GREAT SOLIDER, OKAY PRESIDENT

A review of Stephen Ambrose’s Eisenhower: Solider and President (1990)

(Rating 4 of 5)

 

Stephen Ambrose has written a few books of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.  This book is a condensed one-volume biography on the nation’s thirty-fourth president.  As the book’s title suggests there are two main focuses in the work, Eisenhower the solider and Eisenhower the President. 

The early part of his life is glossed over.  The important moments are there, the time he almost lost his leg as a kid, his rebellious West Point years, courtship and marriage, his disappointment with his lack of involvement in World War I, the death of his first-born son, and his time in the Philippines.  This is stuff is only briefly touched upon but it is there.

Ambrose portrays Eisenhower as brilliant general who was not only a talented tactician, but also a great leader who could identify talent and put in the best place to be successful.  Eisenhower could take conflicting personalities and make them work together and successfully.  He hated war but he hated Hitler more, and that stronger hatred drove him though Europe. 

As president however, Ambrose portrays a different picture.  Contrary his later defense in the closing chapter, Ambrose does present him as a ‘Whig President’ who acts more a chairman of the board and not a chief executive.  Unlike most presidents, Eisenhower did not need the presidency he didn’t worry about his ‘legacy’ he already had one.  Ambrose presents a president who would refuse to take bold stands at home or abroad.  This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing with the tensions with the Soviet Unions being what they were refusing to draw lines in the sand was probably a good thing.  He enforced Supreme Court decisions on segregation, despite that he wanted the Court to wait to the next president was in office.  It is easy to see why John F. Kennedy’s claim that ‘we need to get the county moving again’ caught on to a lot of people.  Eisenhower just wanted to cruise through the fifties.

I enjoy Ambrose take on Eisenhower’s retirement.  In some ways Eisenhower was more prepared then many of his predecessors to become the president, having been a world figure for over a decade before taking the office.  Eisenhower in the same respect was more unprepared for the challenges of retirement.  The scene where Ambrose describes Eisenhower’s attempt to use a phone is hilarious. Although I may have preferred Michael Kordra’s Ike this is a good one-stop book to learn about one of America’s most important leaders in history.

{Video is one of the earliest color broadcast}

Grandpa’s War

A review of David Eisenhower’s Eisenhower at War: 1943-1945 (1986)

(Rating:5 of 5)

This book about Dwight D. Eisenhower’s command over the Allied European Forces in World War II is unique to all others on the same topic. For the author is the grandson and namesake of that very commander*. David Eisenhower began working on his book during the Watergate controversy that brought down the presidency of his father-in-law, President Richard M. Nixon. To the younger Eisenhower, the work was a form of escapism from the problems of their facing. However, originally his book was going to be about the second term of grandfather’s presidency because those both were happier memories and a fascinating time in the nation’s history. As he begun to work however, he found himself in the position of an old historian’s cliché. That is ‘never ask a historian for a little bit of background,’ because more often than not you end up with a larger story than you had originally asked for. Every time David Eisenhower went to describe an event in the second term, he found himself having to go back and explain the events the first. Moreover, as explained the events of the first, he found himself going back all the way to the war to provide the details that he wanted. So as a result, instead of writing a book about the second term he decided to write one about the war.

The book focuses on the planning and execution of ‘Operation: Overlord.’ Overlord was the plan of invasion of Normandy and the crusade in Europe. The book, in the first three chapters, deals with the planning, events, and atmosphere leading up to D-Day. The rest of the book deals with the war until V-E day. The book contains descriptions of battles, charts, and photographs form the events. However, that is not what I personally found to be the most fascinating part of the book. To me, what make this book a good read was where the grandson could tell stories of events only a few people would have been privy to.

“In the next several days the Eisenhowers spent the late afternoon and evening with guests at Telegraph Cottage. There were reunions with ‘Uncle Everett’ Hughes and Patton over dinners that John’s father cooked in a tall chef’s hat on the new patio behind the glassed-in porch, followed be serious after-dinner bridge games attended by hosts of orderlies. John had noted that a slight ‘military barrier’ had grown up between father and son. During a twilight stroll through the woods behind the five-acre Telegraph Cottage compound, John, walking to his father’s left, posed a question. ‘If we should meet an officer who ranks above me and below you, how do we handle this? Do I salute first, and when he returns my salute, do you return his?’ John knew he raised an unresolved point of Army protocol which his father sidestepped with a smile. ‘John, there isn’t an officer in this theater who doesn’t rank above you and below me.’” p.299

Those kinds of personnel touches between a father and son that could only be retold by a family member are some of the best parts of this work. My all-time favorite happens to involve the pervious King of England.

“The King, afflicted by ill health since youth, was notoriously quiet and shy was hampered by a speech impediment. According to a story told by staff members, the King and Eisenhower in Tunisia had once ridden together in a jeep for several hours in complete silence. On the twenty-sixth, however, King George was gregarious. Over lunch, served buffet style in an upstairs apartment, the three reminisced. The Queen told Eisenhower for the first time about something that had happened on his tour of Windsor Castle two years before. As it turned out, the guide, Colonel Sterling, had forgotten to that the King and Queen were on the grounds. The couple were sipping tea in the garden when they suddenly heard Sterling, Eisenhower, and Clark approaching. The royal couple had not wanted to intrude, so they knelt on their hands and knees behind the hedge until the Americans had walked by. Now the three shared a laugh.” p.237

The very idea of the King and Queen hiding behind a bush is very amusing. It is personnel information like that, which makes this book very enjoyable. I am sure that anyone who gives this book his or her time will enjoy it as well.

*Dwight D. Eisenhower was born ‘David Dwight’ but his mother reversed first and middle names. Later his grandson was named Dwight David Eisenhower II, but answers to David. Camp David is named after the author.

I LIKE IKE

A review of Michael Korda’s Ike: An American Hero (2007)

(Rating 5 of 5)

Michael Korda’s Ike is a fascinating look into one of the most famous men of the twentieth century. He was a first-rate solider and statesman, this life-long solider would leave office warning the nation of the growing military-industrial complex. This is an incredible story of a boy from Abilene, Kansas who would rise to become one of the most famous figures on the world stage. If history had not intervened he probably would have retired from the army a bird colonel and we never would heard about him.

The book begins with Korda explaining how the United States mistreats its heroes of the past, through endless amounts of revision it tears down one giant after another. Then the narrative shifts to the moments before the great invasion of D-Day. General Eisenhower is making not only on the most important decisions of his life, but in all of world history. Then from there the story changes again, it goes back to his time as a boy. Actually Korda spends a minute trying to explain the entire family history leading up to the birth of David Dwight Eisenhower whose first two names would later be switched around. There is almost no hint of what was ultimately going to come. His army career is pretty basic he moves slowly up the chain of command with his commanding officers seeing his greatest value as coaching the base’s football team.


(Dwight D. Eisenhower of World War I)

Eisenhower gets married to Mamie Doud, and she ends up becoming a typical Army wife always looking to ‘push hubby’ through. Eisenhower played no significant role in World War I; he was just a staff officer, although, he did run into another officer, only slightly senior to him, George Patton.


(Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie)

“Both men were fiercely ambitious, but Ike did his best to conceal his ambition, whereas Patton wore his on his sleeve. Unlike Ike, Patton was eccentric, erratic, vain, deeply emotional, and a full-fledged military romantic, in love with the whole idea of glory, capable of writing, as Ike would surely not have been, of his beloved cavalry, ‘You must be: a horse master, a scholar; a high minded gentleman; a cold blooded hero; a hot-blooded savage.’ Such words—and sentiments—came easily to Patton, who saw himself (and wanted others to see him) as a cavalier, a swashbuckling hero on horseback, a student of war history and war poetry; and who at times seriously believed himself to be the reincarnation of great warriors of the past. Perhaps no solider has ever had a more romantic view of war, and, at the same time, a better understanding of its hard practicalities, than Patton.”p.148

(General Patton)

Dwight D. Eisenhower spent sixteen years at the rank of major. He was just a major when Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928, which is odd when it is considered that Major Eisenhower would be the next Republican to win election. Eisenhower spent a few good years as the top aid to General MacArthur when the General was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. At this point Eisenhower had actually made lieutenant colonel.


(Herbert Hoover the last president elected before Eisenhower)

“MacArthur’s remaining year as Army Chief of Staff was painful, as Roosevelt, with the deft political cunning for which he soon became famous, carefully undercut the position of the person he regarded as one of the two ‘most dangerous men in America,’ while all the time continuing to profess admiration and warm affection for him, he was only too aware that the New Dealers, as they were already beginning to be known, viewed him with deep suspicion, hated him for his reactionary political views, and were afraid he might harbor political ambitions which would bring him in open conflict with the administration—that he might become, in fact, the proverbial ‘man on a white horse’ in the event of a fascist putsch in America. In short, their feelings about General MacArthur were a paranoid as his about them.”p.205

(General MacArthur)

When World War II broke out Eisenhower would begin to make his mark on the world, in a little over three and half years he would rise from lieutenant colonel to five-star-general. In that time he over saw the invasion of Sicily and the invasion of the Italian mainland. As the Supreme Allied Commander, he had to be both politician and solider. He was great at both roles. In the politician angle he had great success, especially in Britain. While in Britain there was one lady there named Kay Summersby, who Eisenhower may have known a little too well. She was officially his chauffeur but she proved to be a lot more than that.


(Ike as general)


(Ike's wartime gal)

“Perhaps the only people of consequence who snubbed Kay were King George VI, who was always petrified by the slightest hint of an improper relationship because of the misfortunes of his older brother, and who deliberately treated her like a chauffeur, which is to say a servant; and General Marshall, who considered part of his job to telephone Mamie once a week, and was deeply suspicious of Kay Summersby. Whatever virtues Ike may have had, however—and he had many—discretion about his friendship with Kay was not one of them, and people can hardly be blamed then or now for drawing the logical conclusion.”p.284

(King George VI did not like Kay)

During the D-Day invasion Eisenhower, like General Grant in the Civil War—as Kordra points out—was concerned with armies not territories. His primary mission was to defeat the Army of Germany not to capture particular points of real estate. It was this attitude that attracts his primary criticism as a general. However, it was Eisenhower who kept allies bound together and united no matter how hot-headed their leaders’ personalities may have been, Eisenhower got the best out of each of them.


(The General giving orders)

“Since 1945, almost everybody has had a say about the supposed mistakes that were made in the last year of the war—especially the presumed failure of on the part of the western Allies to take Berlin and the failure to confront the Soviet Union over the borders and the independence of the eastern European countries. Many if not most of these have been blamed on Roosevelt, but it should always be borne in mind that the president did not live to write his own memoirs, or to criticize those of others. Ike, when he came to write his, was careful not to join in postwar criticism of Roosevelt. Ike himself had shown no interest in wasting the lives of American soldiers to get to Berlin, and several times he offended even angered Churchill by going over the heads of the prime minister and the president to deal directly with Stalin, as if he himself were a head of state, to ensure that there would be no accidental clashes between Allied and Soviet troops as their front lines began to touch.” p.432-3

When Eisenhower he served in a number of posts, finally, in 1952, Eisenhower decided to run for the Republican Nomination for president. He would win beating Senator Robert Taft, and he would go on to win the election against his Adlai E. Stevenson. He would have an eventful and successful presidency. Under him there would be an inter-state highway system and an end to the Korean War. He would send soldiers to protect the ‘Little Rock Nine’ students who braved the way against segregation in education and all other aspects of life. The Cold War would continue with spy planes and talks of a ‘missal gap.’ There also was the crisis in Hungry and Suez Canal.

“It was the end of more than Eden’s career—it was the end of Britain’s remaining pretensions to independent, imperial power; it was the end of the fiction, still persisting from World War II, that the United States, Great Britain, and France were equal world powers. (Britain would shortly abandon Malaya, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and much else besides; France would shortly lose Morocco, Algeria, and most of its African colonies.)


(President Dwight D. Eisenhower)

Ike had acted swiftly, decisively, and undeniably for the good; and although he felt great sympathy for his old friends in Britain, and even greater sympathy for the gallant but ill-advised Hungarians, he carefully managed events to avoid a clash with the Soviet Union, and he preserved peace—not a perfect peace, to be sure, or one without victims and compromises., but still peace. The Soviet Union had threatened to use atomic weapons on London and Paris at the height of the Suez Crisis, and in order to discourage American intervention in Hungary, but Ike had taken all this blustering calmly in his stride and kept a firm control of events.” p.693-4

Eisenhower retired for good, in 1961, when his successor John F. Kennedy, who had beaten Ike’s vice president, Richard Nixon, took office. He would live into 1969, just long enough to see Nixon, whose daughter would marry his grandson, become president.



Michael Korda wrote a great biography on the thirty-fourth president very detailed and informative. There are also historical allusions to other time periods littered thought the book, which as a history buff, I really do appreciate that. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wanted to know more about Dwight D. Eisenhower and World War II.

{Videos are as follows, the first is an Ike campaign ad made by Walt Disney, the second is President Eisenhower's famous farewell address.}