Born: 23 November 1908, Ireland
Died: 20 January 1975
Country most active: United States, International
Also known as: Kathleen Helen MacCarthy-Morrogh
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Patrick M. Geoghegan. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Summersby, Kathleen Helen (‘Kay’) (1908–75), secretary and chauffeur to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, was born Kathleen Helen MacCarthy-Morrogh at Inish Beg, Co. Cork, daughter of Major Donal Florence MacCarthy-Morrogh (d. 1932) of the Royal Munster Fusiliers and his wife Vera (née Hutchinson); she had a younger brother and two younger sisters. Her parents separated when she was 16 and she moved to England, where she lived with her mother. Educated in London, she studied art and business and worked as a model and also as an ‘extra’ in films. Marrying Gordon Summersby, a publishing executive, in the late 1930s, she was soon unhappy and they divorced in 1942.
With the outbreak of the second world war Summersby joined the British Motor Transport Corps as a driver, and drove ambulances during the main period of air attacks on Britain. It was a terrifying experience and she later admitted that it was ‘like [what] hell must be’. In 1942 she met Eisenhower for the first time, and chauffeured the major-general around Scotland. They gradually became friends and Eisenhower was impressed with his vivacious and attractive driver, promising that he would ask for her on his next visit. In late 1942 Eisenhower, now supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe, appointed Summersby to his staff when he returned to Britain. She acted as his secretary, chauffeur, and confidante and travelled to North Africa to assist him in his work. Her ship was torpedoed on the journey, but she survived, arriving in North Africa in a lifeboat. Through her work she met and became engaged to Col. Richard R. Arnold, an American officer, but he was killed in a mine explosion in Tunisia in June 1943.
Spending increasing amounts of time with Eisenhower, Summersby inevitably became the focus of much speculation and gossip. There were rumours of an affair, and journalists were quick to publish photographs of the two together at social events. The stories eventually reached Eisenhower’s wife, Mamie, who became extremely jealous, although she was soon reassured that he was not ‘in love with anyone else’ and did not ‘want any other wife’ (Eisenhower, quoted in Ambrose, 190); matters were not helped when Eisenhower called his wife ‘Kay’ during a subsequent visit to America. Even Eisenhower’s general staff wondered about the nature of the relationship, although Brig.-gen. Everett Hughes moved to quash speculation by insisting that ‘Kay will help Ike win the war’ (Ambrose, 244). When Eisenhower visited Belfast to celebrate the Allied victory in 1945, Mamie noted suspiciously that her husband seemed ‘highly interested in Ireland’ (Ambrose, 416). A further complication was that Winston Churchill was reported to be critical of an Irishwoman’s having access to allied strategy and plans.
After the war Summersby worked as a public relations officer in California before returning to civilian life. Moving to New York in 1947, she became engaged to be married and later became an American citizen. Abruptly she cancelled the wedding, and Eisenhower blamed her state of mind on the death of her fiancé during the war. As he wrote in his diary, it was ‘too bad, she was loyal and efficient and the favourite of everyone in the organisation. . . I trust she pulls herself together, but she is Irish and tragic’ (2 December 1947; Ferrell, 145). Summersby soon published a memoir of her wartime experiences, Eisenhower was my boss (1948). It became a national best-seller, but studiously avoided any mention of the rumours about their relationship. Later that year she contrived to run into Eisenhower in New York, but he curtly dismissed her, insisting: ‘Kay, it’s impossible. There’s nothing I can do’ (quoted in Ambrose, 417). In 1952 she married Reginald H. Morgan, a successful stockbroker, but they divorced after six years. Haunted by persistent speculation about her relationship with Eisenhower, especially after he became president of the United States in 1952, Summersby worked in various jobs in fashion and design over the following decades. In 1973 Merle Miller published Plain speaking: an oral biography of Harry S. Truman, which claimed that Eisenhower had informed Gen. George C. Marshall in 1945 that he intended to divorce Mamie and marry Kay. Having contracted cancer, Summersby decided to tell her full story, partly motivated by a desire to raise money to pay for her treatment. She died before it was published, on 20 January 1975 at Southampton, New York. Following her instructions she was cremated and her ashes were scattered over her family home in Ireland. Later that year her second memoir, Past forgetting: my love affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower, was published posthumously. In this she claimed that her relationship with Eisenhower changed from friendship to love after her fiancé’s death, and that they often embraced and kissed. She denied a sexual relationship, however, and suggested that Eisenhower suffered from impotence.
The controversy continued after Summersby’s death. While historians have generally accepted that she loved Eisenhower, few have been willing to accept uncritically her account of the exact nature of their relationship. David Eisenhower, the son of the late general and president, concluded that ‘the truth was known only by them, and both are gone’ (Eisenhower, 198).