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His specific chores tell the story. He helped shepherd the Lend-Lease bill through Congress; while debate was at its hottest, he set up a cot in the Senate wing of the Capitol, kept vigil for all who needed advice. From France's Jean Monnet he picked up the phrase "arsenal of democracy," sent it on, via Felix Frankfurter, to Franklin Roosevelt as the keynote for a famous fireside chat.
McCloy fostered the intelligence unit which helped break the Japanese codes. As an old artilleryman he spoke up for spotter planes. When the Air Forces' "Hap" Arnold said he could not spare pilots, McCloy took lessons himself to prove. that even middle-aged men could handle light planes. Then he offered to give Arnold a ride. The story goes that the general drew back in mock alarm—"Not that!" he cried. "You can have the planes."
One unpleasant chore was to supervise the evacuation of Japanese from the West Coast. McCloy felt uneasy over this action, which he considered necessary but unjust to thousands of loyal citizens of Japanese origin. By way of recompense, he pushed the formation of the famed 442nd Combat Team, in which the Nisei in Italy gave distinguished proof of their loyalty to the U.S. "One thing I want on my tombstone," says McCloy, "is that I helped form the 442nd Combat Team."
The Deft Retort. He traveled the battlefields; once in North Africa's Kasserine Pass, he showed stumped G.I.s how to operate a new weapon called the bazooka.
In Britain just before D-day he had to tell dazzling Georgie Patton to stop shooting off his mouth. The general dramatically complained: "On the eve of battle, you undermine my confidence in myself." McCloy countered: "General, if I thought I could undermine your confidence in yourself by anything I might say, I would ask General Eisenhower to remove you." Patton perked up and shut up—for a while.
In Japan McCloy had to tell Douglas MacArthur about a War Department plan. The great man greeted him with the usual flood of spellbindery. McCloy broke it up by rapping the table. "Now, General," he said, "I want to hear what you have to say, but you talk for an hour and then I'll talk for an hour." They got along fine.
McCloy had previously tried out the same technique with his boss, Stimson, who from his experience and intellectual eminence looked a long way down on some of his assistants. Stimson used to bark into his "squawk box" for McCloy and Robert Lovett and expect them to come in running. They did, but they did not always say yes when they got there.
One day McCloy went to the White House with James Forrestal, then Under Secretary of the Navy. At the War Department, "Colonel" Stimson (as the Secretary was known) found himself in distress. He burst out: "Why can't people leave my papers alone? . . . Get me McCloy at the White House."
They got McCloy, and Stimson bellowed into the phone: "God damn you, McCloy, what have you done with my papers?"
From the other end of the phone the whole office could hear McCloy's response: "I don't know, Colonel. I haven't got your goddam papers." Stimson paused, then laughed and hung up the phone.