#35: John F Kennedy Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about John F Kennedy
1. In 1937, Jack lost his first election as a freshman in college.
2. During the spring semester of 1939, Jack withdrew from Harvard so that he could spend time traveling around Europe. What was so cool about this was that he had front row seats to the initial stages of World War II. “During the spring and summer of 1939, Jack traveled throughout Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East. From each capital he reported to his father on the political and economic situation” (p. 94). “’For a twenty-two year old American,’ said Richard Whalen, ‘ it was a unique opportunity to look behind the scenes as the stage was set for the Second World War’” (p. 94).
3. For a brief span, Jack was employed by William Randolph Hearst (a good friend of his dad’s) to work for the Chicago Herald American. “The position would give Jack something stimulating to do, keep his name before the public, probably grant him credentials to travel in Europe, and expose him to journalism as a career” (p. 180).
4. While a senator, Kennedy (and his office) checked out the most books from the Library of Congress. “(Later, the library staff reported the Kennedy’s office signed out more books than any other on Capitol Hill)” (p. 262).
5. I, personally, find this next tidbit extremely interesting because I’m a huge fan of Marion Davies. “Following a few days in Acapulco, the newlyweds [Jack and Jackie] flew to Los Angeles, where they stayed for a week in the Beverly Hills mansion of Marion Davies, the mistress of the late William Randolph Hearst” (p. 270). Awesome!
6. McCarthy is always portrayed as rather an evil character (in just about every book I’ve read) so it’s quite fascinating that Robert Kennedy not only worked for McCarthy at the height of his power, but liked him as well! “From January to July 1953, Bobby served as assistant counsel to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which McCarthy chaired “(p. 274).
7. Nobody mentions this but Jack nearly died after his back surgery in 1954. “Other evidence indicates that the infection on the third day after the operation was a staph infection that nearly killed Jack. Most accounts of life say he slipped into a coma, was placed on the critical list, and received the last rites of the church” (p. 281).
8. This was one of those urban legends that I found to be true. Due to constant back pain, Jack really did have a specially-made bed…and chairs! “Travell designed a new mattress for him made of hair—tightly tied and firm—and installed a heavy bed board underneath the mattress…At Jack’s request Travell redesigned some of his household furnishings, particularly the chairs” (p. 348).
9. It was while Kennedy was a senator that a record was set for filibustering. On an unrelated note, I am not surprised that this long filibuster was to due to trying to halt a Civil Rights Act vote. “The Senate debate on the complicated legislation consumed over 121 hours. Democratic senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina filibustered for a record 24 hours and 18 minutes, trying to impede a vote” (p. 372).
10. And let’s not forget the Kennedy/Nixon debates were the first to be televised in history. “The debates had the potential for reaching a huge audience. In 1960 forty-six million American homes had televisions, 25 percent more TV households than only four years earlier”(p. 479).
11. I thought this was funny. Kennedy was so attractive as a presidential candidate that apparently women went absolutely mad over him. Thus the Kennedy group came up with funny nicknames for each group of crazed women: the Jumpers, the Double Leapers, the Clutchers and Runners. Theodore White explained the jumpers as “teenage girls who would bounce, jounce, and jump as the cavalcade passed…Then, as the press began to comment on the phenomenon, thus stimulating more artistic jumping, the middle-aged ladies began to jump up and down too.” (p. 490-91). “The double leapers were women who jumped together while holding hands. Clutchers crossed their arms, hugged themselves, and screamed, ‘He looked at me! He looked at me!’ The runners were women, sometimes carrying infants, who broke through police barricades to run after Kennedy’s car” (p. 491).
12. The 1960 presidential election was the closest in modern history. “Kennedy earned 49.7 percent of the total to Nixon’s 49.6 percent, the smallest popular-vote margin of any presidential race in the twentieth century” (p. 495).
13. During his administration, Kennedy promoted economic prosperity. “The Kennedy ‘boom,’ begun unspectacularly in the spring of 1961, became the longest peacetime period of prosperity in modern US history” (p. 638).
14. Never needing money, Jack was able to give most of his money earned from jobs away to charities. “Since 1947 John Kennedy had donated his entire legislative salary to charities” (p. 746). He kept up this habit while in the presidency and even donated all his royalties from Why England Slept as well.
15. Kennedy was the first American president to sell weapons to Israel. “Until the deal Israel had never received weapons from the United States” (p. 877).

I have to admit that I really liked this book. It was very pro-Jack from the start but it wasn’t unpalatable. He begins the book with a nice saga-like history of the Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds from Ireland which I found fascinating. Of course any book on John F Kennedy is really a history of the Kennedys themselves so I wasn’t disappointed here either. O’Brien (I wonder if he’s Irish as well) gives us all the gory details of the Kennedys’ rise to fame and fortune. Like I said before, the author, you can tell, likes Kennedy but he also is sure to give both sides of every story. For instance, the sinking of PT-109 caused quite an uproar with some people dubbing Jack a hero and other’s blaming him for the sinking in the first place. O’Brien lays it all out there for the reader to decide.

There were tons of ironies in this book. First of all, I thought it was funny that JFK and Nixon were actually pretty good friends. In fact, after Jack’s back surgery, Jack received a large gift basket that said “Welcome Home, Dick Nixon” (p. 283). I also liked the fact that JFK dated Oleg Cassini’s ex-wife and then Cassini would go on to become Jackie’s head fashion designer while she was First Lady. It’s a small world, people. Here’s something you never read about but was a big issue at the time. Because of segregation, African diplomats hated being stationed in Washington. JFK would have to field calls from the angry diplomats from African nations because they were refused room and board in Maryland while driving down from NYC. Indeed it was partially due to the pressure from other governments that Kennedy looked so favorably on civil rights.

I loved that O’Brien included this hilarious entrée into the unique and cliquish Kennedy world with “Rules for Visiting the Kennedys” by David Hackett. “Prepare yourself by reading the Congressional Record, US News & World Report, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, The Nation, How to Play Sneaky Tennis, and The Democratic Digest. Memorize at least three good jokes. Anticipate that each Kennedy will ask you what you think of another Kennedy’s a) dress, b) hairdo, c) backhand, d) latest public achievement. Be sure to answer ‘Terrific.’ This should get you through dinner. Now for the football field. It’s ‘touch’ but it’s murder. If you don’t want to play, don’t come. If you do come, play, or you’ll be fed in the kitchen and nobody will speak to you. Don’t let the girls fool you. Even pregnant, they can make you look silly. If Harvard played touch, they’d be on the varsity. Above all, don’t suggest any plans, even if you played quarterback at school. They Kennedys have the signal-calling department sewed up, and all of them have A-pluses in leadership. If one of them makes a mistake, keep still…But don’t stand still. Run madly on every play, and make a lot of noise. Don’t appear to be having too much fun though. They’ll accuse you of not taking the game seriously enough. Don’t criticize the other team, either. It’s bound to be full of Kennedys, too, and the Kennedys don’t like that sort of thing. To become really popular you must show raw guts. To show raw guts, fall on your face now and then. Smash into the house once and a while, going after a pass. Laugh off a twisted ankle, or a big hole torn in your best suit. They like this. It shows you take the game as seriously as they do. But remember. Don’t be too good. Let Jack run around you now and then. He’s their boy”(p. 341-42).

Even though I read this big, ol’ book on Kennedy and even though I watched numerous movies on him as well, I still have to admit that I have no idea who killed JFK. We’ll just need to sit tight and wait for 2029 to get the truth.

#35: John F Kennedy (1917-1963)

It’s really sad that the first thing that came to mind when I heard that the new X-men movie (First Class) was about the Cuban Missile Crisis was “Aha! Research!” You know that I love to dovetail my penchant for movies into alignment with whatever president I happen to be reading at that moment. For example, now that I’m on President #35, I immediately watched Thirteen Days (also about the Cuban Missile Crisis) and JFK by Oliver Stone. I even grew rather grumpy when my mom told me that the movie, PT-109, had played that very morning on TCM and she forgot to tape it. I didn’t even know that they had made a movie about Kennedy’s World War II role but now that I knew they had (and that I had missed it) was incredibly galling. And soon—soon, I tell you—I’ll head out to see X-Men: First Class. I’d like you to think that I’m going to watch it because it’s about Kennedy’s administration but honestly, I just love X-Men movies.

Trying to find a biography on JFK that fulfilled all my requirements was not easy. Again, I started at Amazon because I’m able to see a complete listing of all books written on JFK and also I love to read the reviews. It’s funny because someone recommended the book, An Unfinished Life, as being a good bio on Kennedy. However, when I looked it up I realized that old Robert Dallek was the author. Please remember that Dallek authored the book that I intensely disliked about Truman so I decided right then and there not to read An Unfinished Life. Besides the reviews, while favorable, mentioned that Dallek mainly concentrated on Kennedy’s physical ailments and did not go into much detail about his personal life. Well that book was out. So I turned to a 900-page tome that seemed to cover every breath Kennedy took. Ahhhh….that’s the one. I read John F Kennedy: A Biography by Michael O’Brien (Simon and Schuster: New York, 1990).

[Sidenote: OMG! I just saw that a miniseries, called The Kennedys, came out this past April!!!! Greg Kinear is JFK and Katie Holmes is Jackie. I’m soooo excited! Where can I get it??? Check it out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1567215/]

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the first president to be born in the twentieth century on May 29, 1917. He came from politicians on both sides of his family tree. His father, though, was a businessman, pure and simple, and he made millions through his various business practices (ethical and unethical), including the movie business and the stock market. The Kennedy children grew up literally in the lap of luxury with houses in New York, Hyannis Port, and Palm Beach. There were eventually 9 of them: Joe Jr, John, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Edward. On a side note, they were Catholic (this will be important later).

Jack was a sickly child. At 2 years old, he contracted scarlet fever and after that, there were many other illnesses and blood issues. He was sent to a private school, Dexter School, and then in 1927, when the family moved to New York City, he attended Riverdale Country Day School. “At Riverdale Jack’s teachers described him as bright, confident, and personable; friends remembered him as popular, athletic and girl crazy”(p. 29). As he grew older, he temporarily attended Canterbury, a Catholic school, but soon finished out the rest of his high school years at a prestigious boy’s school in Connecticut, Choate. He wasn’t a great student but he had lots of friends and did well in sports. His mother described him thus. “’Or let us say, lack of ‘fight’ in trying to do well in those subjects that didn’t happen to interest him” (p. 58.). Despite his average grades, Jack was admitted to Princeton but was too sick to attend. Instead he went to Harvard but took some time off to recuperate as a ranch hand out West and to visit his family in Europe. He would eventually graduate cum laude from Harvard in 1940.

Jack’s father, Joe, played a major role in his children’s lives. He was a dynamic personality but not of strong moral convictions. Most people were aware that the origins of his fortune were not upstanding and the fact that he was a blatant lecher disgusted others. In fact, he never really hid his adulterous affairs but Rose, his wife, said not a thing. When he was big into the movie business, he would often bring his girlfriend, Gloria Swanson, home on trips. Later on, he had an ongoing affair with his secretary who spent most of her time with the Kennedys. In 1938, FDR appointed Joe Kennedy as Ambassador to Great Britain and so the whole family moved to London. Joe made headlines for sympathizing with the Nazis and being quite outspoken about it. Jack, who made the trip with the family, was able to witness pre-World War II Europe and he used this experience later to write his thesis (and later a book), Why England Slept.

After graduating, Jack audited classes at Stanford, toured some of South America, and even worked as a journalist. His days of leisure were numbered however. With the situation around the globe deteriorating, Jack knew that it was time to get involved.
He pressured his father to find him a place in the military and despite his numerous physical ailments, in October 1941, he was assigned to Naval Intelligence. By March, 1943, Jack had done so well that he was transferred to the Pacific as a lieutenant to command PT-109. While out doing maneuvers on his patrol torpedo boat in August, they were hit by a Japanese submarine and sunk. Over the next few days, Jack did his utmost to save his remaining crew members (two died in the sinking) and in the process, became an American hero. Jack and the crew were rescued and instead of heading home to recuperate, he insisted that he stay. So they transferred him to PT-59. “Kennedy emerged from the war wiser, mentally tougher and with self-respect for having done his duty. During his extraordinary adventure, he had mingled and worked with men from different classes, backgrounds, regions and religions, and he enjoyed the camaraderie” (p. 165).

Kennedy had hurt his back while playing football in school and he already experienced quite a bit of pain. After the incident in the Pacific, Jack returned home to a serious back operation. In fact, the post-war years were not kind to the Kennedy clan. Back in 1941, Rosemary (who was mentally retarded) was given a frontal lobotomy and placed in an institution the rest of her life. In 1944, Joe Jr. was blown up in his plane over Germany. Four years later, Kathleen, Jack’s favorite sister, was killed in a plane crash in England.

Joe Kennedy never liked his fellow businessmen and since he already had quite a fortune, he steered his children into public service instead. Thus in 1946, when Jack decided to run for office, Joe opened the coffers wide to back his boy. With all the money in the world and excellent organizational skills, Jack was elected to the US House of Representatives for Massachusetts and spent the next six years there. “One thing is certain: His victory transformed him into a major force in Massachusetts politics” (p. 206). While in Congress, Kennedy primarily focused on social welfare issues. He also traveled to Ireland to visit his relatives and discovered that he had Addison’s disease. With all the rules of seniority in the House, Jack rapidly became bored and so in 1952, he announced that he would run for the Senate instead. This position he won also.

Jack had always been sexually promiscuous but with his new position, his father pressed him to marry. He had met Jacqueline Bouvier in 1951 at a party in which the hostess tried to fix them up. Unlike Jack’s other women, Jackie was a Catholic and had an impeccable family lineage—it just seemed right to make it official. Thus on September 12, 1953, they married. However, Jack’s marriage never stopped him from seeing other women. Lots of other women. “The marriage of Jack and Jackie was loving, but distant and sometimes strained” (p. 292).

As a Senator, Jack, opposite to his fellow New England co-workers, supported the St Lawrence Seaway. He also created the New England Conference of Senators as a means to unite legislation in aiding the New England area. “The conference pushed legislative projects on the price of wool, a minimum wage in the woolen industry, a lower tariff on raw wool imports, wage studies of southern textile manufacturing, shipbuilding contracts at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, funds to rehabilitate the Boston Army Base Pier, and a longshoremen safety bill” (p. 273).

It was during this time that Jack needed to have even more invasive spinal surgery because he was still in too much pain. While recovering, he decided to write a book on courageous politicians who had seemed to buck the system. His book, Profiles in Courage, won a Pulitzer Prize for biography. “The book proved more popular and politically valuable than Kennedy could ever have imagined. It boosted his stature considerably within the Democratic Party, making him the spokesman for the politics of integrity and enhanced his image as an insightful student of American history and democratic theory. He became the unofficial historian of the Senate, placed in charge of a subcommittee to honor five outstanding senators from history” (p. 289). He was publicly accused of not writing Profiles; many believed that the book was ghostwritten by Ted Sorenson, his phenomenal speechwriter. This accusation was hotly denied by all parties involved.

In 1956, JFK decided to run for vice president but lost to Kefauver. Actually it was fortuitous that Jack missed out because the Democratic ticket of Stevenson/Kefauver then went down in defeat to Eisenhower. Jack went back to his seat in the Senate, looking really good politically, and was placed on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. JFK and RFK were even placed on a Committee on Labor where they dealt with the Teamsters in the Rackets Commission. Jack, handily, won reelection to the Senate in 1958 and was perfectly poised to capture the Democratic Nomination in 1960. “Jack’s handsome features, personality, charm and intelligence all contributed to his success. But his dogged, unrelenting effort was the heart of his long campaign” (p. 464). The Democrats tacked Lyndon Johnson onto the ticket to offset Kennedy’s New England roots.

Kennedy/Johnson went up against Republicans Richard Nixon and his running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr in the 1960 presidential race. Most people remember the debates between Nixon and Kennedy and the impact that they had on the voting millions. For the first debate, Nixon was sick. He refused makeup and he wore a grey suit that blended into the grey background on the set. Not only that, but he was not as comfortable and articulate during the debate, laughing at odd moments and sweating profusely. Many observers believed that Kennedy came out the winner of the debates spanning from September 26, 1960 to October 21. Kennedy also became friends with Martin Luther King Jr during the campaign and came up with his innovative and popular idea—the Peace Corps. In the end, JFK scraped by with the win to become the 35th President of the United States. “No single factor explained Kennedy’s victory. Winning the first debate was important. So were his personal attractiveness, effective campaign style, and phone call to Mrs. King. President Eisenhower’s tepid efforts on behalf of his vice president hurt Nixon’s campaign. Lyndon Johnson’s presence on the ticket probably inched Texas into the Democratic column” (p. 495).

“On the day after the election, Kennedy was amazed at what had to be accomplished in the short span of time until his inauguration—only seventy-two days. Not much time, Sorensen later noted, ‘to form an administration, staff the White House, fill some seventy-five key Cabinet and policy posts, name six hundred other major nominees, decide which incumbents to carry over, distribute patronage to the faithful and fix personnel policies for the future.’ Kennedy also had to liaise with Eisenhower, prepare for the inauguration, shape his domestic and foreign policies, and plan his legislative program” (p. 498-99). Speaking of the Cabinet positions, Kennedy went very bi-partisan when filling this august board, even including his own brother, Bobby, as Attorney General (he was under direct pressure from his father in this matter). There was quite a ruckus when JFK nominated Bobby but he was prepared for that. “When Ben Bradlee of Newsweek asked John Kennedy how he planned to announce the appointment, the President-elect said, ‘Well, I think I’ll open the front door of the Georgetown house some morning about 2:00 a.m., look up and down the street, and, if there’s no one there, I’ll whisper, ‘It’s Bobby.’” (p. 507).

Unfortunately, the first thing that JFK had to deal with upon assuming office was Eisenhower’s plan to depose Castro by sending CIA-trained Cubans back into Cuba. Kennedy went along with the ill-planned idea, which culminated in the Bay of Pigs fiasco on April 17, 1961. “Almost everything went wrong for the invaders. Their landing craft floundered among the unanticipated coral reefs. When portable radios got wet, they didn’t function. Men landed at the wrong locations, several miles from comrades, and others reached shore without adequate supplies” (p. 530). Defeat was inevitable when Kennedy refused to order the accompanying air strikes; the resident Cubans didn’t arise in revolt once the invasion began; and Castro was better prepared than the Americans assumed. Afterwards, Kennedy fired Allan Dulles, head of the CIA and deputy director, Richard Bissell.

Thankfully, people forgot about the Bay of Pigs in all the other stuff going on. There was a summit in Vienna between JFK and Khrushchev. The Berlin Wall was started. Kennedy began a major legislative program that dealt with education, the minimum wage, Medicare, the space program, conservation, mental retardation, and the Equal Pay Act. Civil Rights was a major issue in which Kennedy was quite interested. “Kennedy invited more African-Americans to White House meetings and social functions than any previous President” (p. 592). Kennedy had to deal with the Meredith crisis which occurred when James Meredith, an African-American, tried to enroll at the uber-white University of Mississippi. In the end, Kennedy had to call out the National Guard to quell the riots on the university campus.

In the foreign policy arena, Kennedy was faced with issues in Laos and Vietnam. “Off the record he had serious reservations about fighting there, and hoped to find a way of holding South Vietnam with the minimal use of American troops” (p. 616). Kennedy was still annoyed by what happened in Cuba and so ordered Operation Mongoose which was a secret operation to kill Castro. “The CIA quickly spent from fifty to one hundred million dollars on Mongoose. With its huge nerve center on the campus of the University of Miami, and with four hundred CIA officers, Mongoose was the agency’s largest operation in the world outside its Langley, Virginia, headquarters. The officers controlled thousands of Cuban agents, purchased exotic weapons, and ran a secret fleet of ships and aircraft” (p. 650). There are rumors that this operation included use of the Mafia.

For thirteen days in October, 1962, the United States was beset by the threat of nuclear weapons in Cuba, provided by the Soviet Union. Through skillful negotiation, a naval blockade and the use of diplomatic backchannels and the UN, Kennedy was able to avert a crisis. If Russia would remove all nuclear weapons from Cuba, then the United States would promise never to invade that island and in six months, would remove the Jupiter missiles currently residing in Turkey. The negotiations worked and the threat of nuclear war subsided momentarily.

Kennedy was also interested in an Alliance for Progress with the Latin American nations, which would include US aid to those countries. It never really worked however. Kennedy was also very supportive of independence for African countries and sustained them against their European aggressors. In regards to Vietnam, JFK okayed a coup of the corrupt Diem but was horrified when the generals there assassinated Diem in early November, 1963.

To start gearing up for the next presidential election in ’64, Kennedy undertook a series of tours. The first one was a European trip that included West Germany, Ireland (for strictly personal reasons), and England. Afterwards, he decided on a domestic tour that would consist of 11 states (most of which did not vote for him in the last election), including Florida and Texas. In late November, he flew to San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth. On the morning of November 22, JFK and Jackie flew from Fort Worth to Dallas where they embarked on an open-car parade. While riding down Elm St, Jack was killed by a bullet to the brain and was pronounced dead at 1pm CST. Lee Harvey Oswald was announced as the killer but was killed himself several days later by Jack Ruby.

# 34 Dwight Eisenhower Part 2

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!

#34 Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)

Wahoo! Only 9 presidential bios to go! As you can tell, I’m just a little elated over the fact that the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter by the day. On the other hand, I will continue to do justice to the remaining phew (hahahaha…look at that pun! I’m awesome!)

So. Eisenhower. What I already knew about Eisenhower could be boiled down to random fragments from AP US History (such as the U2 incident), brief appearances in the FDR and Truman bios, and my uncle’s rather substantial political pins collection (I particularly liked the “I Like Ike” ones). One thing I was sure of though was that Ike deserved a larger than usual bio and so I went a-searching. I was ecstatic to find that not only was there a sizeable Ike biography readily available but it was also written by that paragon of American historical academic literature himself—Stephen E. Ambrose. If you’ve spent anytime perusing American history books then you’re bound, sooner or later, to run across old Stephen Ambrose. What’s ideal in this instance is that he actually got to interview Eisenhower, among other things. This may mean that he’s probably a little more biased towards Eisenhower than not but I was definitely willing to take that chance. After all, I’m running out of presidents and I desperately wanted to include Mr. Ambrose on my acclaimed list of authors before the end. Yay! (PS I am such a dork!)

I read, therefore, Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen E Ambrose (Simon and Schuster: New York, 1990). I just have to mention the totally cheesy and also rather creepy cover to this book. Huh. Check it out->

Dwight was the last American president to be born in the nineteenth century on October 14, 1890. His parents were Mennonites and they would have a total of seven boys, of which Dwight was square in the middle. When he was just one year old, the family moved to Abilene, Kansas, where Ike grew up and where his father became a mechanic. While there, Ike attended the local public schools where he excelled at spelling, math, military history, and sports! He displayed early signs of leadership qualities, especially in high school, when he instituted the Abilene HS Athletic Association. During his freshman year of high school, Dwight fell seriously ill. After scraping his knee, it got infected and there were moments when they thought it would need to be amputated. Dwight held firm however, and the dreadful moment passed, leaving him intact.

His love of military history indicated that he should attend college at West Point and in 1911 that is precisely what he did. After four successful years (and several pranks later), he graduated and was assigned to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. While there he met and fell in love with Mamie (otherwise known as Mary Geneva Doud) and they were married on July 1, 1916.

In 1917, Eisenhower was promoted to captain in the army and he looked forward to heading overseas to take part in the Great War. However, Ike turned out to be just too good at organization and training to let go. The army instead sent him to Fort Olgethorpe, GA, where he trained officers, to Fort Meade, MD, and finally to Camp Colt, Pennsylvania for tank training. It was during this time that Eisehower and Patton became good friends because they both realized the importance of the tanks in warfare. By now the war was over and Eisenhower would forever rue the fact that he was actually in the Army and missed it.

Unfortunately, another casualty was claimed in the guise of Eisenhower’s small son, “Icky.” In 1920, the four-year-old contracted scarlet fever and died. Distracted with grief, the Eisenhowers were glad to get away by being transferred to Panama on the staff of General Cooper. After four years of working together, Cooper saw good things in Eisenhower and referred him to the Command and General Staff School at Leavenworth, Kansas. “The course brought out the best in Eisenhower, his ability to master detail without getting bogged down in it, his talent for translating ideas into action, his positive (almost eager) reaction to pressure, his mastery of his profession, and his sense of being a team player (the emphasis of the course was on the smooth functioning of the machine). When the final rankings were posted, he stood first in his class” (p. 42).

Upon graduation, Eisenhower decided to take an unusual but very interesting job. He and Mamie were sent to Paris by General Pershing where Ike then wrote a history of the American Army in France during the last war. “Pershing was so pleased, in fact, that he sent Eisenhower to the Army War College for a year, then to Paris to study the ground and expand the history” (p. 43). It was a pleasant interlude.

But by 1929, it was back to the grindstone when Eisenhower was placed under General Douglas MacArthur. He served under MacArthur for several years in the United States and then under him from 1935-39 when he was transferred to the Philippines. In 1936, Eisenhower was promoted to lieutenant-colonel. Unfortunately, MacArthur and Eisenhower butted heads on so many occasions that when WWII began, Eisenhower begged Washington to reassign him. They complied and he returned to the United States in 1940 to train troops. He became a full colonel.

While in the US, Eisenhower greatly impressed the reigning brass, especially General George Marshall, the military Chief of Staff. On June 8, 1942, Eisenhower was promoted to head the European Theater of Operations and so he (not Mamie) moved to London. There he was given a particularly attractive chauffeur, Kay Summersby, and the two quickly became good friends. Over the years, she would stay by Eisenhower’s side as his secretary and follow him wherever he went. There were widespread rumors that they were having an affair and even later on, Kay admitted as much, except that they had never consummated it. Mamie was very unhappy with the whole situation.

In conjunction with the British, the Americans decided to invade North African and dislodge the Germans. To do this, they instituted Operation Torch and placed Eisenhower over the Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF). “Ike’s life was an unending series of conferences, meetings, debates, trips and inspections” (p. 78). Eisenhower faced several troubles in North Africa. The first one occurred when he allowed all the French forces (already on the continent) to be placed under a very shady guy named Darian. Then Eisenhower, when battling the Germans, displayed a worrying tendency towards caution at the point of attack. Nevertheless, the AEF captured Tunis on May 13, 1943 and took many German prisoners.

Eisenhower and the AEF were then told to take Italy. Mussolini had already been deposed by this time but the Germans were still controlling the country. The invasion of Sicily began on July 1, 1943 and Eisenhower did not handle these tactics too well either. Instead of going in for the quick win, he took his time and the war dragged on. The AEF eventually neutralized Sicily and then began the invasion of the Italian mainland. More long, drawn-out battles.

Despite all this though, Eisenhower was chosen by FDR to head Operation Overload, the invasion of France. “It was the most coveted command in the history of warfare” (p. 114). Actually Eisenhower got the job because Marshall, who wanted this position, was needed more in Washington which meant that someone else needed to command the invasion. From what I understand, Eisenhower’s major job in all this (considering that he did not command the individual units) was to coordinate all the units together and make sure that they each had the proper number of ammunition, transportation, and air support. It was also his decision to launch the invasion by deciding upon the most propitious day. Originally, D-Day was scheduled for May 1st but Eisenhower did not like the weather and moved it back to June 6th. As we all know, that day was perfect and the AEF got its first toehold into the northern region of France.

By August 1944, France was retaken from the Germans but it was slow going after that. In fact, there was a very costly German counteroffensive that Eisenhower failed to foresee, which set the process back months. However, by May, 1945, Germany was surrounded by the Allies and the Russians and so they surrendered (V-E Day) through the armistice at Reims. “For Eisenhower, the weeks that followed were full of activity—making arrangements with the Russians, occupation duties, diplomatic difficulties, redeploying the American troops in Europe to the Pacific, entertaining visiting VIPs—but most of his energy went into the hectic, exhausting, satisfying, prolonged celebration” (p. 205). Eisenhower was named the head of the American Occupation Zone in Germany and did his best to uphold the American principles there, including de-Nazification which caused a rift with Patton. De-Nazification allowed no former Nazis to hold office or conduct business in Germany. The problem with this, as Patton averred, was that there were no good people who were not former Nazis. After all, the way to get along in the Third Reich was to pretend to go along with Hitler. But Eisenhower was adamant.

“If being the head of an occupation force in Germany had been a thankless and unwelcome task, being Chief of Staff of the US Army as it demobilized was worse” (p. 219). It was true—Marshall’s tenure as Chief of Staff was soon over and Eisenhower was the obvious choice to fill his place. “Eisenhower anticipated, correctly, interminable battles with the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the issues of universal military training and unification of the armed services, and battles with Congress over the issues of demobilization and the size and strength of the postwar Army” (p. 219).

Eisenhower served the next two years with distinction but in 1948, it was time for him to retire (the Chief of Staff was a two-year position). “As a five-star general, he was technically on active duty for life, and thus drew a salary of $15,000 per year. But he had no savings, owned no property, stocks or bonds” (p. 233). The crisis was solved when Columbia University in New York offered Eisenhower the presidency of the college. The Eisenhowers did not want to move to New York City but the position was a good one with very little to do. Unfortunately, over the years that Eisenhower was president of Columbia, there was bad blood between him and the university. Apparently the way that generals handle things and the way that academics do are two totally different things. But even though he was unhappy in his work, Eisenhower continued to stay active. He wrote his war memoirs; he also had a full life with his many friendships. Eisenhower had come to know and respect many millionaires and he spent lots of time staying at their various vacation homes, playing golf and fishing and card games.

It was with relief though that Truman appointed Eisenhower as the first Supreme Commander of NATO in 1950. Eisenhower moved to Europe to take up his position but faced issues there from the start. The main problem was the fact that not enough countries could supply men for the NATO army. So Eisenhower decided that Germany would need to contribute but France freaked out about that. There was bitter fighting and really nothing was accomplished while Ike was on duty. He also heavily promoted a unified Europe but that also did not pan out.

Eisenhower’s millionaire friends—let’s be honest—were mainly Republican and it was quite apparent to them that although the war had ended years ago, Eisenhower still retained an almost abnormal popularity in the United States. They worked on him and finally got him to declare his candidacy for president for the 1952 election. Running against him was Adlai Stevenson of the Democratic Party. This campaign also was one of the dirtiest in American history. “Taken all together, 1952 is recalled as one of the bitterest campaigns of the twentieth century, and the one that featured the most mudslinging. Few, if any, of the participants could look back on it with pride” (p. 285). During the campaign, Eisenhower brazenly declared that he would end the Korean War and it is believed that this statement was one of the reasons that he eventually won the election. “The response was enthusiastic. The nation’s number-one hero, her greatest soldier and most experienced statesman, was promising to give his personal attention to the nation’s number-one problem. It was reassuring, it was exciting, it was exactly what people wanted to hear” (p. 285-86).

“It was a smashing victory” (p. 286) when Dwight Eisenhower became the 34th President of the United States of America and the first Republican one in twenty years. Ike immediately got in a plane and traveled to Korea to view the war firsthand. By 1953, the war was effectively over. On the domestic front, there was a growing problem with the power of Senator Joseph McCarthy over the minds of most Americans. People urged Eisenhower to simply denounce him but McCarthy was a Republican and Ike knew he couldn’t just do that. “So while McCarthy had to be destroyed, his followers had to be educated and brought back into the mainstream, not alienated. The best way to do that, Eisenhower thought, was to destroy McCarthy by ignoring him, or by letting him destroy himself” (p. 309). This eventually (McCarthy destroyed himself) occurred after his crazy HUAC army hearing in 1954.

Eisenhower was lucky—he was able to appoint the Chief Justice to the Supreme Court and he chose one Earl Warren. This appointment was significant because in 1954, a major court case (better known as Brown vs the Board of Education) was tried. The vote was unanimous—all nine justices upheld the fact that segregation was unconstitutional and there was no such thing as separate but equal. Eisenhower had a lot of southern millionaire friends and was unwilling to agree with the court. In the end, he was extremely reluctant to use any sort of force on the white southerners or to stand out against segregation in any way.

That same year the French lost Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu and there were Geneva Summit meetings to discuss disarmament between the Cold War powers. In 1955, Eisenhower suffered his first heart attack and had to take time off but he was well enough, by his doctors standards, to be able to run for reelection the next year. He won again against Adlai Stevenson but was faced immediately with several crises overseas. The first one was the rampant riots running across Eastern Europe. Native people tried to overthrow the Soviet regimes in their countries but the insurrections were brutally put down by the Russians (Hungary is a good example.) Also the year before, Nasser, in Egypt, had nationalized the Suez Canal which severely pissed off Great Britain and France. Those two countries then got together in secret and made a special pact with Israel. If Israel would go to war against Egypt (financed by England and France, that is) then they could march into Egypt, restore peace, and grab the Canal right back. The plan was put into effect, Israel started bombing Egypt and the whole world was shocked. Eisenhower, instead of siding with America’s usual allies, backed Egypt because it was their canal anyways!

Even though Eisenhower was not a fan of segregation, he was the president of the United States and his job was to uphold the law, interpreted by the courts. Therefore, when the governor of Arkansas called out the police to keep nine African American students out of Central High School in Little Rock in 1957, Eisenhower saw that the time had come to act. He sent the National Guard to make sure that the school was integrated and the rest of the south had to toe the line as well. Also that year the Russians were successful in sending the first satellite, Sputnik, to the moon. This event produced a huge wave of shock, fear and hysteria across the United States because Americans believed that since the Soviets had beaten us in the race to space, the terror threat was even greater and more likely. Eisenhower had to spend the rest of his term commenting on this eventuality which probably lead, in some degree, to the stroke that he suffered that year. In an effort to allay suspicion that he was not doing enough for the space industry, he created NASA.


Eisenhower was having problems with Cuba, after an armed uprising placed Fidel Castro in charge. Ike worked behind the scenes with the CIA to try to get rid of Castro but nothing came of this under his administration. After a small American invasion of Lebanon (to show strength in the Middle East), Eisenhower traveled to Germany, France, and England to work out policy. Khrushchev, head of the Soviet Union, even visited the United States for two weeks and invited Ike to Russia in return but then an unfortunate thing happened. In 1960, a US-issued U-2 spy plane was shot down over the USSR taking covert pictures and the Russians captured the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, alive. Eisenhower denied the whole thing and ended up looking quite stupid when the Soviets exploited the whole matter in front of the world.

1960, however, was also the year that Eisenhower retired from office when John F Kennedy won the presidential election. In retirement, he and Mamie returned to their farm in Gettysburg, PA and in certain matters, Ike became an advisor both to JFK and Johnson. In 1965, he suffered a second heart attack and in ’68 a third. On March, 28, 1969, Dwight Eisenhower died of heart issues.