Eisenhower: Soldier and President

Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen Ambrose

I fell in love with Stephen Ambrose’s style of writing after reading his 3 volume retrospective of Richard Nixon.  He’s very clear, concise and easy to understand.  He seems never to spend too much time on laborious details about any one event in his subject’s history except where obviously needed (case in point – volume 3 of the Nixon series spent a lot of pages on the Watergate crisis.)

Because of this, I was a bit put off by the fact that this biography is actually an amalgamation of two books that the author devoted to Dwight Eisenhower – the first one focused on the soldier, the second one, the President.  I’m not a big fan of anything abridged when it comes to literary works, but I confess that I couldn’t pass up on the bargain price offered up by Kindle!  So, suffice to say, I think I would have liked to have read more, but whether or not the information I would have liked the author to expand on is discussed in the two “uncut” versions remains unknown to me.

That’s not to say that this is not a good read.  Everything that I expected from an author such as Ambrose is present.  We don’t get too much detail on Eisenhower’s early life – other than he was a typical Midwestern boy around the turn of the twentieth century who had four brothers, got into a lot of fights, and played a lot of football.  Yes, even then you could see that this young boy had the potential to be a general and/or a president.

Although he enters the army via West Point, he never engages in any military conflict up until World War II.  His promotion to General is based on tenure, and not necessarily accomplishments (the only real action he could have seen was in World War I, yet he “just missed” being in the thick of things).  One thing that all see in this brilliant young man is his ability to succeed at battle “case studies” that is apparently prevalent in one’s military training.  He has the smarts to know just how to win the big battles.  As World War II progresses, he’s in some very high level conflicts.  He makes mistakes, but is such a strong leader that eventually everyone “back home” likes Ike.  Loves him actually.  Strangely, the politics of war time can be just as exasperating as anywhere else, and by the time Ike is the Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, he has to deal with a lot of bickering - especially with Bernard Montgomery and George Patton (the two men hated each other, and Ike really doesn’t care for them either).  Still, he succeeds as a strong leader should, and we get a very detailed glimpse into the preparation of Operation Overlord (D-Day).  Although history tells us that this turning point was a major success, there was a lot of gambling, second guessing, and uncertainty up until the morning of the invasion.  This event alone warrants its own narrative (which Ambrose, amongst many others, has written).

Ike is such a national hero that everyone wants him to run as President upon conclusion of the war.  Even current President Harry Truman wants him to run in 1948 (Ike declines, Truman is re-elected).  Finally the masses are placated in the 1952 election, and Ike has two successful terms.  That’s not to say flawless – he makes several mistakes, but overall history holds his presidency in higher than average regard.  The best thing about Eisenhower’s presidency is that the man never had to pander to anyone.  Being a successful five-star general essentially means you can win election to the highest office of the free world without having to kiss anyone’s backside.  This was very refreshing.  The man never really cared much about what others thought of him.

Such attitudes did have some downsides however.  One example was his Vice President, Richard Nixon.  Although the relationship between the two was never perfect, Ike did respect Nixon.  He wanted Nixon to step down as Vice President in 1956 and accept a Cabinet position instead so Nixon could be “better prepared” to be President one day.  What Ike never realized is that such a move would have been viewed as a horrible demotion and probably would have killed Nixon politically.

Unlike the stereotypical war monger that becomes Commander in Chief, Eisenhower is very cautious when it comes to the military and military spending while he is President.  Quite frequently, Eisenhower is constantly telling the country that the military is too large, spending too much money, and has too many bombs.  He is persistent in balancing the nation’s budget, and if he has to massively cut military spending, it’s a no brainer to him.  It’s not that Ike has become “anti-military”, it’s just that as a successful military leader, he’s smart enough to know it’s not how much money you spend on defense, but how you spend money on defense.  He looks at the military in the nuclear age as just being wasteful.

We also read about wife Mamie, son John, and his wartime secretary Kay (despite consistent allegations over the years, an affair was never proven between the two, but it’s very obvious that the two were somewhat in love with one another being so far from home during the war.)  Ike’s post presidency years are talked about a bit too briefly.  I was hoping for more reflections as to his thoughts on the country during the 1960s.  It’s talked about, but not as much detail as I would have liked.  Why, for example, was Eisenhower so against involvement in Vietnam back in 1954, yet seems to be one of the biggest hawks of the 1960s during the Lyndon Johnson administration?  This was very odd indeed to read, and I had to wonder if Ike was getting a bit senile.  I wish there could have been more explanation.

Although this book is favorable towards Eisenhower, I was very pleased that the author showed the man’s warts as well.  He was not perfect.  Especially heartbreaking was his response (or lack of) to the Civil Rights movement.  He literally just wished the whole problem would “go away”, and worried too much about alienating his southern friends than he did pursuing equality.  To be fair, this seemed to be the attitude of most leaders in the Oval Office (even, to some extent  Kennedy and Johnson), but you can’t help wonder how much better things could have been, and how the Civil Rights movement could have taken bigger leaps in a quicker time frame had Ike actually cared.

Reading about the goods and the bads is what I always like in a biography, and I’m very glad that the author didn’t elect to gloss over nor ignore the man’s shortcomings.  I can now honestly say, that overall, I like Ike.