From Preface: Historian Douglas Southall Freeman, whose books Marshall enjoyed, suggested to the chief of staff in the spring of 1942 that he keep memorandums or a diary of important daily events. Other members of the Roosevelt administration were doing this, most notably Secretary of War Henry Stimson. But Marshall refused... This volume, a compilation of transcripts and notes made during late 1956 and early 1957 by and for General Marshall"s newly appointed official biographer, Forrest C. Pogue, represents the nearest approach to a memoir of his later career that the general ever attempted. Dr. Pogue typed the first draft of true transcripts himself. Marshall Foundation staff members Eugenia D. Lejeune and Dorothy Dean respectively proofed the transcripts against the recordings and typed the final version. These are the transcripts cited in the annotation of Dr. Pogue"s definitive and monu¬mental George C. Marshall (4 vols., 1963-87). The approximately thirty-one hours of tape were numbered 1M to 19M in roughly the chronological order of their contents. This tape order is preserved in this volume....