Career's End

Top U.S. correspondents to France were in Monaco, goggling at Grace Kelly and her Prince (see PEOPLE), when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Council met in Paris last week. On the agenda was a surprise item of high importance: a letter from President Eisenhower to Lord Ismay, NATO secretary-general, asking that General Alfred Maximilian Gruenther (TIME, Feb. 6) be released from duty as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe near the end of 1956. Gruenther's retirement from his NATO post and active service in the U.S. Army was assigned to "personal considerations." The council agreed with "great regret," asked Ike to name a U.S. successor. The President's choice: U.S. Air Force General Lauris Norstad (see box).

The little group of newsmen who traipsed into the Palais de Chaillot an hour later found Gruenther looking tired and hollow-eyed. But he flatly denied that ill health was ending a brilliant 37-year Army career that took him up to be chief of staff to General Mark Clark in World War II, to be SHAPE chief of staff under Eisenhower in 1951 (and under Ike's successor, Matt Ridgway), to be Supreme Allied Commander in 1953. Said Al Gruenther: "I've played tennis three times this week, and intend to win another match tomorrow." He was going to retire at the age of 57, he said, because "I entered military service as an officer on Nov. , 1918. I was a lieutenant for 16 1/2years. I kept wondering why people at the top didn't retire, why they had to stay on until the last minute. Now I find that I have been a general officer for 14 years. It has been occurring to me for well over a year that I should move over and make room for younger men."

Gruenther was vague about his post-retirement future. "I have no personal plans and no ulterior motives," he said. "I have refrained religiously from looking for a job." Then, with a familiar flash, he added: "But I'm certainly not going to grow cauliflowers."

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