Lee's Departure

Lieut. General John C. H. Lee had had enough. Last week, just a month after Scripps-Howard Columnist Robert Ruark called him a martinet who made life miserable for G.I.s in his Mediterranean Theater command (TIME, Aug. 25), frosty-eyed "Courthouse" Lee announced his retirement from the U.S. Army.

While the Army's Inspector General, Major General Ira T. Wyche, carrying a bulging notebook, hustled home to report to Chief of Staff Eisenhower on the results of his own investigation into Mediterranean morale, General Lee held an explanatory press conference in Rome. Ruark's charges, he said, had nothing to do with his retirement (which becomes effective as soon as all U.S. troops are evacuated from Italy). In fact, he had asked for retirement as far back as February.

Then came a surprise. Said 60-year-old General Lee, with stern modesty: "I hope to give my abilities, such as they are, to the church of which I am a member." Correspondents knew that General Lee, an Episcopalian, kept a Bible on his desk and another in his briefcase, was an ardent churchgoer, had been known to preach a sermon on several occasions. They remembered that he called on Pope Pius XII several times, presumably to discuss means of smoothing Protestant-Catholic relations.

His offer to work for his church had been accepted by its Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill. Lee explained: "There is certain work a layman can do."

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