Mark A. Stoler, Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.s. Strategy in World War II (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 67-83

Author’s note: Stoler writes — “In January (Allies and Adversaries, pg. 71) Eisenhower included North Africa as one of the political “side shows” that should not be allowed to interfere with Pacific reinforcement; joined by other planners, he argued that the British should retire in Libya so as to release forces for the Far East. Simultaneously, Embrick [Lt. General Stanley Dunbar Embrick, was an outspoken, one-time isolationist, considered to be among the Army's top strategic thinkers] warned Marshall that London’s entire Mediterranean approach was motivated ‘more largely by political than by sound strategic purposes.’ Invading North Africa, he insisted, would be ‘a mistake of the first magnitude,’ and any belief that the Alies could later invade Europe from this area was so ‘irrational’ as to be fantastic.’”