Lucius Clay: The 20th Century's Forgotten Man Quiz

Answer: Senator

Clay's father was Alexander Stephens Clay, a three-term U.S. senator from Georgia. Lucius Clay was born April 23, 1898, but later told the army he was born in 1897 in order to win an early appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Answer: Works Progress Administration

While serving as second-in-command of the Army Corps of Engineer's work on rivers and harbors, Clay worked closely with Harry Hopkins, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's federal relief administrator, to launch the WPA. At Clay's suggestion, the Corps provided the WPA with officers to provide the program with guidance on how to disperse public funds. No small feat, since the WPA, created in 1939, was the largest of the New Deal relief programs.

The WPA ultimately spent over $11 billion, creating millions of jobs putting the employed to work on public works programs ranging from road construction to flood control projects.

Answer: Airports

In September 1940 Clay was re-called from building the Denison Dam on the Red River in Texas, and named secretary of the Airport Approval Board and assistant to the Administrator of Civil Aeronautics, under Donald Connolly. As Connolly told Clay: "Five hundred airports in two years. Six hundred million dollars.

It's part of the emergency defense program. Can you drop Denison and come to Washington?" One of Clay's key jobs was determining where to site the airports. One year later, 457 new airports were being built under Clay's supervision.

Including National Airport (in D.C.), O'Hare (in Chicago) and Newark, as well as militarily significant airports in places like Midway Island and Nome.

Answer: Materiel

Clay served in the position under Gen. Brehon Somervell, who had just been named in charge of the Army's Services of Supply (in itself a new position). Somervell's only instructions for Clay were to "find out what the Army needs and get it." Clay served in the position until late 1944, despite repeated requests to serve in a combat unit. Clay's job involved determining needs of the rapidly expanding Army and procuring a wide range of equipment, including: billions of bullets, 50 million field jackets, 2.3 million trucks, 88,000 tanks, 178,000 artillery pieces, and 229 million pairs of pants.

Answer: The unloading of military supplies at Normandy

Clay unraveled in three days a bottleneck of Allied supplies that had built up over months. Within weeks he was sent back to D.C., by Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force Eisenhower, to lobby for more artillery ammunition. He achieved that mission, but was then made Deputy Director of War Mobilization (against his wishes) under James Byrnes (who answered directly to FDR).

He wanted to return to the front, instead he was second-in-command to the man responsible for all domestic labor and production policy in the White House (FDR delegated responsibility for those issues to Byrnes, freeing the president to focus on the war and foreign policy issues).

Answer: Military government for Germany

Clay was responsible, under Eisenhower, for planning and ultimately implementing a military government for Germany. Following Germany's surrender, all government functions had to be put back in place by the Allies. For example, they needed to re-start agriculture so that Germany would produce food, get the railroads running, get the court system and police forces back in place, et cetera.

This was made more complicated by the fact that Germany was divided into four zones, with each zone being administered by a different country: the United States, England, France and Russia. Nonetheless, Clay was successful in getting Germany on solid footing and oversaw the creation of what would become democratic West Germany.

Answer: U.S. cuts in food shipments to Germany

In March 1946, Clay was dismayed at the United States' decision not to send promised wheat shipments to the U.S. zone in Germany, even as the German people were facing serious food shortages. Germans in the U.S. zone were living on a diet of 1,550 calories per day, and he had been asked cut that ration still further.

He said he would do so, if ordered, but he would then immediately resign. He would follow orders, but could not condone a step that he felt would result in innocent men, women and children dying from malnutrition. An additional 150,000 tons of wheat were shipped immediately, but Clay was still forced to cut the ration to 1,275 calories.

He did have significant diplomatic problems with the French, but he got along well with the Russians. Clay allowed U.S. military families to join their loved ones in Germany in 1946, in part to be with his wife, Marjorie.

Answer: The Berlin airlift

In March 1947, Clay was named U.S. Commander-In-Chief, Europe - making him the first to hold that title. This gave him significant autonomy, since he oversaw all military government (i.e., Austria and the U.S. zone in Germany) and tactical military command in Europe.

In June 1948, the Soviets blockaded West Berlin, cutting off delivery of supplies by rail, highway and canal. Clay authorized the Berlin airlift on his own authority, not seeking approval from Washington. The airlift, which was viewed with skepticism by many in the Truman administration (but supported by Truman himself) was a turning point in the cold war, and firmed up German support for a democratic West German government.

Answer: Selecting Eisenhower's cabinet

Immediately after his election in 1952 Eisenhower gave Clay and Herbert Brownell carte blanche to select his entire cabinet.

Answer: Creating the National Highway System

Clay chaired and ran the President's Advisory committee on a National Highway Program, which ultimately resulted in the largest peacetime public works initiative in U.S. history - linking every U.S. city with a population larger than 50,000. Clay also played a role in the Kennedy administration, serving as an adviser to Kennedy during the Berlin Wall crisis in 1961.