An Unplanned Life: A Memoir by George McKee Elsey (PDF)

Description

An Unplanned Life is the scintillating memoir of George Elsey, a small-town kid from western Pennsylvania who, at age twenty-four, was assigned to Franklin Roosevelt’s top-secret intelligence and communications center in the White House. As an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, Elsey helped brief the president and his senior associates on war events. He and his map room colleagues acted as the secretariat for Roosevelt’s cabled exchanges with Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Chiang Kai-shek; filed records of “summit conferences”; and stored in safes plans for future operations. He also traveled with the president in order to code and decode the classified messages that flowed between the presidential train or ship and the White House.Elsey’s duties continued with Harry Truman’s succession to the presidency. He decoded the famous message from Secretary of War Henry Stimson reporting the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and carried it to President Truman. In 1947, he shed his Naval Reserve uniform and joined the White House’s civilian staff as assistant to the special counsel to the president. In 1949, he became administrative assistant to the president, and, in 1952, he became a member of the Mutual Security Agency staff. During those years, he grew very close to Harry Truman, and thus, a major portion of An Unplanned Life relates to his experiences then.In the first postwar winter, Elsey was frequently the only staff member who accompanied President Truman on the USS Williamsburg. In September 1946, Elsey submitted a report to Truman on U.S.-Soviet relations, which came to be well known as the “Clifford-Elsey Report.” Providing Truman with notes for some two hundred of his “back-of-the-train” informal talks, Elsey played a part in the best remembered feature of the “Whistle-Stop Campaign” that resulted in “the political upset of the century.” In addition to his years at the White House, Elsey also touches on his post–White House years—his time in private industry, his months with Clark Clifford when Clifford was trying unsuccessfully to extricate America from Vietnam, and his long association with the American Red Cross. An Unplanned Life is a fascinating look at the life of an extraordinary individual who played an important and unprecedented part in two different presidents’ decisions and affected the course of our nation. Anyone with an interest in history will find this memoir fascinating and invaluable.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I eagerly devoured this book because Elsey really was “Lieutenant Inside,” but aside from a few juicy insights into Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief Admiral Leahy and Counsellor Clark Clifford, his very impressionistic and readable book left me hungry for more. Too often, he would breezily dismiss some momentous subject with the comment that other historians had covered the topic already. Limiting Sidney Souers, first Director of Central intelligence and exec Secretary of the new National Security Council, to a single page. Seriously???Elsey had a long and distinguished life and wrote this book so his grandkids would know what he did in the war, but what I wouldn’t have given to have shared a cup of coffee or beer with him to hear his take on Leahy’s and Clifford’s much longer impressions of the last year of WW II and the early Cold War.A wonderful but very frustrating book.

⭐this book is so interesting. i cant put it down. i read it, then i reach a point where i go oh my god, he was there, and this book was published only six years ago. george elsey has seen so much. things that people only dream of and read in history books. his book is a memoir of a bygone era, the chapters on fdr were so interesting. i was sad when they were finished. i thought elsey was just one of those young kids in the white house who goes unnoticed by the president. but when i was reading the part when he was having breakfast at hyde park with franklin roosevelt, and seeing eleanor practically run down the hall of the west wing. i stood in amazement. i am so happy i got the book signed too. it is the jewel of my collection. for a person who wants to read a memoir of the time in the white during the second world war, and truman. this is the one. the candor with which he speaks, the jokes truman made. its so nice to read a memoir that talks about how it really was, what they remember. not just a history book with a few lines every know and then about themselves. this book is a real treasure trove of interesting facts. im sure, i will be reading it again and again and finding something new to be amazed at.

⭐Found the life of George Elsey and the history he was privy to firsthand most interesting. It more than dovetailed several WWII histories I have been reading for a better picture of that time in history. I highly recommend the book to history buffs and even those more versed in that time-frame.

⭐Very much an inside view of the FDR and Truman administrations from someone who did real work there, behind the scenes. Helped add a personal perspective to the historical fact.

⭐I loved this book! George and I grew up in the same town in Pennsylvaniaand the first chapter talks about some of the people who were also part ofmy childhood. What an amazing journey he had!

⭐Fascinating to read inside information and observations from someone who was present during significant historical events.

⭐Fine work going back through the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Sadly, the author died recently.

⭐George was my fathers friend. A very interesting man.

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