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lines of authority fan out from the top executive down level by level to the lowest subordinate. Actually, however, the lines at the bottom of the chart usually should be darker than those at the top, which might well be dotted or light gray. As one moves up a hierarchy the lines in the chain of command weaken and even tend to dissolve. Hierarchical control becomes less important; bargaining relationships more important. The reasons include the greater difficulty in replacing top level personnel, the wider span of lateral associations possessed by top executives [generals], and their broader and more diversified fields of responsibility (which make it more difficult for the superior to enforce his will on any single issue). The President [Supreme Commander] may be the most powerful man in the country, but relatively speaking he has less control over his cabinet [or army and army group commanders] than a lowly VA section chief has over his clerks or a corporal over his squad. Consequently, at the higher levels of government, relationships, even among hierarchical superiors and subordinates, tend towards egalitarianism and usually involve substantial bargaining. A hierarchical superior can control his subordinate by determining the goals which the subordinate is to pursue, controlling the resources available to the subordinate, or doing both.
    Samuel P. Huntington,
The Common Defense:
    
Strategic Programs in National Politics
    
    (London, 1961), pp. 148, 151.    

CHAPTER 13
Single Thrust vs. Broad Front in Retrospect
    A great opportunity had been lost, and Montgomery’s postwar conclusion was bitter: “What cannot be disputed is that when a certain strategy, right or wrong, was decided upon, it wasn’t directed. We did not advance to the Rhine on a
broad
front; we advanced to the Rhine on
several
fronts, which were un-coordinated.” 1 Eisenhower had not taken a firm grip on the battle and he had vacillated. He felt that pleasing others and keeping them reasonably happy was the only way an alliance could be held together, but this necessity prevented him from stepping forward with clear orders, from forcing Bradley, Montgomery or Patton to do something they did not want to do. Even two and a half decades later it is impossible to read Eisenhower’s letters and telegrams to Montgomery without a feeling of frustration because of their vagueness. Any one taken by itself seems clear enough, but following a rejoinder by Montgomery the next message from Eisenhower changed the priority again. The simple question as to whether Eisenhower wanted Arnhem or Antwerp most cannot be answered.
    One difficulty in this situation was that Eisenhower and Montgomery tried to communicate with each other via the written word. Eisenhower had no trouble understanding Bradley, nor did Bradley experience any uncertainty in dealing with Eisenhower, in large part because they were together much of the time and could talk everything out. This in turn came about because they enjoyed each other’s company. But it is not at all certain that if Eisenhower and Montgomery had spent more time together they could have reconciled their differences, or at least understood each other. The basis for mutual respect and understanding, so prominent in the Eisenhower-Bradley relationship, was simply not present.
    Montgomery was a loner. He studied policies in solitude and proposed his own solutions. Often they were brilliant, reaching far beyond theself-imposed limits of the bureaucracy. But they were also often subject to well-founded objections, since by himself Montgomery was incapable of taking everything into account. Patton was like Montgomery in this regard, which was a factor in Eisenhower’s favoring Bradley over Patton.—Bradley was a good committeeman. This is not to say, however, that Eisenhower opposed the imaginative approach. He had insisted on having Patton with him in OVERLORD precisely because he recognized that the Third Army