title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: On 4 November 1979, fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage in the United States Embassy in Tehran, Iran, by a group of Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, avid supporters of the Iranian Revolution. American President Jimmy Carter called the hostage-taking an act of "blackmail" and the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy." but in Iran it was widely seen as an act against the U.S. and its influence in Iran, including its perceived attempts to undermine the Iranian Revolution and its longstanding support of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in 1979.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The crisis had reached a climax after diplomatic negotiations failed to secure the release of the hostages. Facing elections and with little to show from negotiations, the Carter government ordered the State Department to sever diplomatic relations with Iran on 7 April 1980. Cyrus Vance, the United States Secretary of State, had argued against a push by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski for a military solution to the crisis. Vance left Washington on Thursday 10 April for a long weekend vacation in Florida. On Friday 11 April, Brzezinski held a newly scheduled meeting of the National Security Council where he insisted that it was time to "lance the boil", and Carter said it was "time for us to bring our hostages home". It was during this Security Council meeting of 11 April, that Carter confirmed that he had authorised the mission. He did however continue to entertain the planning for a concurrent punitive air-strike, but this was finally rejected on 23 April, one day prior to the commencement of the mission. The rescue mission was code named "Operation Eagle Claw".


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: "Operation Eagle Claw" occurred amidst a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Iran and its western neighbor Iraq, including frequent border skirmishes, calls by Khomeini for Iraqi Shi'ites to revolt against the ruling Ba'ath Party, and allegations of Iraqi support for Arab and Kurdish separatists in Iran. According to an 11 April 1980 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysis, "Evidence indicates that Iraq had probably planned to initiate a major military move against Iran with the aim of toppling the Khomeini regime" and had "sought to engage the Kuwaitis to act as intermediary in obtaining United States approval and support for Iraqi military action against Iran." Carter, who wrote in his diary on 10 April that "The Iranian terrorists are making all kinds of crazy threats to kill the American hostages if they are invaded by Iraq—whom they identify as an American puppet," may have been influenced by such reports to approve a rescue mission prior to the outbreak of a possible Iran–Iraq War.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Army Major General James B. Vaught was appointed as Joint Task Force commander and was to be forward-based at Wadi Kena in Egypt, reporting directly to the President. In turn, he had two field commanders: USAF Colonel James H. Kyle as the field commander for aviation and U.S. Army Colonel Charlie Beckwith as ground forces field commander.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The ambitious plan was to be based on the use of elements from four branches of the U.S. military: Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. The concept was based on an operation whereby helicopters and C-130 aircraft, following different routes, would rendezvous on a salt flat (code-named "Desert One") 200 miles (320 km) southeast of Tehran. Here the helicopters would refuel from the C-130s and pick up the combat troops who had flown in on the C-130 transports. The helicopters would then transport the troops to a mountain location ("Desert Two") closer to Tehran from which the actual rescue raid would be launched into the city the following night. The operation was further to be supported by an in-country CIA team. On completion of the raid, hostages were to be shepherded to a captured Tehran airport from which they were to be flown to Egypt.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: On 31 March, anticipating the need for military action, a U.S. Air Force Combat Controller, Major John T. Carney Jr., was flown in a Twin Otter to "Desert One" by covert CIA operatives Jim Rhyne and Claude "Bud" McBroom for a clandestine survey and reconnaissance of the proposed landing areas for the helicopters and C-130s. Carney successfully surveyed the airstrip, installed remotely operated infrared lights and an IR strobe to outline a landing pattern for the pilots. He also took soil samples to determine the load-bearing properties of the desert surface. At the time of the survey, the salt-flat floor was hard-packed sand, but in the ensuing three weeks an ankle-deep layer of powdery sand had been deposited by sandstorms.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The Tehran CIA Special Activities Division in-country paramilitary team, led by retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer Richard J. Meadows, had two assignments: to obtain information about the hostages and the embassy grounds and to transport the rescue team from "Desert Two" to the embassy grounds in pre-staged vehicles.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: "Desert One" was in the South Khorasan Province, in the Dasht-e Lut desert near Tabas () while "Desert Two" was located 50 miles (80 km) short of Tehran at .


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The ground forces consisted of 93 Delta soldiers to assault the embassy and a 13-man special forces assault team from Detachment "A" Berlin Brigade to assault the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where three further hostages were being held. A third group of 12 Rangers were to act as the roadblock team at the "Desert One" landing area. Rangers were also tasked with taking and holding the Manzariyeh Air Base near Tehran to provide the springboard for escape from Iran. In addition, the CIA had prepared an in-country team of 15 Iranian and American Persian-speakers, most of whom would act as truck drivers.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The complex plan required that on the first night, three USAF EC-130Es (Call signs: "Republic 4", "5", and "6") carrying the logistical supplies and three MC-130E Combat Talons (Call signs: "Dragon 1", "2", and "3") carrying Delta Force and Ranger troops (132 assault and security troops in total) would depart the island of Masirah, off the coast of Oman for "Desert One," a flight of over 1,000 miles (1600 km). They would be refuelled by Air Force KC-135 tankers en route. "Desert One" would be secured by a protection force and once secured, a refueling area would be established for the helicopters with approximately 6,000 US gallons (22,700 L) of jet fuel being made available from collapsible fuel bladders carried in the C-130s.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Eight United States Navy (USN) RH-53D Sea Stallion (Call signs: "Bluebeard 1 – 8") helicopters were positioned aboard , 60 miles off the coast of Iran. The helicopters would fly to "Desert One", refuel, load up the Delta Force and part of the Ranger teams, and then fly 260 miles (420 km) further to "Desert Two." Because it would be close to morning, the helicopters and ground forces would hide during the day at "Desert Two". The rescue operation would take place the second night.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: First, CIA agents who were already inside Iran would bring trucks they had sourced to "Desert Two". Together, the CIA officers and ground forces would then drive from "Desert Two" into Tehran. This assault team would assault the embassy and Foreign Affairs building, eliminate the guards, and rescue the hostages, with air support from Air Force AC-130 gunships flying from "Desert One." The hostages and rescue team would then rendezvous with the helicopters which had flown from "Desert Two" to the nearby Amjadieh Stadium where the rescue teams and the freed hostages would board the helicopters.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: In parallel to the rescue, an Army Ranger company would capture the abandoned Manzariyeh Air Base, () about 60 miles southwest of Tehran, to allow two C-141 Starlifters flying from Saudi Arabia to arrive. With the Rangers holding the airport, the helicopters would bring everyone from the stadium to the Manzariyeh airbase, where the C-141s would fly everyone back to an airbase in Egypt. The eight helicopters would be destroyed before departure.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Protection for the operation was to be provided by Carrier Air Wing Eight (CVW-8) operating from "Nimitz" and CVW-14 operating from . For this operation, the aircraft bore special invasion stripe identification on their right wings. This was necessary to distinguish support aircraft from Iranian F-14 and F-4 aircraft purchased by Iran from the US in the time of the Shah. CVW-14 Marine F-4Ns were marked with a red (VMFA-323) or yellow (VMFA-531) stripe enclosed by two black stripes while CVW-14 attack aircraft (A-7s and A-6s) had an orange stripe enclosed by two black stripes.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Only the delivery of the soldiers, equipment and fuel by the C-130 aircraft went according to plan. MC-130 "Dragon 1" landed at "Desert One" at 22:47 local time. The landing was made under blacked-out conditions using the improvised infrared landing light system installed by Carney on the airstrip, visible only through night vision goggles. The heavily loaded "Dragon 1" required four passes to determine that there were no obstructions on the airstrip and to align with the runway. "Dragon 1" off-loaded the road-watch teams in Jeeps and a USAF Combat Control Team (CCT) to establish a parallel landing zone north of the dirt road and to set out TACAN beacons to guide in the helicopters.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Soon after the first crews landed and began securing "Desert One", a civilian Iranian bus with a driver and 43 passengers was stopped while traveling on the road, which now served as the runway for the aircraft. The bus was forced to halt by the Rangers and the passengers were detained aboard "Republic 3". Minutes after the bus had been stopped, the Rangers in the road-watch team observed a fuel tanker truck, ignoring their orders to halt, bearing down on them. The truck, apparently smuggling fuel, was blown up by the Army Ranger roadblock team using a shoulder-fired rocket as it tried to escape the site. The truck's passenger was killed, but the driver managed to escape in an accompanying pickup truck. As the tanker truck was thought to be engaged in clandestine smuggling, the driver was not considered to pose a security threat to the mission. However, the resulting fire illuminated the nighttime landscape for many miles around, and actually provided a visual guide to "Desert One" for the disoriented incoming helicopters.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Two hours into the flight, RH-53D "Bluebeard 6" made an emergency landing in the desert when a sensor indicated a cracked rotor blade. Its crew was picked up by "Bluebeard 8" and the aircraft was abandoned in the desert. The remaining helicopters ran into an unexpected weather phenomenon known as a "haboob" (an enormous, nearly opaque cloud of fine dust). "Bluebeard 5" flew into the haboob, but abandoned the mission and returned to the "Nimitz" when electrical problems disabled flight instruments and flying without visual references proved impossible. The remaining six helicopters reached "Desert One", 50 to 90 minutes behind schedule. "Bluebeard 2" arrived last at "Desert One" at 01:00 with a malfunctioning secondary hydraulic system, leaving only one hydraulic system to control the aircraft.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: With only five fully serviceable helicopters now remaining to transport the men and equipment to "Desert Two" (minimum of six aircraft was the planned mission's abort threshold), the various commanders reached a stalemate. Senior helicopter pilot Seiffert refused to use unsafe "Bluebeard 2" on the mission, while Beckwith (field commander for ground forces) refused to consider reducing his trained rescue team's size. Kyle (the field aviation commander), therefore, recommended to Vaught that the mission be aborted. The recommendation was passed on by satellite radio up to the President. After two and a half hours on the ground, the presidential abort confirmation was received.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Fuel consumption calculations showed that the extra 90 minutes idling on the ground waiting for the abort confirmation order had made fuel critical for one of the EC-130s. When it became clear that only six helicopters would arrive at "Desert One", Kyle had authorized the EC-130s to transfer 1,000 US gallons (3,800 L) from the bladders to their own main fuel tanks, but "Republic 4" had already expended all of its bladder fuel refueling three of the helicopters and had none to transfer. To make it to the air tanker refueling track without running out of fuel, it had to leave immediately and was already loaded with part of the Delta team. In addition, RH-53D "Bluebeard 4" needed additional fuel, requiring it to be moved to the opposite side of the road.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: To accomplish both actions, "Bluebeard 3" piloted by Maj. James Schaefer had to be moved from directly behind the EC-130. The aircraft could not be moved by ground taxi and had to be moved by hover taxi (flying a short distance at low speed and altitude). A Combat Controller attempted to direct the maneuvre from in front of the aircraft but was blasted by desert sand churned up by the rotor. The Controller attempted to back away, which led "Bluebeard 3" pilot to mistakenly perceive that his craft was drifting backward (engulfed in a dust cloud, the pilot only had the Controller as a point of reference) and thus attempted to "correct" this situation by applying forward stick to maintain the same distance from the rearward moving marshaller. The RH-53D struck the EC-130's vertical stabilizer with its main rotor and crashed into the EC-130's wing root.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: In the ensuing explosion and fire, eight servicemen died: five of the fourteen USAF aircrew in the EC-130, and three of the five USMC aircrew in the RH-53D, with only the helicopter's pilot and co-pilot (both badly burned) surviving. After the crash, it was decided to abandon the helicopters and during the frantic evacuation to the EC-130s by the helicopter crews, unsuccessful attempts were made to retrieve their classified mission documents and destroy the aircraft. The helicopter crews boarded the EC-130s. Five RH-53D aircraft were left behind at Desert One mostly intact, some damaged by shrapnel. They could not be destroyed, because they were loaded with ammunition and any fire or explosion would have endangered the C-130s.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The EC-130s carried the remaining forces back to the intermediate airfield at Masirah Island, where two C-141 medical evacuation aircraft from the staging base at Wadi Abu Shihat, Egypt picked up the injured personnel, helicopter crews, Rangers and Delta Force members, and returned to Wadi Kena. The injured were then transported to Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center in Germany. The following day, after learning about the events at Desert One from the local Iranian news, the Tehran CIA team quietly left Iran, with the Iranians unaware of their presence.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The White House announced the failed rescue operation at 01:00 a.m. the following day (25 April 1980). Iranian Army investigators found nine bodies (eight Americans and one Iranian civilian). The American bodies were later returned to the United States and buried at various locations across the country. The 44 Iranian civilians taken prisoner on the bus were released and subsequently gave eyewitness accounts of the operation.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The eight servicemen who died included three Marines and five Air Force personnel. On 25 April 1980, Major General Robert M. Bond read a message from President Jimmy Carter at a memorial service commemorating them in Niceville, Florida. A memorial honoring them was erected in the Arlington National Cemetery and Carter attended a memorial service there with the families on 9 May. Three of the servicemen who died – Maj. Richard Bakke, Maj. Harold Lewis Jr., and Sgt. Joel Mayo – were buried in the Arlington National Cemetery in a grave marked by a common headstone, located about 25 feet from the group memorial. In addition, five servicemen were injured, including USMC Majors Jim Schaefer, pilot, and Les Petty, co-pilot.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: After the termination of the operation and the abandonment of equipment by the infiltration team, the Iranians became aware of the landings as well as the subsequent accident and firefight. Mohammad Montazer al-Qaim, Commander of the Yazd Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) went to the scene to investigate reports from locals. At the same time, without knowing of the investigation activities of the IRGC, the Iranian Air Force conducted two observation flights over the incident area. During the first flight, two F-14s flew over the abandoned US equipment and the flight requested permission to fire on the equipment. This was refused by the Iranian command. The next day, Iranian Air Force F-4 fighter jets patrolling the area thought that the American helicopters were about to fly and they fired at the remaining American equipment, killing Mohammad Montazer al-Qaim.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: President Carter continued to attempt to secure the hostages' release before his presidency's end. On 20 January 1981, minutes after Carter's term ended, the 52 US captives held in Iran were released, ending the 444-day Iran hostage crisis. US Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, believing that the operation would not work and would only endanger the lives of the hostages, opted to resign, regardless of whether the mission was successful or not. His resignation was confirmed several days later.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Ruhollah Khomeini condemned Jimmy Carter, and in a speech after the incident, credited God with throwing sand to protect Iran. He said:


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The embassy hostages were subsequently scattered across Iran to preclude any second rescue attempt and were released on 20 January 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan had taken the oath of office after winning the election against Carter.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Retired Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James L. Holloway III led the official investigation in 1980 into the causes of the operation's failure on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Holloway Report primarily cited deficiencies in mission planning, command and control, and inter-service operability, and provided a catalyst to reorganize the Department of Defense.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The various services' failure to cohesively work together prompted the establishment of a new multi-service organization several years later. The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) became operational on 16 April 1987. Each service now has its own special operations forces under USSOCOM's overall control.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The lack of well-trained Army helicopter pilots who were capable of the low-level night flying needed for modern special operations missions prompted the creation of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) ("Night Stalkers"). In addition to the 160th SOAR's creation, the US Defense Department now trains many military helicopter pilots in low-level penetration, aerial refueling and use of night-vision goggles.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: In addition to the formal report, various reasons for the mission failure have been argued, with most analysts agreeing that an excessively complex plan, poor operational planning, flawed command structure, lack of adequate pilot training and poor weather conditions were all contributing factors and combined to the failure of the operation.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The official Operation Eagle Claw Memorial is at Arlington National Cemetery and is described by cemetery literature as:


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The incident is considered as a US defeat and is commemorated annually in Tabas where government officials, religious leaders and people gather and display wreckage of the American planes and helicopters from the incident. A mosque called "gratitude mosque" was built at the crash site. On the road from Ashkezar to Tabas, at the location of "Desert One" there are several remnants of the operation, including wreckage and mock-ups of the RH-53D helicopters.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: An Iranian air-defense system is named Tabas, in commemoration of the crash site. At the old Tehran Airport, there is the shell of a RH-53D airframe on display.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: Shortly after the first mission failed, planning for a second rescue mission was authorized under the name "Project Honey Badger". Plans and exercises were conducted, but the manpower and aircraft requirements grew to involve nearly a battalion of troops, more than fifty aircraft, and such contingencies as transporting a 12-ton bulldozer to rapidly clear a blocked runway. Even though numerous rehearsal exercises were successful, the helicopters' failure during the first attempt resulted in the development of a subsequent concept involving only fixed-wing STOL aircraft capable of flying from the US to Iran using aerial refueling, then returning to land on an aircraft carrier for medical treatment of wounded.


title: Operation Eagle Claw

text: The concept called "Operation Credible Sport", was developed but never implemented. It called for a modified Hercules, the YMC-130H, outfitted with rocket thrusters fore and aft to allow an extremely short landing and take-off in Amjadieh Stadium. Three aircraft were modified under a rushed secret program. The first fully modified aircraft crashed during a demonstration at Duke Field at Eglin Air Force Base on 29 October 1980, when its landing braking rockets were fired too soon. The misfire caused a hard touchdown that tore off the starboard wing and started a fire. All on board survived without injury. The impending change of administration in the White House forced this project's abandonment.


title: Digital signature

text: A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for verifying the authenticity of digital messages or documents. A valid digital signature, where the prerequisites are satisfied, gives a recipient very high confidence that the message was created by a known sender (authenticity), and that the message was not altered in transit (integrity).


title: Digital signature

text: Digital signatures are a standard element of most cryptographic protocol suites, and are commonly used for software distribution, financial transactions, contract management software, and in other cases where it is important to detect forgery or tampering.


title: Digital signature

text: Digital signatures are often used to implement electronic signatures, which includes any electronic data that carries the intent of a signature, but not all electronic signatures use digital signatures. Electronic signatures have legal significance in some countries, including Canada, South Africa, the United States, Algeria, Turkey, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Chile and the countries of the European Union.


title: Digital signature

text: Digital signatures employ asymmetric cryptography. In many instances, they provide a layer of validation and security to messages sent through a non-secure channel: Properly implemented, a digital signature gives the receiver reason to believe the message was sent by the claimed sender. Digital signatures are equivalent to traditional handwritten signatures in many respects, but properly implemented digital signatures are more difficult to forge than the handwritten type. Digital signature schemes, in the sense used here, are cryptographically based, and must be implemented properly to be effective. They can also provide non-repudiation, meaning that the signer cannot successfully claim they did not sign a message, while also claiming their private key remains secret. Further, some non-repudiation schemes offer a timestamp for the digital signature, so that even if the private key is exposed, the signature is valid. Digitally signed messages may be anything representable as a bitstring: examples include electronic mail, contracts, or a message sent via some other cryptographic protocol.


title: Digital signature

text: Two main properties are required. First, the authenticity of a signature generated from a fixed message and fixed private key can be verified by using the corresponding public key. Secondly, it should be computationally infeasible to generate a valid signature for a party without knowing that party's private key.


title: Digital signature

text: A digital signature is an authentication mechanism that enables the creator of the message to attach a code that acts as a signature.


title: Digital signature

text: The Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is one of many examples of a signing algorithm.


title: Digital signature

text: Formally, a digital signature scheme is a triple of probabilistic polynomial time algorithms, ("G", "S", "V"), satisfying:


title: Digital signature

text: A digital signature scheme is secure if for every non-uniform probabilistic polynomial time adversary, "A"


title: Digital signature

text: where "A" denotes that "A" has access to the oracle, "S"("sk", · ), "Q" denotes the set of the queries on "S" made by "A", which knows the public key, "pk", and the security parameter, "n", and "x" ∉ "Q" denotes that the adversary may not directly query the string, "x", on "S".


title: Digital signature

text: In 1976, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman first described the notion of a digital signature scheme, although they only conjectured that such schemes existed based on functions that are trapdoor one-way permutations. Soon afterwards, Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Len Adleman invented the RSA algorithm, which could be used to produce primitive digital signatures (although only as a proof-of-concept – "plain" RSA signatures are not secure). The first widely marketed software package to offer digital signature was Lotus Notes 1.0, released in 1989, which used the RSA algorithm.


title: Digital signature

text: Other digital signature schemes were soon developed after RSA, the earliest being Lamport signatures, Merkle signatures (also known as "Merkle trees" or simply "Hash trees"), and Rabin signatures.


title: Digital signature

text: In 1988, Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali, and Ronald Rivest became the first to rigorously define the security requirements of digital signature schemes. They described a hierarchy of attack models for signature schemes, and also presented the GMR signature scheme, the first that could be proved to prevent even an existential forgery against a chosen message attack, which is the currently accepted security definition for signature schemes. The first such scheme which is not built on trapdoor functions but rather on a family of function with a much weaker required property of one-way permutation was presented by Moni Naor and Moti Yung.


title: Digital signature

text: One digital signature scheme (of many) is based on RSA. To create signature keys, generate an RSA key pair containing a modulus, "N", that is the product of two random secret distinct large primes, along with integers, "e" and "d", such that "e" "d" ≡ 1 (mod "φ"("N")), where "φ" is Euler's totient function. The signer's public key consists of "N" and "e", and the signer's secret key contains "d".


title: Digital signature

text: To sign a message, "m", the signer computes a signature, "σ", such that "σ" ≡  "m" (mod "N"), where "m" is a modular exponentiation operation. To verify, the receiver checks that "σ" ≡ "m" (mod "N").


title: Digital signature

text: Several early signature schemes were of a similar type: they involve the use of a trapdoor permutation, such as the RSA function, or in the case of the Rabin signature scheme, computing square modulo composite, "N". A trapdoor permutation family is a family of permutations, specified by a parameter, that is easy to compute in the forward direction, but is difficult to compute in the reverse direction without already knowing the private key ("trapdoor"). Trapdoor permutations can be used for digital signature schemes, where computing the reverse direction with the secret key is required for signing, and computing the forward direction is used to verify signatures.


title: Digital signature

text: Used directly, this type of signature scheme is vulnerable to key-only existential forgery attack. To create a forgery, the attacker picks a random signature σ and uses the verification procedure to determine the message, "m", corresponding to that signature. In practice, however, this type of signature is not used directly, but rather, the message to be signed is first hashed to produce a short digest, that is then padded to larger width comparable to "N", then signed with the reverse trapdoor function. This forgery attack, then, only produces the padded hash function output that corresponds to σ, but not a message that leads to that value, which does not lead to an attack. In the random oracle model, hash-then-sign (an idealized version of that practice where hash and padding combined have close to "N" possible outputs), this form of signature is existentially unforgeable, even against a chosen-plaintext attack.


title: Digital signature

text: As organizations move away from paper documents with ink signatures or authenticity stamps, digital signatures can provide added assurances of the evidence to provenance, identity, and status of an electronic document as well as acknowledging informed consent and approval by a signatory. The United States Government Printing Office (GPO) publishes electronic versions of the budget, public and private laws, and congressional bills with digital signatures. Universities including Penn State, University of Chicago, and Stanford are publishing electronic student transcripts with digital signatures.


title: Digital signature

text: Although messages may often include information about the entity sending a message, that information may not be accurate. Digital signatures can be used to authenticate the identity of the source messages. When ownership of a digital signature secret key is bound to a specific user, a valid signature shows that the message was sent by that user. The importance of high confidence in sender authenticity is especially obvious in a financial context. For example, suppose a bank's branch office sends instructions to the central office requesting a change in the balance of an account. If the central office is not convinced that such a message is truly sent from an authorized source, acting on such a request could be a grave mistake.


title: Digital signature

text: In many scenarios, the sender and receiver of a message may have a need for confidence that the message has not been altered during transmission. Although encryption hides the contents of a message, it may be possible to an encrypted message without understanding it. (Some encryption algorithms, called nonmalleable, prevent this, but others do not.) However, if a message is digitally signed, any change in the message after signature invalidates the signature. Furthermore, there is no efficient way to modify a message and its signature to produce a new message with a valid signature, because this is still considered to be computationally infeasible by most cryptographic hash functions (see collision resistance).


title: Digital signature

text: Non-repudiation, or more specifically non-repudiation of origin, is an important aspect of digital signatures. By this property, an entity that has signed some information cannot at a later time deny having signed it. Similarly, access to the public key only does not enable a fraudulent party to fake a valid signature.


title: Digital signature

text: Note that these authentication, non-repudiation etc. properties rely on the secret key prior to its usage. Public revocation of a key-pair is a required ability, else leaked secret keys would continue to implicate the claimed owner of the key-pair. Checking revocation status requires an "online" check; e.g., checking a certificate revocation list or via the Online Certificate Status Protocol. Very roughly this is analogous to a vendor who receives credit-cards first checking online with the credit-card issuer to find if a given card has been reported lost or stolen. Of course, with stolen key pairs, the theft is often discovered only after the secret key's use, e.g., to sign a bogus certificate for espionage purpose.


title: Digital signature

text: In their foundational paper, Goldwasser, Micali, and Rivest lay out a hierarchy of attack models against digital signatures:


title: Digital signature

text: The strongest notion of security, therefore, is security against existential forgery under an adaptive chosen message attack.


title: Digital signature

text: All public key / private key cryptosystems depend entirely on keeping the private key secret. A private key can be stored on a user's computer, and protected by a local password, but this has two disadvantages:


title: Digital signature

text: A more secure alternative is to store the private key on a smart card. Many smart cards are designed to be tamper-resistant (although some designs have been broken, notably by Ross Anderson and his students). In a typical digital signature implementation, the hash calculated from the document is sent to the smart card, whose CPU signs the hash using the stored private key of the user, and then returns the signed hash. Typically, a user must activate their smart card by entering a personal identification number or PIN code (thus providing two-factor authentication). It can be arranged that the private key never leaves the smart card, although this is not always implemented. If the smart card is stolen, the thief will still need the PIN code to generate a digital signature. This reduces the security of the scheme to that of the PIN system, although it still requires an attacker to possess the card. A mitigating factor is that private keys, if generated and stored on smart cards, are usually regarded as difficult to copy, and are assumed to exist in exactly one copy. Thus, the loss of the smart card may be detected by the owner and the corresponding certificate can be immediately revoked. Private keys that are protected by software only may be easier to copy, and such compromises are far more difficult to detect.


title: Digital signature

text: Entering a PIN code to activate the smart card commonly requires a numeric keypad. Some card readers have their own numeric keypad. This is safer than using a card reader integrated into a PC, and then entering the PIN using that computer's keyboard. Readers with a numeric keypad are meant to circumvent the eavesdropping threat where the computer might be running a keystroke logger, potentially compromising the PIN code. Specialized card readers are also less vulnerable to tampering with their software or hardware and are often EAL3 certified.


title: Digital signature

text: Smart card design is an active field, and there are smart card schemes which are intended to avoid these particular problems, despite having few security proofs so far.


title: Digital signature

text: One of the main differences between a digital signature and a written signature is that the user does not "see" what they sign. The user application presents a hash code to be signed by the digital signing algorithm using the private key. An attacker who gains control of the user's PC can possibly replace the user application with a foreign substitute, in effect replacing the user's own communications with those of the attacker. This could allow a malicious application to trick a user into signing any document by displaying the user's original on-screen, but presenting the attacker's own documents to the signing application.


title: Digital signature

text: To protect against this scenario, an authentication system can be set up between the user's application (word processor, email client, etc.) and the signing application. The general idea is to provide some means for both the user application and signing application to verify each other's integrity. For example, the signing application may require all requests to come from digitally signed binaries.


title: Digital signature

text: One of the main differences between a cloud based digital signature service and a locally provided one is risk. Many risk averse companies, including governments, financial and medical institutions, and payment processors require more secure standards, like FIPS 140-2 level 3 and FIPS 201 certification, to ensure the signature is validated and secure.


title: Digital signature

text: Technically speaking, a digital signature applies to a string of bits, whereas humans and applications "believe" that they sign the semantic interpretation of those bits. In order to be semantically interpreted, the bit string must be transformed into a form that is meaningful for humans and applications, and this is done through a combination of hardware and software based processes on a computer system. The problem is that the semantic interpretation of bits can change as a function of the processes used to transform the bits into semantic content. It is relatively easy to change the interpretation of a digital document by implementing changes on the computer system where the document is being processed. From a semantic perspective this creates uncertainty about what exactly has been signed. WYSIWYS (What You See Is What You Sign) means that the semantic interpretation of a signed message cannot be changed. In particular this also means that a message cannot contain hidden information that the signer is unaware of, and that can be revealed after the signature has been applied. WYSIWYS is a requirement for the validity of digital signatures, but this requirement is difficult to guarantee because of the increasing complexity of modern computer systems. The term WYSIWYS was coined by Peter Landrock and Torben Pedersen to describe some of the principles in delivering secure and legally binding digital signatures for Pan-European projects.


title: Digital signature

text: An ink signature could be replicated from one document to another by copying the image manually or digitally, but to have credible signature copies that can resist some scrutiny is a significant manual or technical skill, and to produce ink signature copies that resist professional scrutiny is very difficult.


title: Digital signature

text: Digital signatures cryptographically bind an electronic identity to an electronic document and the digital signature cannot be copied to another document. Paper contracts sometimes have the ink signature block on the last page, and the previous pages may be replaced after a signature is applied. Digital signatures can be applied to an entire document, such that the digital signature on the last page will indicate tampering if any data on any of the pages have been altered, but this can also be achieved by signing with ink and numbering all pages of the contract.


title: Digital signature

text: Most digital signature schemes share the following goals regardless of cryptographic theory or legal provision:


title: Digital signature

text: Only if all of these conditions are met will a digital signature actually be any evidence of who sent the message, and therefore of their assent to its contents. Legal enactment cannot change this reality of the existing engineering possibilities, though some such have not reflected this actuality.


title: Digital signature

text: Legislatures, being importuned by businesses expecting to profit from operating a PKI, or by the technological avant-garde advocating new solutions to old problems, have enacted statutes and/or regulations in many jurisdictions authorizing, endorsing, encouraging, or permitting digital signatures and providing for (or limiting) their legal effect. The first appears to have been in Utah in the United States, followed closely by the states Massachusetts and California. Other countries have also passed statutes or issued regulations in this area as well and the UN has had an active model law project for some time. These enactments (or proposed enactments) vary from place to place, have typically embodied expectations at variance (optimistically or pessimistically) with the state of the underlying cryptographic engineering, and have had the net effect of confusing potential users and specifiers, nearly all of whom are not cryptographically knowledgeable.


title: Digital signature

text: Adoption of technical standards for digital signatures have lagged behind much of the legislation, delaying a more or less unified engineering position on interoperability, algorithm choice, key lengths, and so on what the engineering is attempting to provide.


title: Digital signature

text: Some industries have established common interoperability standards for the use of digital signatures between members of the industry and with regulators. These include the Automotive Network Exchange for the automobile industry and the SAFE-BioPharma Association for the healthcare industry.


title: Digital signature

text: In several countries, a digital signature has a status somewhat like that of a traditional pen and paper signature, as in the


title: Digital signature

text: 1999 EU digital signature directive and 2014 EU follow-on legislation. Generally, these provisions mean that anything digitally signed legally binds the signer of the document to the terms therein. For that reason, it is often thought best to use separate key pairs for encrypting and signing. Using the encryption key pair, a person can engage in an encrypted conversation (e.g., regarding a real estate transaction), but the encryption does not legally sign every message he or she sends. Only when both parties come to an agreement do they sign a contract with their signing keys, and only then are they legally bound by the terms of a specific document. After signing, the document can be sent over the encrypted link. If a signing key is lost or compromised, it can be revoked to mitigate any future transactions. If an encryption key is lost, a backup or key escrow should be utilized to continue viewing encrypted content. Signing keys should never be backed up or escrowed unless the backup destination is securely encrypted.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Serge Jonás Ibaka Ngobila (; born 18 September 1989) is a Congolese-Spanish professional basketball player for the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Ibaka was drafted by the Seattle SuperSonics with the 24th overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft. Ibaka is a three-time NBA All-Defensive First Team selection and has twice led the league in blocks. Although born in the Republic of the Congo, Ibaka plays for the Spain national team. In 2019, he won his first NBA championship as a key member of the Toronto Raptors.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Ibaka was born in Brazzaville, People's Republic of the Congo (modern-day Republic of the Congo), and is one of 2 children. His father played basketball in the Republic of the Congo and with the Congolese national team, and his mother played for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He started playing basketball at a very young age with his first club, Avenir du Rail, using the sport as an escape from his mother's untimely death and his father's imprisonment during the Second Congo War. His father organized for the family to flee the country prior to the war, but ended up as a political prisoner upon their return.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: After playing for the Avenir du Rail senior team, Ibaka later joined rival club Inter Club junior team. Ibaka preferred the club because of its better structure, as it provided sneakers and meals. With Inter's senior team, he played in the 2006 FIBA Africa Clubs Champions Cup, the highest competition in Africa. There, he led the competition in rebounds and was named to the competition's All-Star Five.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: In March 2007, Ibaka moved to France at the age of 17 and joined a second-division basketball team before moving to Spain, where he taught himself Spanish. In Spain, he soon began playing with a second-division basketball club CB L'Hospitalet. He averaged 10.8 points and 8.2 rebounds and shot 55%. In 2008, he entered several international showcases, picking up an MVP award at the Reebok Eurocamp and the attention of NBA scouts. An NBA scout at one of the camps said that "athletically he's off the charts—there's no telling how good he can be".


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Ibaka was selected by the Seattle SuperSonics with the 24th pick in the 2008 NBA draft. He became the first player from the Republic of Congo to be selected in the draft, although the Oklahoma City Thunder (the re-branded SuperSonics that relocated to Oklahoma City six days after the draft) agreed to keep him in Europe. He then signed a three-year contract with Ricoh Manresa from the ACB League in Spain, keeping the option to leave for the NBA after each season. In the ACB, he averaged 7.1 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 1 block in 16 minutes per game.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: In July 2009, the Thunder paid the buyout for Ibaka's deal with Manresa, and signed him to a two-year contract with two more optional seasons.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Although coming to the NBA as a raw talent, Ibaka had managed to become a starter in the Thunder rotation. He was often used for his energy in the paint, whether on defense or rebounding. In his first NBA season, Ibaka played 18.1 minutes per game in 73 games, averaging 6.3 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game. His blocks average led all rookies in the 2009–10 season, and he ranked number 20 overall. In the first round of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Lakers, he played in 6 games, averaging 25.5 minutes, 7.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2 blocks per game. His 7 blocks in game two in Los Angeles was a record (youngest player to have 7 blocks in playoff game).


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 19 February 2011, Ibaka participated in the 2011 NBA Slam Dunk Contest. He began the contest with a free-throw line dunk. In the second round, Ibaka grabbed a stuffed animal from the rim with his mouth and dunked in one motion. However, he lost out to Blake Griffin in the competition.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: During the 2011 NBA lockout, Ibaka signed a two-month contract with Real Madrid in Spain alongside Spain national basketball team teammate and friend Rudy Fernández with an option to return to the NBA at the end of the lockout. Over 6 games in the Euroleague, he averaged 5.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2 blocks in 15 minutes per game.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: After the lockout, Ibaka returned to the NBA from Spain. On 19 February 2012, he recorded his first career triple-double against the Denver Nuggets, scoring 14 points, grabbing 15 rebounds and getting a career-high 11 blocks. He played all 66 games in the shortened season as a starter, averaging the most blocks in the league, 3.6 per game. In voting for the Defensive Player of the Year, he finished second behind Tyson Chandler of the New York Knicks. In Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, Ibaka went 11–11 from the field. Oklahoma City went on to win the series in six games and advance to the 2012 NBA Finals. In the Finals Ibaka averaged 7 points and 5 rebounds, but the Thunder fell to the Miami Heat in five games.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: During the 2012–13 NBA season, Ibaka upped his scoring average from 9.1 to 13.2. He also averaged 7.7 rebounds, and a league-leading 3.0 blocks. For his defensive efforts, Ibaka finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting, behind LeBron James and the winner, Marc Gasol. In the playoffs, the Thunder beat the Houston Rockets in 6 games, but fell to the Memphis Grizzlies in five games. Ibaka averaged 12.8 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 3 blocks in the postseason but shot only 43.7% from the field, a near 14% drop off from his regular season field goal percentage of 57.3%.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: In 2013–14, Ibaka averaged career highs of 15.1 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, and led the league in total blocks (219) for the fourth straight season. In a series-clinching win over the Los Angeles Clippers in the conference semifinals, Ibaka suffered a left calf injury that was expected to sideline him for the remainder of the 2014 playoffs. However, he made his return in Game 3 against San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals. The Thunder eventually fell to the Spurs in six games as Ibaka averaged 12.2 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.4 blocks throughout the playoffs. Ibaka was also named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team for the third consecutive year.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 19 February 2015, Ibaka recorded 21 points and a career-high 22 rebounds in the 104–89 win over the Dallas Mavericks. On 17 March 2015, he was ruled out for four to six weeks after undergoing arthroscopic surgery to address right knee soreness.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 23 June 2016, Ibaka was traded to the Orlando Magic in exchange for Victor Oladipo, Ersan İlyasova and the draft rights to Domantas Sabonis, the 11th pick of the 2016 NBA draft. He made his debut for the Magic in their season opener on 26 October, recording 14 points and seven rebounds in a 108–96 loss to the Miami Heat. On 13 November 2016, he scored a career-high 31 points and hit a game-winning baseline jumper to lead the Magic to a 119–117 win over his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 14 February 2017, Ibaka was traded to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Terrence Ross and a future first-round draft pick (later used to draft Anžejs Pasečņiks). He made his debut for the Raptors ten days later, scoring 15 points in a 107–97 win over the Boston Celtics. On 21 March 2017, against the Chicago Bulls, Ibaka was ejected after an altercation with Bulls' center Robin Lopez. The next day, Ibaka received a one-game suspension.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 7 July 2017, Ibaka re-signed with the Raptors to a reported three-year, $65 million contract. On January 10, 2018, he was suspended for one game without pay for an altercation with James Johnson during a game against the Miami Heat a day earlier.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 4 November 2018, Ibaka made his first 14 shots on the way to a career-high 34 points in a 121–107 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. He finished the game 15 of 17 from the field and became the first player to start a game 14 of 14 from the field since Shaquille O'Neal did it in February 2006. On 3 February 2019, Ibaka had 16 points and 12 rebounds in a 121–103 win over the Los Angeles Clippers, marking a career-best sixth straight double-double, Toronto's longest streak since Chris Bosh had eight in November 2009. On 12 March, Ibaka was suspended for three games without pay due to an altercation with Marquese Chriss during a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: In June 2019, Ibaka helped the Raptors defeat the Golden State Warriors in six games during the NBA Finals to win his first NBA championship.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 5 February 2020, Ibaka hit a game winning three pointer to lead the Raptors to a 119–118 win over the Indiana Pacers, extending the Raptors' win streak to 12, a franchise record.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 25 November 2020, Ibaka signed with the Los Angeles Clippers. Ibaka was reunited with former Raptors teammate Kawhi Leonard, both of whom were part of the 2018-19 championship squad. In his first game with the Clippers, Ibaka had 15 points and 6 rebounds in a Clippers 116–109 win over the Lakers. On 24 February, 2021, Ibaka scored 21 points, grabbed 9 rebounds, and recorded 6 assists during a 128-111 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 10 February 2022, Ibaka was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks as part of a four-team trade that sent Rodney Hood and Semi Ojeleye to the Clippers. On 19 July 2022, the Milwaukee Bucks re-signed Ibaka to a one-year contract.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: At youth level, Ibaka represented the Republic of the Congo. At the 2006 FIBA Africa Under-18 Championship in Durban, he led all players in scoring and rebounds with an average of 18.6 points and 13.8 rebounds respectively.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Years later, Ibaka expressed a desire to play for the Spain national basketball team. After living in the country for four years, he was granted Spanish citizenship on 15 July 2011. His team won the gold medal in the Eurobasket 2011, beating France in the final by a score of 98–85. He won a silver medal with Spain at the 2012 Summer Olympics.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Ibaka is a chef, and on his YouTube series, “How Hungry Are You”, Ibaka, who refers to himself as Mafuzzy Chef, has served numerous delicacies to his teammates, including beef penis to Kawhi Leonard and lamb brain to the Raptors bench players.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Ibaka is known for his sophisticated fashion. In 2019, he was named to "Vanity Fair"'s Best Dressed List. Ibaka refers to his sartorial efforts as “Art”.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Ibaka has a daughter who was born shortly after he left the Republic of the Congo when he was still a teenager. She was raised by her mother and Ibaka's father, with neither Ibaka nor his daughter knowing of each other until she was three years old. They met for the first time when she was five years old.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: On 3 April 2017, Ibaka was announced as the newest member elected to the board of directors of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Foundation, the charitable arm of the NBPA which provides strategic funding and support for players' community engagement initiatives worldwide.


title: Serge Ibaka

text: Ibaka has been in relationships with Angela Simmons (2017–2018), Keri Hilson (2012–2016) and Hedisa Visapa (2011).


title: George C. Marshall

text: George Catlett Marshall Jr. (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, then served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman. Winston Churchill lauded Marshall as the "organizer of victory" for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II. After the war, he spent a frustrating year trying and failing to avoid the impending Chinese Civil War. As Secretary of State, Marshall advocated a U.S. economic and political commitment to post-war European recovery, including the Marshall Plan that bore his name. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Born in Pennsylvania, Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in 1901. Marshall received his commission as a second lieutenant of Infantry in February 1902 and immediately went to the Philippines. He served in the United States and overseas in positions of increasing rank and responsibility, including platoon leader and company commander in the Philippines during the Philippine–American War. He was the Honor Graduate of his Infantry-Cavalry School Course in 1907, and graduated first in his 1908 Army Staff College class. In 1916 Marshall was assigned as aide-de-camp to J. Franklin Bell, the commander of the Western Department. After the nation entered World War I in 1917, Marshall served with Bell who commanded the Department of the East. He was assigned to the staff of the 1st Division; he assisted with the organization's mobilization and training in the United States, as well as planning of its combat operations in France. Subsequently, assigned to the staff of the American Expeditionary Forces headquarters, he was a key planner of American operations; including the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.


title: George C. Marshall

text: After the war, Marshall became an aide-de-camp to John J. Pershing, who was then the Army's Chief of Staff. Marshall later served on the Army staff, was the executive officer of the 15th Infantry Regiment in China, and was an instructor at the Army War College. In 1927, he became assistant commandant of the Army's Infantry School, where he modernized command and staff processes, which proved to be of major benefit during World War II. In 1932 and 1933 he commanded the 8th Infantry Regiment and Fort Screven, Georgia. Marshall commanded 5th Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division and Vancouver Barracks from 1936 to 1938; he received promotion to brigadier general. During this command, Marshall was also responsible for 35 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps in Oregon and Southern Washington. In July 1938, Marshall was assigned to the War Plans Division on the War Department staff; he later became the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff. When Chief of Staff Malin Craig retired in 1939, Marshall assumed the role of Chief of Staff in an acting capacity before his appointment to the position, which he held until the war's end in 1945.


title: George C. Marshall

text: As Chief of Staff, Marshall, working closely with Secretary of War Henry Stimson, organized the largest military expansion in U.S. history, and received promotion to five-star rank as General of the Army. Marshall coordinated Allied operations in Europe and the Pacific until the end of the war. In addition to accolades from Winston Churchill and other Allied leaders, "Time" magazine named Marshall its Man of the Year for 1943 and 1947. Marshall retired from active service in 1945, but remained on active duty, as required for holders of five-star rank. From December 15, 1945, to January 1947, Marshall served as a special envoy to China in an unsuccessful effort to negotiate a coalition government between the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists of Mao Zedong.


title: George C. Marshall

text: As Secretary of State from 1947 to 1949, Marshall advocated rebuilding Europe, a program that became known as the Marshall Plan, and which led to his being awarded the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize. After resigning as Secretary of State, Marshall served as chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission and president of the American National Red Cross. As Secretary of Defense at the start of the Korean War, Marshall worked to restore the military's confidence and morale at the end of its post-World War II demobilization and then its initial buildup for combat in Korea and operations during the Cold War. After resigning as Defense Secretary, Marshall retired to his home in Virginia. He died in 1959 and was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery.


title: George C. Marshall

text: George Catlett Marshall Jr. was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children born to George Catlett Marshall and Laura Emily (née Bradford) Marshall. Both sides of his family were long from Kentucky, but cherished their Virginian roots. He was also a first cousin, three times removed, of former Chief Justice John Marshall. Marshall's father was active in the coal and coke business. Later, when asked about his political allegiances, Marshall often joked that his father had been a Democrat and his mother a Republican, whereas he was an Episcopalian.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall was educated at Miss Alcinda Thompson's private school in Uniontown and spent a year at Uniontown's Central School. Having decided early in life that he desired a career in the military, but unlikely to obtain an appointment to the United States Military Academy because of his average grades, he looked to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) for a formal education. Marshall's brother Stuart, a VMI alumnus, believed George would not succeed and argued that their mother should not let George attend out of concern that he would "disgrace the family name." Determined to "wipe his brother's face," Marshall enrolled at the age of sixteen in December 1897. To pay for his tuition and expenses, Marshall's mother sold parcels of land she owned in Uniontown and Augusta, Kentucky.


title: George C. Marshall

text: At the start of his college career, Marshall was subjected to a hazing incident in which upperclassmen positioned an unsheathed bayonet with the point up and directed him to squat over it. After twenty minutes, Marshall fainted and fell. When he awoke, he had a deep laceration to one of his buttocks. While being treated for his injury, Marshall refused to inform on his classmates. Impressed with his bravery, the hazers never bothered him again.


title: George C. Marshall

text: During his years at VMI, Marshall always ranked first in military discipline and about midway academically. He attained the rank of first captain, the highest a cadet could achieve, and graduated 15th of 34 in the Class of 1901. Marshall received a diploma, not a degree. At the time of his graduation, the top five or six VMI graduates received bachelor's degrees. The rest received diplomas attesting to their status as graduates. He played offensive tackle on the football team and in 1900 he was selected for All-Southern honors.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Following his graduation from VMI, Marshall served as Commandant of Students at the Danville Military Institute in Danville, Virginia. He took a competitive examination for a commission in the United States Army, which had greatly expanded to deal with the Spanish–American War and Philippine–American War. Marshall passed, and used endorsements his father obtained from both of Pennsylvania's U.S. Senators to bolster his application. VMI Superintendent Scott Shipp also supported Marshall's application, and in a letter to President William McKinley compared him favorably to other VMI graduates serving in the Army, saying Marshall was "Fully the equal of the best." He was commissioned a second lieutenant of Infantry in February 1902. In a matter of days he married, resigned the Danville job, and shipped out to serve with the 30th Infantry Regiment in the Philippines.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Prior to World War I, Marshall received various postings in the United States and the Philippines, including serving as an infantry platoon leader and company commander during the Philippine–American War and other guerrilla uprisings. He was schooled in modern warfare, including a tours from 1906 to 1910 as both a student and an instructor. He was the Honor Graduate of his Infantry-Cavalry School Course (now the United States Army Command and General Staff College) in 1907, and graduated first in his 1908 Army Staff College (now the United States Army War College) class.


title: George C. Marshall

text: After another tour of duty in the Philippines, Marshall returned in 1916 to serve as aide-de-camp to Major General J. Franklin Bell, the commander of the Western Department and former Army chief of staff, at the Presidio of San Francisco. In the summer and fall of 1916, Marshall was responsible for organizing several Western Department Citizens' Military Training Camps. After the American entry into World War I in April 1917, Marshall relocated with Bell to Governors Island, New York, when Bell was reassigned as commander of the Department of the East. Shortly afterwards, Marshall was assigned to help oversee the mobilization of the 1st Division for service in France.


title: George C. Marshall

text: During World War I, Marshall had roles as a planner of both training and operations. In the summer of 1917, he was assigned as assistant chief of staff for operations on the staff of the 1st Division. After overseeing the division's mobilization and organization in Texas, he departed for France with the division staff in mid-1917. On the long ocean voyage, his roommate was the division's assistant chief of staff for training, Lesley J. McNair; the two formed a personal and professional bond that they maintained for the rest of their careers. Marshall was the first passenger from the first boat transporting American Expeditionary Force (AEF) soldiers to set foot in Europe, and one of the first to enter the trenches of the Western Front.


title: George C. Marshall

text: After arriving in France, Marshall served with the 1st Division on the St. Mihiel, Picardy, and Cantigny fronts. In late 1917, John J. Pershing, the commander of the AEF, inspected the 1st Division. Unimpressed by what he observed, Pershing began to berate division commander William L. Sibert in front of Sibert's staff. Sibert took Pershing's criticism in silence, but when Pershing turned his attention to the division chief of staff, Marshall angrily interceded to inform Pershing of logistical and administrative difficulties of which Pershing was unaware. Marshall also informed Pershing that the AEF staff had not been very helpful in dealing with the problems. The division commander and staff were concerned that Marshall's willingness to confront Pershing had probably cost him his career. Instead, Pershing began to seek out Marshall and ask for his advice.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall won recognition and acclaim for his planning of the Battle of Cantigny, which took place from May 28 to 31, 1918; Marshall's success resulted in the first notable American victory of the war. As he conducted pre-attack planning, Marshall traveled alone under cover of darkness to personally view the terrain and mentally map it. Marshall ventured beyond the front lines and far into no-man's land, often under friendly artillery fire and routinely risking discovery and capture by Imperial German Army troops. On May 26, he was injured while traveling to several subordinate units to conduct pre-attack coordination. As he departed the division headquarters area, his horse stumbled, fell, and rolled over; Marshall's left foot was caught in the stirrup, and he sustained a severe sprain and bruise. A physician bound Marshall's injured ankle and foot with adhesive tape so he could avoid medical evacuation and remain with the division to oversee the attack. In 1920, Marshall was awarded the Citation Star for his heroism during this battle. When the Silver Star medal was created in 1932, Citation Stars were converted to the new award.


title: George C. Marshall

text: In mid-1918, Pershing brought Marshall on to the AEF operations staff, G-3, where he worked closely with Pershing and was a key planner of American operations. He was instrumental in the planning and coordination of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which contributed to the defeat of the German Empire on the Western Front in 1918. Marshall held the permanent rank of captain and the temporary rank of colonel. He was recommended for promotion to temporary brigadier general in October 1918, but the Armistice occurred before the recommendation was acted on. After the Armistice, Marshall served as chief of staff for the U.S. Eighth Corps.


title: George C. Marshall

text: After the war, Marshall reverted to his permanent rank of captain. In 1919, he became an aide-de-camp to General Pershing. Between 1920 and 1924, while Pershing was Army Chief of Staff, Marshall worked on a number of projects that focused on training and teaching modern, mechanized warfare. He taught at the Army War College and was a key planner in the War Department. He then served as executive officer of the 15th Infantry Regiment in the Republic of China, where he remained for three years and learned to speak basic Mandarin. In 1927, as a lieutenant colonel, he was appointed assistant commandant of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, where he initiated major changes to modernize command and staff processes, which proved to be of major benefit during World War II. Marshall placed Edwin F. Harding in charge of the Infantry School's publications, and Harding became editor of "Infantry in Battle", a book that codified the lessons of World War I. "Infantry in Battle" is still used as an officer's training manual in the Infantry Officer's Course and was the training manual for most of the infantry officers and leaders of World War II.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall's first wife died in 1927. The following year, while stationed at Fort Benning, Marshall met Katherine Tupper Brown at a dinner party. They married on October 15, 1930, at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. The wedding made headlines as General Pershing served as Marshall's best man.


title: George C. Marshall

text: From June 1932 to June 1933, Marshall was the commanding officer of the 8th Infantry Regiment at Fort Screven, Georgia. From July 1933 to October 1933 he was commander of Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, and District I of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and he was promoted to colonel in September 1933. During the Great Depression he became a strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. He was senior instructor and chief of staff for the Illinois National Guard's 33rd Division from November 1933 to August 1936.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall was promoted to general in 1936 and assigned to command the 5th Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division and Vancouver Barracks in Vancouver, Washington, from 1936 to 1938, and was promoted to brigadier general in October 1936. In addition to obtaining a long-sought and significant troop command, traditionally viewed as an indispensable step to the pinnacle of the US Army, Marshall was also responsible for 35 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps in Oregon and southern Washington. As post commander Marshall made a concerted effort to cultivate relations with the city of Portland and to enhance the image of the US Army in the region. With the CCC, he initiated a series of measures to improve the morale of the participants and to make the experience beneficial in their later life. He started a newspaper for the CCC region that provided a vehicle to promote CCC successes, and he initiated a variety of programs that developed participants' skills and improved their health. Marshall's inspections of the CCC camps gave him and his wife Katherine the chance to enjoy the beauty of the American Pacific Northwest and made that assignment what he called "the most instructive service I ever had, and the most interesting."


title: George C. Marshall

text: In July 1938, Marshall was assigned to the War Plans Division in Washington, D.C., and subsequently reassigned as Deputy Chief of Staff. In that capacity, then-Brigadier General Marshall attended a White House conference at which President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a plan to expand the United States Army Air Corps by 15,000 aircraft per year in preparation for World War II. With all other attendees voicing support, Marshall was the only one to disagree, pointing out the lack of consideration for logistical support or training. Marshall also spoke in favor of a large ground army although Roosevelt had said a large air force would be a greater deterrent to enemies, pointing out that the United States Army did not yet have a single division at full operational strength. Despite others' belief then that Marshall had ended his career, his willingness to express disagreement resulted in Roosevelt nominating Marshall to be the Army Chief of Staff. At the time of the appointment, Marshall was only 34th in seniority, outranked by 21 major generals and 11 brigadier generals, but he was fifth under an unwritten rule that the chief of staff should be able to serve a four-year term before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 64.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Upon the retirement of General Malin Craig on July 1, 1939, Marshall became acting chief of staff. President Roosevelt favored Marshall because he was more supportive of New Deal liberalism than the conservative Douglas MacArthur, and because of the recommendations of Pershing, Craig, Louis A. Johnson, and most importantly Roosevelt's close advisor Harry Hopkins. Marshall was sworn in as chief of staff on September 1, 1939, just hours after the Wehrmacht launched its invasion of Poland. He held this post until retiring in November 1945.


title: George C. Marshall

text: On May 11, 1940, the United States Congress cut $10 million from a $28 million appropriation budget for equipment to detect Imperial Japanese Armed Forces aircraft off the West Coast of the United States. Marshall met with Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. and they went to see Roosevelt; Marshall emphasized the supreme importance of getting the full amount and told Roosevelt "you have got to do something and you've got to do it today". Marshall's advocacy worked and he got "all he wanted and more".


title: George C. Marshall

text: In 1941, Marshall became a Freemason, raised "at sight" by the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. ("At sight" is the procedure by which a Grand Master confers on a candidate all three Masonic degrees - Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master - at one time.)


title: George C. Marshall

text: As Chief of Staff, Marshall organized the largest military expansion in U.S. history, inheriting an outmoded, poorly equipped army of 189,000 men and, partly drawing from his experience teaching and developing techniques of modern warfare as an instructor at the Army War College, coordinated the large-scale expansion and modernization of the U.S. Army. During his first week in office he advised Roosevelt to issue an executive order expanding the Regular Army to 227,000 troops and the National Guard to 235,000 reservists, although the President could not immediately act because the United States Congress still favored isolationism.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall's efforts to expand the United States Armed Forces began to have more success after the Axis powers conquered most of Western Europe in the Battle of France. Beginning in July 1940, he was greatly assisted in this effort by newly appointed Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who Marshall would gradually displace as the most significant leader of the U.S. military apparatus in a deviation from the United States' tradition of civilian control of the military. Though he had never actually led troops in combat, Marshall was a skilled organizer with a talent for inspiring other officers. Many of the American generals who were given top commands during the war were either picked or recommended by Marshall, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jacob L. Devers, George S. Patton, Terry de la Mesa Allen Sr., Lloyd Fredendall, Lesley J. McNair, Mark Wayne Clark and Omar Bradley.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Faced with the necessity of turning an army of former civilians into a force of over eight million soldiers by 1942 (a fortyfold increase within three years), Marshall directed McNair as commander of Army Ground Forces to focus efforts on rapidly producing large numbers of soldiers. With the exception of airborne forces, Marshall approved McNair's concept of an abbreviated training schedule for men entering Army land forces training, particularly in regard to basic infantry skills, weapons proficiency, and combat tactics. At the time, most U.S. commanders at lower levels had little or no combat experience of any kind. Without the input of experienced British or Allied combat officers on the nature of modern warfare and enemy tactics, many resorted to formulaic training methods emphasizing static defense and orderly large-scale advances by motorized convoys over improved roads. In consequence, Army forces deploying to Africa in Operation Torch suffered serious initial reverses when encountering German armored combat units in Africa in the Battle of Kasserine Pass and other major battles. Even as late as 1944, U.S. soldiers undergoing stateside training in preparation for deployment against German forces in Europe were not being trained in combat procedures and tactics in use there.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Originally, Marshall had planned a 265-division Army with a system of unit rotation such as practiced by the British and other Allies. By mid-1943, however, after pressure from government and business leaders to preserve manpower for industry and agriculture, he had abandoned this plan in favor of a 90-division Army using individual replacements sent via a circuitous process from training to divisions in combat. The individual replacement system devised by Marshall and implemented by McNair exacerbated problems with unit cohesion and effective transfer of combat experience to new soldiers and officers. In Europe, where there were few pauses in combat with German forces, the individual replacement system had broken down completely by late 1944. Hastily trained replacements or service personnel reassigned as infantry were often given only a few weeks' refresher training before being thrown into battle with Army divisions locked in front-line combat.


title: George C. Marshall

text: The new men were often not even proficient in the use of their own weapons, and once in combat, could not receive enough practical instruction from veterans before being killed or wounded, sometimes within the first few days. Under such conditions, many soldiers suffered a crippling loss of morale, while veterans were kept at the front until they were killed, wounded, or incapacitated by battle fatigue or illness. Incidents of soldiers going AWOL from combat duty as well as battle fatigue and self-inflicted injury rose rapidly during the last eight months of the war with Nazi Germany. As one historian concluded, "Had the Germans been given a free hand to devise a replacement system..., one that would do the Americans the most harm and the least good, they could not have done a better job."


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall's abilities to pick competent field commanders during the early part of the war was decidedly mixed. He was instrumental in advancing the careers of the highly capable generals such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, George S. Patton, Walter Krueger and Mark W. Clark. A notable exception was his recommendation of the swaggering Lloyd Fredendall to Eisenhower for a major command in the American invasion of North Africa during Operation Torch. Marshall was especially fond of Fredendall, describing him as "one of the best" and remarking in a staff meeting when his name was mentioned, "I like that man; you can see determination all over his face." Eisenhower duly picked him to command the 39,000-man Central Task Force (the largest of three) in Operation Torch. Both men would come to regret that decision, as Fredendall was the leader of U.S. Army forces at the disastrous Battle of Kasserine Pass.


title: George C. Marshall

text: During World War II, Marshall was instrumental in preparing the U.S. Army and Army Air Forces for the invasion of Continental Europe. Marshall wrote the document that would become the central strategy for all Allied operations in Europe. During the Arcadia Conference he convinced the United Kingdom to accept this strategy, including the focus on defeating Germany first and the establishment of international unified commands in control of all Allied forces in a given theatre. His push for unity of command, in particular through the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command, was met with resistance from the British Armed Forces under Alan Brooke because the scheme would allow the United States to dominate the Western Allied war effort, but the British government ultimately approved.


title: George C. Marshall

text: He initially scheduled Operation Overlord for April 1, 1943, but met with strong opposition from Winston Churchill, who convinced Roosevelt to commit troops to Allied invasion of Sicily for the invasion of Italy. Some authors think that World War II could have ended earlier if Marshall had had his way; others think that such an invasion would have meant utter failure. Marshall and his advisors also opposed the Allied invasion of French North Africa after it became clear that Vichy France would offer resistance, concerns over an Axis intervention through Francoist Spain and Gibraltar, and suspicions that the operation was intended to defend European colonial territory with little strategic value to the war.


title: George C. Marshall

text: When rumors circulated that Marshall would become the Supreme Commander of Operation Overlord, many critics viewed the potential transfer as a demotion, since he would leave his position as Chief of Staff of the Army and lose his seat on the Combined Chiefs of Staff. While Marshall enjoyed considerable success in working with Congress and Roosevelt, he refused to lobby for the position. Roosevelt selected Eisenhower, in large part because he did not want to do without Marshall in the Chief of Staff position. He told Marshall, "I didn't feel I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington."


title: George C. Marshall

text: On December 16, 1944, Marshall became the first American Army general to be promoted to the newly created rank of General of the Army, a five-star rank that is the American equivalent of field marshal. He was the second American to be promoted to a five-star rank, as William Leahy was promoted to fleet admiral the previous day.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Throughout the remainder of World War II, Marshall coordinated Allied operations in Europe and the Pacific. He was characterized as the organizer of Allied victory by Churchill. "Time" magazine named Marshall Man of the Year for 1943. Marshall resigned his post of chief of staff on November 18, 1945, but did not retire, as regulations stipulate that Generals of the Army remain on active duty for life. He was succeeded as Army chief of staff by General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower.


title: George C. Marshall

text: After World War II ended, the Congressional Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack received testimony on the intelligence failure. It amassed 25,000 pages of documents, 40 volumes, and included nine reports and investigations, eight of which had been previously completed. These reports included criticism of Marshall for delay in sending General Walter Short, the Army commander in Hawaii, important information obtained from intercepted Japanese diplomatic messages. The report also criticized Marshall's lack of knowledge of the readiness of the Hawaiian Command during November and December 1941. Marshall also advised President Roosevelt to move part of the United States Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic Ocean to assist Neutrality Patrols, and that the defenses at Oahu made a Japanese attack on the island impossible. These recommendations were dismissed by the President, but could have been catastrophic if they had not been.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Ten days after the attack, Lt. General Short and Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, were both relieved of their duties. The final report of the Joint Committee did not single out or fault Marshall. While the report was critical of the overall situation, the committee noted that subordinates had failed to pass on important information to their superiors, including to Marshall.


title: George C. Marshall

text: A secret review of the Army's role, which resulted in the Clausen Report, was authorized by Secretary Henry Stimson. The report was critical of Short and also of Colonel Rufus S. Bratton of the Military Intelligence Division (G-2), who investigator Henry Clausen concluded arrived at the War Department later on the morning of December 7, 1941, than he initially claimed during testimony, and invented a story about a warning to affected army commanders about the imminent Pearl Harbor Attack being delayed because he had been unable to get in touch with Marshall, an allegation which "nearly destroyed" Marshall.


title: George C. Marshall

text: In December 1945, President Harry Truman dispatched Marshall to the Republic of China, where he had served in the 1920s. His new mission was to prevent a resumption of the Chinese Civil War by brokering a coalition government between America's Kuomintang allies under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communist Party of Mao Zedong. Marshall had no leverage over the Communists, but threatened to withdraw American aid essential to the Nationalists. Both sides rejected his proposals and he returned to the United States in January 1947. As Secretary of State, Marshall disagreed with the Defense and State Department views that Chiang's success was vital to American interests, insisting that U.S. troops not become involved. The war continued, and the Communists won in 1949.


title: George C. Marshall

text: After Marshall's return to the U.S. in early 1947, Truman appointed him Secretary of State. As one of the most well-regarded and least politicized national leaders, he made an ideal front office personality. He became the spokesman for the State Department's ambitious plans to rebuild Europe. He did not design the plans, and paid little attention to details or negotiations. He did not keep current on details of foreign affairs. As one biographer notes, he had never been a workaholic. He turned over major responsibilities to his deputies, especially Under-Secretary Robert A. Lovett, and refused to be troubled by minutiae. By 1948, with frailties building up, his participation was further curtailed. Marshall said, "The fact of the matter is that Lovett bears the principal burden as I get away whenever possible."


title: George C. Marshall

text: On June 5, 1947, in a speech at Harvard University, he outlined the American proposal. The European Recovery Program, as it was formally known, became known as the Marshall Plan. Clark Clifford had suggested to Truman that the plan be called the Truman Plan, but Truman immediately dismissed that idea and insisted that it be called the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan would help Europe rebuild and modernize its economy along American lines, and open up new opportunities for international trade. Stalin ordered his satellites in Eastern Europe not to participate. Marshall was again named "Man of the Year" by "Time" in January 1948.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Truman repeatedly rejected Marshall's advice on Middle Eastern policy. As Secretary of State, Marshall strongly opposed recognizing the newly formed state of Israel. Marshall felt that if the state of Israel was declared, a war would break out in the Middle East (which it did when the 1948 Arab–Israeli War began one day after Israel declared independence). Marshall saw recognizing the Jewish state as a political move to gain American Jewish support in the upcoming election, in which Truman was expected to lose to Thomas E. Dewey. He told President Truman in May 1948, "If you (recognize the state of Israel) and if I were to vote in the election, I would vote against you." However, Marshall refused to vote in any election as a matter of principle.


title: George C. Marshall

text: During his tenure as Secretary of State, Marshall also urged Truman to immediately call for The Netherlands to stop their invasion of Indonesia, a former Dutch colony which had declared independence in 1945. The Netherlands ignored the Truman administration's initial entreaties. As a result, the Marshall Plan program for the Netherlands' economic recovery was put on hold and the Truman administration threatened to cut all economic aid. The Netherlands finally agreed to withdraw and transferred sovereignty following the Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference in 1949.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall resigned as Secretary of State because of ill health on January 7, 1949. He was severely exhausted throughout his tenure in the position. Dean Acheson in late 1947 said he was underperforming like "a four-engine bomber going only on one engine." Truman named him to the largely honorific positions of chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission and president of the American National Red Cross. He received the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize for his post-war work, despite the criticism that he was a warrior not a pacifist.


title: George C. Marshall

text: When the early months of the Korean War showed how poorly prepared the Defense Department was, President Truman fired Secretary Louis A. Johnson and named Marshall as Secretary of Defense in September 1950. The appointment required a congressional waiver because the National Security Act of 1947 prohibited a uniformed military officer from serving in the post. This prohibition included Marshall since individuals promoted to General of the Army are not technically retired, but remain officially on active duty even after their active service has concluded. Marshall was the first person to be granted such a waiver; in 2017, Jim Mattis became the second and in January 2021, General Lloyd Austin became the third. Marshall's main role as Secretary of Defense was to restore confidence and morale to the Defense Department while rebuilding the United States Armed Forces following their post-World War II demobilization.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall worked to provide more manpower to meet the demands of both the Korean War and the Cold War in Europe. To implement his priorities Marshall brought in a new leadership team, including Robert A. Lovett as his deputy and Anna M. Rosenberg, former head of the War Manpower Commission, as assistant secretary of defense for manpower. He also worked to rebuild the relationship between the Defense and State Departments, as well as the relationship between the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall participated in the post-Inchon landing discussion that led to authorizing Douglas MacArthur to conduct the UN offensive into North Korea. A secret "eyes only" signal from Marshall to MacArthur on September 29, 1950, declared the Truman administration's commitment: "We want you to feel unhampered strategically and tactically to proceed north of the 38th Parallel". At the same time, Marshall advised against public pronouncements which might lead to United Nations votes undermining or countermanding the initial mandate to restore the border between North and South Korea. Marshall and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were generally supportive of MacArthur because they were of the view that field commanders should be able to exercise their best judgment in accomplishing the intent of their superiors.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Following Chinese military intervention in Korea during late November, Marshall and the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought ways to aid MacArthur while avoiding all-out war with China. In the debate over what to do about China's increased involvement, Marshall opposed a cease–fire on the grounds that it would make the U.S. look weak in China's eyes, leading to demands for future concessions. In addition, Marshall argued that the U.S. had a moral obligation to honor its commitment to South Korea. When British Prime Minister Clement Attlee suggested diplomatic overtures to China, Marshall opposed, arguing that it was impossible to negotiate with the Communist government. In addition, Marshall expressed concern that concessions to China would undermine confidence in the U.S. among its Asian allies, including Japan and the Philippines. When some in Congress favored expanding the war in Korea and confronting China, Marshall argued against a wider war in Korea, continuing instead to stress the importance of containing the Soviet Union during the Cold War battle for primacy in Europe.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Increasingly concerned about public statements from MacArthur, commander of United Nations Command forces fighting in the Korean War, which contradicted President Truman's on prosecution of the war, on the morning of April 6, 1951, Truman held a meeting with Marshall, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Omar Bradley, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and advisor W. Averell Harriman to discuss whether MacArthur should be removed from command.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Harriman was emphatically in favor of MacArthur's relief, but Bradley opposed it. Marshall asked for more time to consider the matter. Acheson was in favor but did not disclose this, instead warning Truman that if he did it, MacArthur's relief would cause "the biggest fight of your administration." At another meeting the following day, Marshall and Bradley continued to oppose MacArthur's relief. On April 8, the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with Marshall, and each expressed the view that MacArthur's relief was desirable from a "military point of view," suggesting that "if MacArthur were not relieved, a large segment of our people would charge that civil authorities no longer controlled the military."


title: George C. Marshall

text: Marshall, Bradley, Acheson and Harriman met with Truman again on April 9. Bradley informed the President of the views of the Joint Chiefs, and Marshall added that he agreed with them. Truman wrote in his diary that "it is of unanimous opinion of all that MacArthur be relieved. All four so advise." (The Joint Chiefs would later insist that they had only "concurred" with the relief, not "recommended" it.)


title: George C. Marshall

text: On April 11, 1951, President Truman directed transmittal of an order to MacArthur, issued over Bradley's signature, relieving MacArthur of his assignment in Korea and directing him to turn over command to Matthew Ridgway. In line with Marshall's view, and those of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, MacArthur's relief was looked upon by proponents as being necessary to reassert the tenet of civilian control of the military.


title: George C. Marshall

text: In September 1951, after 49 years of continuous public service, Marshall retired to his home, Dodona Manor, in Leesburg, Virginia. Purchased by the Marshalls in 1941, Dodona had previously served as a quiet weekend retreat for the busy couple. The home was restored beginning in the 1990s and the house and its gardens are open to the public as a museum.


title: George C. Marshall

text: It was at Dodona Manor that Marshall enjoyed his favorite food, roast leg of lamb, and his favorite beverage, an old fashioned. Gardening was one of Marshall's favorite pastimes, and in retirement he grew vegetables throughout the year, including tomatoes and pumpkins, while Katherine Marshall enjoyed tending to her rose garden. In a 1942 letter to David Burpee, president of the W. Atlee Burpee & Company, Marshall wrote, "The business of seeds and flowers tantalizes me because I have been an amateur gardener, both flower and vegetable, since a boy of ten. There is nothing I would so much prefer to do this spring as to turn my mind to the wholesome business of gardening rather than the terrible problems and tragedies of war."


title: George C. Marshall

text: Katherine's love of roses was well known, leading inventor Eugene S. Boerner to create the Katherine Tupper Marshall Rose, a pink hybrid tea rose. It was patented by Jackson and Perkins in 1943.


title: George C. Marshall

text: Throughout his retirement, Marshall served as chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission. He oversaw the construction of fourteen cemeteries in eight countries following World War II to memorialize those killed or missing in battle. In the early 1950s, Marshall argued for the speedy construction and funding of cemeteries despite budget and staff cuts for the Korean War. Marshall wrote to General Joseph McNarney in March 1951 saying, "I am naturally hesitant to become personally involved in individual personnel problems, but in this case, am deeply concerned about the overall moral factor if our foreign national cemeteries are not adequately maintained..." Marshall's efforts to secure building and maintenance staff for the cemeteries were successful, doubling the number of military officers assigned to the work. On September 13, 1952, Marshall attended the dedication ceremony of Suresnes American Cemetery in France.


title: George C. Marshall

text: After retiring, Marshall largely withdrew from public life. A notable exception was in June 1953, when he accepted President Eisenhower's appointment to head the American delegation to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The delegation included Earl Warren and Omar Bradley, and according to Bradley, as Marshall walked up the aisle of Westminster Abbey to take his seat before the ceremony, the audience rose to its feet as a gesture of respect. Marshall looked behind him to see who the arriving dignitary was, then realized the audience had stood for him. Marshall was also invited to the post-ceremony banquet at Buckingham Palace, and was the only non-royal seated at Queen Elizabeth's table.


title: George C. Marshall

text: George Marshall was the youngest of three siblings. His older brother Stuart Bradford Marshall (1875–1956) was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and became a manager and executive in several metal production corporations, including the American Manganese Manufacturing Company. He later worked as a metallurgist and consulting engineer specializing in the production and operation of blast furnaces, coke ovens, and foundries. George and Stuart Marshall were long estranged because George married Lily Coles, who a few years before had rejected Stuart's proposal. When Stuart found out George was engaged to Lily, Stuart made unkind remarks about her, and George "cut him off my list." Marshall's sister, Marie Louise (1876–1962) was the wife of Dr. John Johnson Singer, an Army physician who died in 1934.


title: George C. Marshall

text: On February 11, 1902, Marshall married Elizabeth Carter "Lily" Coles at her mother's home in Lexington, Virginia. Marshall met Lily after listening to her play the piano across the street from VMI. Marshall, being immediately smitten, would "run the block," or leave barracks after hours, to be with her. After traveling abroad to Japan, Korea, and China with Marshall, Lily returned to the U.S. to have a goiter removed. She died on September 15, 1927, after thyroid surgery that strained her weak heart. They did not have children.