Unlikely story
Sir: In his entertaining and generally well- founded article ('Arms and the men', 10 October), Chapman Pincher states that Eisenhower's wartime infidelity is well docu- mented. With respect to Mr Pincher, this is not so. The source of the story that Eisen- hower had an affair with Kay Summersby, his English driver in the second world war, is unreliable. Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower's biographer and a highly regarded historian, has recently stated that there is no evidence to justify this allegation, which he totally rejects, as do surviving members of Ike's staff. Master Sergeant McKeough, Ike's orderly, regarded the allegation as absurd. Before she died, Ms Sununersby denied that she had ever slept with Eisenhower.
This assertion has recently been revived by the White House scorched-earth operators in their shameless and contemptible attempt to whitewash President Clinton's adultery with Monica Lewinsky by declaring that many other distinguished Americans, alive or dead, were accomplished philanderers. They have plumbed new depths in dragging up a charge of adultery against Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers and George Washington's secretary to the Trea- sury.
David Ramsay
74857 South Cove Drive, Indian Wells, California, USA
Previous page
