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Dwight D. Eisenhower

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Dwight David Eisenhower


Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952. (credit: Fabian Bachrach)
(born Oct. 14, 1890, Denison, Texas, U.S.died March 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.) 34th president of the U.S. (195361). He graduated from West Point (1915), then served in the Panama Canal Zone (192224) and in the Philippines under Douglas MacArthur (193539). In World War II Gen. George Marshall appointed him to the army's war-plans division (1941), then chose him to command U.S. forces in Europe (1942). After planning the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, he was appointed supreme commander of Allied forces (1943). He planned the Normandy Campaign (1944) and the conduct of the war in Europe until the German surrender (1945). He was promoted to five-star general (1944) and was named army chief of staff in 1945. He served as president of Columbia University from 1948 until being appointed supreme commander of NATO in 1951. Both Democrats and Republicans courted Eisenhower as a presidential candidate; in 1952, as the Republican candidate, he defeated Adlai Stevenson with the largest popular vote to that time. He defeated Stevenson again in 1956 in an even larger landslide. His policy of support for Middle Eastern countries facing communist aggression, enunciated in the Eisenhower Doctrine, was a continuation of the containment policy adopted by the Harry Truman administration ( Truman Doctrine). He sent federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce integration of a city high school (1957). When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I (1957), he was criticized for failing to develop the U.S. space program; he responded by creating NASA (1958). In his last weeks in office the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Cuba.

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Oxford Dictionary of Political Biography:

Dwight David Eisenhower

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(b. Denison, Texas, 14 Oct. 1890; d. 28 Mar. 1969) US; Supreme Allied Commander 1944 – 5, Chief of Staff of the US army 1945 – 8, Supreme Commander NATO 1950 – 2, President 1953 – 61 David Dwight Eisenhower — he was later to transpose the first two names — was born in Denison, Texas, the third of seven sons born to parents of German-Swiss Protestant descent. At the age of 2, his family moved to Abilene, Kansas, where his father worked as a mechanic in a creamery. He was keen to have a military career and was admitted to the US Military Academy at West Point. He was also a keen football player, but a knee injury put paid to his playing days. His first military posting was to Fort Sam Houston in Texas, where he met and married Mamie Doud. During the First World War he trained tank battalions in the USA and from 1922 to 1924 was stationed in the Panama Canal. He impressed his superiors and was sent to the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, graduating first in a class of 275. In 1933 he was appointed as an aide to General Douglas MacArthur. In 1941 he demonstrated a remarkable capacity for co-ordination in battle manœuvres and was soon promoted to the rank of temporary brigadier-general. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he was appointed Chief of Staff to General George C. Marshall and helped draft the strategy for the war. In 1942 he became Allied Commander-in-Chief for the invasion of North Africa. In December 1943 he was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and masterminded the D-Day invasion for the liberation of Europe. Eisenhower — by now holding the rank of General of the Army — proved an effective strategist, co-ordinator, and leader, ensuring that a diverse body of often strong-willed military commanders stayed in line. He entered the war as an unknown soldier and ended it as a national hero.

After the end of the war, Eisenhower became Chief of Staff of the US army and supervised demobilization and a reorganization of the armed forces. After being allowed to retire in 1948, he became President of Columbia University. He turned down an approach from both Republican and Democratic activists to run for President of the USA. In 1950, President Harry S Truman called him back into the service of his country appointing him Supreme Commander of the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a post he held until 1952, when he was persuaded to run for the Republican nomination for President. He retired from army service in June 1952 and won the nomination against Senator Rober H. Taft. He won a clear victory in the general election, winning almost 34 million votes against 27 million cast for his Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson. He was inaugurated on 20 January 1953.

Eisenhower's presidency was to be noteworthy as much for what it did not do as for what it did. Eisenhower presided over a period of calm in American life. He saw his presidency as a response to the radicalism of the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. He was a conservative, espoused no radical policies, but sought no return to the status quo ante. There was no attempt made to undo the measures of the New Deal. The decade was one essentially of peace. An armistice was achieved in Korea. Domestically, some modest social reforms were implemented, including the passage in 1957 of a Civil Rights Bill. For most of his presidency, Congress was controlled by the Democrats. Of the proposals put before Congress, he had a respectable success rate, most measures getting through, the percentage only dipping at the end of his presidency. The country enjoyed a period of economic prosperity and Eisenhower appeared to epitomize the era.

Problems that Eisenhower encountered were not usually of his own making. The anti-Communist crusade of Senator Joe McCarthy carried over from the Truman to the Eisenhower presidency. Eisenhower declined to engage publicly in dispute with McCarthy, though disapproving of his tactics. In 1954 the Supreme Court struck down segregation in schools as unconstitutional. Eisenhower disagreed with the decision — and had come to regard his nomination of Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the United States as the biggest mistake he had made — but realized he was duty bound to uphold it. When rioting broke out in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 after attempts were made to allow black children into the previously all-white high schools, he tried to persuade the state Governor, Orval Faubus, to take action to ensure that the court's order was enforced. When his attempts at persuasion failed, he dispatched federal troops to restore order.

In foreign affairs, Eisenhower declined to take action to assist uprisings in Eastern Europe but was concerned to prevent the spread of Communism elsewhere. In 1954 the USA pledged to support any member nation of the newly formed South-East Asian Treaty Organization against attack. This formed the basis of the US commitment to South Vietnam and followed the French defeat at Dienbienphu. In 1956 he pressured the UK to cease the military intervention in the Suez Canal Zone. In response to Suez, he promulgated the Eisenhower Doctrine, committing the US to aid any country in the Middle East threatened by international Communism. In 1958 he sent US ships and troops to Lebanon to support the Lebanese government against a rebellion allegedly fostered by President Nasser of Egypt. At the same time, he sought to ease tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union. However, relations with Khrushchev did not go well and a final summit meeting in 1960 failed after a US U2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet air space.

Although suffering a heart attack in 1955 and an attack of ileitis in 1956, Eisenhower had successfully sought re-election for a second term in 1956, winning — again over Stevenson — by an increased margin, by 35.5 million votes to 26 million. However, despite the size of the win, he did not have a significant coat-tails effect. His vote was essentially personal. Although his popularity dipped toward the end of his presidency — the result of economic downturn — he nonetheless remained a popular figure. At the end of his presidency, he warned prophetically against the growth of the "military-industrial complex" and then retired to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He died eight years later at the age of 78.

Eisenhower was subsequently to be criticized for his failure to take more decisive action to address the nation's problems. He was seen as standing aloof from the fray. Partisan attacks were left to his Vice-President, Richard Nixon. Rather than tackle social problems, he left others to take care of them. His presidency, according to critics, was marked by drift and indecisiveness. Given Eisenhower's popularity, a popularity that constituted a valuable political resource, his presidency was characterized as a lost opportunity. The election of a young, energetic John Kennedy in 1960 — who had attacked Eisenhower for allowing a "missile gap" to develop in the arms race with the Soviet Union — reinforced the growing view that Eisenhower was an old man who had not tackled key issues facing the United States. In a 1962 poll of historians, Eisenhower ranked equal 20th, at the bottom end of the "average" presidents. In a 1970 poll, he held the same position.

More recent years have seen revisionist historians argue that Eisenhower was far more effective than critics have allowed. According to revisionists, led by Fred Greenstein, he gave more time than is generally realized to the job and enjoyed doing it. Drawing on previously unavailable papers, Greenstein — in The Hidden-Hand Presidency — argues that Eisenhower was active behind the scenes, publicly making little comment or distracting attention from the issue while privately meeting with key actors to influence outcomes. This form of "hidden hand" leadership allowed Eisenhower to appear detached from partisan or controversial activity, and thus remain popular, while achieving many of the results he wanted. In the 1982 Murray poll, Eisenhower was ranked 11th in the list of presidents. In the 1995 Chicago Sun-Times poll of presidential scholars he had moved up to 9th place. The feature on which he scored highest was that of character.

Oxford Companion to Military History:

Gen Dwight 'Ike' David Eisenhower

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Eisenhower, Gen Dwight ‘Ike’ David (1890-1969), supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during WW II and and later a two-term US president. The holder of the latter office is the C-in-C of the armed forces, thus the presidency is a logical final step in a military career and also the reason why so many generals have been elected president in a country with a history of unquestioned civilian control.

Eisenhower's family background is fascinating. They were originally extreme pacifist Mennonite (see conscientious objection) immigrants from Germany, but his (decidedly humble) branch had briefly moved to northern Texas at the time of his birth. One might speculate about the ‘Texas effect’, because that state has produced a disproportionate number of famous US soldiers such as Audie Murphy, and during WW II the overall commanders in both Europe and the Pacific (Nimitz) were of German descent, born in Texas. There was nothing in his early life or young manhood that hinted at future greatness and when he graduated from West Point in the class of 1915 (famous for producing 59 generals out of 164 graduates— Bradley was a contemporary), he was 61st academically and 125th in discipline. He was the commander of a tank training centre and just missed being posted to Europe during WW I. In 1922 he was posted to the Panama Canal Zone where Gen Conner became the first of the patrons who were to shape his career, sending him to the Command and General Staff School, from which he graduated first out of a class of 275, then to the Army War College. He did tours in France, where he wrote a guidebook to the battlefields of WW I, then in Washington before receiving the plum posting to the Philippines as aide to the army's enormously influential ex-COS MacArthur, then organizing the new commonwealth's armed forces.

The special star that shines upon great commanders turned on the power for Ike in 1939-41, in that he was posted home before the Japanese destroyed his latest patron's forces in the Philippines, while as COS of the Third Army his planning of the largest war games ever staged in the USA, involving close to half a million men, brought him to the favourable attention of army COS Marshall, who promoted him brigadier general. When war came to the USA, he appointed Ike to the war plans division in Washington, entrusted with the planning of the Allied invasion of Europe, and promoted him major general in March 1942 as head of the operations division of the War Department. In June, Marshall selected him over the heads of 366 senior officers to command US troops in Europe and in July he was made lieutenant general. The rank of full general followed in February 1943, following his overall command of the landings in North Africa. He was again in overall command of the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy, and from the beginning of 1944 he was in London as the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, making the preparations for the invasion of Normandy.

Starting with Montgomery and at intervals ever since, critics have suggested that Eisenhower's complete lack of combat leadership made him a poor choice. To do this is to pit one's retrospective judgement against such as Marshall who chose him, Franklin D. Roosevelt who confirmed him, and Churchill who welcomed him. He was chosen precisely because he was a politician, one furthermore who had his ego sufficiently under control to be able to deal not only with the aforementioned, but also with highly competitive prima donnas like Patton and Montgomery, not to mention the French, who had to be found a role commensurate both with their limited strength and their demand to be treated as major players.

The degree to which he continued to indulge the British need to be treated as equal partners long after American numbers and resources had become preponderant also weighs heavily in the credit balance. It may well have been one of the reasons he permitted the disastrous Arnhem operation to go forward, although there is the slightest hint of a subconscious desire to give his aggravating British subordinate enough rope to hang himself. Few historians on either side of the Atlantic have given enough weight to his overriding concern, which was the qualitative superiority of the Wehrmacht in most categories of equipment and at all levels of command except the very top. In the phrase later to be made famous by Truman, the buck stopped with Ike, and when he made his fateful decision to postpone and then proceed with the invasion of Normandy, he wrote a letter assuming full responsibility if it failed. He was right to do so, and he is equally entitled to full credit for the successful outcome not merely of the invasion but for all Allied operations in North-West Europe.

After the war, by now a five-star general of the army, he succeeded Marshall as COS and during a spell as president of Columbia university wrote Crusade in Europe, a best-seller that made him, at last, prosperous. Truman recalled him to be the supreme commander of the newly formed NATO, a task for which his skill at handling a multinational force made him eminently well qualified. In 1952 he resigned to run as the Republican candidate for president, although the Democrats had also courted him. He won comfortably, but it was at this climactic moment that he suffered an unforgivable failure of moral courage, in refusing to defend his old benefactor Marshall against a vicious personal attack by the anti-communist demagogue McCarthy, a lapse that caused Truman to refuse to shake his hand at his inauguration. With the world well launched into the Cold War, it might be argued that raison d'état precluded him from behaving like an officer and a gentleman; unfortunately the evidence suggests strongly that his calculations were those of a politician anxious to win an election, not of a statesman concerned for the moral and physical welfare of his country.

His age and his health (he had several minor and one severe heart attack during his eight years in office) did not prevent him managing a presidency that laid down the broad outlines of US policy at home and abroad for decades to come. The key word here is ‘manage’; he was not a ‘hands on’ president, but one who delegated authority and insisted that his staff should bring only matters of the highest political importance to his personal attention. This of course begged the question of what were matters of the highest importance, but the country was in the midst of the largest sustained economic boom of all time, the US had if not a nuclear monopoly, at least a great preponderance of weapons and the means to deliver them, and many of the tough decisions that faced his successors were simply not all that urgent between 1953 and 1961.

He was not a man to meet trouble halfway, but in retrospect we can see that the nation was halfway to quite a lot of troubles when he left the presidency. Among these were the implications of the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, which Eisenhower affirmed by signing the 1957 Civil Rights Act and by sending federal troops to Arkansas to enforce school desegregation. Another was Vietnam, to which he dispatched the first US advisers, and yet another was the green light he gave to a number of CIA operations to overthrow foreign rulers perceived to be hostile to US interests. He bequeathed one of the least well conceived of these, against Castro in Cuba, to his successor John Kennedy, and it duly blew up in his face. These were not the products of cannons running loose, as future presidents were to claim, but central to the policy of containment Ike worked out with his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, whose brother Allen ran the CIA.

At the close of his presidency, Ike came under attack for, of all things, having spent too little on the military and thus ‘allowing’ the Russians to catch up, as dramatized when they were the first to launch a satellite into earth orbit in 1957. They were nowhere near catching up; the ‘missile gap’ Kennedy made much of during the 1960 presidential election did not exist, and both he and Eisenhower knew it. But the latter, had he been given to introspection, might have concluded that the anti-communist rhetoric that served to glaze his own goose in 1952, was sauce for the Democrat gander eight years later.

During his farewell address he warned of the hidden power of the ‘civil-military complex’ and this remains one of the least well understood of all his often cryptic utterances. He was the last US president who believed in a decentralized state, where the powers not specifically allocated to Washington remained with the individual states, and he had an intuitive understanding of the manner in which the political economy of war and of the ‘military preparedness’ that Kennedy made so much of must work against that vision. A good part of the explanation for his endorsement during his presidency of the sort of cloak and dagger operations that he had frowned upon as a general was that he thought thereby to fulfil his constitutional obligation to assure the security of the nation without involving it in the heavy expenditure that would, and has, undermined the intent of the constitution itself.

His greatness as a general will always be disputed by those who do not understand that politics and war are one and the same. Whether or not he is judged to have been a great president seems to revolve entirely around whether the person who makes the judgement believes that government is a solution, or a problem. Dwight Eisenhower, with his roots very firmly in the tradition of those who came to the USA in order to be free of state interference, was of the latter persuasion.

Bibliography

  • Ambrose, Stephen, The Supreme Commander (New York, 1970).
  • Bischof, G., and Ambrose, S. (eds.), Eisenhower: A Centenary Assessment (New York, 1995).
  • Gelb, Norman, Ike and Monty: Generals at War (New York, 1994)

— Hugh Bicheno

Oxford Companion to US Military History:

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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(1890–1969), World War II general and thirty‐fourth president of the United States

Dwight David Eisenhower was born to David and Ida Stover Eisenhower in Denison, Texas, 14 October 1890. The following year, he, his parents, and two brothers moved to Abilene, Kansas, his father's childhood home. After graduating from high school, Eisenhower received appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and in 1915, he was commissioned second lieutenant. Following U.S. entry into World War I, he commanded the U.S. army tank corps training center at Camp Colt near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In the postwar years, Eisenhower held staff positions under the most accomplished and influential officers in the U.S. Army, including Generals John J. Pershing, Fox Conner, and Douglas MacArthur. In the process, he became a military strategist, rising slowly through the ranks from major to brigadier general. In World War II, Gen. George C. Marshall, army chief of staff, appointed Eisenhower to command of the War Plans Division (later the Operations Division) of the Army General Staff; then to supreme command sequentially of the Allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Italy, and of Normandy, France, as well as being Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

Eisenhower accepted the German unconditional surrender for the Western Allies on 8 May 1945. Returning to the United States as a five‐star general (general of the army), he accepted appointment as army chief of staff. After overseeing the demobilization of the army and writing a best‐selling war memoir, Crusade in Europe, in 1948, Eisenhower retired from the army and became president of Columbia University.

Not long after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, President Harry S. Truman called him back to active duty as the first supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a position Eisenhower retained until May 1952, when he announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. He was elected thirty‐fourth president of the United States and served two terms. His health became a problem beginning in the mid‐1960s, and he died on 28 March 1969.

A man with two distinguished careers—one as a professional soldier and the other as political leader and statesman—Eisenhower was the subject of more than the usual amount of controversy, much of which was unnecessary. The first area of controversy concerned his performance as Supreme Allied Commander. American critics observed his swift rise through the ranks after the outbreak of World War II despite a lack of combat experience and erroneously attributed it mainly to “Ike's” genial manner. The British, especially Gen. Bernard Law Montgomery, whose army had defeated the Germans and Italians at El Alamein in 1942, questioned Eisenhower's strategy for the Battle for Germany. Instead of Eisenhower's planned broad advance, aimed at surrounding the Ruhr industrial heartland and destroying the German Army, Montgomery advocated a narrow (“pencil thrust”) aimed across the northern European plain at Berlin. Eisenhower had read military history, including the works of the Prussian military intellectual Carl von Clausewitz, and had studied the art of war under the supervision of the leading American strategists. Accordingly, he stayed with his objective and methods of attaining it. The British High Command later admitted—and American historians agree—that Eisenhower's approach was correct. Like most commanders, he had some setbacks, but his achievements were large. They included the movements that turned back the unforeseen German attacks at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in February 1943, and at the Ardennes—the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. That month, Congress bestowed on him a fifth star and the rank of general of the army.

The Eisenhower presidency, in retrospect one of the most successful of the modern era, also involved controversy, reflected by the fact that not long after he left office, historians ranked him only twenty‐second in polls of presidential effectiveness. Many contemporary critics focus on his frequent relaxations, golf and trout fishing. And after his heart attack in 1955 and a slight stroke in 1957, pundits doubted his stamina. They condemned his failure publicly to repudiate the anti‐Communist demagogue, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin. Civil rights advocates criticized the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 for not going far enough. Other critics incorrectly said Eisenhower turned over U.S. foreign policy to John Foster Dulles, his secretary of state. The Soviet launching of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, testing of intercontinental missiles, and shooting down of an American U‐2 reconnaissance airplane (1960) brought charges that Eisenhower had weakened American defenses, allowing an alleged “missile gap” to develop with the Soviet Union. The president, they also charged, used the Central Intelligence Agency to put the United States on the side of right‐wing dictators in Third World nations such as Iran and Guatemala.

More recently, history has been kinder to the Eisenhower presidency. Eisenhower retained many of the approaches to social, economic, and foreign policy that the American people had come to accept during the Great Depression and World War II, while at the same time altering those laws and policies that discouraged economic growth and stifled initiative. Congress, with administration prodding, strengthened and expanded Social Security, authorized the national system of interstate highways and the St. Lawrence Seaway, and brought Alaska and Hawaii into the Union. The economy flourished, the gross national product growing 70 percent to $520 billion from $365 billion. As a Republican and a conservative, Eisenhower received criticism from the liberals. But since he refused to roll back the social policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he also irritated the right wing of the GOP. To the dismay of both, he refused to confront McCarthy, working instead to bring “McCarthyism” to an end by terminating executive branch cooperation with the senator's scattershot investigations. And though Eisenhower doubted the capacity of federal legislation to bring racial justice, his appointment of Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the enactment of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 encouraged some hope for blacks against discrimination. In his national security policies, Eisenhower obtained a negotiated armistice in Korea, increased U.S. military readiness, especially in airpower, and completed his predecessor's policy of containing Communist expansion by establishing a worldwide system of treaties and alliances. He increased U.S. assistance to South Vietnam but refused to authorize the use of U.S. combat forces there. The archival record shows that Eisenhower, not Dulles, was in active charge of U.S. foreign policy. The CIA did assist undemocratic forces in the Third World, but the allegations about a “missile gap” were without merit. The United States had a commanding lead in missile development when Eisenhower left office. By the 1980s, he had moved to ninth place in the ranking of presidential performance.

[See also Cold War; Commander in Chief, President as; D‐Day Landing; Eisenhower Doctrine; V‐2 Incident; World War I: Military and Diplomatic Course; World War II: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

  • Martin Blumenson and James L. Stokesbury, Masters of the Art of Command, 1975.
  • Freed I. Greenstein, The Hidden‐Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader, 1982.
  • Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President‐Elect, 1983.
  • Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, 1984.
  • R. Alton Lee, Dwight D. Eisenhower: A Bibliography of His Times and Presidency, 1991.
  • William B. Pickett, Dwight David Eisenhower and American Power, 1995
Oxford Dictionary of the US Military:

Dwight David Eisenhower

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Eisenhower, Dwight David (1890-1969) U.S. Army general and 34th president of the United States (1953-61), born in Denison, Texas, and raised in Abilene, Kansas. He graduated from West Point in 1915, but saw no action in World War I, in which he was in charge of training camps. Eisenhower held various staff assignments in the interwar years, but his military career began to rise when he was named to head the War Plans Division (later Operations Division) of the War Department in 1941, responsible for planning the strategy of the war. He took command of American forces in Great Britain in 1942 and was soon named supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, leading the invasion of French North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. He was promoted to four-star general (1943) and made supreme commander for Operation Overlord (1944), the invasion of France. Eisenhower was recognized as an outstanding strategist, adept at handling complex joint operations. In 1944 he was promoted to five-star General of the Army. He led the Battle of the Bulge (1944-45), the greatest single battle ever fought by the U.S. Army, before moving into Germany. After receiving the unconditional German surrender (May 1945), Eisenhower served as head of the occupation in the American zone for several months until he was named chief of staff of the U.S. Army (1945), a post which he held until his retirement in 1948. After two years as president of Columbia University, in 1951 he was sent to Paris by President Harry S. Truman as the first supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, where he organized the beginning of a NATO armed force and advocated the creation of a united Europe. In 1952 Eisenhower successfully ran for president on the Republican ticket, with Richard M. Nixon as his running mate. During his two terms (1953-61), he negotiated a truce to end the Korean War (1953); launched the interstate highway system (1956); reduced spending on conventional weapons while building more bombs and bombers; and constantly searched for peace with the Soviets. At the Geneva Conference in 1954, together with secretary of state John Foster Dulles, he agreed to the division of Vietnam and the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which formed the basis for later U.S. involvement in Vietnam. When the governor of Arkansas defied court-ordered school desegregation, Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the decree (1957). In 1958 he sent U.S. troops into Lebanon in accordance with his earlier proclaimed Eisenhower Doctrine. The last year of his presidency was devoted to the pursuit of peace, but a planned summit conference in May 1960 was thwarted by the U-2 incident. His farewell address (1961) warned of “unwarranted influence” on government “by the military-industrial complex.”

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Dwight David Eisenhower

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Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) was leader of the Allied forces in Europe in World War II, commander of NATO, and thirty-fourth president of the United States.

Dwight Eisenhower was born in Denison, Tex., on Oct. 14, 1890, one of seven sons. The family soon moved to Abilene, Kansas. The family was poor, and Eisenhower early learned the virtue of hard work. He graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1915. He was remarkable for his buoyant temperament and his capacity to inspire affection.

Eisenhower married Mamie Doud in 1916. One of the couple's two sons died in infancy; the other, John, followed in his father's footsteps and went to West Point, later resigning from the Army to assist in preparing his father's memoirs.

Army Career

Eisenhower's career in the Army was marked by a slow rise to distinction. He graduated first in his class in 1926 from the Army's Command and General Staff School. Following graduation from the Army War College he served in the office of the chief of staff under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He became MacArthur's distinguished aid in the Philippines. Returning to the United States in 1939, Eisenhower became chief of staff to the 3d Army. He attracted the attention of Gen. George C. Marshall, U.S. Chief of Staff, by his brilliant conduct of war operations in Louisiana in 1941. When World War II began, Eisenhower became assistant chief of the War Plans Division of the Army General Staff. He assisted in the preparations for carrying the war to Europe and in May of 1942 was made supreme commander of European operations, arriving in London in this capacity in June.

Supreme Commander in Europe

Eisenhower's personal qualities were precisely right for the situation in the months that followed. He had to deal with British generals whose war experience exceeded his own and with a prime minister, Winston Churchill, whose strength and determination were of the first order. Eisenhower's post called for a combination of tact and resolution, for an ability to get along with people and yet maintain his own position as the leader of the Allied forces. In addition to his capacity to command respect and affection, Eisenhower showed high executive quality in his selection of subordinates.

In London, Eisenhower paved the way for the November 1942 invasion of North Africa. Against powerful British reluctance he prepared for the June 1944 invasion of Europe. He chose precisely the day on which massive troop landings in Normandy were feasible, and once the bridgehead was established, he swept forward triumphantly - with one short interruption - to defeat the German armies. By spring 1945, with powerful support from the Russian forces advancing from the east, the war in Europe was ended. Eisenhower became one of the best known men in the United States, and there was talk of a possible political career.

Columbia University and NATO

Eisenhower disavowed any political ambitions, however, and in 1948 he retired from military service to become president of Columbia University. It cannot be said that he filled this role with distinction. Nothing in his training suggested a special capacity to deal with university problems. Yet it was only because of a strong sense of duty that he accepted President Harry Truman's appeal to become the first commander of the newly formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in December 1950. Here Eisenhower's truly remarkable gifts in dealing with men of various views and strong will were again fully exhibited.

Eisenhower's political views had never been clearly defined. But Republican leaders in the eastern United States found him a highly acceptable candidate for the presidency, perhaps all the more so because he was not identified with any particular wing of the party. After a bitter convention fight against Robert Taft, Eisenhower emerged victorious. In the election he defeated the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, by a tremendous margin.

Eisenhower repeated this achievement in 1956. In 1955 he had suffered a serious stroke, and in 1956 he underwent an operation for ileitis. Behaving with great dignity and making it clear that he would stand for a second term only if he felt he could perform his duties to the full, he accepted renomination and won the election with 477 of the 531 electoral votes and a popular majority of over 9 million.

The President

Eisenhower's strength as a political leader rested almost entirely upon his disinterestedness and his integrity. He had little taste for political maneuvers and was never a strong partisan. His party, which attained a majority in both houses of Congress in 1952, lost control in 1954, and for 6 of 8 years in office the President was compelled to rely upon both Democrats and Republicans. His personal qualities, however, made this easier than it might have been.

Eisenhower did not conceive of the presidency as a positive executiveship, as has been the view of most of the great U.S. presidents. His personal philosophy was never very clearly defined. He was not a dynamic leader; he took a position in the center and drew his strength from that. In domestic affairs he was influenced by his strong and able secretary of the Treasury, George Humphrey. In foreign affairs he leaned heavily upon his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. He delegated wide powers to those he trusted; in domestic affairs his personal assistant, Sherman Adams, exercised great influence. In a sense, Eisenhower's stance above the "battle" no doubt made him stronger.

Domestic Policies

To attempt to classify Eisenhower as liberal or conservative is difficult. He was undoubtedly sympathetic to business interests and had widespread support from them. He had austere views as to fiscal matters and was not generally in favor of enlarging the role of government in economic affairs. Yet he favored measures such as a far-reaching extension of social security, he signed a law fixing a minimum wage, and he recommended the formation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. After an initial error, he appointed to this post Marion B. Folsom, an outstanding administrator who had been a pioneer in the movement for social security in the 1930s.

Civil Rights

But the most significant development in domestic policy came through the Supreme Court. The President appointed Earl Warren to the post of chief justice. In 1954 the Warren Court handed down a unanimous decision declaring segregation in the schools unconstitutional, giving a new impetus to the civil rights movement.

Eisenhower was extremely cautious in implementing this decision. He saw that it was enforced in the District of Columbia, but in his heart he did not believe in it and thought that it was for the states rather than the Federal government to take appropriate action. Nonetheless, he was compelled to move in 1957 when Arkansas governor Orval Faubus attempted to defy the desegregation decision by using national guardsmen to bar African Americans from entering the schools of Little Rock. The President's stand was unequivocal; he made it clear that he would enforce the law. When Faubus proved obdurate, the President enjoined him and forced the removal of the national guard. When the African Americans admitted were forced by an armed mob to withdraw, the President sent Federal troops to Little Rock and federalized the national guard. A month later the Federal troops were withdrawn. But it was a long time before the situation was completely stabilized.

The President's second term saw further progress in civil rights. In 1957 he signed a measure providing further personnel for the attorney general's office for enforcing the law and barring interference with voting rights. In 1960 he signed legislation strengthening the measure and making resistance to desegregation a Federal offense.

Foreign Policies

In foreign affairs Eisenhower encouraged the strengthening of NATO, at the same time seeking an understanding with the Soviet Union. In 1955 the U.S.S.R. agreed to evacuate Austria, then under four-power occupation, but a Geneva meeting of the powers (Britain, France, the U.S.S.R., and the United States) made little progress on the problem of divided Germany. A new effort at understanding came in 1959, when the Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States. In friendly discussions it was agreed to hold a new international conference in Paris. When that time arrived, however, the Russians had just captured an American plane engaged in spying operations over the Soviet Union (the Gary Powers incident). Khrushchev flew into a tantrum and broke up the conference. When Eisenhower's term ended, relations with the Kremlin were still unhappy.

In the Orient the President negotiated an armistice with the North Koreans to terminate the Korean War begun in 1950. It appears that Eisenhower brought the North Koreans and their Chinese Communist allies to terms by threatening to enlarge the war. He supported the Chinese Nationalists. Dulles negotiated the treaty that created SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) and pledged the United States to consult with the other signatories and to meet any threat of peace in that region "in accordance with their constitutional practices…." This treaty was of special significance with regard to Vietnam, where the French had been battling against a movement for independence. In 1954 Vietnam was divided, the North coming under Communist control, the South (anti-Communist) increasingly supported by the United States.

In the Near East, Eisenhower faced a very difficult situation. In 1956 the Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. The government of Israel, probably encouraged by France and Great Britain, launched a preventive war, soon joined by the two great powers. The President and the secretary of state condemned this breach of the peace within the deliberations framework of the United Nations, and the three powers were obliged to sign an armistice. These events occurred at a particularly inauspicious time for the United States, since a popular revolt against the Soviet Union had broken out in Hungary. The hands of the American government were tied, though perhaps in no case could the United States have acted effectively in preventing Soviet suppression of the revolt.

In the Latin American sphere the President was confronted with events of great importance in Cuba. Cuba was ruled by an increasingly brutal and tyrannical president, Fulgencio Batista. In 1958, to mark its displeasure, the American government withdrew military support from the Batista regime. There followed a collapse of the government, and the Cuban leftist leader, Fidel Castro, installed himself in power. Almost from the beginning Castro began a flirtation with the Soviet Union, and relations between Havana and Washington were severed in January 1960.

In the meantime the United States had embarked upon a course which was to cause great embarrassment to Eisenhower's successor. It had encouraged and assisted anti-Castro Cubans to prepare to invade the island and overthrow the Castro regime. Though these plans had not crystallized when Eisenhower left office in 1961, it proved difficult to reverse them, and the result for the John F. Kennedy administration was the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs.

Assessing His Career

It will be difficult for future historians to assess Eisenhower's foreign policy objectively. Ending the Korean War was a substantial achievement. The support of NATO was most certainly in line with American opinion. In the Far East the extension of American commitments can be variously judged. It is fair to Eisenhower to say that only the first steps to the eventual deep involvement in Vietnam were taken during his presidency.

One other aspect of the Eisenhower years must be noted. The President's intention to reduce the military budget at first succeeded. But during his first term the American position with the Soviets deteriorated. Then came the Soviet launching of the Sputnik space probe in 1957 - a grisly suggestion of what nuclear weapons might be like in the future. In response, United States policy was altered, and the missile gap had been closed by the time the President left office. Unhappily, the arms race was not ended but attained new intensity in the post-Eisenhower years.

Few presidents have enjoyed greater popularity than Eisenhower or left office as solidly entrenched in public opinion as when they entered it. Eisenhower was not a great orator and did not conceive of the presidency as a post of political leadership. But at the end of his administration, admiration for his integrity, modesty, and strength was undiminished among the mass of the American people.

Eisenhower played at times the role of an elder statesman in Republican politics. His death on March 26, 1969, was the occasion for national mourning and for worldwide recognition of his important role in the events of his time.

Further Reading

Works written by Eisenhower are Crusade in Europe (1948) and his account of the presidency, Mandate for Change, 1953-1956: The White House Years (1963) and Waging Peace, 1956-1961: The White House Years (1965). For a brief summary of Eisenhower's early career see Marquis W. Childs, Eisenhower, Captive Hero: A Critical Study of the General and the President (1958). For the war years see W. B. Smith, Eisenhower's Six Great Decisions (1950). Eisenhower's election to the presidency is covered in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971). Very important is Sherman Adams, Firsthand Report: The Story of the Eisenhower Administration (1961). The most illuminating discussion of the President is Emmett John Hughes, The Ordeal of Power: A Political Memoir of the Eisenhower Years (1963). See also Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower: The Inside Story (1956), and Merlo J. Pusey, Eisenhower the President (1956).

Oxford Guide to the US Government:

Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th President

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Born: Oct. 14, 1890, Denison, Tex.
Political party: Republican
Education: U.S. Military Academy, B.S., 1915; U.S. Army Command and General Staff School, 1925–26; Army War College, 1927–28; Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1931–32
Military service: U.S. Army: 2nd lieutenant, 1915; major (temporary), 1917; lieutenant colonel (temporary), 1918; major, 1918; Office of Assistant Secretary of War, 1929–33; Office of Army Chief of Staff, 1933–35; assistant military adviser, Commonwealth of the Philippines, 1935–39; colonel, 1939; chief of staff of 3rd Army, 1939–41; major general, 1941; War Plans Division, Army Staff, 1941–42; commander of U.S. forces in Europe, 1942; Allied commander for invasion of North Africa, 1942–43; Allied commander in chief, 1943–45; five-star general of the army and army chief of staff, 1945–47; Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1950–52
Previous civilian government service: none
Elected President, 1952; served, 1953–61
Died: Mar. 28, 1969, Washington, D.C. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first Republican President elected after the Great Depression. A “middle of the road” leader, he retained most of the Democratic New Deal programs rather than attempt to repeal them. He continued Harry Truman's policy of containment against communism but sought unsuccessfully to engage the leaders of the Soviet Union in summit diplomacy to limit atomic weapons. Although he won two elections, he was unable to make the Republican party dominant in American politics.

Elsenhower was born in Texas and raised in Abilene, Kansas. He graduated from West Point in 1915, ranking 61st in a class of 168. During World War I he saw no action but spent the time in training camps. After the war he was posted for a time in the Canal Zone of Panama. He graduated at the top of his class from the Army Command and General Staff School, then went to the War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He then worked as an aide to General Douglas MacArthur, army chief of staff, in Washington and later in the Philippines, returning to the United States as a lieutenant colonel in 1939. In the spring of 1941, with the rank of colonel, he distinguished himself in training maneuvers commanding the Third Army, winning promotion to brigadier general.

During World War II, Eisenhower was named chief of operations of the army in 1942 with the rank of major general. He was then named commanding general of the European theater of operations, a promotion that jumped him over 350 more senior officers. He commanded the forces that invaded North Africa in November 1942 and defeated the Axis powers by May 1943; he commanded the Italian campaign in 1943 that led to an armistice with the Italians; and he was named Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe on January 17, 1944. He made the decision to go ahead with the invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944 (D Day), in spite of bad weather that might have imperiled the operation. He later called it the most difficult decision he ever made. He achieved the highest rank in the American military, five-star general of the army, in December 1944. After the war he served as army chief of staff, helping President Truman organize the new Department of Defense.

In 1948 Eisenhower retired from the army, declined offers from both political parties to run for President, and served two years as president of Columbia University, the only civilian position (other than the U.S. Presidency) he ever held. His account of the war, Crusade in Europe, was a best-seller. In 1950 President Truman recalled him to active duty to serve as the first commander of supreme headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE), the military arm of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an alliance of the United States, Canada, and Western European nations), a position he held for two years.

Although both parties considered him for the 1952 Presidential nomination, Eisenhower chose to enter the Republican contest and gained the support of the liberal and moderate wings of the party. He won a bitter nomination fight over Republican conservatives, led by “Mr. Republican,” Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. His victory was due in part to the efforts of Senator Richard Nixon, who helped organize the California convention delegation for Eisenhower. Nixon was rewarded with the Vice Presidential nomination. With the Republican campaign slogan “I like Ike” and a series of effective television commercials, Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson. His coattails brought in a Republican Congress.

Eisenhower concentrated on foreign affairs. “I shall go to Korea,” Eisenhower had promised the American people, and one of his first acts was to honor that pledge and end the Korean War. The final truce agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. The following year he refused a French request to use American military might against North Vietnamese forces and instead supported the Geneva Accords that ended French involvement in Indochina. Between 1954 and 1955 Eisenhower shored up the American position in Asia by concluding a mutual defense agreement with the Nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan, providing military assistance to the South Korean government, cementing a strategic alliance with Japan, and giving American support to an anticommunist regime organized with U.S. assistance in South Vietnam. The United States, along with Great Britain and France, also sponsored the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), an alliance of the United States, Great Britain, France, and several Asian nations including Pakistan and Thailand, to resist communist expansion.

There were foreign policy successes in other parts of the world as well. In 1953 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) organized a coup that brought down an anti-American government in Iran. Then the Eisenhower administration organized the Central Treaty Organization, a military alliance between several Middle Eastern nations and the United States. In 1954 the CIA organized a coup against Jacobo Arbenz, the leftist president of Guatemala, and installed a pro-American leader. In 1956 Eisenhower insisted that France and Great Britain withdraw their troops from Egypt and end their attempt to topple Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Eisenhower did not confront Soviet military power directly. When Soviet forces crushed East German workers in 1953 and a full-scale revolution in Hungary in 1956, the United States made no move to respond. In dealing with the Soviets, Eisenhower showed respect for their military might and preferred peaceful negotiation. In 1955 he held a summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Geneva. There he made an “open skies” proposal to allow each nation's air force to fly over the other's territory in order to conduct peaceful surveillance and reduce the military threat on both sides. The Soviets turned him down.

In domestic affairs Eisenhower expected Congress to take the initiative. He proposed combining the New Deal social agencies into a Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which Congress approved, as well as an increase in Social Security payments and the minimum wage. He proposed only one major new additional domestic program, the interstate highway system. Eisenhower concluded the St. Lawrence Seaway agreement with Canada, which benefited U.S. ports on the Great Lakes by improving their access to the Atlantic Ocean in winter months. He proposed a constitutional amendment to allow 18-year-olds to vote, but Congress took no action on it. In the 1954 midterm elections Congress went back to the Democrats, which forced Eisenhower to adopt a bipartisan stance in domestic and foreign policy. Rather than claiming credit as a Republican, he worked closely with Democratic leaders to gain their support.

The least successful aspect of Eisenhower's first term involved his failure to stand up forcefully to Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican–Wisconsin). McCarthy had charged that some members of the State Department and the army were part of a communist conspiracy. Though almost all his allegations proved unfounded, his mean-spirited investigation severely hurt morale in many government agencies. Eisenhower was slow in responding to McCarthy, though some have argued that he played a “hidden hand,” working with Vice President Nixon and Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson in maneuvers designed to weaken the senator. Eventually the Senate censured McCarthy for his unfair tactics of smear and innuendo.

Although Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1955 and had an operation to relieve an intestinal blockage the following year, his health was good enough for a second term. He was reelected over Adlai Stevenson in a landslide victory in 1956. But Congress remained in the hands of the Democrats, the first time a President had been elected without winning either House since Zachary Taylor's victory in 1848. Eisenhower's second term was marked by health problems; he had a stroke in 1957. Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union in 1959. Eisenhower used federal troops to enforce federal court orders desegregating the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, but gave tepid support to other civil rights initiatives, leading congressional Democrats to pass their own civil rights measures in 1957 and 1960.

In 1957 Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine, approved by Congress, that assured stability to nations threatened by communist subversion or aggression. In July 1958, to back up this doctrine, U.S. Marines landed in Lebanon to bolster the government against threats of civil war. When communist China starting shelling the islands of Quemoy and Matsu and threatened to invade them, Eisenhower ordered the U.S. Navy to escort Nationalist Chinese ships to resupply the islands.

In 1957 the Soviets launched a Sputnik satellite into outer space, challenging the United States for technological dominance and leading many Americans to think that the nation needed new leadership. With unemployment rising and the nation entering a recession, the midterm elections of 1958 led to a stunning loss for the Republicans in Congress and in gubernatorial elections. The Democrats, now controlling both houses, assumed control of domestic policy-making. They held hearings on shortcomings in national preparedness, science, education, and the space program, and they passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 as well as a law that provided federal funding for science and foreign language education.

Eisenhower's foreign policy began to suffer setbacks as well. In 1959 Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba, and it soon became apparent that he was establishing the first communist regime in the Western Hemisphere. Then in 1960 Eisenhower planned a summit meeting with the Soviets to advance his arms limitations proposals. On May 1, 1960, shortly before the summit, the Soviets shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane over their territory; Eisenhower denied that the plane had been over Soviet territory, then had to admit the truth when the Soviets displayed the captured American pilot, Gary Francis Powers. The Soviets insisted that Eisenhower apologize for these flights, and when he refused, they broke up the summit conference. Khrushchev withdrew an invitation for Eisenhower to visit the Soviet Union. Later, Eisenhower toured the Far East but was forced to cancel a visit to Japan because of anti-American sentiment.

Eisenhower was popular throughout his two terms and probably would have won the next election had he not been the first President forbidden by the 22nd Amendment to stand for a third term. Although he campaigned for Republican nominee Richard Nixon in 1960, Nixon was defeated by Democrat John F. Kennedy, who ran a campaign highly critical of the Eisenhower administration.

After the election, Eisenhower delivered a famous farewell address in which he warned the American people of the potential dangers involved in the “military industrial complex” that had been created to produce weapons for the armed forces.

After retiring to private life in 1961, Eisenhower published his Presidential memoirs and lived at his farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He died of heart failure in 1969.

See also Health, Presidential; Hidden-hand Presidency; Kennedy, John F.; Nixon, Richard M.; Succession to the Presidency; Truman, Harry S.; 22nd Amendment

Sources

  • Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower, The President (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953–56 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963).
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965).
  • Fred Greenstein, The Hidden Hand Presidency (New York: Basic Books, 1982)
Houghton Mifflin Companion to US History:

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

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(1890-1969), supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and thirty-fourth president of the United States. Eisenhower's personal leadership qualities were crucial in fusing an enormous fighting force made up of disparate armies and egocentric leaders. He brought those same talents to the White House, where he concentrated on his role as a national unifier.

Eisenhower, born in Denison, Texas, and raised in Abilene, Kansas, graduated from West Point in 1915. He served as a captain in the First World War and worked under Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines from 1936 until 1939, afterward spending a brief period in Washington with the Office of Chief of Staff. After Pearl Harbor he commanded U.S. forces in Great Britain, leading the invasions of North Africa and Italy in 1943. The confidence of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his abilities resulted in his appointment as supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe, with responsibility for planning the cross-channel invasion of France on D-Day.

Among the best-regarded World War II military leaders, Eisenhower was appointed chief of staff in 1945, succeeding Gen. George C. Marshall. His subsequent service as president of Columbia University in 1948 was brief; by 1951 he was back in uniform as supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

But pressures on "Ike" to run for president followed him to Europe. Leaders of both political parties tried to enlist the popular war hero, but Eisenhower was a Republican by heritage and personal disposition. He relinquished his nato command in the spring of 1952 to compete for that party's nomination. He won it and the election with relative ease.

Eisenhower's two-term presidency, scorned at first by liberals and specialists as unresponsive and lethargic, came to be seen later as an artful example of holding the line against contemporary political and social forces. Only with great reluctance did he force the racial integration of Little Rock's high school in 1957. Eisenhower contained the Republican right wing, winning it over to internationalism, while pursuing cold war policies that largely continued the Truman legacy. He and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, dealt with conflicts in different parts of the world, most notably Southeast Asia, via mutual security treaties and covert military intervention. They were cautiously wary of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and his overtures toward détente. (These collapsed, however, with the shooting down of an American U-2 spy plane over the Russian heartland in 1960.)

Eisenhower did not have much success in his efforts to trim the military budget, the central concern of his farewell address on January 17, 1961. But he had managed to keep intact the major reforms and institutions inherited from the New Deal and, at the same time, produce three balanced budgets. The leadership that seemed timid and uncreative at the time was later described by historians as adroit management of a not-so-placid decade.

Bibliography:

Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952 (1983) and Eisenhower, the President (1984); David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943-1945 (1986).

Author:

Herbert S. Parmet

See also D-Day; Dulles, John Foster; Elections: 1952 , 1956; North Atlantic Treaty Organization; World War II. For events during Eisenhower's administration, see Anticommunism; Army-McCarthy Hearings; Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ; Cold War; Middle East-U.S. Relations; Racial Desegregation; Rosenberg Case; U-2 Affair.


Columbia Encyclopedia:

Dwight David Eisenhower

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Eisenhower, Dwight David (ī'zənhou'ər), 1890-1969, American general and 34th President of the United States, b. Denison, Tex.; his nickname was "Ike."

Early Career

When he was two years old, his family moved to Abilene, Kans., where he was reared. He entered (1911) West Point and graduated in 1915. In 1916 he married Mamie Geneva Doud. In World War I, Eisenhower was commanding officer at Camp Colt, Gettysburg, Pa., a training camp for the new U.S. Army tank corps. After the war he was stationed (1922-24) in the Panama Canal Zone, was a member of the American Battle Monuments Commission, and was assistant executive (1929-33) in the office of the Assistant Secretary of War. From 1935 to 1940 he was in the Philippines, where he served as an aide to Douglas MacArthur.

General during World War II

Eisenhower's impressive performance in the 1941 army maneuvers led to his assignment in Washington, D.C. as chief of operations (1942) and preceded his meteoric rise to the top as Allied military commander of World War II. In June, 1942, General Eisenhower was named U.S. commander of the European theater of operations. He commanded U.S. forces in the North African landings (Nov., 1942) and in Feb., 1943, became chief of all Allied forces in North Africa. After successfully directing the invasions of Sicily (July, 1943) and Italy (Sept.), he was called (Dec.) to England to be supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. He was largely responsible for the cooperation between the British, American, and other forces and for the integration of land, sea, and air forces in the great battle for the European continent. His own account of the Allied defeat of Germany was published in book form as Crusade in Europe (1948).

In Dec., 1944, he was made general of the army (five-star general), and in 1945 he commanded the U.S. occupation forces in Germany. In Nov., 1945, he became chief of staff of the U.S. Army and advocated the unification of the U.S. armed forces and universal military training. He resigned (Feb., 1948) as chief of staff to become (June) president of Columbia Univ.

Presidency

Eisenhower was sought as a nominee for presidency of the United States in 1948 but rejected the offers made him. In Dec., 1950, he obtained a leave of absence as president of Columbia to become Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR). After he negotiated basic commitments from member countries to build up the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, he retired from active duty (1952) with the army to campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. With the support of Republican liberals and internationalists, he defeated his chief rival, Senator Robert A. Taft, for the nomination. His popularity as a World War II hero, and his promise to end the Korean War brought Eisenhower an easy victory over his Democratic opponent, Adlai E. Stevenson, and he took office on Jan. 20, 1953.

First Term

Eisenhower soon fulfilled his campaign pledge when an armistice was signed (July, 1953) in Korea after he threatened to use nuclear weapons. Eisenhower and his secretary of state John Foster Dulles continued the Truman administration policy of containing Communism and of financing the French attempt to maintain control of Indochina. Defense treaties were signed with South Korea (1953) and Taiwan (1954), and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was formed in 1954 to halt Communist expansion in Asia. After the French lost the battle of Dienbienphu and withdrew from Indochina, Eisenhower sent military aid to South Vietnam. He also tried, after the death of Soviet leader Josef Stalin in 1953, to ease cold war tensions. His "atoms for peace" plan and his statements at the Geneva summit conference in July, 1955, were widely heralded.

At home, Eisenhower's record was less distinguished. He failed to oppose publicly Sen. Joe McCarthy. The predominance of business executives in his cabinet lent a conservative tone to his administration, while his concern for a balanced budget at a time when defense expenditures were rising rapidly, as well as his commitment to limiting the role of the government in the economy, kept Eisenhower from expanding the social welfare programs begun by his Democratic predecessors. Despite an attack of coronary thrombosis in Sept., 1955, he was reelected over Adlai Stevenson in 1956 by an even wider margin than in 1952.

Second Term

During his second term, desegregation became one of the primary issues on the national agenda. Although personally unenthusiastic about desegregation, he sent federal troops to Little Rock, Ark. to enforce a court-ordered school desegregation decision (Sept., 1957). His administration supported the civil-rights legislation that passed Congress (1957, 1960); and he prohibited discriminatory practices in the District of Columbia and in federal facilities such as navy yards and hospitals.

International tensions increased during his second term. In 1957 he promulgated the so-called Eisenhower Doctrine, in which he proposed to send military and economic aid to any Middle Eastern nation requesting it in order to bolster that region against Communist aggression. Pursuant to that doctrine, he sent U.S. Marines to Lebanon in July, 1958. Eisenhower hosted Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the latter's visit to the United States in 1959. When they met at the Paris summit conference in the following year, the tone was less friendly; Khrushchev denounced Eisenhower for permitting high-altitude espionage flights over the Soviet Union and walked out of the summit. Fidel Castro's Communist regime in Cuba exacerbated cold war tensions, and In 1961, Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations with Cuba and authorized preparations for an invasion (see Bay of Pigs Invasion).

Later Years

In his farewell address as president, Eisenhower warned against the influence of the growing "military-industrial complex." After leaving the White House, he remained generally aloof from politics, although he did occasionally comment on national issues and campaign for Republican candidates. In 1962 the Eisenhower presidential library was dedicated at Abilene, Kans.

Bibliography

See Eisenhower's memoirs of his years in the White House, Mandate for Change (1963) and Waging Peace (1965); his papers, ed. by A. D. Chandler, Jr., and S. E. Ambrose (5 vol., 1970); memoir, General Ike (2003), by his son, J. S. D. Eisenhower; biographies by H. S. Parmet (1972), P. Lyon (1974), S. E. Ambrose, (2 vol., 1985-90), his grandson, D. Eisenhower (1986), G. Perret (1999), and T. Wicker (2002); S. Adams, Firsthand Report (1961); E. K. G. Sixsmith, Eisenhower as Military Commander (1973); C. D'Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life (2002); M. Perry, Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace (2007); S. Weintraub, 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall (2007); J. W. Jordan, Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership That Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe (2011).

Gale Encyclopedia of the Mideast & N. Africa:

Dwight David Eisenhower

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1890 - 1969

U.S. Army officer; president of the United States, 1953 - 1961.

Born in Denison, Texas, Dwight David Eisenhower was graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1915. During World War II, he was chief of the war plans division, U.S. general staff, before becoming commander in chief of U.S. forces, European theater, and commander of allied forces in Northwest Africa. In 1943, he was appointed general, supreme commander in North Africa and the western Mediterranean, and he planned the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. He was made general of the army in 1944 and planned and commanded the European invasion at Normandy, France, called D-Day (6 June 1944). After conquering Nazi Germany, Eisenhower remained in Europe as the U.S. member of the Allied Control Commission for Germany and chief of staff of the U.S. Army (1945 - 1948).

In 1948, Eisenhower returned to the United States and became the president of Columbia University (1948 - 1953) while remaining supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Europe (1951 - 1952). He was then persuaded to run for president of the United States on the Republican ticket, won, and served two terms (1953 - 1961). Along with his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, he was concerned about preventing Soviet incursions in the Middle East, whether economic, political, or ideological. Careful to maintain good relations with the Arab states, he showed no undue favoritism to the new State of Israel. At first he was interested in funding the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, but President Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1955 arms deal with Czechoslovakia, a Soviet satellite country, led Eisenhower, on the advice of Dulles, to deny the loan. In the 1956 Arab - Israel War, when France, Britain, and Israel attempted to take back the Suez Canal from Nasser's nationalization of it, Eisenhower angrily brought the matter to the United Nations, calling for a cease-fire and a withdrawal. This stance won him few friends in the Middle East - only Hashimite-ruled Iraq and Reza Pahlavi's Iran.

On 5 January 1957, Eisenhower proposed the policy that became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine, calling on Congress to provide military and economic aid to any Middle Eastern nation that believed itself under risk from "armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism." In July 1958, in the wake of the revolution in Iraq, President Camille Chamoun of Lebanon appealed to the United States for help. Believing that the security of Lebanon was endangered by Nasser and by communism, Eisenhower dispatched a contingent of U.S. Marines from the Sixth Fleet; they landed on 15 July to be greeted by astonished sunbathers but stayed for almost four months. Order was restored to Lebanon, and power passed from Chamoun to General Fuʾad Chehab.

Bibliography

Alteras, Isaac. Eisenhower and Israel: U.S. - Israeli Relations,1953 - 1960. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993.

Ambrose, Stephen. Eisenhower: The President. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.

Schoenebaum, Eleanora, ed. Political Profiles: The EisenhowerYears. New York: Facts On File, 1977.

Spiegel, Steven. The Other Arab - Israeli Conflict: Making America'sMiddle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

ZACHARY KARABELL

Houghton Mifflin Chronology of US Literature:

Works by Dwight D. Eisenhower

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(1890-1969)

1948Crusade in Europe. The former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe provides his personal narrative of the war, with thoughtful assessments of the events and his fellow commanders. The book is greeted as one of the most important of war memoirs.

Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: History:

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

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(eye-zuhn-how-uhr)

A general and political leader of the twentieth century. As supreme commander in Europe of the forces of the Allies during World War II, he directed the invasion of Normandy on D-Day and led in the overthrow of the Nazi government of Germany. He later organized the military forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In 1952, his popularity was so high that both the Democrats and the Republicans wanted him for a presidential candidate; he chose the Republicans. “I Like Ike” was a popular slogan of his campaigns. He defeated the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, in both 1952 and 1956. In office, he negotiated the end of the Korean War and generally pursued moderate policies. His years as president were marked by increasing prosperity at home, although the cold war with the Soviet Union continued abroad. Richard Nixon was Eisenhower's vice president.

West's Encyclopedia of American Law:

Eisenhower, Dwight David

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Dwight David Eisenhower achieved prominence in military and political careers and as the thirty-fourth president of the United States.

Eisenhower was born October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. A graduate of West Point Military Academy in 1915, he served during World War I as officer in charge of Camp Colt, which was located at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and which served as the center of training for the U.S. Army Tank Division.

From 1922 to 1924, Eisenhower was assigned to a post in the Panama Canal Zone. Five years later, he served as an administrator in the Assistant Secretary of War Office and acted in this capacity until 1933. In 1935, he was stationed in the Philippine Islands, and, for the next five years, he displayed his exceptional military expertise. As a result of his achievements, Eisenhower—promoted to general— became chief of operations in Washington, D.C., in 1942.

Throughout the years of World War II, Eisenhower continued to demonstrate his military proficiency. In 1942, he was in charge of the battle operations in Europe. He subsequently directed the U.S. maneuvers in North Africa and, in 1943, commanded the Allied armies there. Later that year, he supervised the victorious attacks on Sicily and the mainland of Italy. As a result of these successes, he was transferred to England to serve as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. He was instrumental in coordinating the armed services of the Allies and in directing the use of land, sea, and air battle units in the war maneuvers in Europe.

In 1944, Eisenhower was awarded the prestigious rank of five-star general. He was assigned to Germany the following year, and, subsequently, became Army chief of staff.

Eisenhower resigned as chief of staff in 1948 and entered the education field, serving as president of Columbia University. Two years later, he returned to the military and established a defense corps as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which was composed of countries determined to prevent Soviet aggression.

In 1952, Eisenhower officially ended his association with the military and began a brilliant political career. As a Republican, he campaigned for the office of U.S. president against Democrat Adlai Stevenson; he was victorious, primarily because of his impressive military achievements and his pledge to end the war in Korea. As president, Eisenhower was instrumental in the achievement of peace in Korea in 1953. His main concern was the growing threat of the spread of communism, and he adopted a policy—similar to that of predecessor Harry S. Truman—to keep communism in check. As part of this program, the United States formed defense treaties with South Korea and Formosa, now Taiwan; South Vietnam received military assistance; and, in 1954, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was created to prevent the spread of communism in Far Eastern countries.

Despite Eisenhower's intent to stop the growth of communism, he sought to reach a harmonious relationship with the Soviets, as was evidenced by his speeches at the 1955 Geneva Summit Conference. Participants included Eisenhower, Nikolai Bulganin, and Chairman Nikita Krushchev from the Soviet Union, Anthony Eden from Great Britain, and Edgar Faure from France. No agreements were reached, but foreign relations were strengthened.

In 1956, Eisenhower again defeated Adlai Stevenson for the presidency. During this administration he became a proponent of the civil rightsmovement and ordered the federal militia to Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 to ensure the enforcement of desegregation of schools; in addition, he was responsible for civil rights legislation.

Eisenhower's second administration was again hampered by global tensions, and he issued the Eisenhower Doctrine in response to these pressures. This program, drafted in 1957, provided that any country in the Middle East requiring military and economic assistance to counteract the threat of communism would receive it upon request. In 1958, the doctrine was put to its first test in Lebanon when the U.S. Marine Corps was dispatched to that country.

World tensions continued through the latter years of his second term, and in 1960, Eisenhower was criticized publicly by Soviet leader Krushchev for condoning espionage flights over Soviet territory. A year later, Eisenhower severed relations with Cuba after Communist leader Fidel Castro assumed Cuban leadership.

In addition to his presidential and military achievements, Eisenhower wrote three noteworthy publications: Crusade in Europe (1948), a chronicle of the defeat of Germany in World War II by the Allies; Mandate for Change (1963), an account of his years as president; and Waging Peace (1965). Eisenhower died March 28, 1969, in Washington, D.C.

CROSS-REFERENCES: Dulles, John Foster.

Quotes By:

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Quotes:

"I'm saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am."

"Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs."

"The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!"

"May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field."

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."

See more famous quotes by Dwight D. Eisenhower

Encyclopedia of the Holocaust:

Dwight David Eisenhower

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(1890--1969), American military leader and president of the United States from 1953--1961. During World War II Eisenhower organized and commanded the Allied invasion of Europe, and served as commander in chief of the Allied forces in Europe. When the war ended, he was appointed commander in chief of the American occupation forces in Europe.

In 1945 Eisenhower's forces liberated tens of thousands of Jews from Concentration Camps and Forced Labor camps. He personally visited several newly-liberated camps, and ordered that as many American soldiers as possible visit the camps to see the remnants of the Nazis' horrible crimes with their own eyes. Over and over, Eisenhower reiterated to the public his feelings of shock and loathing regarding the Nazis' genocidal activities.

As head of the American occupation forces in Europe after the war, Eisenhower faced the problem of Jewish displaced persons (DPs), Holocaust Survivors with nowhere to go. He created the position of advisor on Jewish affairs as an address to deal with the DP issue, and sanctioned the building of separate Jewish DP camps in the American zone in Germany. Later, Eisenhower allowed in thousands of Holocaust survivors who illegally reached the American zone from Eastern Europe. (see also Displaced Persons, Jewish.)

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th President of the United States
In office
January 20, 1953 – January 20, 1961
Vice President Richard Nixon
Preceded by Harry S. Truman
Succeeded by John F. Kennedy
1st Supreme Allied Commander Europe
In office
April 2, 1951 – May 30, 1952
President Harry S. Truman
Deputy Arthur Tedder
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Matthew Ridgway
16th Chief of Staff of the Army
In office
November 19, 1945 – February 6, 1948
President Harry S. Truman
Deputy J. Lawton Collins
Preceded by George Marshall
Succeeded by Omar Bradley
1st Governor of the American Zone of Occupied Germany
In office
May 8, 1945 – November 10, 1945
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Joseph T. McNarney
13th President of Columbia University
In office
1948–1953
Preceded by Nicholas Murray Butler
Succeeded by Grayson Kirk
Personal details
Born David Dwight Eisenhower
(1890-10-14)October 14, 1890
Denison, Texas, U.S.
Died March 28, 1969(1969-03-28) (aged 78)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Mamie Geneva Doud
Children Doud
John
Alma mater U.S.M.A.
Profession Army Officer
Religion Presbyterianism
Signature Cursive signature in ink
Military service
Service/branch United States Army seal United States Army
Years of service 1915–1953
1961–1969[1]
Rank US-O11 insignia.svg General of the Army
Battles/wars World War II
Awards Army Distinguished Service Medal (4 oak leaf clusters)
Legion of Merit
Order of the Southern Cross
Order of the Bath
Order of Merit
Legion of Honor
See more

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (pronounced /ˈzənhaʊər/, EYE-zən-how-ər; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45, from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.[2]

Eisenhower was of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, and was reared in a large family in Kansas, by parents with a robust work ethic and religious background. As one of five sons, he was conditioned by a competitive atmosphere which instilled self-reliance. He attended and graduated from West Point, and later was married with two sons. After World War II Eisenhower served as Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman, then assumed the post of President at Columbia University.[3]

Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race as a Republican, to counter the non-interventionism of Senator Robert A. Taft, and to crusade against "Communism, Korea and corruption." He won by a landslide, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson and ending two decades of the New Deal Coalition. In the first year of his presidency Eisenhower deposed the leader of Iran in the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat, and used nuclear threats to conclude the Korean War with China. His New Look policy of nuclear deterrence gave priority to inexpensive nuclear weapons while reducing the funding for conventional military forces; the goal was to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. In 1954 Eisenhower first articulated the Domino theory in his description of the threat presented by the spread of communism. The Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, which enabled him to prevent Chinese communist aggression against Chinese nationalists and established U.S. policy of defending Taiwan. When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957 he had to play catchup in the space race. Eisenhower forced Israel, the UK and France to end their invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis of 1956. In 1958 he sent 15,000 US troops to Lebanon to prevent the pro-Western government falling to a Nasser-inspired revolution. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a summit meeting with the Soviets collapsed because of the U-2 incident when an American spy plane was shot down over Russia and its pilot captured.[4]

On the domestic front, he covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy but contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking the modern expanded version of Executive privilege. He otherwise left most political activity to his Vice President, Richard Nixon. He was a moderate conservative who continued New Deal agencies, expanded Social Security and launched the Interstate Highway System. He sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, for the first time since Reconstruction to enforce federal court orders to desegregate public schools, and signed civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 to protect the right to vote. He implemented desegregation of the armed forces in two years, and made five appointments to the Supreme Court. He was the first term-limited president in accordance with the 22nd Amendment.

Eisenhower's two terms were peaceful ones for the most part and saw considerable economic prosperity except for a sharp recession in 1958–59. Eisenhower is now often ranked as one of the top ten U.S. Presidents.

Contents

Early life and education

Eisenhower family home, Abilene, Kansas

The Eisenhauer (German for "iron hewer") family migrated from Karlsbrunn, Germany, to Switzerland in the 17th century due to religious persecution, and a century later came to the United States. A misspelling in official documents changed their name; the Eisenhower family settled in York, Pennsylvania, in 1730, and in the 1880s they moved to Kansas.[5] Eisenhower's Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, who were primarily farmers, included Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer of Karlsbrunn, who migrated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1741.[6] Hans' great-great grandson, David Jacob Eisenhower (1863–1942), was Dwight's father, and was a college-educated engineer, despite his own father Jacob's urging to stay on the family farm. Eisenhower's mother, Ida Elizabeth Stover, born in Virginia of German Lutheran ancestry, moved to Kansas from Virginia. She married David on September 23, 1885, in Lecompton, Kansas, on the campus of their alma mater, Lane University. David owned a general store in Hope, Kansas, but the business failed due to economic conditions and the family became impoverished. The Eisenhowers then lived in Texas from 1889 until 1892, and later returned to Kansas, with $24 to their name at the time; David worked as a mechanic with a railroad and then with a creamery.[7] By 1898, the family was self sustaining with suitable accommodations for their large family.[8]

Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas, the third of seven boys.[9] His mother originally named him David Dwight but reversed the two names after his birth to avoid the confusion of having two Davids in the family.[10] All of the boys were called "Ike", such as "Big Ike" (Edgar) and "Little Ike" (Dwight); the nickname was intended as an abbreviation of their last name.[11] By World War II, only Dwight was still called "Ike".[5] In 1892, the family moved to Abilene, Kansas, which Eisenhower considered as his home town.[5] As a child, he was involved in an accident that cost his younger brother an eye; he later referred to this as an experience teaching him the need to be protective of those under him. Dwight developed a keen and enduring interest in exploring outdoors, hunting/fishing, cooking and card playing from an illiterate named Bob Davis who lived by the river. And though his mother was against war, it was her collection of history books that first sparked Eisenhower's early and lasting interest in military history. He persisted in reading the books in her collection and became a voracious reader in the subject. Other favorite subjects early in his education were arithmetic and spelling.[12]

His parents set aside specific times at breakfast and at dinner for daily family Bible reading. Chores were regularly assigned and rotated among all the children, and misbehavior was met with unequivocal discipline, usually from David.[13] His mother, previously a member (with David) of the River Brethren sect of the Mennonites, joined the International Bible Students Association, which later became Jehovah's Witnesses. The Eisenhower home served as the local meeting hall from 1896 to 1915, though Eisenhower never joined the International Bible Students.[14] His later decision to attend West Point saddened his mother, who felt that warfare was "rather wicked," but she did not overrule him.[15] In 1948, Eisenhower said he was "one of the most deeply religious men I know" though unattached to any "sect or organization". He was baptized in the Presbyterian Church in 1953.[16]

Eisenhower attended Abilene High School and graduated with the class of 1909.[17] As a freshman, he injured his knee and developed a leg infection which extended into his groin and which his doctor diagnosed as life threatening; the doctor insisted that the leg be amputated but Dwight refused to allow it, and miraculously recovered, though he had to repeat his freshman year.[18] He and brother Edgar both wanted to attend college, though they lacked the funds. They made a pact to take alternate years at college while the other worked, in order to earn the tuitions.[19] Edgar took the first turn at school, and Dwight was employed as a night supervisor at the Belle Springs Creamery.[20] Edgar asked for a second year, Dwight consented and worked for a second year. At that time, a friend "Swede" Hazlet was applying to the Naval Academy and urged Dwight to apply to the school, since no tuition was required. Eisenhower requested consideration for either Annapolis or West Point with his U.S. Senator, Joseph L. Bristow. Though Eisenhower was among the winners of the entrance exam competition, he was beyond the age limit for the Naval Academy.[21] He then accepted an appointment to West Point in 1911.[21]

At West Point, Eisenhower relished the emphasis on traditions and on sports, but was less enthusiastic about the hazing, though he willingly accepted it as a plebe; he was also a regular violator of the more detailed regulations, and finished school with a less than stellar discipline rating. Academically, Eisenhower's best subject by far was English; otherwise his performance was average, though he thoroughly enjoyed the typical emphasis of engineering on science and mathematics.[22] In athletics, Eisenhower later said that "not making the baseball team at West Point was one of the greatest disappointments of my life, maybe my greatest."[23] He did make the football team, and was a varsity starter as running back and linebacker in 1912, tackling the legendary Jim Thorpe of the Carlisle Indians that year.[24] Eisenhower broke his leg in that, his last, game; it became permanently damaged on horseback and in the boxing ring,[5][25] so he turned to fencing and gymnastics.[5] Eisenhower later served as junior varsity football coach and cheerleader. Controversy persists over whether Eisenhower played minor league baseball for Junction City in the Central Kansas League the year before he attended West Point, where he played amateur football.[26][27] He graduated in the middle of the class of 1915,[28] which became known as "the class the stars fell on", because 59 members eventually became general officers.

Eisenhower met and fell in love with Mamie Geneva Doud of Boone, Iowa, six years his junior, while he was stationed in Texas.[5] He and her family were also immediately taken with one another. He proposed to her on Valentine's Day in 1916. A November wedding date in Denver was moved up to July 1 due to the pending outbreak of World War I. In their first 35 years of marriage, they moved as many times.[29]

Personal life

Eisenhower (2nd from left) and Omar Bradley (2nd from right) were members of the 1912 West Point football team.

The Eisenhowers had two sons. Doud Dwight "Icky" Eisenhower was born September 24, 1917, and died of scarlet fever on January 2, 1921, at the age of three;[30] Eisenhower was mostly reticent to discuss his death.[31] Their second son, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, was born on August 3, 1922, while they were in Panama; John served in the United States Army, retired as a brigadier general, became an author and served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium from 1969 to 1971. John, coincidentally, graduated from West Point on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He married Barbara Jean Thompson on June 10, 1947. John and Barbara had four children: Dwight David II "David", Barbara Ann, Susan Elaine and Mary Jean. David, after whom Camp David is named, married Richard Nixon's daughter Julie in 1968.

Eisenhower was a golf enthusiast later in life, and joined the Augusta National Golf Club in 1948.[32] He played golf frequently during and after his presidency and was unreserved in expressing his passion for the game. He had a small, basic golf facility installed at Camp David, and became close friends with the Augusta National Chairman Clifford Roberts, inviting Roberts to stay at the White House on several occasions; Roberts, an investment broker, also handled the Eisenhower family's investments. Roberts also advised Eisenhower on tax aspects of publishing his memoirs, which proved to be financially lucrative.[32]

After golf, oil painting was Eisenhower's second hobby.[31] While at Columbia Eisenhower began the art after watching Thomas E. Stephens paint Mamie's portrait. He painted about 260 oils during the last 20 years of his life to relax, mostly landscapes but also portraits of subjects such as Mamie, their grandchildren, General Montgomery, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln.[33] Wendy Beckett stated that Eisenhower's work, "simple and earnest, rather cause us to wonder at the hidden depths of this reticent president". A conservative in both art and politics, he in a 1962 speech denounced modern art as "a piece of canvas that looks like a broken-down Tin Lizzie, loaded with paint, has been driven over it."[31]

Early military career

World War I

After graduation in 1915, Lieutenant (2nd) Eisenhower put in for assignment in the Phillipines which was denied, and served with the infantry, initially in supplies, until 1918 at various camps in Texas and Georgia. In 1916, while stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Eisenhower was football coach for St. Louis College, now St. Mary's University.[34] In late 1917 while in charge of training at Ft. Oglethorpe in Georgia, Mamie had their first son.

When World War I began he immediately requested an overseas assignment but was again denied and then assigned to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.[35] In February 1918 he was transferred to Camp Meade in Maryland with the 65th Engineers. His unit was later ordered to France but to his chagrin he received orders for the new tank corps, where he rose to temporary (Bvt.) Lieutenant Colonel in the National Army.[36] He trained tank crews at "Camp Colt"—his first command—at the site of "Pickett's Charge" on the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Civil War battleground. Though Ike and his tank crews never saw combat, he displayed excellent organizational skills, as well as an ability to accurately assess junior officers' strengths and make optimal placements of personnel.[37] Once again his spirits were raised when the unit under his command received orders overseas to France; this time his wishes were thwarted when the armistice was signed, just a week before departure.[38] Completely missing out on the warfront left him depressed and bitter for a time, despite being given the Distinguished Service Medal for his work at home. In World War II rivals who had combat service in the first great war (led by Gen. Bernard Montgomery) sought to denigrate Eisenhower for his previous lack of combat duty, despite his stateside experience establishing a camp, completely equipped, for thousands of troops, and developing a full combat training schedule.[39]

In service of generals

Eisenhower, far right, with three unidentified friends, in 1919 four years after graduating from West Point.

After the war, Eisenhower reverted to his regular rank of captain and a few days later was promoted to major, a rank he held for 16 years.[6] The major was assigned in 1919 to a transcontinental Army convoy to test vehicles and dramatize the need for improved roads in the nation. Indeed, the convoy averaged only 5 mph from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco; later the improvement of highways became a signature issue for Eisenhower as President.[40] He assumed duties again at Camp Meade, Maryland, commanding a battalion of tanks, where he remained until 1922. His schooling continued, focused on the nature of the next war and the role of the tank in it. His new expertise in tank warfare was strengthened by a close collaboration with George S. Patton and other senior tank leaders; their leading-edge ideas of speed-oriented offensive tank warfare were strongly discouraged by superiors who considered the new approach too radical and preferred the tank continue to be used in a strictly supportive role for the infantry. Eisenhower was even threatened with court martial for continued publication of these proposed methods of tank deployment, and he relented.[41][42]

From 1920 Eisenhower served with an unprecedented succession of generals – Fox Conner, John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall. He first became executive officer to General Conner in the Panama Canal Zone, where, joined by Mamie, he served until 1924. Under Conner's tutelage, he studied military history and theory (including Carl von Clausewitz's On War), and later cited Conner's enormous influence on his military thinking, saying in 1962 that "Fox Conner was the ablest man I ever knew." Conner's comment on Ike was, "[he] is one of the most capable, efficient and loyal officers I have ever met."[43] On Conner's recommendation, in 1925–26 he attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he graduated first in a class of 245 officers.[44][45] He then served as a battalion commander at Fort Benning, Georgia, until 1927.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s Eisenhower's career in the post war army stalled somewhat, as military priorities diminshed; many of his friends resigned for high-paying business jobs. He was assigned to the American Battle Monuments Commission directed by General Pershing, and with the help of his brother Milton, then a journalist at the Agriculture Dept., he produced a guide to American battlefields in Europe. He then was assigned to the Army War College and graduated in 1928. After a one year assignment in France, Eisenhower served as executive officer to General George V. Mosely, Assistant Secretary of War, from 1929 to February 1933.[46] His primary duty was planning for the next war which proved most difficult in the midst of the great depression.[47] He then was posted as chief military aide to General MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff. In 1932, he participated in the clearing of the Bonus March encampment in Washington DC. Although he was against the actions taken against the veterans and strongly advised MacArthur against taking a public role in it, he later wrote the Army's official incident report, endorsing MacArthur's conduct.[48][49]

In 1935 he accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines, where he served as assistant military adviser to the Philippine government in developing their army. Eisenhower had strong philosophical disagreements with his patron regarding the role of the Philippine Army and the leadership qualities that an American army officer should exhibit and develop in his subordinates. The dispute and resulting antipathy lasted the rest of their lives.[50] Historians have concluded that this assignment provided valuable preparation for handling the challenging personalities of Winston Churchill, George S. Patton, George Marshall and General Montgomery during World War II. Eisenhower later emphasized that too much had been made of the disagreements with McArthur, and that a positive relationship endured.[51] While in Manila Mamie suffered a life threatening stomach ailment but recovered fully. Eisenhower was promoted to the rank of permanent lieutenant colonel in 1936. He also learned to fly, although he was never rated as a military pilot. He made a solo flight over the Philippines in 1937.

Eisenhower returned to the U.S. in 1939 and held a series of staff positions in Washington, D.C., California and Texas. In June 1941, he was appointed Chief of Staff to General Walter Krueger, Commander of the 3rd Army, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He was promoted to brigadier general on October 3, 1941.[52] Although his administrative abilities had been noticed, on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II he had never held an active command above a battalion and was far from being considered as a potential commander of major operations.

World War II

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff in Washington, where he served until June 1942 with responsibility for creating the major war plans to defeat Japan and Germany. He was appointed Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defenses under the Chief of War Plans Division (WPD), General Leonard T. Gerow, and then succeeded Gerow as Chief of the War Plans Division. Then he was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of the new Operations Division (which replaced WPD) under Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, who spotted talent and promoted accordingly.[53]

At the end of May 1942, Eisenhower accompanied Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces, to London to assess the effectiveness of the theater commander in England, Maj. Gen. James E. Chaney. He returned to Washington on June 3 with a pessimistic assessment, stating he had an "uneasy feeling" about Chaney and his staff. On June 23, 1942, he returned to London as Commanding General, European Theater of Operations (ETOUSA), based in London,[54] and replaced Chaney.[55]

Operations Torch and Avalanche

General Eisenhower.

In November 1942, he was also appointed Supreme Commander Allied (Expeditionary) Force of the North African Theater of Operations (NATOUSA) through the new operational Headquarters A(E)FHQ. The word "expeditionary" was dropped soon after his appointment for security reasons. The campaign in North Africa was designated Operation Torch; French cooperation was deemed necessary to the campaign, and Eisenhower encountered a "preposterous situation' with the multiple rival factions in France. His primary objective was to move forces successfully onto Tunisia, and intending to facilitate that objective, he gave his support to François Darlan as High Commissioner in North Africa, despite Darlan's fascist leanings. The Allied leaders were "thunderstruck" by this from a political standpoint, though none of them had offered Eisenhower guidance with the problem in the course of planning the operation. Eisenhower was severely criticized for the move; but Darlan was assassinated later that year, and Eisenhower's command position was not effected.[56] The matter was a lesson learned for Eisenhower in terms of future communications with the Allied leaders.

Operation Torch also served as a valuable training ground for Eisenhower's combat command skills; during the initial phase of Erwin Rommel's move into the Kasserine Pass, Eisenhower created some confusion in the ranks by some interference with the execution of battle plans by his subordinates. He also was initially indecisive in his removal of Lloyd Fredendall. He became more adroit in such matters in later campaigns.[57] In February 1943, his authority was extended as commander of AFHQ across the Mediterranean basin to include the British 8th Army, commanded by General Bernard Law Montgomery. The 8th Army had advanced across the Western Desert from the east and was ready for the start of the Tunisia Campaign. Eisenhower gained his fourth star and gave up command of ETOUSA to be commander of NATOUSA.

After the capitulation of Axis forces in North Africa Eisenhower oversaw the highly successful invasion of Sicily. Once Mussolini had fallen in Italy, the Allies switched their attention to the mainland with Operation Avalanche. But while Eisenhower argued with Roosevelt and Churchill, who both insisted on unconditional terms of surrender in exchange for helping the Italians, the Germans pursued an aggressive buildup of forces in the country – making the job more difficult, by adding 19 divisions and initially outnumbering the Allied forces 2 to 1, Nevertheless, the invasion of Italy was highly successful.[58]

Supreme Allied commander and Operation Overlord

Eisenhower with U.S. paratroopers of the 502d Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division on June 5, 1944

In December 1943, President Roosevelt decided that Eisenhower—not Marshall—would be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. In January 1944, he resumed command of ETOUSA and the following month was officially designated as the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), serving in a dual role until the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945.[59] In these positions he was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy in June 1944 under the code name Operation Overlord, the liberation of Western Europe and the invasion of Germany.

From left, front row includes army officers Simpson, Patton, Spaatz, Eisenhower, Bradley, Hodges and Gerow in 1945

Eisenhower, as well as the officers and troops under him, had learned valuable lessons in their previous operations, and their skill sets had all strengthened in preparation for the next most difficult campaign against the Germans – a beach landing assault. Eisenhower's first struggles however were with Allied leaders and officers on matters vital to the success of the Normandy invasion; he argued with Roosevelt over an essential agreement with de Gaulle to use French resistance forces in covert and sabotage operations against the Germans in advance of Overlord.[60] Eisenhower fought with Admiral Ernest J. King over King's refusal to provide additional landing craft from the Pacific.[61] He also insisted that the British give him exclusive command over all strategic air forces to facilitate Overlord, to the point of threatening to resign unless Churchill relented, as he did.[62] Eisenhower then designed a bombing plan in France in advance of Overlord and argued with Churchill over the latter's concern with civilian casualties; de Gaulle interjected that the casualties were justified in shedding the yoke of the Germans, and Eisenhower prevailed.[63] He also had to skillfully manage to retain the services of the often unruly George S. Patton, by severely reprimanding him, when Patton earlier had slapped a subordinate and then when Patton gave a grossly errant speech.[64]

The D-Day Normandy landings on June 6, 1944 were costly but successful; a month later the invasion of Southern France took place, and control of the forces which took part in the southern invasion passed from the AFHQ to the SHAEF. Many prematurely considered that victory in Europe would come by summer's end; but Eisenhower knew from his German roots that the fight would continue. From then until the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower through SHAEF had command of all Allied forces, and through his command of ETOUSA, administrative command of all U.S. forces, on the Western Front north of the Alps. He was ever mindful of the inevitable loss of life and suffering that would be experienced on an individual level by the troops under his command and their families. This prompted him to make a point of personally visiting every division involved in the invasion.[65] Ike's sense of responsibility was underscored by his draft of a statement to be issued if the invasion failed; it has been called one of the great speeches of history:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone."[66]

Liberation of France and victory in Europe

Eisenhower & Allied Commanders at Rheims Surrender

Once the coastal assault had succeeded, Eisenhower insisted on retaining personal control over the land battle strategy, and was immersed in the command and supply of multiple assaults through France on Germany. Gen. Montgomery insisted priority be given to his 21st Army Group's attack being made in the north, while Gens. Bradley (U.S. 12th Army Group), Patton (U.S. Third Army) and Devers (U.S. Sixth Army) insisted they be given priority in the south and near Paris. Eisenhower worked tirelessly to address the demands of the rival commanders to optimize Allied forces, often by giving them tactical, though sometimes ineffective, latitude; many historians conclude this delayed the Allied victory in Europe. However, due to Eisenhower's persistence, the pivotal supply port at Antwerp was successfully, albeit belatedly, opened in late 1944, and victory became a more distinct probability.[67]

In recognition of his senior position in the Allied command, on December 20, 1944 he was promoted to General of the Army, equivalent to the rank of Field Marshal in most European armies. In this and the previous high commands he held, Eisenhower showed his great talents for leadership and diplomacy. Although he had never seen action himself, he won the respect of front-line commanders. He interacted adeptly with allies such as Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and General Charles de Gaulle. He had serious disagreements with Churchill and Montgomery over questions of strategy, but these rarely upset his relationships with them. He dealt with Soviet Marshal Zhukov, his Russian counterpart, and they became good friends.[68]

The Germans launched a surprise counter offensive in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 which was turned back in early 1945 by the Allies after Eisenhower repositioned his armies and improved weather allowed the Air Force to engage.[69] German defenses continued to deteriorate on both the eastern front with the Soviets and the western front with the Allies. The British wanted Berlin but Eisenhower decided it would be a military mistake for him to attack Berlin, and said orders to that effect would have to be explicit. The British backed down, but then wanted Eisenhower to move into Czechoslovakia for political reasons. Washington refused to support Churchill's plan to use Eisenhower's army for political maneuvers against Moscow. The actual division of Germany followed the lines that Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had previously agreed upon. The Russians captured Berlin in a very large-scale bloody battle, and the Germans finally surrendered on May 7, 1945.[70]

Post World War II

Military Governor and Chief of Staff

General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chief of Staff of the United States Army by Nicodemus David Hufford III.

Following the German unconditional surrender, Eisenhower was appointed Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, based in Frankfurt am Main. He had no responsibility for the other three zones, controlled by Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Upon discovery of the Nazi concentration camps, he ordered camera crews to document evidence of the atrocities in them for use in the Nuremberg Trials. He reclassified German prisoners of war (POWs) in U.S. custody as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEFs). Eisenhower followed the orders laid down by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in directive JCS 1067, but softened them by bringing in 400,000 tons of food for civilians and allowing more fraternization.[71][72][73] In response to the devastation in Germany, including food shortages and an influx of refugees, he arranged distribution of American food and medical equipment.[74] His actions reflected the new American attitudes of the German people as Nazi victims not villains, while aggressively purging the ex-Nazis.[75][76]

In November 1945, Eisenhower returned to Washington to replace Marshall as Chief of Staff of the Army. His main role was rapid demobilization of millions of soldiers, a slow job that was delayed by lack of shipping. Eisenhower suffered from a respiratory infection in December 1945 which prevented him from receiving the Order of the Elephant in person from King Christian X of Denmark.[77] Eisenhower was convinced in 1946 that the Soviet Union did not want war and that friendly relations could be maintained; he strongly supported the new United Nations and favored its involvement in the control of atomic bombs. However, in formulating policies regarding the atomic bomb and relations with the Soviets Truman was guided by the U.S. State Department and ignored Eisenhower and the Pentagon. By mid-1947, as East-West tensions over economic recovery in Germany and the Greek Civil War escalated, Eisenhower gave up his hopes for cooperation with the Soviets and agreed with a containment policy to stop Soviet expansion.[78]

As the 1948 election approached, Eisenhower was repeatedly urged by prominent citizens from both parties nationwide to run for president. President Truman even approached him, offering to serve as his Vice-President if he would agree to run as president on the Democratic ticket. Eisenhower maintained no political party affiliation during this time, though he was clear in not aligning with the Democrats. He firmly declined all of the offers and many believed he was foregoing his only opportunity to be president; Thomas E. Dewey was considered the other probable winner, would presumably serve two terms, and Eisenhower, at age 66 in 1956, would then be too old.[79]

President at Columbia University and NATO Supreme Commander

The Supreme Commanders on June 5, 1945 in Berlin: Bernard Montgomery, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Georgy Zhukov and Jean de Lattre de Tassigny.

In 1948, Eisenhower became President of Columbia University, a premier private university in New York. The assignment was described as not being a good fit in either direction.[80] During that year Eisenhower's memoir, Crusade in Europe, was published.[81] Critics regarded it as one of the finest U.S. military memoirs, and it was a major financial success as well.

Eisenhower's stint as president of Columbia University was punctuated by his activity within the Council on Foreign Relations, a study group he led as president concerning the political and military implications of the Marshall Plan, and The American Assembly, Eisenhower's "vision of a great cultural center where business, professional and governmental leaders could meet from time to time to discuss and reach conclusions concerning problems of a social and political nature". Biographer Blanche Weisen Cook suggests that this period served as "the political education of General Eisenhower", as he had to prioritize wide-ranging educational, administrative, and financial demands for the university. Through his involvement in the Council on Foreign Relations, he also gained exposure to economic analysis, which would become the bedrock of his understanding in economic policy. "Whatever General Eisenhower knows about economics he has learned at the study group meetings," one Aid to Europe member claimed.

Eisenhower accepted the presidency of the university to expand his ability to promote "the American form of democracy" through education. He was clear on this point to the trustees involved in the search committee. He informed them that his main purpose was "to promote the basic concepts of education in a democracy." As a result he was "almost incessantly" devoted to the idea of the American Assembly, a concept which he developed into an institution by the end of 1950.

Painting by Eisenhower of English cottage where Allied generals planned invasion of France, from Raleigh DeGeer Amyx Collection

Within months of beginning his tenure as university president, Eisenhower was requested to advise Secretary of Defense James Forrestal on unification of the armed services. Approximately six months after his installation, he became the informal chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. Two months later he fell ill and spent over a month in recovery at Augusta National Golf Club. He returned to his post in mid-May, and in July 1949 took a two-month vacation out of state. Because the American Assembly had begun to take shape, he traveled around the country in mid-to-late 1950 building financial support from Columbia Associates, an alumni association. Eisenhower was unknowingly building resentment and a reputation among the Columbia faculty and staff as an absentee president who was using the university for his own interests. As a career military man, he naturally had little in common with the academics.[82]

The contacts gained through university and American Assembly fund-raising activities would later become important supporters in Eisenhower's bid for the Republican party nomination and the presidency. Meanwhile, Columbia University's liberal faculty members became disenchanted with the university president's ties to oilmen and businessmen, including Leonard McCollum, president of Continental Oil; Frank Abrams, chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey; Bob Kleberg, president of King Ranch; H. J. Porter, a Texas oil producer; Bob Woodruff, president of Coca-Cola; and Clarence Francis, General Foods chairman. As Columbia's president, Eisenhower gave voice and form to his opinions about the supremacy and difficulties of American democracy. His tenure marked his transformation from military to civilian leadership. The biographer Travis Beal Jacobs also suggests that the alienation of the Columbia faculty contributed to sharp intellectual criticism of him for many years.[83]

The Columbia trustees refused to accept his resignation in December 1950, when he took leave from the university to become the Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and was given operational command of NATO forces in Europe. Eisenhower retired from active service on May 31, 1952, and resumed the university presidency, which he held until January 1953. NATO did not initially have strong bipartisan support in Congress at the time he assumed his command; Eisenhower unhesitatingly advised the participating European nations that it would be incumbent upon them to demonstrate their own commitment of troops and equipment to the NATO force before it would come from a war weary United States. At home, Eisenhower was more effective in making the case for NATO in Congress than the Truman administration; by the middle of 1951, American and European support for NATO was substantial enough to give it a genuine military force. Nevertheless, Eisenhower initially anticipated that NATO would be a truly European entity, with the American commitment ending after ten years or so.[84]

Presidential campaign of 1952

President Truman, symbolizing a broad based desire for an Eisenhower candidacy for president, again in 1951 pressed him to run for the office as a Democrat. It was at this time that Eisenhower vocalized his disdain for the Democratic party and declared himself and his family to be Republicans.[85] A "Draft Eisenhower" movement in the Republican Party persuaded him to declare his candidacy in the 1952 presidential election to counter the candidacy of non-interventionist Senator Robert Taft. The effort was a long struggle; Eisenhower had to be convinced that 1) the political circumstances in the country had created a genuine duty for him to offer himself as a candidate, and 2) that there was a mandate from the populace for him to be their President. Henry Cabot Lodge who served as his campaign manager and others succeeded in convincing him, and in June 1952 he resigned his command at NATO to campaign full time.[86] Eisenhower defeated Taft for the nomination, having won critical delegate votes from Texas. Eisenhower's campaign was noted for the simple but effective slogan, "I Like Ike". It was essential to his success that Ike express his opposition to Roosevelt's policy at Yalta and against Truman's policies in Korea and China, matters in which he had once participated.[87][88] In defeating Taft for the nomination, it became necessary for Eisenhower to appease the right wing Old Guard of the Republican Party; his selection of Richard M. Nixon as the Vice-President on the ticket was designed in part for that purpose. Nixon also provided a strong anti-communist presence as well as some youth to counter Ike's more advanced age.[89]

1952 electoral vote results

In the general election, against the advice of his advisors, Eisenhower insisted on campaigning in the South, refusing to surrender the region to the Democrats. The campaign strategy, dubbed "K1C2", was to focus on attacking the Truman and Roosevelt administrations on three issues: Korea, Communism and corruption. In an effort to accommodate the right, he stressed that the liberation of Eastern Europe should be by peaceful means only; he also distanced himself from his former boss President Truman. Two controversies arose during the campaign which tested him and his staff but were without effect on the campaign; one involved a report that Nixon had improperly received funds from a secret trust – Nixon spoke out adroitly to avoid potential damage but the matter permanently alienated the two candidates. The second issue centered around Eisenhower's relented decision to confront the controversial methods of Joseph McCarthy on his home turf in a Wisconsin appearance.[90] Just two weeks prior to the election, Eisenhower vowed to go to Korea and end the war there. He promised to maintain a strong commitment against Communism while avoiding the topic of NATO; finally, he stressed a corruption-free, frugal administration at home. He defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson in a landslide, with an electoral margin of 442 to 89, marking the first Republican return to the White House in 20 years.[88] In the election he also brought with him a Republican majority in the House (by eight votes) and in the Senate (actually a tie, with Nixon providing the majority vote).[91]

Eisenhower was the last president born in the 19th century, and at age 62, was the oldest man to be elected President since James Buchanan in 1856.[92] Eisenhower was the only general to serve as President in the 20th century, and the most recent President to have never held elected office prior to the Presidency. (The other Presidents who did not have prior elected office were Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover.)

Presidency 1953–1961

Due to a complete estrangement between the two as a result of campaigning, Truman and Eisenhower had minimal discussions about the transition of administrations.[93] After selecting his budget director, Joseph M. Dodge, Eisenhower asked Herbert Brownell and Lucius Clay to make recommendations for his cabinet appointments. He accepted their recommendations without exception; they included John Foster Dulles and George M. Humphrey with whom he developed his closest relationships, and one woman, Oveta Culp Hobby. Eisenhower's cabinet, consisting of several corporate executives and one labor leader, was dubbed by one journalist, "Eight millionaires and a plumber."[94] The cabinet was notable for its lack of personal friends, office seekers, or experienced government administrators. He also upgraded the role of the National Security Council in planning all phases of the Cold War.[95]

Prior to his inauguration, he led a meeting of advisors at Pearl Harbor addressing foremost issues; agreed objectives were to balance the budget during his term, to bring the Korean War to an end, to defend vital interests at lower cost through nuclear deterrent, and to end price and wage controls.[96] Eisenhower also conducted the first pre-inaugural cabinet meeting in history in late 1952; he used this meeting to articulate his anti-communist Russia policy. His inaugural address as well was exclusively devoted to foreign policy and included this same philosophy as well as a commitment to foreign trade and the U. N.[97]

Eisenhower made greater use of press conferences than any prior president, holding almost 200 in his two terms. While he saw a positive relationship with the press as invaluable, his primary objective in press conferences was to maintain an indispensable direct contact with the people.[98]

Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower adhered to a political philosophy of dynamic conservatism.[99] He continued all the major New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security. He expanded its programs and rolled them into a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional ten million workers. He implemented integration in the Armed Services in two years, which had not been completed under Truman.[100]

As the 1954 congressional elections approached, and it became evident that the Republicans were in danger of losing their thin majority in both houses, Eisenhower was among those blaming the Old Guard for the losses, and took up the charge to stop suspected efforts by the right wing to take control of the GOP. Ike then articulated his position as a moderate, progressive Republican: "I have just one purpose...and that is to build up a strong progressive Republican Party in this country. If the right wing wants a fight, they are going to get it...before I end up, either this Republican Party will reflect progressivism or I won't be with them anymore."[101]

Initially Eisenhower planned on serving only one term, but as with other decisions he maintained a position of maximum flexibility in case leading Republicans wanted him to run again. During his recovery from a heart attack late in 1955, he huddled with his closest advisors to evaluate the GOP's potential candidates; the group, in addition to his doctor, concluded a second term was well advised, and he announced in February 1956 he would run again.[102][103] Ike was publicly noncommittal about Nixon's repeating as the Vice President on his ticket; the question was an especially important one in light of his heart condition. He personally favored Robert Anderson, a Democrat, who rejected his offer; Eisenhower then resolved to leave the matter in the hands of the party.[104] In 1956, Eisenhower faced Adlai Stevenson again and won by an even larger landslide, with 457 of 531 electoral votes and 57.6% of the popular vote. The level of campaigning was curtailed out of health considerations.[105]

Eisenhower valued the brief respites and the amenities of an office which he endowed with an arduous daily schedule. He made full use of his valet, chauffeur and secretarial support – he rarely drove or dialed a phone number. He was an avid fisherman, golfer, painter and bridge player, and preferred active rather than passive forms of entertainment.[106] On August 26, 1959, Ike was aboard the maiden flight of Air Force One, which replaced the previous Presidential aircraft, the Columbine.[107]

Interstate Highway System

One of Eisenhower's enduring achievements was championing and signing the bill that authorized the Interstate Highway System in 1956.[108] He justified the project through the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 as essential to American security during the Cold War. It was believed that large cities would be targets in a possible war, hence the highways were designed to facilitate their evacuation and ease military maneuvers.

Eisenhower's goal to create improved highways was influenced by difficulties encountered during his involvement in the U.S. Army's 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy. He was assigned as an observer for the mission, which involved sending a convoy of U.S. Army vehicles coast to coast.[109][110] His subsequent experience with German autobahns during World War II convinced him of the benefits of an Interstate Highway System. Noticing the improved ability to move logistics throughout the country, he thought an Interstate Highway System in the U.S. would not only be beneficial for military operations, but provide a measure of continued economic growth.[111] The legislation initially stalled in the Congress over the issuance of bonds to finance the project, but the legislative effort was renewed and the law was signed by Ike in June 1956.[112]

Foreign policy

In 1953 the Republican's Old Guard presented Eisenhower with a dilemma by insisting he disavow the Yalta Agreements as beyond the constitutional authority of the Executive Branch; however, the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953 made the matter a practical moot point.[113] At this time Eisenhower gave his Chance for Peace speech in which he attempted, unsuccessfully, to forestall the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union by suggesting multiple opportunities presented by peaceful uses of nuclear materials. Biographer Stephen Ambrose opined that this was the best speech of Eisenhower's presidency.[114][115] Nevertheless, the Cold War escalated during his presidency. When Russia successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, Eisenhower, against the advice of Dulles, decided to initiate a disarmament proposal to the Russians. In an attempt to make their refusal more difficult, he proposed that both sides agree to dedicate fissionable material away from weapons toward peaceful uses, such as power generation; this approach was labeled "Atoms for Peace".[116]

The U.N. speech was well received but the Russians never acted upon it, due to an overarching concern for the greater stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. Indeed, Eisenhower embarked upon a greater reliance on the use of nuclear weapons, while reducing conventional forces, and with them the overall defense budget. This approach became known as the "New Look", and was initiated with defense cuts in late 1953.[117] In 1955 American nuclear arms policy became one aimed primarily at arms control as opposed to disarmament. The failure of negotiations over arms until 1955 was due mainly to the refusal of the Russians to permit any sort of inspections. In talks located in London that year, they expressed a willingness to discuss inspections; the tables were then turned on Eisenhower, when he responded with an unwillingness on the part of the U.S. to permit inspections. In May of that year the Russians agreed to sign a treaty giving independence to Austria, and paved the way for a Geneva summit with the U.S., U.K. and France.[118] At the Geneva Conference Eisenhower presented a proposal called "Open Skies to facilitate disarmament, which included plans for Russia and the U.S. to provide mutual access to each other's skies for open surveillance of military infrastructure. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev dismissed the proposal out of hand.[119]

In 1954, Ike articulated the Domino theory in his outlook towards communism in Southeast Asia and also in Central America; he believed that if the communists were allowed to prevail in Vietnam, this would cause a succession of countries to fall to communism, from Laos through Malaysia and Indonesia ultimately to India. Likewise, the fall of Guatemala would end with the fall of neighboring Mexico.[120] That year the loss of North Vietnam to the communists and the rejection of his proposed European Defense Community (EDC) were serious defeats, but he remained optimistic in his opposition to the spread of communism, saying "Long faces don't win wars".[121] As he had threatened the French in their rejection of EDC, he afterwards moved to restore Germany, as a full NATO partner.[122]

His foreign policy was also marked by "the brave new world of CIA-led coups and assassinations." With Eisenhower's leadership and Dulles' direction, CIA activities increased, to resist the spread of communism in poorer countries;[123] the CIA in part deposed the leaders of Iran in Operation Ajax, of Guatemala through Operation Pbsuccess, and possibly the newly independent Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville).[124] In 1954 Ike wanted to increase surveillance inside the Soviet Union. With Dulles' recommendation, he authorized the deployment of thirty Lockheed U-2's at a cost of $35 million.[125] The Eisenhower administration also planned the Bay of Pigs Invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba, which John F. Kennedy was left to carry out."[126]

Korean War, China and Taiwan

In late 1952, Eisenhower went to Korea and discovered a military and political stalemate. Once in office, when the Chinese began a buildup in the Kaesong sanctuary, he threatened to use nuclear force if an armistice were not concluded. His earlier military reputation in Europe was effective with the Chinese.[127] The National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Strategic Air Command (SAC) devised detailed plans for nuclear war against China.[128] With the death of Stalin in early March 1953, Russian support for a Chinese hard-line weakened and China decided to compromise on the prisoner issue. In July 1953, an armistice took effect with Korea divided along approximately the same boundary as in 1950. The armistice and boundary remain in effect today, with American soldiers stationed there to guarantee it. The armistice, concluded despite opposition from Secretary Dulles, South Korean President Syngman Rhee, and also within Eisenhower's party, has been described by biographer Ambrose as the greatest achievement of the administration; Eisenhower had the insight to realize that unlimited war in the nuclear age was unthinkable, and limited war unwinnable.[129]

A point of emphasis in Ike's campaign had been his endorsement of a policy of liberation from communism as opposed to a policy of containment. This continued to be his preference despite the armistice with Korea,[130] Throughout his terms Eisenhower took a hard-line attitude toward China, as demanded by conservative Republicans, with the goal of driving a wedge between China and the Soviet Union.[131] He continued Truman's policy of recognizing the Republic of China (based in Formosa/Taiwan) as the legitimate government of China, not the Beijing regime. There were localized flare-ups when the Red Army began shelling the islands of Quemoy and Matsu in September 1954. Ike received recommendations embracing every variation of response to the aggression of the Chinese communists. He thought it essential to have every possible option available to him as the crisis unfolded. He requested and secured from Congress their "Formosa Resolution" which gave Eisenhower the unprecedented power in advance to use military force at any level of his choosing in defense of Formoso and the Pescadores. The Resolution bolstered the morale of the Chinese nationalists, and signaled to Beijing that the U.S. was committed to holding the line.[132] Eisenhower openly threatened the Chinese with use of nuclear weapons, authorizing a series of bomb tests labeled Operation Teapot; nevertheless, he left the Chinese communists guessing as to the exact nature of his nuclear response. This allowed Eisenhower to accomplish all of his objectives – the end of this communist aggression, the retention of the Islands by the Chinese nationalists and continued peace.[133] Defense of Taiwan from an invasion remains a core American policy.[134]

By the end of 1954 Eisenhower's military and foreign policy experts – the NSC, CJS and State Dept. – had unanimously urged him, on no less than five occasions, to launch an atomic attack against China; yet he consistently refused to do so and felt a distinct sense of accomplishment in having sufficiently confronted communism while keeping world peace.[135]

Mideast and Eisenhower doctrine

Eisenhower with the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Even before he was inaugurated Eisenhower accepted a request from the British government to restore the Shah to power. He therefore authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to help the Iranian army overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.[136] This resulted in an increased strategic control over Iranian oil by U.S. and Britain companies.[137]

In November 1956, Eisenhower forced an end to the combined British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt in response to the Suez Crisis. Simultaneously he condemned the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary in response to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Therefore he publicly disavowed his allies at the United Nations, and used financial and diplomatic pressure to make them withdraw from Egypt.[138] Controversy surrounds Harold Macmillan, who met with Eisenhower on September 25, 1956, then relayed to Prime Minister Anthony Eden the false impression that Eisenhower promised to support an invasion.[139][140] In 1965 Eisenhower explicitly defended his strong position against Israel, Britain and France in his memoirs.[141]

Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon with their host, King Saud of Saudi Arabia, Washington D.C. in 1957

After the Suez Crisis the United States became the protector of unstable friendly governments in the Middle East via the "Eisenhower Doctrine". Designed by Secretary of State Dulles, it held the U.S. would be "prepared to use armed force ... [to counter] aggression from any country controlled by international communism". Further, the United States would provide economic and military aid and, if necessary, use military force to stop the spread of communism in the Middle East.[142]

Eisenhower applied the doctrine in 1957–58 by dispensing economic aid to shore up the Kingdom of Jordan, and by encouraging Syria's neighbors not to consider military operations against it. More dramatically, in July 1958, he sent 15,000 Marines and soldiers to Lebanon as part of Operation Blue Bat, a non-combat peace-keeping mission to stabilize the pro-Western government and to prevent a radical revolution from sweeping over that country. The mission proved a success and the Marines departed three months later. The deployment came in response to the urgent request of Lebanese president Camille Chamoun after sectarian violence had erupted in the country. Washington considered the military intervention successful since it brought about regional stability, weakened Soviet influence, and intimidated the Egyptian and Syrian governments, whose anti-West political position had hardened after the Suez Crisis.[143]

Most Arab countries were skeptical about the "Eisenhower doctrine" because they considered "Zionist imperialism" the real danger. However, they did take the opportunity to obtain free money and weapons. Egypt and Syria, supported by the Soviet Union, openly opposed the initiative. However, Egypt received American aid until the Six Day War in 1967.[144]

As the Cold War deepened, Dulles sought to isolate the Soviet Union by building regional alliances of nations against it. Critics sometimes called it "pacto-mania".[145]

Southeast Asia

Early in 1953, the French asked Eisenhower for help in French Indochina against the Communists, supplied from China, who were fighting the First Indochina War. Eisenhower sent Lt. General John W. "Iron Mike" O'Daniel to Vietnam to study and "assess" the French forces there.[146] Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway dissuaded the President from intervening by presenting a comprehensive estimate of the massive military deployment that would be necessary. Eisenhower stated prophetically that "this war would absorb our troops by divisions."[147] However, it is now known that U.S. Air Force pilots flew to support the French during Operation Castor in November 1953.[citation needed]

Ike needed the French endorsement of the EDC in Europe, and therefore provided them with support initially in the form of bombers and non combat personnel (roughly half of what they requested). After a few months with no success by the French, he added other aircraft to drop napalm for clearing purposes. Further requests for assistance from the French were agreed to but only on conditions Ike knew were impossible to meet – allied participation and congressional approval.[148] When Dien Bien Phu fell as expected in May 1954, Ike refused to intervene despite urgings from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice President and the head of NCS.[149] Eisenhower responded with the formation of SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), alliance with the U.K., France, New Zealand and Australia in defense of Vietnam against communism. At that time the French and Chinese reconvened Geneva peace talks; Eisenhower agreed the U.S. would participate only as an observer. After the parties agreed to a partition of Vietnam, including independence of Laos and Cambodia, Eisenhower offered military and economic aid to southern Vietnam.[150] Author Ambrose opined that Eisenhower, by not participating in the Geneva agreement, had kept the U.S out of Vietnam; nevertheless, with the formation of SEATO, he had in the end put the U.S. back into the conflict.[151]

In late 1954, Gen. J. Lawton Collins was made ambassador to "Free Vietnam" (the term South Vietnam came into use in 1955), effectively elevating the country to sovereign status. Collins' instructions were to support the leader Ngo Dinh Diem in subverting communism, by helping him to build an army and wage a military campaign.[152] In the years that followed, Eisenhower increased the number of US military advisors in South Vietnam to 900 men.[153] This was due to North Vietnam's support of "uprisings" in the south and concern the nation would fall.[150] In May 1957 Diem, then President of South Vietnam, made a state visit to the United States for ten days. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diem's honor in New York City. Although Diem was publicly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that Diem had been selected because there were no better alternatives.[154] After the election of November 1960, Eisenhower in briefing with John F. Kennedy pointed out the communist threat in Southeast Asia as requiring prioritization in the next administration. Eisenhower told Kennedy he considered Laos to be "the cork in the bottle" in regards to the regional threat.[155]

Civil rights

While President Truman had begun the process of desegregating the Armed Forces in 1948, actual implementation had been slow. Eisenhower made clear his stance in his first State of the Union message in February 1953, saying "I propose to use whatever authority exists in the office of the President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the Federal Government, and any segregation in the Armed Forces".[156] When he encountered opposition from the services, he used government control of military spending to force the change through, stating "Wherever Federal Funds are expended, I do not see now any American can justify a descrimination of those funds."[157] When Robert Anderson, Eisenhower's first Secretary of the Navy argued that the Navy must recognize the "customs and usages prevailing in certain geographic areas of our country which the Navy had no part in creating", Eisenhower overruled him: "We have no taken and we shall not take a single backward step. There must be no second class citizens in this country."[158]

The administration declared racial discrimination a national security issue, as Communists around the world used the racial discrimination and history of violence in the U.S. as a point of propaganda attack.[159] The day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown, that segregated schools were unconstitutional, Eisenhower told District of Columbia officials to make Washington a model for the rest of the country in integrating black and white public school children.[160][161] He proposed to Congress the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and signed those acts into law. The 1957 act for the first time established a permanent civil rights office inside the Justice Department and a Civil Rights Commission to hear testimony about abuses of voting rights. Although both acts were much weaker than subsequent civil rights legislation, they constituted the first significant civil rights acts since 1875.[162]

In 1957, the state of Arkansas refused to honor a federal court order to integrate their public school system stemming from the Brown decision. Eisenhower demanded that Arkansas governor Orval Faubus obey the court order. When Faubus balked, the president placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent in the 101st Airborne Division. They escorted and protected nine black students' entry to Little Rock Central High School, an all-white public school, for the first time since the Reconstruction era.[163] Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote to Eisenhower to thank him for his actions, writing "The overwhelming majority of southerners, Negro and white, stand firmly behind your resolute action to restore law and order in Little Rock".[164]

Relations with Congress

Eisenhower had a Republican Congress for only his first two years in office; in the Senate, the Republican majority was by a one vote margin. Senator Taft assisted the President greatly in working with the Old Guard, and was sorely missed when his death left Eisenhower with his successor William Knowland, whom Eisenhower disliked.[165]

This prevented Eisenhower from openly condemning Joseph McCarthy's highly criticized methods against communism. In order to facilitate relations with Congress, Ike decided to ignore McCarthy's controversies and thereby deprive them of more energy from involvement of the White House. This position drew criticism from a number of corners.[166] In late 1953 McCarthy declared on national T.V. that the employment of communists within the government was a menace and would be a pivotal issue in the 1954 elections; Ike was urged to respond directly and specify the various measures he had taken to purge the government of communists.[167] Nevertheless he refused. Among Ike's objectives in not directly confronting McCarthy was to prevent McCarthy from dragging the Atomic Energy Commission into McCarthy's witch hunt for communists, which would interfere with, and perhaps delay, the AEC's important work on H-bombs. The administration had discovered through its own investigations that one of the leading scientists on the AEC, J. Robert Oppenheimer, had urged that the H-bomb work be delayed; Eisenhower removed him from the agency and revoked his security clearance, though he knew this would create fertile ground for the extremist McCarthy.[168] In May 1955 McCarthy threatened to issue subpoenas to White House personnel; Eisenhower was furious, and issued an order as follows: "It is essential to efficient and effective administration that employees of the Executive Branch be in a position to be completely candid in advising with each other on official matters...it is not in the public interest that any of their conversations or communications, or any documents or reproductions, concerning such advice be disclosed." This was an unprecedented step by Eisenhower to protect communication beyond the confines of a cabinet meeting, and soon became a tradition known as Executive privilege. Ike's denial of McCarthy's access to his staff reduced McCarthy's hearings to rants about trivial matters, and contributed to his ultimate downfall.[169]

In early 1954 the Old Guard put forward a constitutional amendment, called the Bricker Amendment, which would curtail international agreements by the Chief Executive, such as the Yalta Agreements; Eisenhower opposed the measure.[170] The Old Guard agreed with Ike however on the development and ownership of nuclear reactors by private enterprises, which the democrats opposed. The President succeeded in getting legislation creating a system of licensure for nuclear plants by the AEC.[171]

The Democrats gained a majority in both houses in the 1954 election.[172] He had to work with the Democratic Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson in the Senate and Speaker Sam Rayburn in the House, both of Texas. Joe Martin, the Republican Speaker from 1947–1949 and again from 1953–1955, wrote that Eisenhower "never surrounded himself with assistants who could solve political problems with professional skill. There were exceptions, Leonard W. Hall, for example, who as chairman of the Republican National Committee, tried to open the administration's eyes to the political facts of life, with occasional success. However, these exceptions were not enough to right the balance."[173] Speaker Martin concluded that Eisenhower worked too much through subordinates in dealing with Congress, with results, "often the reverse of what he has desired" because Members of Congress,"resent having some young fellow who was picked up by the White House without ever having been elected to office himself coming around and telling them 'The Chief wants this'. The administration never made use of many Republicans of consequence whose services in one form or another would have been available for the asking."[173]

Judicial appointments

Supreme Court

Eisenhower appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

Whittaker was unsuited for the role and soon retired. Stewart and Harlan were conservative Republicans, while Brennan was a Democrat who became a leading voice for liberalism.[174] In selecting a Chief Justice Eisenhower looked for an experienced jurist who could appeal to liberals in the party as well as law-and-order conservatives, noting privately that Warren "represents the kind of political, economic, and social thinking that I believe we need on the Supreme Court.... He has a national name for integrity, uprightness, and courage that, again, I believe we need on the Court".[175] In the next few years Warren led the Court in a series of liberal decisions that revolutionized the role of the Court.

Other courts

In addition to his five Supreme Court appointments, Eisenhower appointed 45 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 129 judges to the United States district courts.

States admitted to the Union

  • Alaska – January 3, 1959 49th state
  • Hawaii – August 21, 1959 50th state

Health issues

Eisenhower was a chain smoker until March 1949.[176] He was probably the first president to release information about his health and medical records while in office,[177] On September 24, 1955, while vacationing in Colorado, he had a serious heart attack that required six weeks' hospitalization, during which time Nixon, Dulles and Sherman Adams assumed administrative duties and provided communication with the President.[178] He was treated by Dr. Paul Dudley White, a cardiologist with a national reputation, who regularly informed the press of the President's progress. Instead of eliminating him as a candidate for a second term as President, his physician recommended a second term as essential to his recovery.[179] As a consequence of his heart attack, Eisenhower developed a left ventricular aneurysm, which was in turn the cause of a mild stroke on November 25, 1957. This incident occurred during a cabinet meeting when Eisenhower suddenly found himself unable to speak or move his right hand. The president also suffered from Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory condition of the intestine, which necessitated surgery for a bowel obstruction on June 9, 1956. He was still recovering from this operation during the Suez Crisis.

Eisenhower's health issues forced him to give up smoking and make some changes to his dietary habits, but he still indulged in alcohol. During a visit to England he complained of dizziness and had to have his blood pressure checked on August 29, 1959; however, before dinner at Chequers on the next day his doctor General Howard Snyder recalled Eisenhower "drank several gin and tonics, and one or two gins on the rocks ... three or four wines with the dinner".[180]

The last three years of Eisenhower's second term in office were ones of relatively good health. Eventually after leaving the White House, he suffered several additional and ultimately crippling heart attacks.[181] A severe heart attack in August 1965 largely ended his participation in public affairs.[182] In August 1966 he began to show symptoms of cholecystitis, for which he underwent surgery on December 12, 1966 when his gallbladder was removed, containing 16 gallstones.[183] After Eisenhower's death in 1969 (see below), an autopsy unexpectedly revealed an adrenal pheochromocytoma,[184] a benign adrenaline-secreting tumor that may have made the President more vulnerable to heart disease.

End of presidency 1960–1961

Official White House portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1951, and it set term limits to the presidency of two terms. It stipulated that Harry S. Truman, the incumbent at the time, would not be affected by the amendment. In 1961, Eisenhower became the first U.S. president to be constitutionally prevented from running for re-election to the office, having served the maximum two terms allowed.

Eisenhower was also the first outgoing President to come under the protection of the Former Presidents Act; two living former Presidents, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman, left office before the Act was passed. Under the act, Eisenhower was entitled to receive a lifetime pension, state-provided staff and a Secret Service detail.[185]

In the 1960 election to choose his successor, Eisenhower endorsed his own Vice-President, Republican Richard Nixon against Democrat John F. Kennedy. He told friends, "I will do almost anything to avoid turning my chair and country over to Kennedy."[88] He actively campaigned for Nixon in the final days and may have done Nixon some harm. When asked by reporters at the end of a televised press conference to list one of Nixon's policy ideas he had adopted, Eisenhower joked, "If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don't remember." Kennedy's campaign used the quote in one of its campaign commercials. Nixon narrowly lost to Kennedy. Eisenhower, who was the oldest president in history at that time (then 70), was succeeded by the youngest elected president, as Kennedy was 43.[88]

On January 17, 1961, Eisenhower gave his final televised Address to the Nation from the Oval Office.[186] In his farewell speech, Eisenhower raised the issue of the Cold War and role of the U.S. armed forces. He described the Cold War: "We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method..." and warned about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals and continued with a warning that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex." He said, "we recognize the imperative need for this development ... the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist ... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Because of legal issues related to holding a military rank while in a civilian office, Eisenhower had resigned his permanent commission as General of the Army before entering the office of President of the United States. Upon completion of his Presidential term, his commission was reactivated by Congress and Eisenhower again was commissioned a five-star general in the United States Army.[187][188]

Retirement, death and funeral

Eisenhower's funeral service

Eisenhower retired to the place where he and Mamie had spent much of their post-war time, a working farm adjacent to the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In 1967, the Eisenhowers donated the farm to the National Park Service. In retirement, the former president did not completely retreat from political life; he spoke at the 1964 Republican National Convention and appeared with Barry Goldwater in a Republican campaign commercial from Gettysburg.[189] However, his endorsement came somewhat reluctantly because Goldwater had attacked the former president as "a dime-store New Dealer".

On March 28, 1969, Eisenhower died of congestive heart failure at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.. The following day his body was moved to the Washington National Cathedral's Bethlehem Chapel, where he lay in repose for 28 hours. On March 30, his body was brought by caisson to the United States Capitol, where he lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. On March 31, Eisenhower's body was returned to the National Cathedral, where he was given an Episcopal Church funeral service. That evening, Eisenhower's body was placed onto a train en route to Abilene, Kansas. His body arrived on April 2, and was interred later that day in a small chapel on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. Eisenhower is buried alongside his son Doud, who died at age 3 in 1921. His wife Mamie was buried next to him after her death in 1979.[190]

Richard Nixon, then President, spoke of Eisenhower,

Some men are considered great because they lead great armies or they lead powerful nations. For eight years now, Dwight Eisenhower has neither commanded an army nor led a nation; and yet he remained through his final days the world's most admired and respected man, truly the first citizen of the world.[191]

Legacy and memory

After Eisenhower left office, his reputation declined. He was widely seen as having been an inactive, uninspiring president compared to his vigorous young successor. Despite his unprecedented use of Army troops to enforce a federal desegregation order at Central High School in Little Rock, Eisenhower was criticized for his reluctance to support the civil rights movement to the degree which activists wanted. Eisenhower was also criticized for his handling of the 1960 U-2 incident and the international embarrassment,[192][193] the Soviet Union's perceived leadership in the Arms race and the Space race, and his failure to publicly oppose McCarthyism. In particular, Eisenhower was criticized for failing to defend George Marshall from attacks by Joseph McCarthy, though he privately deplored McCarthy's tactics and claims.[194] Such omissions were held against him during the liberal climate of the 1960s and 1970s. Since that time, however, Eisenhower's reputation has risen. In recent surveys of historians, Eisenhower often is ranked in the top 10 among all U.S. Presidents.

On June 1, 1954, this signing ceremony changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day.

Historian John Lewis Gaddis has summarized the turnaround in evaluations by historians:

Historians long ago abandoned the view that Eisenhower’s was a failed presidency. He did, after all, end the Korean War without getting into any others. He stabilized, and did not escalate, the Soviet-American rivalry. He strengthened European alliances while withdrawing support from European colonialism. He rescued the Republican Party from isolationism and McCarthyism. He maintained prosperity, balanced the budget, promoted technological innovation, facilitated (if reluctantly) the civil rights movement and warned, in the most memorable farewell address since Washington’s, of a “military-industrial complex” that could endanger the nation’s liberties. Not until Reagan would another president leave office with so strong a sense of having accomplished what he set out to do.[195]

Although conservatism in politics was strong during the 1950s and Eisenhower generally shared these sentiments, his administration concerned itself mostly with foreign affairs (an area that the career military president was more knowledgeable about) and pursued a hands-off domestic policy. Eisenhower looked to moderation and cooperation as a means of governance.[196] Although he sought to slow or contain the New Deal and other federal programs, he did not attempt to repeal them outright and in doing so was popular among the liberal wing of the Republican Party.[196] Conservative critics of his administration found that he did not do enough to advance the goals of the right: "Eisenhower's victories were," according to Hans Morgenthau, "but accidents without consequence in the history of the Republican party."[197]

Eisenhower was the first President to hire a White House Chief of Staff or "gatekeeper" – an idea which he borrowed from the United States Army. Every president after Lyndon Johnson has also appointed staff to this position. Initially, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter tried to operate without a Chief of Staff but both eventually appointed one.

Eisenhower founded People to People International in 1956, based on his belief that citizen interaction would promote cultural interaction and world peace. The program includes a student ambassador component which sends American youth on educational trips to other countries.[198]

Eisenhower with John F. Kennedy, April 22, 1961

Eisenhower described his position on space and the need for peace during his speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, New York City, September 22, 1960:

The emergence of this new world poses a vital issue: will outer space be preserved for peaceful use and developed for the benefit of all mankind? Or will it become another focus for the arms race – and thus an area of dangerous and sterile competition? The choice is urgent. And it is ours to make. The nations of the world have recently united in declaring the continent of Antarctica "off limits" to military preparations. We could extend this principle to an even more important sphere. National vested interests have not yet been developed in space or in celestial bodies. Barriers to agreement are now lower than they will ever be again.[199]

On the whole, Eisenhower's support of the embryonic space program was lukewarm until the Soviet launch of Sputnik. Later historians have suggested that Eisenhower privately wanted the Soviet Union to launch a satellite first, thereby establishing an overflight precedent [200] that would allow the United States to orbit without Soviet protests, as the latter's closed society had far more to lose from such overflights than the United States did.[201]

Eisenhower warned about the emerging military–industrial complex in his Chance for Peace Speech:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ... Is there no other way the world may live?[202]

Eisenhower was the first president to appear on color television. He was videotaped when he spoke at the dedication of WRC-TV's new studios in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 1958.

Tributes and memorials

Eisenhower is remembered for his role in World War II, the creation of the Interstate Highway System and ending the Korean War.

Eisenhower Interstate System sign south of San Antonio, Texas
Bronze statue of Eisenhower at Capitol rotunda.[203]

The Interstate Highway System is officially known as the 'Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways' in his honor. Commemorative signs reading "Eisenhower Interstate System" and bearing Eisenhower's permanent 5-star rank insignia were introduced in 1993 and are currently displayed throughout the Interstate System. Several highways are also named for him, including the Eisenhower Expressway (Interstate 290) near Chicago and the Eisenhower Tunnel on Interstate 70 west of Denver.

The British A4 class steam locomotive No. 4496 (renumbered 60008) Golden Shuttle was renamed Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1946. It is preserved at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the second Nimitz-class supercarrier, was named in his honor.

Eisenhower College was a small, liberal arts college chartered in Seneca Falls, New York in 1965, with classes beginning in 1968. Financial problems forced the school to fall under the management of the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1979. Its last class graduated in 1983.

Eisenhower Hall, the cadet activities building at West Point, was completed in 1974.[204] In 1983, the Eisenhower Monument was unveiled at West Point.

The Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California was named after the President in 1971.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center, located at Fort Gordon near Augusta, Georgia, was named in his honor.[205]

In 1983, The Eisenhower Institute was founded in Washington, D.C., as a policy institute to advance Eisenhower's intellectual and leadership legacies.

In 1989, U.S. Ambassador Charles Price and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dedicated a bronze statue of Eisenhower in Grosvenor Square, London. The statue is located in front of the current US Embassy, London and across from the former command center for the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II, offices Eisenhower occupied during the war.[206]

In 1999, the United States Congress created the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, to create an enduring national memorial in Washington, D.C.. In 2009, the commission chose the architect Frank Gehry to design the memorial.[207][208] The memorial will stand near the National Mall on Maryland Avenue, SW across the street from the National Air and Space Museum.[209]

On May 7, 2002, the Old Executive Office Building was officially renamed the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. This building is part of the White House Complex, and is west of the West Wing. It currently houses a number of executive offices, including ones for the Vice President and his or her spouse.[210]

A county park in East Meadow, New York (Long Island) is named in his honor.[211] Eisenhower State Park on Lake Texoma near his birthplace of Denison is named in his honor.

His birthplace is currently operated by the State of Texas as the Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site. Since 1980, the National Park Service has allowed visitors to the Eisenhower Farm adjacent to the Gettysburg Battlefield.

Many public high schools and middle schools in the U.S. are named after Eisenhower.

Mount Eisenhower was named in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

The Eisenhower Golf Club at the United States Air Force Academy, a 36-hole facility featuring the Blue and Silver courses, which is ranked No. 1 among DoD courses, is named in his honor.

The 18th hole at Cherry Hills Country Club, near Denver, is named in his honor. Eisenhower was a longtime member of the club, which operated one of his favorite courses.[212]

Awards and decorations

The star of the Soviet Order of Victory awarded to Eisenhower.[213]
U.S. military decorations
Bronze oak leaf cluster
Bronze oak leaf cluster
Bronze oak leaf cluster
Bronze oak leaf cluster
Army Distinguished Service Medal w/ 4 oak leaf clusters
Navy Distinguished Service Medal
Legion of Merit
U.S. Service Medals
Mexican Border Service Medal
World War I Victory Medal
American Defense Service Medal
Silver star
Bronze star
Bronze star
Bronze star
Bronze star
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal w/ 9 service stars
World War II Victory Medal
Army of Occupation Medal w/ "Germany" clasp
Bronze star
National Defense Service Medal w/ 1 service star
International and Foreign Awards[214]
Order of the Liberator San Martin, Grand Cross (Argentine)
Order of Merit (Austria), Type II, Grand Cross (Austria)
Order of Leopold, Grand Cordon (Belgium)
Croix de guerre w/ palm (Belgium)
Order of the Southern Cross, Grand Cross (Brazil)
Order of Military Merit, Grand Cross (Brazil)
Order of Aeronautical Merit, Grand Cross (Brazil)
War Medal (Brazil)
Campaign Medal (Brazil)
Order of the Merit of Chile, Grand Cross (Chile)
Order of Cloud and Banner, Grand Cordon, Special Class (China)
Order of the White Lion, Grand cross (Czechoslovakia)
War Cross 1939–1945 (Czechoslovakia)
Order of the Elephant, Knight (Denmark)
Order of Abdon Calderón, First Class (Ecuador)
Order of Ismail, Grand Cordon with Star (Egypt)
Order of Solomon, Knight Grand Cross with Cordon (Ethiopia)
Order of the Queen of Sheba, Member (Ethiopia)
Legion of Honor, Grand Cross (France)
Order of Liberation, Companion (France)
Military Medal (France)[215]
Croix de guerre w/ palm (France)
Royal Order of George I, Knight Grand Cross with Swords (Greece)
Royal Order of the Savior, Knight Grand Cross (Greece)
Cross of Military Merit, First Class (Guatemala)
National Order of Honour and Merit, Grand Cross with Gold Badge (Haiti)
Order of the Holy Sepulchre, Knight (Holy See)
Military Order of Italy, Knight Grand Cross with Swords (Italy)
Order of the Chrysanthemum, Grand Cordon (Japan)
Order of the Oak Crown, Grand Cross (Luxembourg)
Luxembourg War Cross (Luxembourg)
Order of the Aztec Eagle, Collar (Mexico)
Medal of Military Merit (Mexico)
Medal of Civic Merit (Mexico)
Order of Ouissam Alaouite, Grand Cross (Morocco)
Order of the Netherlands Lion, Knight Grand Cross (Netherlands)
Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, Grand Cross (Norway)
Order of Nishan-e-Pakistan, First Class (Pakistan)
Orden Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Grand Cross (Panama)
Order of Manuel Amador Guerrero, Grand Collar (Panama)
Order of Sikatuna, Grand Collar (Philippines)
Shield of Honor Medal, Chief Commander (Philippines)
Distinguished Service Star, (Philippines)
Order of Polonia Restituta, Knight (Poland)
Order of Virtuti Militari, First Class (Poland)
Cross of Grunwald, First Class (Poland)
Order pro merito Melitensi, Knight Grand Cross (Sovereign Military Order of Malta)
Order of the Royal House of Chakri, Knight (Thailand)
Order of Nichan Iftikhar, Grand Cordon (Tunisia)
Order of the Bath, Knight Grand Cross (United Kingdom)
Order of Merit, Member (United Kingdom)
Africa Star, with "8" and "1" numerical devices (United Kingdom)
Order of Victory, Star (USSR)
Order of Suvorov, First Class (USSR)
The Royal Yugoslav Commemorative War Cross (Yugoslavia)

Other honors

See also

References

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  136. ^ Eisenhower gave verbal approval to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and to Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles to proceed with the coup; Ambrose, Eisenhower, Vol. 2: The President p. 111; Ambrose (1990), Eisenhower: Soldier and President, New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 333
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  142. ^ Alteras, Isaac (1993), Eisenhower and Israel: U.S.-Israeli relations, 1953–1960, p. 296
  143. ^ Little, Douglas (1996). "His finest hour? Eisenhower, Lebanon, and the 1958 Middle East Crisis". Diplomatic History 20 (1): 27–54. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1996.tb00251.x. 
  144. ^ Hahn, Peter L. (2006). "Securing the Middle East: The Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957". Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (1): 38–47. DOI:10.1111/j.1741-5705.2006.00285.x. 
  145. ^ Navari, Cornelia (2000). Internationalism and the State in the Twentieth Century. Routledge. p. 316. ISBN 978-0-415-09747-5. 
  146. ^ Dunnigan, James and Nofi, Albert (1999), Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War. St. Martins Press, p. 85. ISBN 0-312-19857-4
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  159. ^ Dudziak, Mary L. (2002), Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy
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  163. ^ Nichol, David (2007). A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-4150-9. 
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  187. ^ Post Presidential Years. Eisenhower Archives. "President Kennedy reactivated his commission as a five star general in the United States Army. With the exception of George Washington, Eisenhower is the only United States President with military service to reenter the Armed Forces after leaving the office of President."
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Biographies

  • Ambrose, Stephen (1983). Eisenhower: (vol. 1) Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect (1893–1952). New York: Simon & Schuster. 
  • Ambrose, Stephen (1984). Eisenhower: (vol. 2) The President (1952–1969). New York: Simon & Schuster. 
  • D'Este, Carlo (2002). Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life. 
  • Krieg, Joann P. ed. (1987). Dwight D. Eisenhower, Soldier, President, Statesman. 24 essays by scholars.
  • Newton, Jim. Eisenhower: The White House Years (2011)
  • Parmet, Herbert S. (1972). Eisenhower and the American Crusades. 
  • Smith, Jean Edward. Eisenhower in War and Peace (Random House; 2012) 950 pages

Military career

  • Ambrose, Stephen E. (1970) The Supreme Commander: The War Years of Dwight D. Eisenhower excerpt and text search
  • Ambrose, Stephen E. (1998). The Victors: Eisenhower and his Boys: The Men of World War II, New York : Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-85628-X
  • Eisenhower, David (1986). Eisenhower at War 1943–1945, New York : Random House. ISBN 0-394-41237-0. A detailed study by his grandson.
  • Eisenhower, John S. D. (2003). General Ike, Free Press, New York. ISBN 0-7432-4474-5
  • Irish, Kerry E. "Apt Pupil: Dwight Eisenhower and the 1930 Industrial Mobilization Plan", The Journal of Military History 70.1 (2006) 31–61 online in Project Muse.
  • Jordan, Jonathan W. (2011), Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership That Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe, NAL, ISBN 978-0-451-23212-0 
  • Pogue, Forrest C. The Supreme Command, Washington, D.C. : Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, 1954. The official Army history of SHAEF.
  • Weigley, Russell (1981). Eisenhower's Lieutenants, Indiana University Press. Ike's dealings with his key generals in World War II.

Civilian career

  • Bowie, Robert R. and Immerman, Richard H. (1998). Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy, Oxford University Press.
  • Chernus, Ira (2008). Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity, Stanford University Press.
  • Damms, Richard V. The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953–1961 (2002).
  • David Paul T., ed. (1954). Presidential Nominating Politics in 1952. 5 vols., Johns Hopkins Press.
  • Divine, Robert A. (1981). Eisenhower and the Cold War.
  • Greenstein, Fred I. (1991). The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader.
  • Harris, Douglas B. "Dwight Eisenhower and the New Deal: The Politics of Preemption", Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1997.
  • Harris, Seymour E. (1962). The Economics of the Political Parties, with Special Attention to Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.
  • Medhurst, Martin J. (1993). Dwight D. Eisenhower: Strategic Communicator Greenwood Press.
  • Mayer, Michael S. (2009). The Eisenhower Years, 1024 pp; short biographies by experts of 500 prominent figures, with some primary sources.
  • Newton, Jim. (2011) Eisenhower: The White House Years
  • Pach, Chester J. and Richardson, Elmo (1991). Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Standard scholarly survey.

Historiography and interpretations by scholars

  • Burk, Robert. "Eisenhower Revisionism Revisited: Reflections on Eisenhower Scholarship", Historian, Spring 1988, Vol. 50, Issue 2, pp. 196–209
  • McAuliffe, Mary S. "Eisenhower, the President", Journal of American History 68 (1981), pp. 625–632 in JSTOR
  • Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur. "The Ike Age Revisited," Reviews in American History Vol. 11, No. 1 (Mar., 1983), pp. 1–11 in JSTOR

Primary sources

  • Boyle, Peter G., ed. (1990). The Churchill–Eisenhower Correspondence, 1953–1955 University of North Carolina Press.
  • Boyle, Peter G., ed. (2005). The Eden–Eisenhower correspondence, 1955–1957 University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-2935-8
  • Butcher, Harry C. My Three Years With Eisenhower The Personal Diary of Captain Harry C. Butcher, USNR (1946), candid memoir by a top aide
  • Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1948). Crusade in Europe, his war memoirs.
  • Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1963). Mandate for Change, 1953–1956. 
  • Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1965). The White House Years: Waging Peace 1956–1961, Doubleday and Co.
  • Eisenhower Papers 21 volume scholarly edition; complete for 1940–1961.
  • Summersby, Kay (1948). Eisenhower was My Boss, New York: Prentice Hall; (1949) Dell paperback.

External links

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