided that he wanted his library in his
quarters at Fort Lee cataloged. So he asked Craig Cannon and me
to go over there and catalog it. When we got there--I was
commissioned then--I took my cap off and my gloves and left them
on the table in the foyer where she had her card tray. And we
went into the library and we worked on it about four days. But
that first day I heard her voice and she always called me
"sergeant" even after I made lieutenant. I heard her voice and
she said, "Whose cap and gloves are those?" And the houseboy
said, "Lieutenant Sarafian's." And she said, "Get them out of
here!" So from then on when I went into the library I took my
cap and gloves with me.
And then the General received an invitation from the Chamber
of Commerce in Detroit to make a speech there. And he took
Sergeant Dry with him, who was from Detroit, and didn't say a
word to me and that hurt my feelings so badly. Sergeant Dry's
name was scattered all over the papers. It wasn't that. It was
for my family's sake. He had to get the equivalent of the War
Department in Detroit to send him a secretary while he was there,
he was there three days. And when he came back he called me into
his office. And my family was upset about it, they said, you
know, "How come he has a WAAC secretary here and didn't bring
you?" So he called me into his office and he said, "I have an
apology to make to you, Sue." He said, "It's not exactly an
apology, it's an explanation. I want to tell you that I realize
what it would have meant to you and your family if I had taken
you to Detroit with me but because Mamie was not invited, I
couldn't take you." So I said, "Yes, sir," and walked out. What
else could I say? But it did hurt me terribly.
Q: And when did you leave the Pentagon?
MRS. JEHL: When I became pregnant and couldn't get into my
uniforms anymore, then I had to leave.
Q: So this was '47 or '48?
MRS. JEHL: It was '47, April of '47. We were married in
September of '46 and April of '47, I left.
Q: You resigned your commission?
MRS. JEHL: Yes. I went back several times to the Pentagon to
visit the aides in the office and they had a couple of parties
they invited me to. But I never saw the General again after
that. When we was campaigning for the presidency we were
stationed at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina and
the general was coming to Columbia, which was about forty miles
from Sumter. And Roland said, "You ought to call Bob Schultz and
ask him if the general will see you for a few minutes and take
the children and go and see him. You should do it." And I said,
"Nope, I can't do it." And to this day I have lived to regret it
because I know Bob would have told him, "Sue wants to bring the
children to see you," and he would have given me some time. But
I didn't want to impose. And another thing, so many people have
said, "Why haven't you written a book?" The last thing he said
to me when I was ready to leave him was, "Please don't write a
book about me." And I said, "I have no intentions of writing
it." And as I say, I never tell people I used to be Eisenhower's
secretary. If they find out and they ask, you know, I talk a
little bit about it, but very reluctantly.
Q: Well, we're glad you did an interview even if you didn't
write a book.
[Interruption]
Q: Get back into the ....
MRS. JEHL: Okay, well, we were finished with the ticker tape
parade in New York. We spent the night at the Waldorf and then
went to West Point and they had a big parade for the general at
West Point. That night I had no place to sleep and the escort
officer, whoever he was, said, "What are we going to do with
you?" Here's this enlisted girl and she's at West Point, where
are we going to put her to sleep? And there were several WAACs
working there at that time and there was one WAAC who worked all
night at the message center so they asked her what time she was
going to get out of bed and she said, "Eleven o'clock." So I had
to go to a movie until it was finished at eleven o'clock and then
go get in her warm bed. [Laughter]
Q: The old warm bunk concept.
MRS. JEHL: Warm bunk and sleep that night. And then what was
the other one, I forgot it. I thought it was a good story. Oh,
when we left Washington, Mamie Eisenhower was scared to death to
fly. She never would fly. When we left Washington to go back to
Germany we were going to stop at Hyde Park to call on Mrs.
Roosevelt and visit the President's grave. And Mamie, they
finally talked her into flying with us. And that was a real big
thrill for me. Mrs. Roosevelt was the most generous, hospitable,
kind person and when she took my hand in both of hers and shook
it and said how glad she was to meet me and then took us all over
and around Hyde Park it was a real big thrill. And then we left
Mamie there to take the train back to Washington and John was
with us and we went back to Germany with John.
Q: Back to the I.G. Farbin building?
MRS. JEHL: Yes.
Q: This would have been after the ticker tape parade, after you
had your five days in Detroit, maybe?
MRS. JEHL: Yes, four days and then I was called back to the
Pentagon and worked. I went back, I think it was with just John
and the General. Colonel Stack was staying in Washington, but he
wasn't the general's aide then, and we left Captain Butcher there
too. Ruth and Mamie lived together and Captain Butcher asked
Ruth for a divorce so he could marry this Red Cross worker,
Molly, so he stayed on and didn't go back with us. So there was
just the three of us on the airplane. John and the General and
me.
Q: Thank you very much.
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