Editing Kay Summersby

{{short description|British chauffeur and secretary to Dwight D. Eisenhower}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Infobox military person
|name               = Kay Summersby<br><small>[[British Empire Medal|BEM]]</small>
|image              = Kay Summersby.jpg
|caption            = Summersby in 1944
|birth_name         = Kathleen Helen MacCarthy-Morrogh
|birth_date         = {{Birth date|1908|11|23|df=yes}}
|death_date         = {{Death date and age|1975|1|20|1908|11|12|df=yes}}
|birth_place        = [[County Cork]], [[Ireland]]
|death_place        = [[Southampton, New York]], U.S.
|nickname           =
|allegiance         = {{UK}}<br />{{US}}
|branch             = [[Mechanised Transport Corps]] (UK)<br />[[Women's Army Corps (United States Army)|Women's Army Corps]] (US)
|serviceyears       = 1939–1947
|rank               = [[Captain (United States O-3)|Captain]]
|unit               =
|commands           =
|battles            = [[World War II]]
|awards             = [[Bronze Star Medal]]<br />[[Women's Army Corps Service Medal]]<br />[[European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal|European Campaign Medal]]<br />[[World War II Victory Medal]]<br />[[Army of Occupation Medal]]<br />[[British Empire Medal]]
|relations          =
|laterwork          =
}}

{{external image|image1=[http://images.ewins.com/digital_asset_manager/image_resize.php?vi=417544&mdx=800 Bust portraits of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Kay Summersby Morgan]<ref>{{citation |title=Bust portraits of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Kay Summersby Morgan |url=http://popartmachine.com/item/pop_art/LOC+1099723/%5BBUST-PORTRAITS-OF-DWIGHT-D.-EISENHOWER-AND-KAY-SUMMERSBY-MORGAN%5D... |id=cph 3b20861 |publisher=Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division via Popartmachine.com |access-date=1 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218012559/http://popartmachine.com/item/pop_art/LOC%2B1099723/%5BBUST%2DPORTRAITS%2DOF%2DDWIGHT%2DD.%2DEISENHOWER%2DAND%2DKAY%2DSUMMERSBY%2DMORGAN%5D... |archive-date=18 February 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

'''Kathleen Helen Summersby''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|BEM}} (née '''MacCarthy-Morrogh'''; 23 November 1908&nbsp;– 20 January 1975), known as '''Kay Summersby''', was a member of the British [[Mechanised Transport Corps]] during World War II, who served as a chauffeur and later as personal secretary to [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] during his period as [[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force|Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force]] in command of the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] forces in north west Europe.

Summersby and Eisenhower spent a significant amount of time together until World War II ended, at which time Eisenhower cut ties and returned to the United States. It is generally agreed that Summersby and Eisenhower became extremely close during the war; some writers have suggested a sexual relationship between the two, although people who knew both of them at the time have rejected that claim, as have most of Eisenhower's biographers.

==Early life==

Summersby was born in [[Ballydehob]], [[County Cork]], Ireland.<ref name="Census entry">Entry in [http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai002028655/ Census of Ireland, 1911]</ref><ref name="Wyden">Wyden, Barbara, ''Papers, 1944–1945'', [[Eisenhower Presidential Center|Dwight D. Eisenhower Library]], Abilene, Kansas</ref> She was the daughter of Donald Florence MacCarthy-Morrogh and Vera Mary MacCarthy-Morrogh (née Hutchinson). Her father, descended from the [[Mac Carthaigh Riabhach|
MacCarthy Reagh]] Princes of Carbery, was originally from [[County Kerry]], and her mother was born in [[Wales]],<ref name="Census entry"/> as the fourth of five sisters, to an English father and Irish mother who was also descended from the Morrogh family.<ref name="Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland 1958">1958 edition of Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland</ref>

She described her father, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the [[Royal Munster Fusiliers]], as "black Irish" and her mother as English. As a young woman, she moved to London where she worked as a film studio extra, dabbled in photography, and eventually became a fashion model. She was married in 1936 to British Army officer Gordon Thomas Summersby; when they divorced in 1943,<ref>{{cite news | title=Wedding Plans: Morgan-Summersby | newspaper=[[The Journal News]], White Plains, New York | date=1952-11-21 }}</ref> she retained the name of her ex-husband,<ref name="Wyden"/> as is usual. There was an engagement to marry US Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Richard "Dick" Arnold that overlapped her initial period with Eisenhower; however, this ended with the death of her fiancé while mine clearing during the North Africa campaign.<ref>{{cite book|last=Korda|first=Michael|title=Ike: An American Hero|date=September 2007|publisher=harper collins|isbn=978-0-06-075665-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/ikeamericanhero00kord/page/385 385]|url=https://archive.org/details/ikeamericanhero00kord/page/385}}</ref><ref name="mulligan19950528" />

==World War II==

When Britain entered [[World War II]] in 1939, Kay Summersby joined the British [[Mechanised Transport Corps]] (MTC). She drove an ambulance throughout the [[The Blitz|London Blitz]] in 1940 and 1941,<ref name="Wyden" /> and was reportedly excellent at navigating London streets during blackouts and fog.<ref name="mulligan19950528">{{cite news | url=https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19950528/2123420/when-gunfire-ended-so-did-ikes-war-romance | title=When Gunfire Ended, So Did Ike's War Romance | newspaper=[[The Seattle Times]] | date=1995-05-28 | agency=Associated Press | access-date=20 October 2012 | author=Mulligan, Hugh A.}}</ref> When the United States joined the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] after the German declaration of war in December 1941, Summersby was one of many MTC drivers assigned as chauffeurs to high-ranking American military officers.

Summersby was assigned to drive then Major General Dwight Eisenhower when he arrived in London in May 1942. Though there was a brief interruption of several weeks due to Eisenhower's short return to the US, Summersby chauffeured Eisenhower and later became his secretary until November 1945, based at his home ''Telegraph Cottage'' in Warren Road, [[Coombe, Kingston upon Thames]]. During this time Eisenhower rose in rank to a [[five-star rank|five-star]] [[General of the Army (United States)|General of the Army]] and Commander of the European Theatre, and Kay, with his help, became a US citizen and a commissioned officer in the US [[Women's Army Corps]] (WACs), ultimately leaving the service as a captain in 1947.

Captain Summersby's military awards included the [[Bronze Star Medal]],<ref>In the photo linked above, Captain Summersby is wearing the ribbon of the Bronze Star Medal</ref> [[Women's Army Corps Service Medal]], [[European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal|European Campaign Medal]], [[World War II Victory Medal]] and the [[Army of Occupation Medal]] with "Germany" clasp.  Although several online sources{{who|date=January 2025}} state that Summersby received the Legion of Merit, there is no known documentary evidence that she was awarded it.  The Legion of Merit was normally awarded to senior officers in the rank of colonel and above.

==Life after the war==

Summersby was awarded the [[British Empire Medal]] (BEM) in the [[1945 New Year Honours]] List.<ref name="gazette">{{London Gazette |issue=36869 |date=29 December 1944 |page=137 |supp=y |nolink=y}}</ref> The award, at the insistence of British Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]], was presented, with a signed photograph of the Prime Minister, aboard the [[MV Britannic (1929)|MV ''Britannic'']] in New York more than three years later.<ref name="amazon1">{{cite book |author=Wood |first=Kieron |url=https://www.amazon.com/Ikes-Irish-Lover-Echo-Sigh-ebook/dp/B01740C5CY |title=Ike's Irish Lover, The Echo of a Sigh |access-date=2016-10-05}}</ref>

After leaving the service in 1947, Summersby settled in the United States, and was, at one point, engaged to a man in San Francisco who thought she had money.<ref name="mulligan19950528"/> She married the [[Wall Street]] stockbroker Reginald H. Morgan in 1952,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090316012813/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,817499,00.html Announcement of marriage], ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', Monday, 1 December 1952</ref> but was divorced in 1958.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/21/archives/kay-summersby-morgan-dies-eisenhower-confidante-in-war.html Obituary], ''[[The New York Times]]'',21 January 1975</ref><ref name="mulligan19950528" /> She died at her home in [[Southampton (town), New York|Southampton, Long Island]], of cancer, on 20 January 1975,<ref name="death">{{cite magazine | url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946467,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070428180603/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946467,00.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=28 April 2007 | title=Milestones, Feb. 3, 1975 | magazine=Time | date=3 February 1975 | access-date=19 May 2016 | quote=Died. Kay Summersby Morgan, 66, General Dwight Eisenhower's secretary, chauffeur and confidante during World War II; of cancer; in Southampton, N.Y.}}</ref> at the age of 66.

==Relationship with Eisenhower==

There is a question whether Summersby consummated a romance with Eisenhower during the war, as there is no definitive evidence as to the matter. Many people knew both of them during the war but none alleged there was an affair. In ''Eisenhower Was My Boss'', Summersby's 1948 memoir of the war years, written with journalist [[Frank Kearns]], she made no mention of any affair. Her 1975 autobiography, ''Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower'', was explicit about there being a romance, although it also said they had not actually had [[sexual intercourse]]. However, she did not dictate the text. ''Past Forgetting'' was ghostwritten by Barbara Wyden while Summersby was dying of cancer.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lester |first=David|author2=Irene David  |title=Ike & Mamie, The Story of the General and his Lady|year=1981|publisher=Academic Press|isbn=0-399-12644-9|name-list-style=amp}}</ref> This book was contracted after Eisenhower had died in 1969. The text states the omission of the affair from the 1948 book was due to her concern for Eisenhower's privacy. Summersby reportedly stated shortly before her death: "The General is dead. I am dying. When I wrote ''Eisenhower Was My Boss'' in 1948, I omitted many things, changed some details, glossed over others to disguise as best I could the intimacy that had grown between General Eisenhower and me. It was better that way."<ref name="kifner19910606">{{cite news|last=Kifner|first=John|title=Eisenhower Letters Hint at Affair With Aide|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/06/us/eisenhower-letters-hint-at-affair-with-aide.html|access-date=30 August 2012|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=6 June 1991}}</ref>

Those who dispute the claim of an affair maintain that the second book's description of the relationship was simply fabricated, presumably by the ghostwriter. By the book's account there were two unsuccessful attempts to have intercourse.<ref name="kifner19910606" /> Instead of sex, wrote Summersby, the affair mostly consisted of "stolen kisses" during walks or on aeroplanes, holding hands, and horseback riding or golfing together.  She kept a note from Eisenhower that asked, "How about lunch, tea, & dinner today?" the note says. "If yes: Who else do you want, if any? At which time? How are you?"<ref name="mulligan19950528" /> Red Cross volunteer and writer [[Margaret Chase]] was one of the authors discounting the affair in her 1983 book.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Chapin |first=Dwight |date=1984-02-13 |title=The way they were |pages=33 |work=The San Francisco Examiner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/108663696/the-way-they-were/ |access-date=2022-08-31}}</ref>

Eisenhower himself only mentioned Summersby once in ''[[Crusade in Europe]]'', his 1948 memoir of the war, in a list of aides.<ref name="mulligan19950528" /> Historian [[Carlo D'Este]] notes that members of Eisenhower's staff denied that there was ever an affair between them and dismisses Summersby's book as "fanciful".<ref>{{cite book | title =Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life | last1 =D'Este | first1 =Carlo | author-link =Carlo D'Este | page =419 | quote =No evidence exists, beyond the fanciful allegations in a memoir <nowiki>[that Summersby]</nowiki> did not live to see published. | publisher =[[Henry Holt and Company]] | year =2003 | isbn =978-0-8050-5687-7 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=RCeteK7LEiYC&pg=PA419 | access-date =26 November 2011 }}</ref> However, rumours and jokes about their relationship were common among soldiers who did not know the two. Eisenhower's son [[John Eisenhower|John]], who briefly served as an aide, described her as "the [[Mary Tyler Moore]] of headquarters. She was perky and she was cute. Whether she had any designs on the Old Man and the extent to which he succumbed, I just don't know."<ref name="mulligan19950528" />

[[Field Marshal]] [[Bernard Law Montgomery]] wrote in his diary that ''Past Forgetting'' "should have never been written, it can do Eisenhower no good.  If American generals were in the habit of dealing with women secretaries and drivers as Eisenhower did and others appear to have done if this book is true, then their characters slump in the eyes of the world. This book makes it clear that Eisenhower discussed with Kay Summersby, his woman car driver, his views on Generals under him, and disclosed to her the most secret matters; all this is now given to the public in her book. Her views on world figures are enlightening, since they are obviously Eisenhower's views."<ref>{{cite book |title=Master of the Battlefield Monty's War Years 1942–1944 |url=https://archive.org/details/masterofbattlefi00hami |url-access=registration |last1=Hamilton |first1=Nigel |publisher=McGraw-Hill Book Company |year= 1983 |page=[https://archive.org/details/masterofbattlefi00hami/page/769 769] footnote |isbn=9780070258068 }}</ref>

President [[Harry S. Truman]] reportedly told author [[Merle Miller]] that in 1945, Eisenhower asked permission from General [[George Marshall]] to divorce his wife to marry Summersby, but permission was refused.<ref name="kifner19910606" /> Truman also allegedly said he had the correspondence between Marshall and Eisenhower retrieved from the Army archives and destroyed.<ref>Miller, Merle, ''Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman'' (1974) Putnam Publishing Group. {{ISBN|0-399-11261-8}}.</ref> However, Truman's account of the Summersby controversy has been rejected by most scholars.<ref>{{cite book|author=Mark Perry|title=Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace|url=https://archive.org/details/partnersincomman00perr|url-access=registration|year=2007|publisher=Penguin|page=[https://archive.org/details/partnersincomman00perr/page/363 363]|isbn=9781594201059}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Stanley Weintraub|title=15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZUEZ4bfHNCgC&pg=PA341|year=2007|publisher=Simon and Schuster|page=341|isbn=9781416545934}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Wesley O. Hagood|title=Presidential Sex: From the Founding Fathers to Bill Clinton|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6ARB4-4kI_sC&pg=PA134|year=1998|publisher=Citadel Press|page=134|isbn=9780806520070}}</ref> Historians say Truman had a mistaken recollection and emphasize that Eisenhower had asked permission to bring his wife to England. Others have speculated that Truman was not truthful about Eisenhower because of animosity between the two men that intensified during the [[Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower presidency]] (Truman stated that Eisenhower did not invite him back to the [[White House]] during his administration).<ref>{{Cite book  | last =Nixon  | first =Richard M.  | title =RN: The Memoirs of Richard M. Nixon  | url =https://archive.org/details/rnmemoirsofricha00nixo  | url-access =registration  | publisher =Grosset & Dunlap  | year =1978  | page =[https://archive.org/details/rnmemoirsofricha00nixo/page/379 379]  | isbn =978-0-671-70741-5}}</ref> Historian [[Robert H. Ferrell]] stated he found that the tapes of Miller's interviews with Truman contain no mention whatever of Summersby, and concludes that Miller concocted the story.<ref name="ferrell">{{Cite journal  | last1 =Ferrell  | first1 =Robert H.  | author-link1 =Robert H. Ferrell  | last2 =Heller  | first2 =Francis H.  | title =Plain Faking?  | journal =American Heritage Magazine  | volume =46  | issue =3  | date =May–June 1995  | url =http://www.americanheritage.com/content/plain-faking  | access-date =8 November 2011  | quote =In the Miller tapes in the Truman Library there is no Truman conversation, nothing, about Kay Summersby.}}</ref>

Eisenhower biographer [[Jean Edward Smith]] wrote, "Whether he and Kay were intimate remains a matter of conjecture. But there is no question they were in love." Smith accepted Miller's account because [[Garrett Mattingly]], who as a naval officer in Washington censored outgoing cables, told a similar story to his [[Columbia University]] faculty colleagues in the early 1950s. Smith cited several other people who believed in or were told of the existence of an affair. [[Omar Bradley]] in his autobiography wrote that the two were in love and that "Their close relationship is quite accurately portrayed, so far as my personal knowledge extends, in Kay's second book, ''Past Forgetting''". [[James M. Gavin|James Gavin]] wrote that when he asked ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' reporter John Thompson during the war whether Eisenhower and Summersby were having an affair, Thompson replied "I have never before seen a chauffeur get out of a car and kiss the General good morning".<ref>{{cite book|author=Jean Edward Smith|title=Eisenhower in War and Peace|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jO2gLXNNa2wC&pg=PA315|year=2012|publisher=Random House Digital, Inc.|pages=270, 291, 315, 441|isbn=9780679644293}}</ref><ref>''Ike: The War Years'' (1979) by ABC Circle Films</ref>

==Awards and honours==

*[[Bronze Star Medal]]
*[[Women's Army Corps Service Medal]]
*[[European–African–Middle Eastern Campaign Medal]] with one silver and two bronze [[campaign star]]s
*[[World War II Victory Medal]]
*[[Army of Occupation Medal]] with "GERMANY" clasp
*[[British Empire Medal]] (United Kingdom)
*[[Defence Medal (United Kingdom)|Defence Medal]] (United Kingdom)
*[[War Medal 1939–1945]] (United Kingdom)
*Six [[overseas service bar]]s

==See also==
*[[Jean Gordon (Red Cross)|Jean Gordon]] – The alleged mistress of [[George S. Patton]].

==References==

;Notes
{{Reflist}}

;Bibliography
{{refbegin}}
* [https://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Finding_Aids/PDFs/Wyden_Barbara_Papers.pdf Barbara Wyden ''Papers 1944–1945''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110110061040/http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Finding_Aids/PDFs/Wyden_Barbara_Papers.pdf |date=10 January 2011 }}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==

* Ambrose, Stephen E., ''Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect 1890–1952'' (1983).
* Miller, Merle, ''Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman'' (1974) Putnam Publishing Group; {{ISBN|0-399-11261-8}}. London: Gollancz Ltd. (1974); {{ISBN|0-575-01841-0}}; Reprint (2005) by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers; {{ISBN|1-57912-437-2}}
* David, Lester & Irene David, ''Ike & Mamie, The Story of the General and his Lady'' (1981) Academic Press; {{ISBN|0-399-12644-9}}
* Korda, Michael, ''Ike, An American Hero'' HarperCollins, 2007<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed-->
* Perry, Mark, ''Partners in Command'', Penguin Press (2007), New York <!-- ISSN/ISBN needed-->
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070930050211/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,775637,00.html "It's nice getting back"], ''Time'', 28 May 1945.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110201161716/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,780022,00.html "Kay's War"], ''Time'', 27 September 1948.
*[https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2002/nr02-09.html Summersby's wartime diaries]
*[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/trumanl.htm Oral History Interview] with General [[Louis W. Truman]], President Truman's cousin, on the Eisenhower letter about Summersby.
*http://www.irishbarrister.com/book.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181207045925/http://www.irishbarrister.com/book.html |date=7 December 2018 }} Ike's Irish Lover, 2016 {{ISBN|978-1-910179-94-9}}, historical paperback about Kay Summerby's relationship with Ike.

==External links==
*[http://eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Finding_Aids/W.html Papers of Barbara Wyden (desk calendar diaries kept by Kay Summersby 1944–1945), Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library]

{{Dwight D. Eisenhower|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Summersby, Kay}}
[[Category:1908 births]]
[[Category:1975 deaths]]
[[Category:Chauffeurs]]
[[Category:Irish emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:People from Ballydehob]]
[[Category:Recipients of the British Empire Medal]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Legion of Merit]]
[[Category:Women's Army Corps soldiers]]
[[Category:Mistresses of presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in New York (state)]]
[[Category:Military personnel from County Cork]]