S. L. A. Marshall Lectures in Military History Files

The S. L. A. Marshall Lecture series collection is a processed, open collection containing file folders relating to the planning and administration of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) yearly lectures on military history as well as some audio tapes of the actual lectures. The collection is contained in two boxes. The individual folders in box one are arranged by academic year beginning with 1981/82 and ending with 1989/90. They are further broken down, when possible, into a general correspondence file (noting the theme for the year) and into individual files for each guest lecturer (noting the subject of the lecture) within that year. Box two consists of the available audio tapes of lectures.

The material was donated by the Combat Studies Institute, a unit of the CGSC at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Some biographical information on the speakers is found but actual lecture content is not included in the files. [As noted above, the audio tapes in box two provide some of the lectures in full]. The files are mainly administrative in nature to include choosing a theme, selection of guest speakers, scheduling of lectures, correspondence with speakers, transportation, billeting, escort services, lecture accommodations, audio-visual support and speaker remuneration. There are also sample brochures and announcements.

Organizational History

Shortly after its establishment at CGSC in July 1979, the Combat Studies Institute began sponsoring an evening lecture series in military history. Once a month during the CGSC academic year, a distinguished historian or military officer would visit Fort Leavenworth to speak on a subject that addressed the modern profession of arms from the perspective of the past.

For more than a generation, Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall was a leading writer on military history and modern military affairs. His history was always written with an eye toward how the modern soldier might put history to use. Marshall was equally at home in the history lecture hall and the battlefield. His work was characterized by a realistic view of combat that made him a pioneer in the field of military history.

Because of CGSC’s status as the senior tactical school of the U.S. Army and the Combat Studies Institute focus upon the tactical aspects of military history (the focus pioneered by Marshall), it was proposed in 1982 that the previously unnamed military history lecture series should be memorialized as the "S. L. A. Marshall Lectures in Military History." With the approval of Mrs. Cate Marshall, the title was officially inaugurated in August 1982. A decision was also made in 1982 to assign a theme to each year’s program.

The series offered one means of extending and elaborating on the more formal military history instruction at CGSC and enriching the academic year generally. The lectures took place in a relaxed and informal setting and were open, free of charge, to Fort Leavenworth personnel, their families, and the general public

Budget cuts forced the cancellation of the lecture series in March of 1990.

Content Notes:

SLAM 1981/82:

General Correspondence (No Theme)
Guest lecturer Rothenberg: "The Employment of German Armor in the
Battle of the Donets, Feb-Mar 43"
Guest lecturer Blumenson: "General George S. Patton, Jr. as a Great Captain"
Guest lecturer Stokesbury: "Napoleon and Hitler: British Land Combat in Europe"
Guest lecturer Addington: "Blitzkrieg"
Guest lecturer Douglas: "A Canadian View of the War of 1812"
Guest lecturer Deutsch: "On Trail of the Leaders of World Wars I and II"
Guest lecturer Graebner: "The Beginning of the Cold War"
Guest lecturer Roland: "The Civil War and the Development of American Strategic Doctrine"
Guest lecturer Weber: "Codes and Ciphers from the Revolutionary War to World War II"

SLAM 1982/83:

General Correspondence (Theme: "Personality and War")
Guest lecturer Luvass: "Personality and War"
Guest lecturer Hannon: "Ridgeway"
Guest lecturer Blumenson: "Patton"
Guest lecturer Rothenberg: "Manstein"
Guest lecturer Coffman: "Pershing"
Guest lecturer Deutsch: "Ludendorff"
Guest lecturer Weigley: "Eisenhower"
Guest lecturer Pogue: "Marshall"
Guest lecturer Chandler: "Napolean"
Guest lecturer Stokesbury: "Kesselring"

SLAM 1982/84: Guest Lecturers (Miscellaneous)

SLAM 1983/84:

General Correspondence(Theme: "Invasion 1944")
Guest Lecturers (Callahan: "The Grand Alliance")
Guest Lecturers (Deutsch: "The Secret Dimension: Intelligence and Deception")
Guest Lecturers (Huston: "Key to Victory: Logistics for the Invasion")
Guest Lecturers (Kennett: "Airpower and the Invasion")
Guest Lecturers (Gavin: "The Night Before: Airborne Operations" Text of Lecture included) Note: Tape of the lecture (1 cassette) is in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Pogue: "Over the Beaches: D-Day")
Guest Lecturers (Wilt: "Into Southern France - ANVIL")
Guest Lecturers (Stokesbury: "Then and Now: The Invasion in Perspective")
Guest Lecturers (Roland: "Counterthrust: The Ardennes")
Guest lecturers (Blumenson: "Breakout and Pursuit")

SLAM 1984/85:

General Correspondence (Theme: "Victory 1945")
Guest Lecturers (Miscellaneous)
Guest Lecturers (Graham: "Fighting Power of the Belligerents")
Guest Lecturers (Glantz: "The Russians at War")
Guest Lecturers (Blumenson: "The Italian Campaign")
Guest Lecturers (Hechler: "Crossing the Rhine")
Guest Lecturers (James: "War in the Pacific")
Guest Lecturers (Callahan: "CBI: The Forgotten Theater")
Guest Lecturers (Blackburn: "The Covert War: An Assessment")
Guest Lecturers (Quesada: "Tactical Air Power & Ground Ops")
Guest Lecturers (Bernstein: "The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb")
Guest Lecturers (Wilson: "WWII & The Origins of the Cold War")

SLAM 1985/86:

General Correspondence (Theme: "Low Intensity Conflict: The American Experience")
Guest Lecturers (Sarkesian: "Low Intensity Conflict: The American Experience")
Guest Lecturers (Utley: "The U.S. Army on the Indian Frontier")Note: Tapes of the lecture (3 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Gates: "The Philippine-American War, 1899- 1902")
Guest Lecturers (Coffman: "U.S. Intervention in Russia, 1918- 1920") Note: Tapes of the lecture (2 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Macaulay: "The Sandino Affair: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua, 1926- 1933")
Guest Lecturers (Pike: "Vietnam: The Insurgency") Note: Tapes of the lecture (2 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Sauvageot: "Vietnam: The Counterinsurgency") Note: Tapes of the lecture (4 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Palmer: "U.S. Intervention in the Dominican Republic, 1965") Note: Tapes of the lecture (3 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Waghelstein: "Low Intensity Conflict in Central America") Note: Tapes of the lecture (3 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Nutting: "The Future Face of Conflict")

SLAM 1986/87:

General Correspondence (Theme: "Vietnam: Operational Lessons Learned")
Guest Lecturers (Summers and Krepinevich: "The War in Historical Perspective") Note: Tapes of the lectures and Q&A sessions (4 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Spector: "The French Experience and Early U.S. Involvement") Note: Tapes of the lecture (2 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Pike: Nov86 "The Insurgency" & Feb87 "NVA Operations") Note: Tapes of the Feb87 lecture (3 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Blaufarb: "The Counterinsurgency")
Guest Lecturers (Palmer: "Conventional Ops) Note: Tapes of the Q&A session (2 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest Lecturers (Blackburn: "Special Operations")
Guest Lecturers (Heiser: "Logistics: Intertheater") Note: Tapes of the lecture (2 cassettes) are in Box 2.

SLAM 1986/87 AND 1987/88: Proposals

SLAM 1987/88:

General Correspondence (Theme: "War and Doctrine: Historical Approaches")
Guest lecturer Higgenbotham: "The Constitutional Army" Note: Tapes of the lecture (2 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest lecturer Thomas: "The Civil War" Note: Tapes of the lecture (3 cassettes/2 sets) are in Box 2.
Guest lecturer Utley: "The Frontier Army" Note: Tapes of the lecture (3 cassettes) are in Box 2.
Guest lecturer Coffman: "World War I"
Guest lecturer Doughty: "Interwar Years"
Guest lecturer Burdick: "WWII: European Theater"
Guest lecturer Drea: "WWII: The Pacific"
Guest lecturer Waghelstein: "Counterinsurgency"

SLAM 1988/89:

General Correspondence (No Theme)
Guest lecturer Menning: "Origins of Soviet Operational Art"
Guest lecturer Robertson: "Personality and the Operational Art: A Case Study"
Guest lecturer Hughes: "Preparing the German Officer Corps for War, 1860-1939"
Guest lecturer Reid: "B. H. Liddell Hart and J. F. C. Fuller as Military Theorists"
Guest lecturer Winton: "British Armored Doctrine, 1919-1938"
Guest lecturer Glantz: "Soviet Deception"
Guest lecturer Drea: "Japanese and American Doctrine in the Pacific War"
Guest lecturer Swain: "The Evolving Military Thought of Liddell Hart"
Guest lecturer Foerster: "Operational Thinking in the German Forces in World Wars I and II"

SLAM 1989/90:

General Correspondence (No Theme)
Guest lecturer Starry: "The Army After Vietnam"
Guest lecturer Joy: "The Command of Health, the Health of the Command"
Guest lecturer Roland: "A Citizen Soldier Remembers WWII"
Guest lecturer Winton: "The Nature and Teaching of Military Art and Science"
Guest lecturer Pitman: "Desert One"