Kay Summersby (1908–20 January 1975[1]) was an member of the British Mechanised Transport Corps during World War II, who served as chauffeur to Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force Dwight D. Eisenhower, later as his secretary and, it is alleged, his mistress.
Biography
Summersby was born Kathleen Helen McCarthy-Morrogh in County Cork, Ireland[2]. She described her father, a retired Lt. Colonel of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, as black Irish and her mother as English. As a young woman she moved to London where she worked as a film studio extra, dabbled in photography and eventually became a fashion model. She was married and divorced, retaining the name of her ex-husband[2].
When Britain entered the Second World War in 1939, Summersby joined the British Mechanised Transport Corps (MTC). She drove an ambulance throughout The Blitz in 1940 and 1941[2]. When the United States joined the Allies after the German declaration of war in December 1941, Summersby was one of many MTC drivers assigned as chauffeurs to high ranking American military officers. She was assigned to drive Major General Dwight Eisenhower when he arrived in London in May, 1942. Though there was a brief interruption of several weeks due to Eisenhower's short return to the U.S., Summersby drove Ike and later became his secretary until November, 1945. During this time Eisenhower rose in rank to a 5 star General of the Army and Commander of the European Theatre, and Kay, with his help, became a U.S. citizen and a commissioned officer in the U.S. Women's Army Corps (WACs), ultimately leaving the service as a captain in 1947. Captain Summersby's military awards included the Legion of Merit, Women's Army Corps Service Medal, European Campaign Medal, World War Two Victory Medal and the Army of Occupation Medal with "Germany" clasp.
Summersby married the Wall Street stockbroker Reginald H. Morgan in 1952[3]. She died at her home in Southampton, Long Island, of cancer, on 20 January 1975[4].
Relationship with Eisenhower
Kay Summersby is notable and has maintained a marginal place in history due to her possible romantic affair with Dwight Eisenhower during the 1942-1945 period. Eisenhower Was My Boss, Summersby's 1948 memoir of the war years, makes no mention of any "affair" with Eisenhower; however, her 1975 autobiography, Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower, is a book devoted to the romantic relationship between the two. This second book, written after Eisenhower had died in 1969, was a deathbed statement from Ms. Summersby in which she sets forth that she wanted to set the record straight. There had been many rumors concerning the nature of their relationship, both during and after the war; she stated in her second book that she did not mention anything about this in her war memoir due to her concern for Eisenhower's privacy. The "autobiography" was ghost-written by Barbara Wyden while Summersby was dying of cancer[5].
Persons close to Eisenhower have maintained that the "affair" (which by her ghost-writer's account consisted, sexually, of two unsuccessful attempts to have intercourse) was strictly a fantasy on the part of the ghostwriter and publisher. It is interesting to note, however, that Summersby began the war as a British citizen and the equivalent of a private in the British forces and ended the war as a U.S. citizen and a Captain in the U.S. Army WACs. All of this came about through the direct efforts of General Eisenhower. Whatever the case, it is generally agreed that Kay and Ike were extremely close, were seen together in many press photographs during the war (as shown in the two books and other literature) and (as evidenced by letters between the two) the woman was not well-liked by Eisenhower's wife (who was alive when the second book was published). Ms. Summersby was married and divorced prior to meeting Ike[citation needed] and remarried a Mr. Morgan at some appreciable time after her discharge from the Army. There was an engagement to marry a U.S. Army officer that overlapped her initial period with Eisenhower; however, this was ended by the fiancé's (Major Richard "Dick" Arnold) death during the North Africa campaign[6].
Former President Harry S. Truman reportedly told Merle Miller that in 1945 Eisenhower asked permission from General George Marshall to divorce his wife to marry Summersby, but permission was refused. Truman also said he had the correspondence between Marshall and Eisenhower retrieved from the Army archives and destroyed[7]. Some historians conclude that Truman simply misremembered, and emphasize that Eisenhower had asked permission to bring his wife over to live with him in England. Others have speculated that Truman lied because of animosity to Eisenhower that heightened considerably during the latter's presidency (Truman stated that Eisenhower did not invite him back to the White House once during his administration.).[citation needed] In any event most of the parties, with the exception of Kay Summersby, had important reasons to misrepresent what actually occurred between the future President and his attractive driver.
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United Kingdom
United States