You Two Are the Most Insubordinate Officers in the Whole Damn Army

Robert R. Bowie

Don McLean and I served together as special assistants to General Lucius D. Clay when he was Deputy Military Governor for Occupied Germany. Both of us had worked previously under Clay in the War Department in Washington in different capacities. I had been in the Legal Office for Procurement and then went as an assistant to Clay when he was shifted over to the White House as a deputy to James Byrnes, Head of the Office of War Mobilization about November 1944. Don had been in another division of the War Department.

Our designation came early in 1945, just after Clay himself was named Deputy Military Governor under General Eisenhower. We had about a month in Washington to familiarize ourselves with the relevant directives (especially JCS 1067 which had just been approved by President Roosevelt), before going abroad about the same time as Clay in April 1945. Since Clay was not to assume his duties until the war ended in Europe, we went first to Versailles, outside of Paris, using the time to educate ourselves on Germany, largely on the basis of excellent materials prepared by the British agencies planning for the occupation.

In Versailles we were billeted with General Clay in a small modern villa which had been built by a French industrialist for his mistress. A young captain from Arkansas, who was Clay’s aide, arranged for the meals. After about a week of pork chops and black-eyed peas, Clay asked the aide whether that was all the commissary had. “Oh, no,” he replied, “but I couldn’t imagine anything better.”

Shortly before the war ended on May 8^th, we had moved forward to headquarters prepared in Hoechst where many more of those assigned to Military Government assembled. Clay’s personal household was expanded to include General William Draper, who was to be in charge of economic affairs in the occupation.

Somehow or other, on the day of surrender, Don and I managed to get to Rheims and walk around the outside of the school-house (I think) where it was taking place. Thereafter, we made our way to Paris and joined with the enormous crowds surging along the Champs-Elysees. The French mood was curious - happy and relieved that the war was over, but somewhat muted as well, perhaps reflecting the French humiliation and defeat during its course.

Not long after, the Western allies finally arranged for their forces to take over the agree-upon occupation zones and for their Military Government authorities to move to Berlin which was an enclave in the Soviet Zone. In Berlin, Don and I joined General Draper in a house in the Wansee suburb of Berlin which was largely undamaged. General Clay explained to Don and me that while he was used to working from 7:30 am to 8 pm, Draper’s habit of pursuing unfinished business after dinner was too taxing - and led Clay to opt for living alone.

As assistants to General Clay, Don and I had a unique position in the staff. We had no formal title, no clearly defined duties, and no authority of our own. We worked directly with Clay, and simply did whatever he asked us to do. In general, we looked into specific matters that concerned him, prepared reports for him, checked for him on how the various Directorates were handling their tasks. The range of topics was as wide as Clay’s responsibilities, and required Don and me to inject ourselves into other peoples’ bailiwicks in getting information or checking for Clay. Don was especially good at this role: he was able to be persistent without being abrasive or creating undue friction.

Clay was extremely stimulating to work for. He had a remarkably sharp mind, was a rapid reader, and could absorb information very quickly. When given a report, he could almost scan it and identify the aspects worth discussing. He loved to debate issues and was aggressive and penetrating in such debate. Indeed his manner almost paralyzed some of his subordinates. Actually, however, he was eager for candid expression of views and conclusions, and expected us to argue strongly for the decisions we thought correct. With our background as lawyers, Don and I relished such give-and-take and took full advantage of the opportunity. Indeed once, as sort of a backhanded complement to our candor, Clay said to Don and me: “You two are the most insubordinate officers in the whole damn army.”

One of our first assignments after our arrival in Berlin was to plan and organize a two or three day program for the Military Government officers regarding the objectives and policy guidelines which were to govern the occupation during its initial phase. Clay thought it essential to have a common staff understanding of the basic purposes and policies in view of the inevitability wide desecration in carrying them out.

He gave Don and me a free hand in planning the program. For presentation we divided the directives among among for main aims - which we called the four D’s - to denazify, to demilitarize, to deconcentrate, and to democratize. Don located somewhere in the headquarters a small graphics team which prepared large posters illustrating each aim by cartoons. To involve the chiefs of the various divisions, we had each of them give the talks on their own area of responsibility. By requiring advance texts, and editing them with the speakers, we had a chance to go over with them the governing documents, including JCS 1067, the Potsdam Agreement, and other directives.

The year in Germany was a rewarding experience in many ways. Not the least was the association with Don and the chance to get to know him, and to become a firm friend. The challenge there displayed so many of his abilities and fine qualities. He was able to tackle unfamiliar subjects with confidence and to get to the heart of issues. He was flexible and innovative in proposing how to handle difficult or novel problems. By his integrity he won the trust and confidence of those he worked with. Beyond that he was an enjoyable companion, with a good sense of humor and a hearty and infectious laugh. He saw through pretense and hypocrisy without being cynical. Above all he had an unusual capacity for warm and loyal friendship.

Robert R. Bowie, Washington, DC, was Special Assistant to Gen. Lucius D Clay, Deputy Military Governor for Germany. A lawyer, he has combined several faculty positions at Harvard Law school and as the Director of the Center for international Affairs, with federal service as General Counsel for High Commissioner John J. McCloy (Germany), in the Department of State and the CIA. 

Lieutenant Colonel Donald McLean

Arthur E. Palmer, Jr.

With the surrender of Germany in 1945 and the installation of the international military government for that defeated country the United States Government was faced with a new series of problems. General Eisenhower had a military headquarters in Berlin which included a few officers trained as military governors to supervise the reorganization of captured areas and to provide enough order to make way for military operations. Yet those with vision knew that a primary need for the victors was reconciliation and a return to everyday life, not a continued military government. And the problem of dealing with a defeated Germany was made more difficult the fact that the “civilian” member of theArmed Forces, who had enlisted for the duration, wanted to go home - and go home right away!

As a first step in dealing with the problem of what to do with Germany, General Eisenhower appointed major General Lucius D. Clay, his deputy, to head the United States military occupation part of Berlin and Germany. According to Robert Patterson, the Assistant Secretary of War, Clay was one of the finest Army officers he had ever met - a man with the breadth to identify the necessary goals of the future.

General Clay, as Deputy United states Military Commander stationed in Berlin, took with him Major Donald H. McLean and Major Robert R. Bowie, both civilian lawyers, as a roving team to advise him on policy. McLean’s selection for this position was not by chance; he had worked for General Clay earlier in his Army career, and his service experience since 1942 fitted him admirably for his new post.

He had first served as a Captain in the International Division, Services of Supply, in Washington, where his work was supervised by General Clay; in 1943 he became a member of a General Staff division administering the planning of military governments and the development of policies for conquered or liberated countries, where his work was supervised by Major General John Hildring. 

Sensing the need for closer cooperation between general Hildring.s new command and General Clays supply responsibilities, the latter arranged with the firmer to use Captain McLean as a  personal deputy to each when dealing with common problems, acting as a working member of General Hildring’s office while still a member of general Clay’ command. As a result, he not only got to know both generals, but also learned a good deal about liaison work.

In July 1943 General Hildring’s Civil Affairs Division was given responsibility for all civilian problems in areas jointly controlled by the United States and Great Britain. It was at this point that McLean, now a Major, was appointed to General Hildring’s command. Late that year he wrote a friend: “I have been most fortunate for the past eight months, spending my time on papers concerned with problems presented to the army by the presence of civilian populations in operational areas, for and with Major General John H. Hildring - pleasant and thoroughly competent by any standards.”At the same time, he was also engaged in giving lectures to army trainees in classes in civil affairs problems at Yale University, Northwestern University, and the University of Virginia, the principal army Civill affairs Teaching Center in the U.S. Thus, when the end of the war came, Major McLean was well trained for his new position abroad.

Moving to Germany with General Clay in April 1945, McLean and Bowie watched the celebration at the end of the war in Paris on May 8, 1945. For the next year, the two officers acted as eyes and ears for General Clay, offering him advice on any and all problems of German Military Government. The pair also conducted a seminar for the American staff in Berlin on their functions in connection with Denazification, Demilitarization, Deconcentration, and Democratization, all in line with established Anglo-American policy. McLean described his work as “delving into all phases of the military occupation problems - you swing like a man on a flying trapeze from economics to public relations, to denazification, always hoping there will be a net somewhere.”

On August 15, 1945, while on duty in Germany, McLean, now a Lieutenant Colonel, was decorated with the Legion of Merit for his former services in General Hildring’s office in the Pentagon. On this occasion, he wrote General Hildring to thank him for the decoration as “something I shall always cherish as a tangible token of one of the most stimulating, pleasant, and interesting experiences of my relatively short career - it will always be a reminder of the hectic times we shared during 1943 and 1944.” But he did not stop there. The letter continues in a way that has been typical of McLean  during his career - he made warm friends of all the important men he worked with, treating them as honored equals, a feeling they reciprocated. Wrote McLean:

There is another aspect of which you are not aware. I entered the U.S. Army in the spring of 1942 with considerable misgivings as to weather a civilian of my age (which was 33) with no military background or specialized technical training could be of assistance to the U.S. Army. Working for you removed that doubt. There were times when my confidence was shaken during those early months when the nomenclature, the customs, and even the grammar were something I had never learned at Yale or in the practice of law. The award is more than adequate evidence to me that my original decision to go in was sound and that my wife did not live on the pay of a first lieutenant merely to satisfy the fancy of a confused and curious husband. She now has a tangible reward for her patience and understanding during the course of which she observed the wives of some of my contemporaries profit by the more tangible rewards available to my generation in recent years in the practice of law.

In addition, I received and invaluable supplement to my education. I have come to understand the army, its traditions, and its function in our national life. Our closed-door sessions in the early days were a liberal education few men ever receive. I have come to know, respect, and admire men like yourself and General Clay who have devoted their lives unselfishly to the public service.

At the same time he outlined, in letters to his army friends in the U.S., the personnel situation in Berlin as “impossible.” “The People here are becoming eligible for discharge, but are being held back while their friends in the U.S. are being sent home. What is needed is s first class office here in Berlin and in the U.S. to recruit competent civilian replacements. It is one of the most pressing problems today and the government is doing nothing about it.”

The United States Government in 1947 finally did something about it. It cut the Gordian knot when it made General George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Secretary of State and when he in turn had General Hildring appointed Assistant Secretary of State with the responsibility of transferring administrative responsibility for the occupation of Korea, Japan, and Germany from the War Department to the Department of State.

Shortly after his appointment as Secretary of State in 1947, Marshall wrote a letter to Arthur Milbank, Senior Partner of McLean’s Wall Street law firm, asking that McLean be loaned to the Unites states Government for two months to work on a special project. Secretary of State Marshall wrote of McLean as follows:

Mr. McLean, during his service in the army, was for a considerable period Liaison Officer between General Somervell and General Hildring in their respective capacities as Commanding General, Army Service Forces and as Director, Civil Affairs Division. McLean became thoroughly familiar with the organization of the War Department and its methods of dealing with the planning and operational aspects of Military Government. He personally participated in the formulation of many of these plans and had a hand in working out techniques for their accomplishment. Moreover, throughout this period, Mr. McLean worked closely with the personnel of the Department of State on major policy aspects of occupied areas programming. He later served as an advisor to general Clay in Germany and in that capacity had constant opportunity to observe and participate in the field activities of Military Government.
In view of Mr. McLean’s unique qualifications, and particularly because of the great confidence which General Hildring has in his judgement and tact, I believe that if Mr. McLean were free to work on this project for a period of two months commencing about July 1, he could perform a great public service to the Department and to his Government. Accordingly, I should like to ask you to consider weather Mr. McLean’s services could be made available to the Department for this purpose without substantial impairment to his relationship with the firm and without incurring undue sacrifice on your part.
Faithfully Yours,  

G.C. Marshall 

Secretary of State

Needless to say, McLean’s law firm agreed, and in the summer of 1947 he carried out his mission to everyone’s satisfaction. The Armed Forces were glad to see the last of many, if not most, of the civilians who had served during the war. For the greatest soldier in the country to write and ask the help of one of them was a signal of honor indeed.

Equally as meaningful a tribute to Don came from General Lucius D. Clay who wrote to Don in 1946: “Thank you for your letter of January 8. Your faith and confidence always made me feel as if I could surmount any obstacle.”

As a sort of postscript to Don and the Army, he met and made friends with an unusual number of generals and the correspondence between them made it clear that they respected him, and none were surprised to find him already serving one, or even two other generals. As an army friends said: “He collected generals like a dog collects fleas, but with better results.”

Arthur E. Palmer, New York, New York, was a classmate of McLean in the Yale Law School (class of 1935) and a lifelong friend. He served in the International Division, HQ General Staff, of the Army during World War II. A partner in a New York law firm, he was involved both in investment banking and the administration of transportation for New York City.

He gloried in the tactics of a worthwhile cause

Theodore R. Sizer

“Meet me at the Club,” he’d say; and a luncheon date and time would be set. Earlier, when Don was at the Lahey Clinic in Boston, the “Club” had in fact been Joseph’s Restaurant, on the corner of Dartmouth and Newbury Streets. Later it was the Andover Inn.

A splash of wine would start it off, and stories. About General Lucius D. Clay for whom Don worked after the War and whom he admired more than any other man. Or about the Ramon Magsaysay awards that he had engineered in the Philippines. Or about the politics of Massachusetts medicine. Whatever the intended agenda, institutional or personal, it would come out gradually, Don sensing just when to get on with that particular business. The talk would be easy, but direct, with Don’s Yale Law School and Millbank, Tweed training creeping out with apt questions, always interspersed with more anecdotes. Henry Stimson. Amherst College fraternities. Potton, the McLean sanctuary in Quebec. Agriculture and population policy in the Third World. Doshisha University and Otis Cary. The Overlook Hospital in Summit, New Jersey, John Kemper.

Then more questions. What will happen if…? Do we know enough about…? Have you checked this with Mel and Tim? Is Fred doing a study on that? By desert, the questions would merge into advice, and the language used was plain, even tart. They can’t do that because it’s unworthy. He’ll just have to pull his socks up. Don’t take a lead of first until you know where second base is.

The issues would take form, but their specifics were left deliberately dangling. Don gave his lunch mate the gratification of the final summary. Then Henry would bring coffee, and more stories would follow. And always there was the warm expectation of another luncheon soon at the Club.

Donald Holman McLean, JR. Son of a Congressman and Judge, he cared about getting things done. Weather the matter was as subtile as delineating the functions of an occidental International Hose in an oriental land or as politically Byzantine as moving a large medical facility from one city to another, Don gloried in the tactics of a worthwhile cause. Careful control of the facts was part of it; he learned well the virtues of thorough staff studies in his years of association with John D. Rockefeller, 3rd.

Knowing the people involved was equally critical. Don cared passionately for institutions, but he knew well that they were at their center both a cluster of ideas and a congeries of people, and that institutional decisions would ultimately be made by those peoples’ hearts as well as heads. One needed to know how others felt as well as thought.

Timing was also crucial in McLean’s repertoire. He knew when it was time to do a year’s work in a month, or let what appeared to be a simple issue marinate for weeks, off to the side even if not forgotten.

These tactics were but a means, of course. The ends were the key. Support of the institutions which were the focus of Don’s life became (albeit in a strongly secular sense) a holy purpose. No institution was holier than that of family, and while Don kept his privacy here, his friends readily sensed his intense commitment to wife, children, and grandchildren, to roots, to obligations. His marriage with Martha - two vivid personalities in serene and secure joining - was very special. However family customs may shift in our culture, the loyal vitality lived out by Don and Martha expresses humanity at its best. 

Don’s loyalty and persistent persuasiveness affected other institutions too. Some were primarily ideas, such as a worthy American role in postwar Germany and a philanthropy that served a global public interest. Others were formal entities as well as ideas - the Lahey Clinic, Amherst College, Phillips Academy.

No person could care more for the place where we now gather than did Don. He cared enough for Andover to change it, to change its form while he protected it substance, the ideas at its core. The founders ideology - a "free, public school or academy," and especially that imbedded in the Paul Revere motto, “non sibi,” - was the constant. Don't felt that the true loyalist obligation was to fashion and refashion a contemporary expression of an enduring, noble ideology. In many ways Don's memories, his history, shaped his character. He talked often of the past, and especially of the men and women who had moved him. But he never became their prisoners. 

And so we hope it will be for us, Don McLean’s lunch mates, his friends and family. His nicely balanced mixture of well-defined ends and carefully crafted means and his witness to loyalty - loyalty whose restless quality was a virtue - he touched us greatly. For us he was a great man. He had Lucius Clay; we have Don to claim.

He'll be uneasy with that word “great," though. To him it would sound too rigid, too Napoleonic. The better word which crap most often across the lunch table was the term "worthy." A worthy idea. A worthy person, someone up to the standard of the idea to which loyalty was expected. Don would have us be worthy, and our lives were changed because we wanted him to find us worthy. We knew, at those lunch table talks and elsewhere, that we were the beneficiaries of the loyalty of the profoundly worthy man.

Theodore R Sizer was headmaster a Phillips Academy in the 1970s. He had been Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Chairman of a" Study of High Schools," and the author of numerous articles and books.

A Resolution

Trustees of Phillips Academy

Be it resolved that the Trustees record their deep respect for the leadership, the wisdom, and the unswerving loyalty of Donald H McLean Jr. Graduate of Phillips Academy, Special Assistant to General Lucius D. Clay in the military occupation of Germany after World War II, counselor to John D Rockefeller, 3rd, and leader of the Lahey Clinic, he also fashioned a distinctive career as an Andover alumnus,  Alumni Councillor, campaign chairman, trustee, and President of the Board of Trustees. It is the latter role which we would address in this resolution.

He treated this body and its individual members with equal parts of serious respect and good humor. He thought of us as the members of a club, a club whose sole duty was the discharge of trusteeship in an intelligent, conscientious, and consistent manner. But it was a club whose responsibilities included pleasure along with duty - the pleasure of friendship, the pleasure of place, the pleasure of the Andover Inn as Trustee "territory", the pleasure of come camaraderie cum responsibility.

For each of us he had a word, a quick comment, a smile or a stern gaze (often both), a thoughtful query, usually ending with a hearty “let's get on with it!".

For each of us he had a name, invariably the last name. It was always Ireland, Meyer, Gage, Monro, Gelb, Stevens, Cooper, Kimball, Allen, Piel, Sizer, Chapin, Boeschenstein et al. The only one who escaped was Sumner Smith who either carried both his names or simply “Sumner". "Smith" alone lack proper identity!

We had our mission: to oversee the management of Phillips Academy; to select its leader with the utmost care, and then to back that leader under all conditions; to invest wisely in the schools material resources of money, buildings and land; to contribute generously our time, assets, and judgment; and finally to select successor trustees with the same care exercised in the selection of the headmaster. We recall with a smile his great pleasure when Mssrs. Beinecke and Wyman were elected, the final two during his time as president.

Process was important to him. Split votes were contrary to the basic trustee premise of loyalty to Academy and headmaster. Not that this body lacked for strongly held opinions often at variance with each other. But, such occasions called for patience, for taking out the issue in public and private, for seeking and securing consensus… and then for the casting of the vote.

Finally there was the test of trustee fibre. Don often described a good person as "someone you can count on when it's snowing outside".  No description could apply more accurately to him. And for some of us there was no stormier moment at Phillips Academy than when the transition from Headmaster Kemper to hHeadmaster Sizer coincided with the great national unrest over the American role in Vietnam. For more than two years Don McLean was the principle guide of the Academy. Not that he took over the daily management in any sense. Rather he saw that trust was properly placed, that those entrusted were surely backed, that consideration of the critical issue of the day (coeducation) was not neglected, and that the search for Andover’s twelfth headmaster was skillfully conducted. Advice on the governance of the Academy, often in the form of demands, came from many sources. All were heard. But when the time for decision arrived, it was the Board of Trustees, and only the Trustees, who rightfully exercised that power. 

In recognition of his is great contributions to the school and to our trustee body, we speak also of his partner and our friend Martha. Never did we gather at Andover, that her presence was not felt. Further, we knew that her concern for the best interest of Phillips Academy did not start and stop with trustee meetings. Ted Sizer spoke truly when, at Don's memorial service, he said “ His marriage with Martha – two vivid personalities in serene and secure joining - was very special. However family customs may shift in our culture, the loyalty lived out by Don and Martha expresses humanity at its best.

Our academy is the stronger, the wiser, the more worthy for the life and service of Donald H. McLean, Jr.