kay summersby

Kay Summersby or Kay Summersby Morgan (1908-1975), was born in County Cork, Ireland. She was the chauffeur and, she claimed, "wartime mistress" of then General and future President of the United States Dwight David Eisenhower, who was then serving as Commander of the European Theatre. She described her father, a retired Lt. Colonel of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, as black Irish and her mother as English. When Britain entered the Second World War in 1939, Sumersby joined the British Motor Transport Corps or MTC. When the United States joined the Allies after the German declaration of war, Summersby was one of many MTC drivers assigned as chauffeurs to high ranking American military officers. Her divorce from her husband was finalized while she was campaigning with Eisenhower in Algiers. Ike Was My Boss, Summersby's 1948 memoir of the war years, makes no mention of her "affair" with Eisenhower, but her 1976 autobiography suggests that it was common knowledge in wartime London and Washington. Persons close to Eisenhower, however, have maintained that the "affair" - which by her own account did not include any sexual act beyond kissing - was strictly a fantasy on her part, and have also questioned the authenticity of the 1976 book, which was not published until after her death.

Kay Summersby

Further reading