Roosevelt Informs Stalin of Eisenhower’s Appointment to Command Operation Overlord (1943)

Date: December 7, 1943

Created By: Franklin D. Roosevelt and George Marshall

Original or Replica: Original

Era: The General, D-Day and the Normandy Invasion

Collection: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Citations: Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum

This December 7, 1943 handwritten message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin informs him that General Dwight D. Eisenhower had been selected to command Operation Overlord, the planned Allied cross-Channel invasion of Western Europe. The message was written shortly after Roosevelt, Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at the Tehran Conference, where the Allied leaders discussed plans for opening a major Western front against Nazi Germany. Roosevelt’s brief note states that Eisenhower’s appointment to command Overlord had been decided upon.

The document captures an important moment in Eisenhower’s rise to the highest level of Allied military command. His appointment placed him in charge of coordinating the multinational forces that would undertake the invasion of German-occupied France. The message also demonstrates the importance of keeping the Soviet Union informed about Allied preparations for the invasion, which Stalin had strongly advocated as a means of relieving pressure on Soviet forces fighting Germany in the East.

The same page also contains a separate handwritten note from Roosevelt to Eisenhower dated December 7. Roosevelt tells Eisenhower that he thought he might like to have the document as a memento and expresses satisfaction that Eisenhower was willing to undertake the assignment. The page therefore preserves both Roosevelt’s notification to Stalin and a personal message marking Eisenhower’s selection to command the operation that would lead to D-Day.