Dwight David Eisenhower was born and raised in Kansa, and was one of America's
greatest military commanders. Eisenhower won an appointment to the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point.
World War I ended a week before Eisenhower was scheduled to go to Europe.
So for a period of time, he simply enjoy the personal fulfillment that came from
marrying Mamie Doud in 1916 and having a son, John, in 1922. Eisenhower
was later assigned to serve as a military aide to General John J. Pershing and then to
General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines. Shortly before the
United States entered World War II, Eisenhower earned his first
star with a promotion to brigadier general.
After the United States entered the war, Eisenhower went to Washington, D.C.,
to work as a planning officer. He quickly got important command assignments.
In 1944, he was supreme commander of Operation Overlord, the Allied assault
on Nazi-occupied Europe. In only five years, Eisenhower had risen from a
lowly lieutenant colonel in the Philippines to commander of the greatest
invasion force in history. When he returned home in 1945 to serve as chief
of staff of the Army, Eisenhower was a hero, loved and admired by the
American public.
President Harry Truman privately proposed to Eisenhower that they run together
on the Democratic ticket in 1948, with Truman as the vice-presidential candidate.
Eisenhower refused and instead became president of Columbia
University and then, after the outbreak of the Korean War,
the first Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe. In 1952,
he declared that he was a Republican and returned home to win his
party's presidential nomination, with Richard M. Nixon as his running mate.
He easily beat Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and again in 1956.
Eisenhower was a popular President throughout his two terms as president.
His moderate Republican policies helped him secure many victories in
Congress, where Democrats held the majority for most of the time that
Eisenhower was in the White House. Eisenhower helped strengthen established
programs like Social Security, and launched the Interstate Highway
System in 1956, which became the single largest public works program
in U.S. history.
Although "Ike" signed civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960,
He never endorsed the Supreme Court's ruling in 1954 that racially
segregated schools were unconstitutional. In 1957, sent federal
troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, when mobs tried to block the
desegregation of Central High School. Eisenhower refrained
from publicly criticizing Senator Joseph McCarthy, who accused
dozens of citizens of anti-American activities, however, Eisenhower
privately despised McCarthy, and he worked behind the
scenes with congressional leaders to erode McCarthy's influence.
Eisenhower's indirect tactics worked.
Six months after he became President, Eisenhower agreed to an armistice
that ended three years of fighting in Korea. He placed new emphasis
on nuclear strength, which
was popularly known as massive retaliation, to prevent the outbreak of
war. He also frequently authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to
undertake covert actions, like secret interventions to overthrow unfriendly
governments or protect reliable anti-Communist leaders whose power was
threatened. The CIA helped topple the governments of Iran in 1953 and
Guatemala in 1954. Eisenhower avoided war in Indochina in 1954
when he failed to authorize an air strike to rescue French troops at the
crucial battle of Dienbienphu. During his last years in office, Eisenhower
'waged peace,' hoping to improve U.S.-Soviet relations and to negotiate
a treaty banning nuclear testing in the air and seas. The Soviet
downing of a U.S. reconnaissance plane, the U-2 incident of May 1, 1960,
ended any hope for a treaty before Eisenhower left office.
After leaving office, Eisenhower had a mediocre reputation with most
historians. Yet as time passed and more records from the Eisenhower
administration became available for research, it became clear that
Eisenhower was a strong leader who was very much in charge of his own
administration. Many historians have concluded that Eisenhower was
a 'great' President.
