He achieved close working relationships with an associate of President Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, and with House Majority Leader and Speaker Sam Rayburn.

All the while, he had acquired a reputation for bringing order and operational efficiency out of chaos, and for being an exceptionally hard and disciplined worker, who went long hours and "considered lunch a waste of time".

Clay promoted democratic federalism in Germany and resisted US politicians who sought to undo a constitution that a Constituent Assembly in Bavaria had adopted on 26 October 1946.

[8] He also closed the borders of the American Zone in 1947 to stem the tide of Jewish refugees that was generating tension with the local populations.

[9] Clay was responsible for the controversial commuting of some death sentences, such as convicted Nazi war criminals Erwin Metz and his superior, Hauptmann Ludwig Merz.

Metz and Merz were two notorious figures of the Berga concentration camp in which 350 U.S. POWs had been beaten, tortured, starved, and forced to work for the German government during World War II.

[10][11] Clay also reduced the sentence of Ilse Koch, the "Beast of Buchenwald", who had been convicted of murder at the Nuremberg trials, and who had been accused of having gloves and lampshades made from prisoners' skin.

[13] Under the pressure of public opinion, Koch was rearrested in 1949, tried before a West German court, and, on 15 January 1951, sentenced to life imprisonment.

[14] According to Donald Bloxham, Clay's influence was crucial to American occupation authorities prosecuting major Nazi war criminals on their own in the Subsequent Nuremberg trials.

In 1946, Clay announced to West German officials that he was disappointed with their results from denazification tribunals:"I do not see how you can demonstrate your ability for self-government nor your will for democracy if you are going to evade or shirk the first unpleasant and difficult task that falls upon you.

[16] In late 1948, Clay admitted he did not enjoy, in his position as Military Governor, having to regularly "sign many death warrants and to approve many life imprisonments."

[19] Upon the lifting of the stay, Clay embarked on a spate of last-minute mass executions, believing that as time passed, pressure would increase for the death sentences to be commuted.

[23][7] That was an act of defiance against the Soviets, an incredible feat of logistics[24] (at one point, cargo planes landed at Tempelhof every four minutes, 24 hours a day), a defining moment of the Cold War, and a demonstration of American support for the citizens of Berlin.

[27] Clay was instrumental in creating, funding, and promoting Der Monat, a journal intended to support US foreign policy and win over German intellectuals.

He had previous experience in 1933 with managing and organizing projects under the New Deal and later became one of Dwight Eisenhower's closest advisers and assisted him in securing the 1952 Republican nomination and helping him select members of his cabinet upon ascension to the presidency.

One of his first duties as Eisenhower's emissary and, as the national chairman of the Crusade for Freedom, was to dedicate the city of Berlin's Liberty Bell.

[31] During his famous Ich bin ein Berliner speech, Kennedy said, "I am proud .. to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed."

Clay lies buried in West Point Cemetery, between the graves of Apollo 1 astronaut Ed White and Panama Canal chief engineer George W. Goethals.

At Clay's grave site is a stone plate from the citizens of Berlin that says: "Wir danken dem Bewahrer unserer Freiheit" (We thank the Preserver of our Freedom).

While now called South Cobb Drive (State Route 280), it still carries memorial signs at each end dedicating the highway to him.