The slapping incident had been taken care of long before it hit the press. Patton himself reported it to his superiors. Ike contacted Marshall and they decided to take care of it administratively.
One of the slapped soldiers was absent from his unit without permission. The other was known to be a slacker and malingerer.
A reporter in D.C. was reportedly pissed at the Roosevelt administration for dumping one of his friends who was a communist sympathizer and closet homosexual. To cause a ruckus this reporter set about leaking the incidents. The politicians couldn’t help themselves, they rushed to condemn Patton.
The father of pvt Bennett, one of the slapped men, stated that it was in the record and the army should let Patton get back to winning the war.
Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s CoS, once told Eisenhower “Ike, get over yourself. You didn’t make Georgie Patton. Georgie Patton made YOU.”
That doesn’t sound like Bedell Smith. He and Patton literally hated each other.
Patton left orders that Bedell Smith not attend his funeral.
thanks