Military Statesman

The immediate future of the No. 1 U.S. soldier was settled at Teheran. General George Catlett Marshall will remain in Washington as Chief of Staff.

Joseph Stalin had forced Franklin Roosevelt to make up his mind. Getting down to second front cases, he wanted to know who would lead the promised Anglo-American invasion of the continent. The Roosevelt-Churchill answer was General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Earlier reports that General Marshall would be assigned that supreme field command were not baseless (TIME, Sept. 27 et seq.). The U.S. Chief of Staff has long been the leading advocate of a cross-Channel invasion; he has long wanted to serve in the field as a tactician; and before the Teheran meeting, Washington and London were convinced that his appointment was all set. President Roosevelt had seriously considered able General Marshall for the invasion job. But he had excellent reasons for finally agreeing to keep the Chief of Staff at his vital post in Washington.*

The chief reason is that General Mar shall has now attained the stature of a military statesman. He has the hearty respect and confidence of Congress and the nation, qualities the Administration sorely needs in Washington. Any successor would need many months to acquire his prestige, his experience in global strategy, and his smooth-working relationship with his fellow members of the Combined Chiefs of Staffs--to whom General Eisenhower will be responsible.

*Newspaper editors' naive faith in the "usually authoritative" predictions of the service magazines was shaken last week when the Army & Navy Register and the Army & Navy Journal came out with contradictory stories. The Register guessed Eisenhower for the invasion, while the Journal suggested that, at British insistence, a British general would head the invasion.

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