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Obviously, they had talked derisively about Patton before. Marshall himself had witnessed a Patton outburst at his men while the troops had practiced the Sicilian invasion in North Africa. Farago describes the scene thusly: “Patton went out of control” as “Marshall . . . Eisenhower and a bunch of generals nearby observed . . . in embarrassed silence.”
⁵⁹
But Eisenhower’s private action regarding the slappings should have been the end of it. However, rumors eventually reached correspondents covering the war. At least one of them, John Charles Daly, a CBS radio reporter who would later become an early television star, believed Patton had
temporarily gone crazy at the hospital.
⁶⁰
The implication was not lost on Eisenhower but he talked the correspondents out of reporting the story. They agreed on the need for Patton in future fighting. The situation again seemed solved—at least from Eisenhower’s perspective. Then, three months later, Drew Pearson, a Leftist, pro-Soviet broadcaster and “muckraker,” (as Carlo D’Este calls him), learned of the incident while touring Sicily and reported it with great sensation on his syndicated radio show. A public uproar ensued. The hero of only a few months prior was now characterized by most of the press as an out-of-control Nazi preying on the sick.
⁶¹
Congressmen demanded Patton’s resignation. As in Casablanca, the controversy quickly entwined Eisenhower. He was accused of a cover-up. Why did he not fire Patton? How could he tolerate such fascist behavior? Eisenhower was straightforward in his answers. He had dealt with the matter in the strongest terms but he needed Patton, who was a great battle commander. A surprising number in the country came to Patton’s defense. War was not pretty. They understood the need for discipline and that sometimes the lines of appropriate action were blurred. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson was forced to defend both Patton and Eisenhower in a letter to the Senate. While Patton’s action was “indefensible,” he wrote, winning the war was top priority. “Off the record,” wrote D’Este, the secretary “rebuked Patton, writing of ‘his disappointment that so brilliant an officer should so far have offended against his own traditions.’”
⁶²

The controversy subsided. But Patton was deep in his superiors’ doghouse and, as a consequence, on their punitive radar, his career hanging on by a thread only because he was desperately needed. And that is key. Any other general would have been long gone. But he was basically, at that point, irreplaceable. One has to think
that if Douglas Bazata is telling the truth, this was probably the time—late 1943—when the “Stop Patton” plot which he says arose and could have eventually evolved into an assassination order was born. They knew they had to use him later. How would they control him? It was a problem that needed answers. For his part, Patton was contrite in letters to Eisenhower and Stimson,
⁶³
and in his apologies to the two slapped soldiers and his troops in general, the latter which he decided to do on his own. But privately he was resentful. He wrote in his diary, “Ike and Beedle [General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff] are not at all interested in me but simply in saving their own faces . . . .”
⁶⁴

He still believed his prowess would prevail.

Then things got even worse for him.

As plans for the invasion of Europe unfolded, Bradley, his underling, was awarded command of American forces in the upcoming invasion of Europe, the biggest show of the war. The job should have been his, Patton believed. He had earned it on the battle field. But Eisenhower said Bradley, quiet and unassertive, was more stable, more dependable—an observation that had to mean in following orders as well. Patton was put in limbo for a possible assignment on the continent once the landings succeeded—but only if he behaved. He was warned to keep his mouth shut or, needed or not, he would be gone. It was a blow. Patton was angry. But he adjusted. He knew acceptance was his only chance of staying in the game. In the meantime, his name, now known to put fear in the hearts of the German high command, was attached to a fictitious paper army made to seem like the one being readied for the cross-channel invasion. Its location, paperwork, and radio traffic indicated a landing at Calais, the closest and most logical place for invasion in the minds of the Nazis
trying to decipher the Allies’ plans. He was to be part of one of the great deceptions of the war. All he had to do was be quiet and play the ruse, and he might get a real part later.

Then he was blindsided.

Patton did not really want to attend the opening of a new “Welcome Club” for American troops in Knutsford, England as he waited to do his part. But the women of the club persisted and it was for the troops, so he consented. He even arrived late, so as to keep a low profile.
⁶⁵
Still, news photographers were waiting for him and he made them promise not to publish the pictures or report he was there. It was April 1944, two months before the invasion, and he was still part of the ruse. Then, unexpectedly, the hostess announced he was going to say a few words and the audience was already clapping before he could decline. So he went to the podium and spoke briefly. Basically, it was a short welcoming, and as he himself, Blumenson and others describe it, it included, “I feel that such clubs as this are a very real value, because I believe with Mr. Bernard Shaw, I think it was he, that the British and Americans are two people separated by a common language, and since it is the evident destiny of the British and Americans, and, of course, the Russians, to rule the world, the better we know each other, the better job we will do.”
⁶⁶

He left.

The next day, to his surprise, he awoke to another controversy. There are no tapes of the speech and Patton himself spoke without notes so his exact words can never be positively known. But most British newspapers included the reference to the Russians as sharing rule of the post-war world, while American papers generally did not—which was why the controversy was loudest in the U.S. Despite assurances to the contrary, the press at Knutsford had broken their word and reported Patton’s “off the record” remarks.
The press in America, still angry over the slappings and knowing his anti-Soviet sentiments, compounded the problem by distorting the reportage to make it seem like Patton had slighted “our great ally” Russia. The distortion was all they needed to vilify him again. The
Washington Post
editorialized that Patton had “progressed from simple assault on individuals to collective assault on entire nationalities . . . .”
⁶⁷

Congressmen joined in. A Republican, Karl Mundt of South Dakota, declared Patton “has succeeded in slapping the face of every one of the United Nations except Great Britain.”
⁶⁸
War Secretary Stimson was “horrified,” writes Patton biographer Stanley Hirshson. Stimson had to deal with Congress daily and saw the criticism as one more wrench thrown in his task. He leaned on Marshall, who leaned on Eisenhower, who, already having a tough time dealing with Soviet Union in his coalition, had enough. While acknowledging there may have been extenuating circumstances, he wrote back to Marshall that Patton was “mentally unbalanced” and he, Eisenhower, was ready, if Marshall agreed, to send Patton home.”
⁶⁹
Marshall, however, taking note of the attacks on Patton’s sanity, nevertheless threw the problem back to Eisenhower. The coming need for Patton was too great. “Do not consider War Department position in the matter,” he cabled. “Consider only Overlord [the coming invasion of Europe] and your own heavy burden of responsibility for its success. Everything else is of minor importance.”
⁷⁰
It was a sobering reply. Could he take back Europe without Patton? Who was better? He decided to reconsider. After summoning a confused and rightly peeved Patton and berating him, then making him wait in dread for days to find out what his decision would be, Eisenhower wrote Patton, “I am once more taking the responsibility of retaining you in command in spite of damaging repercussions resulting from a personal
indiscretion. I do this solely because of my faith in you as a battle leader. . . .”
⁷¹

Patton took the reprieve as a sign from God. “Divine Destiny came through in a big way,” he wrote his wife on May 3, 1944.
⁷²
In his diary, he penned, “My final thought on the matter is that I am destined to achieve some great thing—what, I don’t know, but this last incident was so trivial in its nature, but so terrible in its effect, that it is not the result of an accident but the work of God. His Will be done.”
⁷³

Perhaps Patton meant that God was helping him get his relationships straight because, from that time on, his and Eisenhower’s longtime friendship was basically over. He still had a soft spot for Ike. But he resented the fact that the supreme commander did not go to bat for him, especially in light of the conflicting evidence. Additionally, he had begun to think Eisenhower had his eye on future political office once the war was won and therefore, more often than not, would do what was politically correct or expedient in accordance with what those above him wanted, rather than what was militarily or ethically right. Patton did not like that. Even his critics agree he was a man who spoke his mind and acted on his beliefs no matter what—to a fault, as Eisenhower admonished, saying, “You talk too much.” He became leery of Eisenhower. And as he was soon to lead the actual fighting in Europe, he would find himself increasingly at odds with not only the Soviets, but his superiors who, despite needing and using him for conquest, ultimately had come to regard him as a wildcard psychotic who, after using him, had to be stopped.

What happened to
Robert L. Thompson and his passengers?

This is one of the major unsolved mysteries of Patton’s death.

Thompson and his reported passengers appear to have been waiting on the roadside for the Patton Cadillac. When it appeared in the distance, Thompson started the truck out onto the road and then, suddenly, without signaling, had turned across the oncoming limousine’s path, causing the accident which ultimately led to Patton’s death.

Yet only Thompson had been interviewed, cursorily at that, and then all three—if that reported number was accurate—had disappeared, never, at least publicly, to be heard from again.

It made no sense. They should have been detained and interrogated.

There was talk that Thompson was logically turning into some kind of depot or truck spot. But it was a quiet Sunday morning. The depot, if that is what it was, appears to have been closed, if not deserted and abandoned. It was in an area strewn with wreckage and discard with little noticeable activity. So why turn into it? In any case, Thompson, according to Farago, was not authorized to have the truck, which meant it probably was stolen. And if there
were
two passengers, that in itself, according to Farago, was against army regulation and therefore another reason the truck’s occupants should have been detained.

To get answers, I was going to have to find Thompson or people who knew him. How? He had such a common name. He had disappeared more than half a century ago. He was basically unknown, an obscure young soldier like so many others in the war, and obviously had kept a low profile. It was not even clear where he was from. Initial reports said he lived in Illinois, a mistake which might have deterred previous searchers and hidden him further. However, as I probed deeper, it became apparent he was from the Camden, New Jersey area. Camden was right across the river from Philadelphia. It was a hugely populated area on the eastern seaboard that had changed mightily since 1945. Since Thompson was identified as in his early twenties at the time of the accident, he would be around eighty when I started searching. If he was still alive, would he still live in the same place he had as a youth? Patton’s nephew, Fred Ayer, Jr., had written back in 1964, “I was told that the driver of the truck in question felt such deep remorse that he later attempted to commit suicide.”
¹
If Thompson had killed himself, the best I could hope for was to find relatives or friends.

That hunch proved right—not the suicide, but that all I would find were relatives and friends. Denver Fugate, a former associate
professor of history at Elizabethtown Community College, Kentucky, had tracked down Thompson’s whereabouts for an article he wrote in 1995. Entitled “End of the Ride,” it was published in
Armor
, the professional journal of the U.S. Army’s tank corps, headquartered at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, reportedly where the Cadillac limousine in which Patton was injured was kept. Thompson had indeed come home from the war, lived in obscurity, and died June 5, 1994—just months before Fugate called Thompson’s home in Bellmawr, N. J., a Camden suburb. Thompson’s widow, Alice, who answered the phone, told Fugate that her husband had always “felt like a murderer,”
²
which was intriguing. And when he asked her if the rumors that Thompson had committed suicide were true, she puzzlingly replied she “wouldn’t doubt it because he was the nervous type.”
³
The answer implied she did not know how he died. But when he called back to inquire further, she had clammed up. Had somebody gotten to her? Fugate was not too concerned. His article mainly reinforced the idea that Patton’s death had been the result of a “freak” accident.