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.
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