Really Cool Stuff about Dwight Eisenhower
1. Eisenhower’s senior superlatives from high school tagged him as the next professor of History at Yale. What’s interesting is that his brother, Edgar, was pegged for the President of the United States.
2. His graduating class at West Point would become the most famous in West Point history. “In 1915, 164 of them graduated. Of the 164, 59 rose to the rank of full general, and two to the rank of general of the army. Members included Vernon Prichard, George Stratemeyer, Charles Ryder, Stafford Irwin, Joseph McNarnney, James Van Fleet, Hubert Harmon, and Omar Bradley” (p. 25).
3. Because I love football so much, I had to include this little factoid. Not only was Eisenhower a star running back at West Point, but after he twisted his knee and was never able to play again, he then coached the junior varsity team. “The act of coaching brought out his best traits—his organizational ability, his energy and competitiveness, his enthusiasm and optimism, his willingness to work hard at a task that intrigued him, his powers of concentration, his talent for working with the material he had instead of hoping for what he did not have, and his gift for drawing the best out of his players” (p. 27). What I liked most was that Eisenhower used the idea of football as a way to train troops (teamwork was big) and in battle, to inspire them with good old American terminology.
4. When Eisenhower returned from Germany, once the war was over, he gave a speech to a joint session of Congress and it was electric. “The politicians gave General Eisenhower a standing ovation that was the longest in the history of Congress, and there was not a man in the hall who did not think to himself how wonderful General Eisenhower would look standing at that podium as President Eisenhower” (p. 207).
5. After the war, Stalin invited Eisenhower to Moscow for a victory parade where he let the American even stand on Lenin’s tomb! “At a sports parade in Red Square, which lasted for hours and involved tens of thousands of athletes, Eisenhower was invited by Stalin to stand on Lenin’s Tomb, a unique honor for a non-Communist and non-Russian” (p. 218).
6. Here’s another Eisenhower tidbit that’s near to my heart and not just because I love golf (I also live in Georgia!) Because Eisenhower had many millionaire friends, he spent lots of time playing golf at Augusta National, GA. “The gang [all his millionaire friends] made Eisenhower a member at Augusta, built him a cottage there, and put in a fish pond, well stocked with bass, for his private use” (p. 239). After Eisenhower became president, he even played with Bobby Jones. “Ike played golf with the world’s most famous golfer, Bobby Jones; he vowed to return often” (p. 316). So cool!
7. Being so long in the military, Eisenhower had practically been a smoker his entire life. That is, until he quit cold turkey after experiencing some serious stomach issues. “While he was at Key West, Eisenhower had been told by Snyder that he would have to cut down from four packs of cigarettes per day to one. After a few days of limiting his smoking, Eisenhower decided that counting his cigarettes was worse than not smoking at all, and he quit. He never had another cigarette in his life, a fact that amazed the gang, his other friends, the reporters who covered his activities and the public” (p. 244).
8. The Eisenhower campaign of 1952 would be the last “old-school” campaign in American history. “It was the last whistle-stop barnstormer campaign. All the hoopla of American politics was there. The train would stop; the local Republicans would have the crowd waiting; Eisenhower would appear on the rear platform, accompanied by Mamie; he would deliver a set speech that concentrated on cleaning up the mess in Washington and asking the audience to join him in his ‘crusade’; the whistle sounded; they were off again” (p. 276).
9. I’m almost tempted to include this story under the Nixon bio but since it involves Eisenhower’s presidency, I’m just going to go ahead with it. In the middle of the 1952 campaign, issues with Nixon, as vice president, arose. The problem was that Nixon, through his campaign speeches, lambasted the Truman administration and the Democrats with accusations of corruption and crookedness in Washington. Unfortunately, a story then hit the papers accusing Nixon of having a secret monetary fund that allowed him to live above his means. Nixon countered this with another accusation—that this story was a Communist smear. Eisenhower’s aides pleaded with Ike to lose Nixon but Eisenhower decided to see what the American public had to say about the whole matter. He made Nixon get on public TV, give a speech explaining the fund and then had the public decide whether he should keep Nixon on the ticket. “At the end of his speech, Nixon had asked viewers to write or wire the RNC as to whether or not he should remain on the ticket, a bold attempt to take the decision out of Eisenhower’s hands”( p. 281). The public approved of Nixon’s speech and Eisenhower kept him as the Republican VP candidate but the two men would never be close.
10. In the last week of the 1952 campaign, the first hydrogen bomb was detonated. “In ten weeks, he [Eisenhower] would become the most powerful man in the world. (Just how powerful was exemplified by an event that occurred on the last weekend of the campaign. On November 1, at Eniwetok, the United States exploded its first hydrogen device, 150 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Japan)” (p. 287).
11. Eisenhower renamed Camp David after his grandson. (It was originally named Shangri-La by FDR).
12. Because of post-war difficulties around the world, Eisenhower asked Congress to give him more leeway when it came to declaring war. “For the first time in American history, the Congress had authorized the President in advance to engage in a war at a time and under circumstances of his own choosing” (p. 382).
13. We can thank the Eisenhowers for our intestate highways and the way they look. It was due to Mamie that there was a highway beautification program put into place for flowers and trees to be planted along freeways and highways. Eisenhower though was more concerned with the state of the roads. After West Point, he had to drive cross-country for the Army and was appalled at not only the state of the roads but the increase in traffic. Also, in case of war, Eisenhower knew the country needed good roads and possible landing places for aircraft. “To him, it was an ideal program for the federal government to undertake. First, the need was clear and inescapable. Second, a unified system could only be erected by the federal governemtn. Third, it was a public-worlds program on a massive scale, indeed the largest public-works program in history, which meant that the government could put millions of men to work without subjecting itself to the criticism that this was ‘makework’ of the WPA or PWA variety” (p. 387). The Eisenhower Interstate and Defense Highway System made sure to connect all the major cities of the United States through well-kept highways and that one out of every five miles must be straight in case aircraft need to make emergency landings in time of war.
14. And let's not forget one of the greatest feats of engineering of all time--the Saint Lawrence Seaway! It had been debated in Congress, off and on, for over fifty years and with the help of Eisenhower, it finally passed.
I liked this book. Even though it’s rather obvious that the author really likes Eisenhower, he does try to be fair about Ike’s faults as well. Ambrose gives all the myriad mistakes that Ike makes during the war with his slow strategy and inadvised cautiousness. He also lightly criticizes some of Eisenhower’s acts as president, including his reluctance to aid desegregation. In fact, I was a little disappointed in the fact that Eisenhower did not aid, nor want, desegregation to occur. He refused to condone it, due primarily to the fact that his friends were mainly white Southerners, and it was only when someone forced his hand that he had to uphold the Supreme Court. There was also his affair, so-to-speak, with Kay Summersby.
Ambrose himself tells us his goal. “The aim of this work is to explain and describe this man, to record his accomplishments and failures, his triumphs and shortcomings, his personal life and his personality. In the process, I hope that I convey some sense of what a truly extraordinary person he was, and of how much all of us who live in freedom today owe him” (p. 12). As you can tell, Ambrose is out front about his admiration for Ike. In fact, a few paragraphs before, he states that “Eisenhower was one of the outstanding leaders of the Western world of this century” (p. 11). Ambrose can also be a little poetic about the problems facing this great man and how he handled things. “It all came down to Eisenhower. He was the funnel through which everything passed. Only his worries were infinite, only he carried the awesome burden of command. This position put enormous pressure on him, pressure that increased geometrically with each day that passed” (p. 128).
I thought it was funny, and also rather amazing, that Eisenhower was in such good shape for his age. In fact, his age was never something the Democrats could throw in his face. During the campaign of 1952, “He carried out a brutal schedule. So brutal, indeed, that the Democrats never dared make an issue of his age. At sixty-one, he was a much more vigorous, active, energetic campaigner than Stevenson, who was nine years his junior. He traveled more than his opponent, spoke more, held more press conferences, and never displayed the kind of utter exhaustion that Stevenson sometimes did” (p. 277).
More things that I liked about this book were the copious pictures and battle maps included. I have a secret: I love maps of battles! I can’t help it. When I went to Waterloo in Belgium, what do think was my one purchase there? That’s right—a map of the battlefield with big colorful arrows depicting Napoleon, Wellington and Blucher. It’s so exciting. Beside I’m very visual and a map of a battlefield is like gold to me. Anyways, Ambrose includes maps of the North Africa campaign, the Italian campaign, and even D-Day. Awesome! He also gives a really comprehensive and instructive account of D-Day that I hadn’t known before.
All in all, I have to agree somewhat with Ambrose’s diagnosis—Eisenhower was a pretty cool guy for the most part. In fact, I think that I would have liked him (had we been contemporaries). I could see us hanging out because, let’s be honest, he and I have a lot in common. In summation, I, also, like Ike!
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