A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower


Book Description

A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower brings new depth to the historiography of this significant and complex figure, providing a comprehensive and up-to-date depiction of both the man and era. Thoughtfully incorporates new and significant literature on Dwight D. Eisenhower Thoroughly examines both the Eisenhower era and the man himself, broadening the historical scope by which Eisenhower is understood and interpreted Presents a complete picture of Eisenhower’s many roles in historical context: the individual, general, president, politician, and citizen This Companion is the ideal starting point for anyone researching America during the Eisenhower years and an invaluable guide for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in history, political science, and policy studies Meticulously edited by a leading authority on the Eisenhower presidency with chapters by international experts on political, international, social, and cultural history




A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower


Book Description

A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower brings new depth to the historiography of this significant and complex figure, providing a comprehensive and up-to-date depiction of both the man and era. Thoughtfully incorporates new and significant literature on Dwight D. Eisenhower Thoroughly examines both the Eisenhower era and the man himself, broadening the historical scope by which Eisenhower is understood and interpreted Presents a complete picture of Eisenhower’s many roles in historical context: the individual, general, president, politician, and citizen This Companion is the ideal starting point for anyone researching America during the Eisenhower years and an invaluable guide for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in history, political science, and policy studies Meticulously edited by a leading authority on the Eisenhower presidency with chapters by international experts on political, international, social, and cultural history




Eisenhower


Book Description

In his magisterial bestseller "FDR," Smith provided a fresh, modern look at one of the most indelible figures in American history. Now this peerless biographer returns with a new life of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America's 34th president.




Eisenhower and Latin America


Book Description

Stephen Rabe's timely book examines President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Latin American policy and assesses the president's actions in light of recent "Eisenhower revisionism." During his first term, Eisenhower paid little attention to Latin America but his objective there was clear: to prevent communism from gaining a foothold. The Eisenhower administration was prepared to cooperate with authoritarian military regimes, but not to fund developmental aid or vigorously promote political democracy. Two events in the second administration convinced Eisenhower that he had underestimated the extent of popular unrest_and thus the potential for Communist inroads: the stoning of Vice-President Richard M. Nixon in Caracas and the radicalization of the Cuban Revolution. He then began to support trade agreements, soft loans, and more strident measures that led to CIA involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion and plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and Rafael Trujillo. In portraying Eisenhower as a virulent anti-Communist and cold warrior, Rabe challenges the Eisenhower revisionists who view the president as a model of diplomatic restraint.




Eisenhower and the Cold War Economy


Book Description

Throughout his two-term presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower faced the challenge of managing a period of peacetime prosperity after more than two decades of depression, war, and postwar inflation. The essential issue he addressed was how the country would pay for the deepening Cold War and the extent to which such unprecedented peacetime commitments would affect the United States economy and its institutions. William M. McClenahan, Jr., and William H. Becker explain how Eisenhower’s beliefs and his experiences as a military bureaucrat and wartime and postwar commander shaped his economic policies. They explore the macro- and microeconomic policies his administration employed to finance the Cold War while adapting Republican ideas and Eisenhower's economic principles to new domestic and foreign policy environments. They also detail how Eisenhower worked with new instruments of government policy making, such as the Council of Economic Advisers and a strengthened Federal Reserve Board. In assessing his administration's policies, the authors demonstrate that, rather than focusing overwhelmingly on international political affairs at the expense of economic issues, Eisenhower’s policies aimed to preserve and enhance the performance of the American free market system, which he believed was inextricably linked to the successful prosecution of the Cold War. While some of the decisions Eisenhower made did not follow conservative doctrine as closely as many in the Republican Party wanted, this book asserts that his approach to and distrust of partisan politics led to success on many fronts and indeed maintained and buttressed the nation's domestic and international economic health. An important and original contribution, this examination of the Eisenhower administration's economic policy enriches our understanding of the history of the modern American economy, the presidency, and conservatism in the United States.




Ike's Spies


Book Description

This classic Cold War-era history looks at the way President Dwight Eisenhower managed America’s secret operations as general and as commander in chief and is based on privileged access to the president and his private papers—from bestselling historian Stephen E. Ambrose. During his time in office, Eisenhower projected the image of a genial bureaucrat, but behind that public face, he ran the most efficient espionage establishment in the world, overseeing assassination plots, the growth of the CIA, and the overthrow of governments. This book gives a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most ambitious secret operations in American history, including the 1954 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán’s government of Guatemala; Operation AJAX, which toppled Iran’s Mossadegh; and the U-2 flights over Russia. Some of Ike’s most conspicuous intelligence missteps are also discussed, including the failure to predict the German attack during the Battle of the Bulge and the tragic encouragement of freedom fighters in Hungary, Indonesia, and Cuba. Ike’s Spies is indispensible to anyone interested in the development of America’s Cold War spy operations.




Ike and Dick


Book Description

Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon had a political and private relationship that lasted nearly twenty years, a tie that survived hurtful slights, tense misunderstandings, and the distance between them in age and temperament. Yet the two men brought out the best and worst in each other, and their association had important consequences for their respective presidencies. In Ike and Dick, Jeffrey Frank rediscovers these two compelling figures with the sensitivity of a novelist and the discipline of a historian. He offers a fresh view of the younger Nixon as a striving tactician, as well as the ever more perplexing person that he became. He portrays Eisenhower, the legendary soldier, as a cold, even vain man with a warm smile whose sound instincts about war and peace far outpaced his understanding of the changes occurring in his own country. Eisenhower and Nixon shared striking characteristics: high intelligence, cunning, and an aversion to confrontation, especially with each other. Ike and Dick, informed by dozens of interviews and deep archival research, traces the path of their relationship in a dangerous world of recurring crises as Nixon’s ambitions grew and Eisenhower was struck by a series of debilitating illnesses. And, as the 1968 election cycle approached and the war in Vietnam roiled the country, it shows why Eisenhower, mortally ill and despite his doubts, supported Nixon’s final attempt to win the White House, a change influenced by a family matter: his grandson David’s courtship of Nixon’s daughter Julie—teenagers in love who understood the political stakes of their union.




Ike the Soldier


Book Description

From the bestselling author of Plain Speaking and Lyndon comes this “vivid and consistently absorbing record of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s military career” (Kirkus Reviews). Bringing together thousands of hours of interviews with the men and women who were closest to him, Merle Miller has constructed a revealing and personal biography of the man who would become the supreme commander. From his childhood in Kansas to West Point, World War I, and Europe where he led the Allied Forces to a hard-won victory in World War II, Ike the Soldier goes behind the historic battles and into the heart and mind of Ike Eisenhower. Miller has crafted the defining biography on the life of the thirty-fourth president, bringing more depth to the man many thought they knew. His strained relationships with his father, brothers, and son are brought into focus; as well as his love affair with his wife Mamie, and his relationship with Kay Summersby—his driver turned companion and confidante during WWII. “An informed and balanced tribute to a world-class leader whose remarkable character gains greater luster with the passage of time.” —Kirkus Reviews “This is a highly enjoyable look at Ike’s personal and official relationships with the people most important to him during the first 55 years of his life, including family, Army and Allied colleagues and heads of state.” —Publishers Weekly




Eisenhower’s Gettysburg Farm


Book Description

The Eisenhower farm was the first and only home that Dwight Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, called their own. During Eisenhower's military career, he and Mamie lived around the world, but he always hoped to own a piece of property and leave it better than he found it. That wish led to the purchase of the Allen Redding farm in 1950 and the Eisenhowers' thorough renovation of its dwelling. During Eisenhower's presidency, the farm served as a retreat from the Washington pressure cooker. When his presidential term ended, the Eisenhowers embraced a new chapter in their lives together. Eisenhower maintained an active schedule of writing, speechmaking, correspondence, and meetings with a wide range of national and world leaders, as well as supervision of an active farm operation. Mamie and Dwight shared a busy social life in retirement, taking special pleasure in spending time with their son John, daughter-in-law Barbara, and four grandchildren. This book tells the Eisenhowers' Gettysburg story.




Zachary Taylor


Book Description

The rough-hewn general who rose to the nation's highest office, and whose presidency witnessed the first political skirmishes that would lead to the Civil War Zachary Taylor was a soldier's soldier, a man who lived up to his nickname, "Old Rough and Ready." Having risen through the ranks of the U.S. Army, he achieved his greatest success in the Mexican War, propelling him to the nation's highest office in the election of 1848. He was the first man to have been elected president without having held a lower political office. John S. D. Eisenhower, the son of another soldier-president, shows how Taylor rose to the presidency, where he confronted the most contentious political issue of his age: slavery. The political storm reached a crescendo in 1849, when California, newly populated after the Gold Rush, applied for statehood with an anti- slavery constitution, an event that upset the delicate balance of slave and free states and pushed both sides to the brink. As the acrimonious debate intensified, Taylor stood his ground in favor of California's admission—despite being a slaveholder himself—but in July 1850 he unexpectedly took ill, and within a week he was dead. His truncated presidency had exposed the fateful rift that would soon tear the country apart.