Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.The Presidency: A Prescient Soldier Looks Back
In July of 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt decided that war was inevitable, and he asked his Secretaries of War and Navy, Henry Stimson and Frank Knox, for a strategic plan to defeat potential enemies. They sent the assignment to Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall, who called in Brigadier General Leonard Gerow, chief of war plans. Gerow turned to the best-qualified, brightest man he could find, a 44-year-old infantry major named Albert Wedemeyer.
Wedemeyer, now a retired four-star general living in Maryland's hunt country, recalls the moment. "Al," said Gerow, "I've got a hell of a job for you."...
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