Supreme Command

Eliot A. Cohen

The relationship between military leaders and political leaders has always been a complicated one, especially in times of war. When the chips are down, who should run the show--the politicians or the generals? In Supreme command, Eliot Cohen examines four great democratic war statesmen--Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion--to reveal the surprising answer: the politicians. Lincoln, Clemenceau, Churchill, and Ben-Gurion led four very different kinds of democracy, under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. They came from four very different backgrounds-backwoods lawyer, dueling French doctor, rogue aristocrat, and impoverished Jewish socialist. Each exhibited mastery of detail and fascination with technology. All four were great learners, who studied war as if it were their own profession, and in many ways mastered it as well as did their generals. All found themselves locked in conflict with military men and all four triumphed. The art of a great leader is to push his subordinates to achieve great things. The lessons of the book apply not just to President Bush and other world leaders in the war on terrorism, but to anyone who faces extreme adversity at the head of a free organization--including leaders and managers throughout the corporate world.