Encyclopedia
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was an
American soldier and politician. During
World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944-45. In 1949 he became the first supreme commander of
NATO. As a
Republican, he was elected the 34th
President of the United States . As president he ended the
Korean War, kept up the pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, reoriented the defense budget toward nuclear weapons, launched the space race, enlarged the Social Security program, and built the interstate highway system.
Early life and family
Eisenhower was born to a
German American family in Denison, Texas, the third of seven sons born to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover, and their only child born in Texas. He was named David Dwight and was called Dwight. Later, the order of his given names was switched . The Eisenhower family is of
Pennsylvania Dutch descent. His ancestors were
Mennonites who fled from Germany to Switzerland in the 17th century. Hans Nicol Eisenhauer and family came to Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1741. The family joined the River Brethren and were pacifists during the nation's wars. They joined some 300 River Brethren in creating a colony in Kansas. After a brief sojourn in Texas the family resettled in
Abilene, Kansas, in 1892. Eisenhower's father was a college-educated engineer. Eisenhower graduated from Abilene High School in 1909.
Eisenhower married
Mamie Geneva Doud , of
Denver, Colorado, on July 1, 1916. They had two children, Doud Dwight Eisenhower , whose tragic death in childhood haunted the couple, and John Sheldon David Doud Eisenhower . John Eisenhower served in the
United States Army, then became an author and served as U.S. Ambassador to
Belgium. John's son, David Eisenhower, after whom
Camp David is named, married
Richard Nixon's daughter Julie in 1968.
Early military career
Eisenhower enrolled at the
United States Military Academy,
West Point, New York, in June 1911. His parents were
pacifists but did not object to his entering West Point as they were strong proponents of education.
Eisenhower was a strong athlete, but his football career came to an end after he injured his knee attempting to tackle
Jim Thorpe.
Eisenhower graduated in 1915. He served with the infantry until 1918 at various camps in
Texas and
Georgia. During
World War I, Eisenhower became the #3 leader of the new
tank corps and rose to lieutenant colonel in the National Army. He spent the war training tank crews in
Pennsylvania and never saw combat. After the war Eisenhower reverted to his regular rank of captain before assuming duties at
Camp Meade,
Maryland, where he remained until 1922. His interest in tank warfare was strengthened by many conversations with
George Patton and other senior tank leaders; however their ideas on tank warfare were strongly discouraged by superiors.
Eisenhower became executive officer to General Fox Conner in the
Panama Canal Zone, where he served until 1924. Under Conner's tutelage, he studied military history and theory , and later cited Conner's enormous influence on his military thinking. In 1925-26, he attended the
Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas, and then served as a
battalion commander at
Fort Benning, Georgia, until 1927.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s Eisenhower's career in the peacetime Army stagnated; many of his friends resigned for high paying business jobs. He was assigned to the
American Battle Monuments Commission, directed by General
John J. Pershing, then to the
Army War College, and then served as executive officer to General George V. Moseley, Assistant Secretary of War, from 1929 to 1933. He then served as chief military aide to General
Douglas MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff, until 1935, when he accompanied MacArthur to
The Philippines, where he served as assistant military adviser to the Philippine government. This assignment would prove valuable preparation for handling the egos of
Winston Churchill, Patton and
Bernard Montgomery during World War II. Eisenhower was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1936 after sixteen years as a major. He also learned to fly, although was never rated as a military pilot.
Eisenhower returned to the U.S. in 1939 and held a series of staff positions in
Washington, D.C.,
California, and Texas. In June 1941, he was appointed Chief of Staff to General Walter Krueger, Commander of the 3rd Army, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was promoted to
brigadier general in September 1941. Although his administrative abilities had been noticed, on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II he had never held an active command and was far from being considered as a potential commander of major operations.
World War II
After the
Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff in Washington, where he served until June 1942 with responsibility for creating the major war plans to defeat Japan and
Germany. He was appointed Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defenses under the Chief of War Plans Division, General Leonard T. Gerow, and then succeeded Gerow as Chief of the War Plans Division. Then he was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of Operations Division under Chief of Staff General
George C. Marshall. It was his close association with Marshall which finally brought Eisenhower to senior command positions. Marshall recognized his great organizational and administrative abilities.
In 1942, Eisenhower was appointed Commanding General, European Theater of Operations and was based in
London. In November, he was also appointed Supreme Commander Allied Force of the North African Theater of Operations through the new operational Headquarters AFHQ. The word "expeditionary" was dropped soon after his appointment for security reasons. In February 1943, his authority was extended as commander of AFHQ across the Mediterranean basin to include the British 8th Army, commanded by General
Bernard Montgomery. The 8th Army had advanced across the
Western Desert from the east and was ready for the start of the
Tunisia Campaign. Eisenhower gained his fourth star and gave up command of ETOUSA to be commander of NATOUSA. After the capitulation of
Axis forces in
North Africa, Eisenhower remained in command of the renamed Mediterranean Theater of Operations , keeping the operational title and continued in command of NATOUSA redesignated MTOUSA. In this position he oversaw the
invasion of Sicily and the invasion of the Italian mainland.
In December 1943, it was announced that Eisenhower would be Supreme Allied Commander in
Europe. In January 1944, he resumed command of ETOUSA and the following month was officially designated as the
Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force , serving in a dual role until the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945. In these positions he was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied
assault on the coast of Normandy in June 1944 under the code name
Operation Overlord, the liberation of western Europe and the invasion of
Germany. A month after the Normandy
D-Day on June 6 1944, the
invasion of southern France took place, and control of the forces which took part in the southern invasion passed from the AFHQ to the SHAEF. From then until the
end of the War in Europe on May 8 1945, Eisenhower through SHAEF had supreme command of all operational Allied forces
2, and through his command of ETOUSA, administrative command of all U.S. forces, on the
Western Front north of the
Alps.
As recognition of his senior position in the Allied command, on December 20 1944, he was promoted to General of the Army equivalent to the rank of Field Marshal in most European armies. In this and the previous high commands he held, Eisenhower showed his great talents for leadership and diplomacy. Although he had never seen action himself, he won the respect of front-line commanders. He dealt skillfully with difficult subordinates such as
Omar Bradley and
George Patton and allies such as
Winston Churchill, Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery and General
Charles de Gaulle. He had fundamental disagreements with Churchill and Montgomery over questions of strategy, but these rarely upset his relationships with them. He negotiated with
Soviet Marshal Zhukov, and such was the confidence that President
Franklin D. Roosevelt had in him, he sometimes worked directly with
Stalin.
Eisenhower was offered the
Medal of Honor for his leadership in the European Theater but refused it, saying that it should be reserved for bravery and valor.
It was never a certainty that
Overlord would succeed. The tenuousness surrounding the entire decision including the timing and the location of the Normandy invasion might be summarized by a short speech that Eisenhower wrote in advance, in case he might need it. In it, he took full responsibility for catastrophic failure, should that be the final result. Long after the successful landings on D-Day and the BBC broadcast of Eisenhower's brief speech concerning them, the never-used second speech was found in a shirt pocket by an aide. It read:
- "Our landings have failed and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."
Following the
German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower was appointed Military Governor of the
U.S. Occupation Zone, based in
Frankfurt am Main. Germany was divided into four Occupation Zones, one each for the U.S., Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. In addition, upon full discovery of the
death camps that were part of the
Final Solution , he ordered camera crews to comprehensively document evidence of the atrocity so as to prevent any doubt of its occurrence. He made the controversial decision to reclassify German
prisoners of war in U.S. custody as Disarmed Enemy Forces . As DEFs, they could be compelled to serve as unpaid conscript labor. An unknown number may have died in custody as a consequence of malnutrition, exposure to the elements, and lack of medical care . Eisenhower was an early supporter of the
Morgenthau Plan to permanently remove Germany's industrial capacity to wage future wars. In November 1945 he approved the distribution of 1000 free copies of
Morgenthau's book
Germany is Our Problem, which promoted and described the plan in detail, to American military officials in occupied Germany. Historian
Stephen Ambrose draws the conclusion that, despite Eisenhowers later claims that the act was not an endorsement of the Morgenthau plan, Eisenhower both approved of the plan and had previously given Morgenthau at least some of his ideas on how Germany should be treated.
Eisenhower served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army from 1945-48. In December 1950, he was named Supreme Commander of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization , and given operational command of NATO forces in Europe. Eisenhower retired from active service on May 31, 1952, upon entering politics. He wrote
Crusade in Europe, widely regarded as one of the finest U.S. military memoirs. During this period Eisenhower served as president of
Columbia University from 1948 until 1953, though he was on leave from the university while he served as
NATO commander.
After his many wartime successes, General Eisenhower returned to the U.S. a great hero. Not long after his return, a "
Draft Eisenhower" movement in the Republican party persuaded him to declare his candidacy in the
the 1952 presidential election to counter the candidacy of isolationist Senator
Robert A. Taft. Eisenhower defeated Taft for the nomination but came to an agreement that Taft would stay out of foreign affairs while Eisenhower followed a conservative domestic policy. Eisenhower's campaign was a crusade against the
Truman administration's policies regarding "
Korea,
Communism and Corruption." Eisenhower promised to go to Korea himself and end the war and maintain both a strong NATO abroad against Communism and a corruption-free frugal administration at home. He and his running mate
Richard Nixon easily defeated
Adlai Stevenson in a landslide, marking the first Republican return to the
White House in 20 years. He was the only general to serve as president in the 20th century.
Presidency 1953-1961
Interstate Highway System
One of Eisenhower's most famous achievements as president was building the
Interstate Highway System. He justified the highways through the National Defense Highway Transportation Act as essential to American security during the
Cold War. Large cities would be targets in a future war, and the highways were designed to evacuate them .
Dynamic Conservatism
Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower preached a doctrine of Dynamic Conservatism. Although he maintained a conservative economic policy, he continued all the major
New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security, He expanded its programs and rolled them into a new cabinet level agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional 10 million more workers. His cabinet, consisting of several corporate executives and one labor leader, was dubbed by one journalist "Eight millionaires and a plumber." Eisenhower was extremely popular, winning his second term with 457 of the 530 votes in the
Electoral College, and 57.6% of the popular vote.
Eisenhower Doctrine
After the
Suez Crisis, the United States became the protector of most Western interests in the
Middle East. As a result, Eisenhower felt the need to announce that the United States, in relation to the Middle East, would be "prepared to use armed force...[to counter] aggression from any country controlled by international communism." This was one of Eisenhower's contributions to the Cold War, in which many third-world countries were used as backdrops for friction between the United States and Soviet Union. In July 1958, the U.S. sent 14,000 Marines to Lebanon to put down a rebellion against a pro-Western government.
Civil Rights
Eisenhower supported the 1954
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which segregated schools were ruled to be unconstitutional. The very next day he told District of Columbia officials to make Washington a model for the rest of the country in integrating Negro and white public school children. Liberal critics complained Eisenhower was never enthusiastic about civil rights, but in 1957 he did support and sign the first significant civil rights bills since the 1870s, sent soldiers to Little Rock to integrate their schools, and admitted multi-racial Hawaii as a state in 1959.
The
Little Rock Central High crisis of 1957 involved state refusal to honor a federal court order to integrate the schools. Eisenhower placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent Army troops to escort
nine black students into the all-white school; this incident did not occur without violence. Eisenhower and Arkansas governor
Orval Faubus engaged in tense arguments during this tumultous period in history.
States admitted to the Union
Retirement and death
On January 17 1961, Eisenhower gave his final televised speech from the
Oval Office. In his farewell speech to the nation, Eisenhower raised the issue of the Cold War and role of the U.S. armed forces. He described the Cold War saying: "We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method..." and warned about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals and continued with a warning that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
After Eisenhower left office his reputation declined, and he was seen as having been a "do-nothing" President. This was partly because of the contrast between Eisenhower and his young activist successor,
John F. Kennedy, but also because of his reluctance to support the
civil rights movement or to stop
McCarthyism. Such omissions were held against him during the liberal climate of the 1960s and 1970s. Since that time, however, Eisenhower's reputation has risen because of his non-partisan nature, his wartime leadership, his action in
Arkansas, his being the last President to balance the budget , and an increasing appreciation of how difficult it is today to maintain a prolonged peace. In
recent surveys of historians, Eisenhower often is ranked in the top 10 among all U.S. Presidents.
Eisenhower retired to the place where he and Mamie had spent much of their post-war time, a working farm adjacent to the battlefield at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Gettysburg farm is a National Historic Site . In retirement, he did not completely retreat from political life; he spoke at the 1964 Republican National Convention and appeared with
Barry Goldwater in a Republican campaign commercial from Gettysburg.
Because of legal issues related to holding a military rank while in a civilian office, Eisenhower resigned his permanent commission as General of the Army before entering the office of President of the United States. Upon completion of his Presidential term, his commission on the retired list was reactivated and Eisenhower again was commissioned a five-star general in the United States Army.
Eisenhower died at 12:25 p.m. on March 28 1969, at
Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C., of congestive heart failure at the age of 78. He lies alongside his wife and their first child, who died in childhood, in a small chapel called the Place of Meditation, at the
Eisenhower Presidential Library, located in Abilene. His
state funeral was unique because it was presided over by
Richard Nixon, who was Vice President under Eisenhower and was serving as President of the United States.
Legacy
Eisenhower's picture was on the
dollar coin from 1971 to 1979. Nearly 700 million of the copper-nickel clad coins were minted for general circulation, and far smaller numbers of uncirculated and
proof issues were produced for collectors. He reappeared on a commemorative silver dollar issued in 1990, celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth, which with a double image of him showed his two roles, as both a soldier and a statesman.
He is remembered for ending the Korean War and avoiding military intervention in Vietnam. USS
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the second
Nimitz-class supercarrier, was named in his honor.
In 1971, the
Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California was named after him.
In 1983, The Eisenhower Institute was founded in Washington, D.C., as a policy institute to advance Eisenhower's intellectual and leadership legacies.
In 1999, the
United States Congress created the
Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, which is in the planning stages of creating an enduring
national memorial in Washington, D.C., across the street from the
National Air and Space Museum on the
National Mall.
Religion
When Eisenhower was 5, his parents became followers of the Bible Students, whose members later took the name
Jehovah's Witnesses.The Eisenhower home served as the local WatchTower meeting Hall from 1896 to 1915, when Eisenhower's father stopped regularly associating due to the WatchTower's failed prophesies that Armageddon would occur in October 1914 and 1915. Ike's father received a WatchTower funeral when he died in the 1940s. Ike's mother continued as an active Jehovah's Witness until her death. Ike and his brothers also stopped associating regularly after 1915. He enjoyed a close relationship with his mother throughout her lifetime. In later years, Eisenhower became a communicant in the
Presbyterian church in 1953; in his retirement years, he was a member of the Gettysburg Presbyterian Church.
References
Secondary sources
- Albertson, Dean. ed. Eisenhower as President
- Alexander, Charles C. Holding the Line: The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1961
- Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952 ; Eisenhower. The President ; Eisenhower: Soldier and President one volume version. standard biography
- Bowie, Robert R. and Richard H. Immerman; Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy Oxford University Press, 1998
- Damms, Richard V. The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953-1961
- David Paul T. , Presidential Nominating Politics in 1952. 5 vols., Johns Hopkins Press, 1954.
- D'Este, Carlo. Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life , military biography to 1945
- Divine, Robert A. Eisenhower and the Cold War
- Eisenhower, David. Eisenhower at War 1943-1945 , detailed study by his grandson
- Greenstein, Fred I. The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader
- Harris, Douglas B. "Dwight Eisenhower and the New Deal: The Politics of Preemption" Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1997.
- Harris, Seymour E. The Economics of the Political Parties, with Special Attention to Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy
- Krieg, Joann P. ed. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Soldier, President, Statesman . 24 essays by scholars
- Mary S. McAuliffe, "Eisenhower, the President," Journal of American History 68 : 625-632
- Medhurst; Martin J. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Strategic Communicator Greenwood Press, 1993
- Olson, James S. Historical Dictionary of the 1950s
- Pach, Chester J. And Elmo Richardson. Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower , standard scholarly survey
- Parmet, Herbert S. Eisenhower and the American Crusades . Scholarly biography of post 1945 years.
- Pogue; Forrest C. The Supreme Command official Army history of SHAEF
- Sixsmith, E. K.G. Eisenhower, His Life and Campaigns
- Russell Weigley . Eisenhower's Lieutenants. Indiana University Press, 1981. Ike's dealing with his key generals in WW
