General
Dwight David Eisenhower became chief of staff of the United
States Army, commander of NATO, and the thirty-fourth president
of the United States. As a military leader he led the
Allied
troops in the European Theater to victory during World
War II. As president from 1953-1961, his principal
achievement was the maintenance of world peace during
the crisis-filled
1950s. His domestic policy record is mixed. While an expanding
economy made the postwar era a prosperous one for many
Americans,
Eisenhower's failures to act decisively against Senator
Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist investigations and his
lackluster
commitment to civil rights scarred his policy legacy.
Born in Denison, Texas, Eisenhower spent his childhood
in Abilene, Kansas. After graduating from West Point in
1915, he embarked on
a military career that initially promised nothing more
than backwater assignments and slow promotion. Nevertheless,
Eisenhower was an excellent manager and a committed officer
who was highly regarded by his superiors.
Those talentspaid off during World War II. Eisenhower
rose rapidly to become supreme commander of the Allied
Expeditionary
Force. As such, he planned and led the Allies' June 6,
1944, invasion of France (D-Day) and their subsequent victory
over the Germans a year later. When the war ended in 1945,
Eisenhower served as head of the occupation forces in
the
American zone of a partitioned Germany before returning
home to become chief of staff of the U.S. Army. He left
the army in 1948 and became president of Columbia University
in New York City.
Eisenhower's military success and popularity at home made him a logical presidential
candidate. Believing that military professionals should not be involved in politics,
Eisenhower resisted overtures from both Republicans and Democrats that he run for
president in 1948. Instead he went back into the military as the first supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe where he helped organize the beginnings of a NATO force and urged the creation of a United States of Europe.
In 1952 he reversed his earlier decision and entered politics
as the Republican candidate for president. He won handily
in
that
election and in 1956, each time defeating Democratic candidate
Adlai Stevenson by a
substantial margin.
As president, Eisenhower followed a policy of social and
economic "dynamic conservatism." He trimmed the defense
budget following the Korean
War
but approved an increase in Social Security. His administration
was also responsible for the interstate highway system,
one of the largest public works projects in American history.
At the same time, Eisenhower worked to avoid the use of
nuclear
weapons and he cautioned the country against what he termed
"the military-industrial complex," which he thought was
aiding and abetting the arms race between the U.S. and
the
Soviet Union.
As Eisenhower rose in his countrymen's estimation, his
standing with Eleanor Roosevelt sank, and she worked assiduously
to defeat him in 1952 and 1956. At the outset of his political
career, she thought he was long on glamour and short on
political
conviction, particularly when he failed to defend General
George Marshall, the man most responsible for his rapid
promotion during World War II, against charges of communism.
She also thought his choice of Richard Nixon (who had
played
on his California constituents' fear of communism to defeat
her friend Helen Gahagan Douglas for the Senate in 1948)
was particularly irresponsible –especially after
Eisenhower suffered a massive heart attack in 1955. Later
she felt
Eisenhower catered too much to public opinion in his handling
of Senator Joseph McCarthy's allegations of communism
in
the federal government. She also deplored his administration's
poor record on civil rights, especially his reluctance
to
implement the Supreme Court's directive to end school segregation
in the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education
ruling in 1954. She was particularly incensed over his
initial failure to send federal troops to Little Rock,
Arkansas,
in 1957 to protect black students attempting to integrate
the high school there.
For his part, Eisenhower liked neither ER's politics nor
her style. In the wake of his 1952, election he accepted
her resignation from the U.S. delegation to the United
Nations with only a perfunctory letter of thanks,
despite her significant contributions to the organization's
success.
He also barred her from White House social events because
of remarks she had purportedly made about his wife, Mamie.
The two were never reconciled although Eisenhower did attend
ER's funeral in 1962.
After serving two terms as president, Eisenhower retired to his farm in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, where he wrote his memoirs, played golf and
painted. He lived to see Richard Nixon elected president
in 1968 and his grandson, David, married to Nixon's younger
daughter, Julie. He died in 1969.
Sources:
American National Biography, Vol. 7. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999, 374-379.
Black, Allida. Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor Roosevelt
and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1996, 116, 118, 164.
Concise Dictionary of American Biography.
5th ed. New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1997, 348-349.
Lash, Joseph. Eleanor: The Years Alone. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1972, 213-214.