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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Christian Science Monitor • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Magisterial.”—The New York Times
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In this extraordinary volume, Jean Edward Smith presents a portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America’s thirty-fourth president. Here is Eisenhower the young dreamer, charting a course from Abilene, Kansas, to West Point and beyond. Drawing on a wealth of untapped primary sources, Smith provides new insight into Ike’s maddening apprenticeship under Douglas MacArthur. Then the whole panorama of World War II unfolds, with Eisenhower’s superlative generalship forging the Allied path to victory. Smith also gives us an intriguing examination of Ike’s finances, details his wartime affair with Kay Summersby, and reveals the inside story of the 1952 Republican convention that catapulted him to the White House.
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Smith’s chronicle of Eisenhower’s presidential years is as compelling as it is comprehensive. Derided by his detractors as a somnambulant caretaker, Eisenhower emerges in Smith’s perceptive retelling as both a canny politician and a skillful, decisive leader. He managed not only to keep the peace, but also to enhance America’s prestige in the Middle East and throughout the world.
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Unmatched in insight, Eisenhower in War and Peace at last gives us an Eisenhower for our time—and for the ages.
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Praise for Eisenhower in War and Peace
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“[A] fine new biography . . . [Eisenhower’s] White House years need a more thorough exploration than many previous biographers have given them. Smith, whose long, distinguished career includes superb one-volume biographies of Grant and Franklin Roosevelt, provides just that.”—The Washington Post
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“Highly readable . . . [Smith] shows us that [Eisenhower’s] ascent to the highest levels of the military establishment had much more to do with his easy mastery of politics than with any great strategic or tactical achievements.”—The Wall Street Journal
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“Always engrossing . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and D’Este, this is the best.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“No one has written so heroic a biography [on Eisenhower] as this year’s Eisenhower in War and Peace [by] Jean Edward Smith.”—The National Interest
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“Dwight Eisenhower, who was more cunning than he allowed his adversaries to know, understood the advantage of being underestimated. Jean Edward Smith demonstrates precisely how successful this stratagem was. Smith, America’s greatest living biographer, shows why, now more than ever, Americans should like Ike.”—George F. Will
- Sales Rank: #44390 in eBooks
- Published on: 2012-02-21
- Released on: 2012-02-21
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
“Magisterial.”—The New York Times
�
“[A] fine new biography . . . [Eisenhower’s] White House years need a more thorough exploration than many previous biographers have given them. Smith, whose long, distinguished career includes superb one-volume biographies of Grant and Franklin Roosevelt, provides just that.”—The Washington Post
�
“Highly readable . . . [Smith] shows us that [Eisenhower’s] ascent to the highest levels of the military establishment had much more to do with his easy mastery of politics than with any great strategic or tactical achievements.”—The Wall Street Journal
�
“Always engrossing . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and D’Este, this is the best.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
�
“No one has written so heroic a biography [on Eisenhower] as this year’s Eisenhower in War and Peace [by] Jean Edward Smith.”—The National Interest
�
“Dwight Eisenhower, who was more cunning than he allowed his adversaries to know, understood the advantage of being underestimated. Jean Edward Smith demonstrates precisely how successful this stratagem was. Smith, America’s greatest living biographer, shows why, now more than ever, Americans should like Ike.”—George F. Will
About the Author
Jean Edward Smith is the author of the highly acclaimed FDR, winner of the 2008 Francis Parkman Prize; Grant, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist; John Marshall: Definer of a Nation; and Lucius D. Clay: An American Life. A member of the faculty at the University of Toronto for thirty-five years, and at Marshall University for twelve, he is currently a senior scholar in the history department at Columbia.
Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE
Just Folks
I'm just folks. I come from the people,
the ordinary people.
-dwight d. eisenhower
dwight d. eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas, on October 14, 1890.1 He was the third of seven sons born to David and Ida Eisenhower, and the only one born in Texas. The Eisenhowers lived in Denison from October 1888 to March 1892, and it was the economic low point of their married life. David worked for ten dollars a week as an engine wiper for the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas (Katy) Railroad, and the family lived in a soot-encrusted shanty near the tracks.
David's bout with poverty was self-inflicted. His Eisenhower ancestors had been prosperous farmers, first in the Odenwald region of Germany, south of Frankfurt, then in Pennsylvania, then Kansas. The first Eisenhower to arrive in America was Hans Nicholas, who landed in Philadelphia in 1741, part of the wave of Protestant emigration from Europe to the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. The family flourished amid the fertile soil of the Susquehanna Valley. Originally Lutheran, they married into the River Brethren, a doctrinaire offshoot of the Mennonites, embraced the faith, and quickly emerged as leaders of the flock.1 Jacob, David's father (and Ike's grandfather), became the preacher and a patriarch of the sect, attracting large audiences to his sermons, which he delivered in German-
the plattdeutsch vernacular that was still spoken in most households.
In 1878, the River Brethren sold their holdings along the Susquehanna and moved to Kansas, lured by the promise of cheap land, deep soil, and the opportunity to plant their community in the virgin countryside. They took the train from Harrisburg, filling fifteen freight cars with their farm equipment and belongings, including a dozen heavy-duty eight-horse wagons new to the prairie. They also brought a half-million dollars in cash (roughly $9 million in current dollars), the product of a thrifty lifestyle and successful land sales in a rising eastern market.2 That combination of thrift and capital, of diligence and experience, plus a generous helping of communal support, ensured success where others failed. As an early Kansas history put it, the River Brethren were "one of the most complete and perfectly organized [colonies] that ever entered a new country."3
The colony settled in Dickinson County along the fertile banks of Smoky Hill River, smack in the middle of Kansas and twenty miles west of the geographic center of the United States, an area that would become one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world.4 Jacob purchased a quarter section (160 acres) of prime farmland and erected a large house that also served as a Sunday meeting place for the brethren. He built a huge barn reminiscent of the Dutch barns in Pennsylvania, added to his dairy herd, and constructed a wooden windmill.
The River Brethren thrived in their new setting. Jacob acquired more land, helped found a successful local creamery, and established a bank in the nearby village of Hope. When his children married, he provided each with a quarter section of tillable land as a homestead and two thousand dollars in cash, more than enough to get started if they wished to follow in his footsteps.
David Eisenhower was fifteen when his parents moved to Kansas. Unlike his siblings he had no interest in farming and secured his father's permission to study engineering and mechanics at Lane College, a fledgling educational institution founded by the United Brethren in Christ in nearby Lecompton. With a faculty of ten part-time instructors and two hundred students, the school had a modest curriculum emphasizing religious studies and vocational training with a smattering of the liberal arts. David enrolled in September 1883, at the age of twenty, and the following year met a captivating young woman from Virginia, Ida Stover, who had entered Lane to study music.
Ida's background was similar to David's. Her ancestors had emigrated from Swabia (near Stuttgart) a decade before the Eisenhowers, settled initially in Pennsylvania, then in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Among the first Germans to reach the Shenandoah, they prospered tilling the soil and soon accumulated substantial land holdings. Ida was born at Mount Sidney in 1862, one of eleven children, and was baptized in the Lutheran faith. Her parents died when she was young, and she was raised by her maternal grandparents. Blessed with boundless confidence, she left home to attend high school in Staunton, and then taught for two years in a one-room schoolhouse near Mount Sidney. When she turned twenty-one, Ida came into an inheritance of a thousand dollars left by her father. Several of her brothers had already moved to Kansas, and she used part of the money to join them. In June 1883, she settled in Lecompton with her brother William, a successful local minister. That autumn she entered Lane.5
Ida and David made an attractive couple, but in many ways they could not have been more different. She was optimistic, perky, and, in the words of one biographer, "as bright as the Kansas sunshine."6 He was solemn, introverted, and stubborn-as humorless and self-absorbed as Ida was vivacious and outgoing. They were married on September 23, 1885, David's twenty-second birthday, and Ida spent the last of her inheritance, some $600 (roughly $10,000 today), on a new ebony piano built by Hallett and Cumston in Boston, a possession she treasured for the rest of her life.
Neither David nor Ida completed their studies at Lane. With his father's support, David opened a general store in Hope, using the proceeds from his wedding present as capital.7 The village of Hope, located twenty-eight miles southeast of Abilene, was the commercial center for the River Brethren. The main line of the Topeka, Salina, and Western Railroad had just reached the settlement, and the opportunity for growth appeared assured. Because David had no business experience, he formed a partnership with Milton Good, a young man roughly the same age who was a clothing salesman in Abilene and who was familiar with the retail trade. There were two apartments above the store. David and Ida lived in one, and the Goods in the other.
According to Eisenhower legend, Milton Good was a scoundrel who absconded with the firm's cash, leaving David helpless to pay the store's bills. The business failed, and David was forced to travel to Denison to find work. That is the account David and Ida told, and which the Eisenhower sons dutifully passed on.8
That is not what happened. Milton Good did not abscond with the money, and the store did not fail. It had been a rocky partnership from the beginning-the partners were temperamentally mismatched, and David was far from easy to work with. After eighteen months they dissolved the partnership and David bought out Good. He borrowed $3,500 from his father, pledged the store's inventory as collateral, and used the money to purchase Good's share of the business. Three days later Jacob Eisenhower canceled the mortgage, in effect converting the loan into a gift.9
Milton Good's place in the store was taken by David's younger brother, Abraham Lincoln Eisenhower, and the firm was rechristened Eisenhower Brothers. Abraham was a River Brethren preacher and practicing veterinarian, and was as genial as David was somber. With Abraham's spark the business continued, although David grew increasingly dissatisfied. He lost interest in the store and walked away from it in October 1888. The business was renamed A. L. Eisenhower & Company, and David drifted off to Denison, leaving Ida, who was six months pregnant, and their two-year-old son, Arthur, in Abraham's care.10
David's decision to quit the store and abandon his pregnant wife is incomprehensible. He had no job lined up or profession on which to fall back, and he disdained the farm life at which the Eisenhowers excelled. In fact, the decision is so inexplicable that David could never own up to it, and neither parent ever revealed the truth to their children. Out of pity for David, those who knew the truth-the Eisenhower family and others-also kept the secret to themselves, complicit, as it were, in a myth that had no substance. As a result, Ike and his brothers died believing the family's straitened circumstances were due to Milton Good's treachery rather than their father's instability.11
Ida remained in Hope with Abraham until her second son-
christened Edgar, for Edgar Allan Poe-was born, and in April 1889 moved the family to join David in Denison. Eighteen months later Dwight was born. By this time, the family had hit rock bottom. David was twenty-seven, Ida a year older. Of his own volition, David had squandered a substantial inheritance. The Eisenhowers lived in what was little more than a shack beside the tracks. Aside from Ida's piano (which had been left in Hope), they had no assets other than their clothes and a few household possessions, and absolutely no prospect of doing better.
The family came to the rescue. In 1891, after the death of his wife, Jacob Eisenhower visited his eldest son in Denison and was visibly shaken by the poverty in which he and Ida were living.12 The Belle Springs Creamery, which Jacob had helped found, and which had become one of the largest and most successful enterprises in Dickinson County, had recently built a new plant in Abilene.13 Chris Musser, David's brother-in-law (he had married David's sister Amanda), was the manager of the plant, and Jacob prevailed upon him to find a position for David. Musser offered him a job as a refrigeration mechanic at "less than $50 a month."14 That is essentially what David was earning in Denison, but the job was a considerable step up from scrubbing the grime from Katy locomotives, and he would be back in the bosom of the family. At Ida's urging, he accepted immediately. In March 1892, after three and a half years of self-imposed exile, David and Ida returned to Abilene. His total assets, which he carried in his pocket, amounted to $24.15.
David and Ida rented a small frame house a few blocks from the creamery. It had no plumbing or electricity, and sat tight by the neighbors with no yard or garden. The Eisenhowers remained there for seven years while three more sons were born: Roy in 1892; Paul in 1894 (he died in infancy); and Earl in 1898. Five boys in a cramped house made life nearly impossible. Again the family came to the rescue. In 1898, David's brother Abraham sold his veterinary practice (he had sold the store several years earlier) and moved west as a religious missionary. Abraham owned a large two-story frame house set on a three-acre lot, complete with a barn and fruit orchard. He agreed to sell the property to David for a thousand dollars. Jacob advanced the money, and the title was put in Ida's name-evidently a precaution against a recurrence of David's wanderlust.15 That is the house in which the Eisenhower boys grew to maturity, and which is now the focal point of the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene.
The Abilene of 1898 was not the Abilene of Wild Bill Hickok and the Chisholm Trail.2 The famous cow town of the 1860s and '70s had faded into a sleepy Kansas backwater. The streets were still unpaved, the sidewalks still made of wooden planks, and the scent of the horse apples still lay over the main street. But the saloons and dance halls were gone. Abilene had but one policeman, who patrolled not for local crime, of which there was none, but for transient hustlers and others of ill repute. Churches, hymn singing, and picnics by the riverbank provided the town's excitement. Abilene had become a citadel of Protestant fundamentalism, the Kansas cradle of Prohibition. It was one of many buckles on the Bible Belt: a wholesome town of 3,500 where respectable citizens did not profane the Sabbath with baseball or football. The politics were populist, but the lifestyle was as staid and proper as on Boston's Beacon Hill. It was the American heartland.
Eisenhower was eight when the family moved to their new home. "I have found out later we were very poor," he recalled, "but we didn't know it at the time."16 David worked twelve hours a day, six days a week at the creamery, but his meager salary scarcely covered basic necessities. Ida ran the household, assigned chores to the children, and managed what became a three-acre garden plot. There were two cows to provide milk, a flock of chickens for eggs, ducks, pigs, and a horse to plow the garden and pull the family wagon. Except for flour, sugar, salt, and kerosene for their lamps, the Eisenhowers were largely self-sufficient. The boys wore hand-me-downs, performed odd jobs around town for spending money, and grew to manhood unencumbered by the complexities of urban life.
Religion loomed large in the Eisenhower household. The day began with David reading scripture to the family, there were prayers before each meal, and after supper the family gathered again to pass the Bible from hand to hand as each boy read a passage out loud. "This was a good way to get us to read the Bible," said Ike's younger brother Milton (who was born in 1899). "I am not sure it was a good way to help us understand it."17
None of the Eisenhower brothers shared their parents' religious ardor. By the time Ike left for West Point he had read the Bible through twice. He was familiar with it and often quoted passages from memory, but he rarely took it literally. His vocabulary was punctuated with profanity that would make a mule skinner blush, and throughout his military service he never joined a church or attended Sunday service.18 As president he allowed himself to be convinced thath the United States was a Christian country, joined Mamie in the Presbyterian faith, and urged that the words "under God" be inserted in the pledge of allegiance.193 Like FDR, a nominal Episcopalian, Eisenhower appreciated religion's political resonance.
For their part, David and Ida left the River Brethren and began the search for religious certainty in more personal terms. David found it in the Great Pyramid of Giza, which he reproduced in a six-by-ten- foot scale drawing and which he believed corroborated the prophecies in the Bible. Ida turned to a more austere and primitive sect known as Bible Students, which in 1931 adopted the name "Jehovah's Witnesses."20 Ike's brother Edgar remembers meetings in their house. "Everyone made his own interpretation of the Scripture lessons. Mother played the piano, and they sang hymns before and after each meeting. It was a real old time prayer meeting. They talked to God, read Scriptures, and everyone got a chance to state his relationship with Him."21 David attended Bible Students meetings with Ida for a number of years and then dropped out, retreating into personal mysticism.
After his misadventure in Denison, David was chastened and bitter. He became ever more sullen and introspective-something of a stranger to his children, with a quick and fearful temper. David never played with his sons, never took them hunting or fishing, did not swim with them, showed no interest in who their friends were, and rarely inquired about their activities. "He was an inflexible man with a stern code," said Edgar.
Most helpful customer reviews
231 of 238 people found the following review helpful.
Comprehensive and detailed, but also very entertaining - 5*
By Metallurgist
I have read Jean Smith's biographies of Presidents Grant and FDR and liked them a lot. I was therefore very anxious to read his Eisenhower biography, and I was not disappointed. The book is quite detailed but is also very enjoyable reading and not the least bit academic or dry. I recommend this book because it provides a comprehensive portrait of a man whose talents are often overlooked. Smith clearly shows that Eisenhower's rise to prominence was due to hard work, garnering superior fitness reports that carried him to jobs with ever increasing responsibilities and visibility. To be sure, Eisenhower had many mentors who protected him and arranged for his appointments to serve under a previous or a current army chief of staff (Generals Pershing, MacArthur, and Marshall). Working for these men was indispensable for Eisenhower's career, but even more importantly was their recognition of the superior work that he did for them. The best way to describe Smith's picture of Eisenhower is to repeat the opinion of a fellow general, cited in the book: Eisenhower was "affable, energetic, dynamic, zealous, original, loyal, capable, dependable, and outstanding."
Eisenhower has been the subject of numerous excellent biographies, so it is reasonable to ask if this one has any characteristics that make it stand out. In my opinion, it is very objective and treats Eisenhower's failings in detail as well as his successes. Smith discusses Eisenhower's marital problems that first surfaced with the death of his infant firstborn son, but which were ongoing. Smith also discusses, in considerable detail, Eisenhower's relationship with Kay Sommersby. Other biographers touch on this (for instance, Stephen Ambrose in his one volume condensation of his two volume "official" biography and Michael Korda, in his biography) but only in passing, whereas Smith sheds considerable light on this subject and provides a lot of support for the contention that their relationship was a deep and loving one. Smith is also somewhat critical of Eisenhower's military performance, particularly during the North African Campaign, which led to his being "kicked upstairs" to deal with political problems and inter-allied conflicts. Smith spends a lot of time explaining why Eisenhower's talents as a politician were important in holding a coalition of nations together, and why he and not General Marshall was chosen to become the Supreme Commander of the European theatre. This book also contains a lengthy chapter on Eisenhower's tenure as President of Columbia University, which is only covered in a handful of pages by Ambrose and Korda. This chapter contains a brief discussion of events surrounding Eisenhower's failure to run for President of the US in 1948.
The final third of this book is concerned with Eisenhower's election and tenure as president. In many ways, this is the most interesting part of the book because it discusses in considerable detail Eisenhower's impact on events that have sometimes been forgotten. Smith shows Eisenhower to be a president who exercised sound judgment and held fast to his convictions, and as president acted decisively to: (1) end the war in Korea through an armistice instead of seeking a victory that might have required the use of nuclear weapons, (2) demonstrate his political acumen by getting his appointments past hostile conservative Republicans, (3) used indirect support for those who opposed Senator Joe McCarthy, but used more direct support to oppose the Bricker Amendment, which would have made treaties subject to continuing congressional review, (4) refuse to aid the French at Dien Bien Phu when this might also have required the use of nuclear weapons, (5) support CIA-led coups in Iran and Guatemala, which have led to continuing problems for the US, (6) force the French and British to leave Suez, (7) send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce court-ordered desegregation of public schools.
Smith shows that it was in the area of civil rights where Eisenhower's contributions have largely been forgotten. Contrary to what is generally believed, Smith shows that he did not consider his appointment of Earl Warren to be chief justice of the Supreme Court to be his greatest mistake, and he did not secretly oppose integration. Smith provides documentary evidence, which shows that quite to the contrary, Eisenhower: (1) enforced Truman's desegregation of the armed forces by actually eliminating the numerous segregated units, (2) desegregated the schools on military bases before the Supreme Court ruled on Brown v. Board of Education, (3) desegregated veterans' facilities and other facilities operated by the government, (4) desegregated the southern navy yards, and (5) appointed federal judges who made the civil rights programs of Kennedy and Johnson possible.
Smith depicts Eisenhower as a man who used common sense to solve problems, as a man of principle who often seemed aloof, and as President, one who seemed not to be doing much more than playing golf, but in actuality was directing things so subtly that his actions were unappreciated. The book quotes historian Garry Wills - "Eisenhower was not a political sophisticate, he was a political genius." In addition, he was a military man who warned against the military industrial complex and was a warrior who hated war.
This is a book that is highly relevant to our times as it speaks to questions of balanced budgets, military appropriations, our relationship with Russia and China, and to the origin of our conflict with Iran. This is a fine book, one that I hardily recommend to anyone interested in history or in reading a well-written non-fiction book.
54 of 59 people found the following review helpful.
A New Biography of Eisenhower
By Robin Friedman
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890 -- 1969) served as the 34th President of the United States (1953 -- 1961) following his career as the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces during WW II. His presidency and his generalship have been the subject of varied assessments over the years. I was a child in the 1950s and my first memories of a president are of Eisenhower. To many younger Americans, he may remain an obscure historical figure. Jean Edward Smith's new large biography, "Eisenhower in War and Peace" (2012) is an extraordinarily detailed study of Ike's public and private life. Smith is senior scholar in the history department at Columbia University, where Eisenhower served briefly as president. He has written extensively on American history, including biographies of FDR, Ulysses Grant, and John Marshall.
Although the book consists of over 760 pages of text and an additional 150 pages of notes and bibliography, the
narrative flow of the story is absorbing. Smith recounts complex military and political history in a way that is both understandable and entertaining. His writing style, unbiased presentation, and detailed documentation made me inclined to trust his judgment. Throughout the study, Smith draws useful parallels between Eisenhower and other American military and political leaders. In particular, Smith often compares and contrasts Eisenhower with Ulysees Grant in terms of decisiveness, relationship to subordinates, and military accomplishments. The most telling parallel lies in writing and in ability to communicate. Although not having the gift for words that Grant displayed in his Memoirs, Eisenhower was an excellent, clear writer, especially of his own war memoirs, and, when he wished to be, a skilled eloquent speaker.
Smith presents Eisenhower's strengths as a leader and as a person as well as his flaws. The overall impression of Eisenhower that emerges is of a strong, capable, politically masterful individual, as both general and president, who was "a man of principle, decency, and common sesne, whom the country could count on to do what was right. In both war and peace he gave the world confidence in American leadership." Eisenhower's accomplishments are inspiring in an America which frequently seems to be floundering for a sense of purpose and balance. Smith aptly describes Eisenhower as a "progressive conservative" who believed that "traditional American values encompassed change and progress." Eisenhower's moderation, high sense of responsibility, and heroism will appeal to many readers.
The book begins with a perceptive treatment of Eisenhower's early life with its humble beginnings in Texas and Kansas. A military career and attendance at West Point were something of a surprise choice for Eisenhower as they had been for Grant. The first third of Smith's book describes Eisenhower's early life and the many seemingly interminable assignments Eisenhower held as a major in the peacetime army. Eisenhower showed a talent for hard work and for impressing his superiors. He developed an ability to advance himself subtly and to use his contacts with those who would help him. When the United States entered WW II, Eisenhower's rise was meteoric; but it had been prepared over a long course of time.
Smith shows Eisenhower as a political leader in WW II who had the daunting task of coordinating the allied effort against Germany and working with highly driven and egotistical leaders in the United States, France, and Britain. Eisenhower's tact and self-confidence were rare and essential qualities indeed. As a military stategist, Eisenhower had mixed results, but he made critical decisions regarding the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. Smith shows that Eisenhower richly deserved the accolades he received at the end of the war.
Following WW II, Eisenhower served as president of Columbia and as the commander of NATO before, with a show of reluctance, accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1952. With the end of Eisenhower's presidency in 1961, many historians were critical; but Eisenhower's stature as president has grown with time. Smith finds Eisenhower the most successful 20th century president with the exception of FDR. Eisenhower kept the United States out of war, balanced the budget, and displayed firm, subtle leadership that was not always apparent to the public. He acted with care and prudence in Vietnam against the hawkish advice of his staff and he dealt effectively with crises in Berlin, China and elsewhere. (Some of his foreign policy ventures in Iran and Central America were ill-advised and unsuccessful.) In a non-divisive, non-confrontational way Eisenhower helped lead to the discrediting of the red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy. He built the national highway system and the St. Laurence Seaway. In 1956, following a heart attack and in the middle of a reelection campaign, Eisenhower showed courage in resolving the most controversial foreign policy issue in his presidency -- the Suez Canal crisis which pitted the United States against its allies, Britain, France, and Israel. In an understanded, politic way, Eisenhower also did more to advance civil rights than is commonly acknowledged. His Justice Department argued before the Supreme Court in favor of school desegregation in the Brown cases. In 1958, Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce a desegration decree against the recalcitrant state governor.
Eisenhower's personal life and feelings remained enigmatical even to those close to him. Smith's book concentrates on Eisenhower's long marriage to Mamie Doud and the difficulties the couple endured over the years. Smith also describes the long relationship Eisenhower had during WW II with a young British woman, Kay Summersby. It appears that at the end of WW II, Eisenhower wrote to George Marshall about his intention to divorce Mamie and marry Kay. Marshall disuaded him from this course in no uncertain terms, and Eisenhower ended the relationship in a callous, peremptory way.
This study of Eisenhower and of what was valuable and decent in him can bring hope and wisdom to a difficult time. Smith's study deserves and surely will receive a wide readership and will stimulate much discussion. I am pleased that it was offered to interested lay readers for an advance review through the Vine program.
Robin Friedman
59 of 65 people found the following review helpful.
A great step forward in Eisenhower scholarship
By Chefdevergue
I was mightily impressed by Smith's biography of John Marshall and have been looking forward to this biography's publication for quite some time. Conversely, I have always found the Ambrose biographies to be massively deficient in more ways than I can possibly count, so it was good to see a full-length biography which is not reliant on Ambrose's scholarship, so called. Is it definitive? I wouldn't go that far, but it represents a considerable improvement in the field and is definitely worth reading.
Smith takes something of a revisionist view in both the areas of Eisenhower's presidency and his role in World War II. Concerning the latter, Smith says as much in a footnote in Chapter 15, where he takes a shot at the Pogue school of thought (which "treated Eisenhower & Marshall as demigods"). Smith skillfully portrays a coalition which somehow, in spite of itself, managed to stumble towards victory with Eisenhower at the helm. Smith is unsparing in his portrayal of Eisenhower as a less than competent ground commander; the chapters dealing with North Africa & the month following the Normandy invasion are not exactly flattering. Eisenhower mismanaged the North African invasion almost from the very start, and prevailed over the Germans only by sheer force of numbers and materiel, rather than superior strategy. Similarly, Eisenhower's failure to press the advantage in France after D-Day resulted in the war in Europe being extended by nearly half a year, and his tactics allowed Germany enough time to regroup and launch its counteroffensive in the Ardennes (although once this was underway, Smith observes, Ike was one of the few command level officers to not to panic). Clearly, Eisenhower's strengths lay in the management of an unbelievably complex political and administrative situation. Even Eisenhower's critics admitted that nobody else could have done this job. However, Smith does not believe that this merits concealing Eisenhower's wartime warts.
After devoting a little less than 300 pages to Ike's 40 months during World War II, Smith devotes barely 200 pages to two full terms of the Eisenhower presidency. Really? Was this an editorial decision, or did Smith look at the work as it was unfolding and realize that if he wrote a truly detailed treatment of the Eisenhower presidency, it would require a second volume? Whatever the reasons, the chapters dealing with the presidency are far from comprehensive and instead focus on some of high points of the presidency. Smith seems to be saying, "I will provide a nice summary, and also point you in the direction of some other more comprehensive studies of Eisenhower as president," which is OK. It does, however, mean that you will need to look elsewhere for a truly thorough treatment. So don't be calling this a definitive biography, because it isn't.
This was a very enjoyable and very readable book. Even at almost 800 pages, it did not prove to be that daunting. So why only 4 stars? A small quibble would be Smith's failure to acknowledge that Churchill's insistence on a wartime strategy that would help preserve the Empire was a major reason that the Allied invasion of Europe was delayed as long as it was; Churchill and the high command consistently advocated a peripheral approach, whereas Marshall & FDR wanted to plunge into the heart of Europe at the earliest opportunity. Smith does argue that there was no way an invasion could have taken place in 1942, but I don't think anyone these days would disagree with that. 1943 is a whole different matter; there is plenty of debate on how prepared the Allies were for a 1943 invasion, but one would never know this from reading Smith.
Of greater concern is how Smith portrays Eisenhower's foreign and civil rights policies. Smith argues that because Eisenhower had better knowledge of Asia (due to his time in The Philippines), his foreign policy concerning mainland China & French Indochina was more prescient than when he was dealing with Central America or the Middle East, where he relied on the flawed advice of John Foster Dulles and company. Seriously? Everyone who knew Dulles understood that he would , if possible, cast any situation in the world into a struggle against Communism. It was his go-to move. Eisenhower blew off the advice of Dulles in Southeast Asia, but for some reason accepted his advice on Guatemala & Iran. So it isn't really Ike's fault, it's Dulles'? Come on already. For a variety of reasons, Smith is more persuasive when dealing with how Eisenhower handled Egypt & the Suez Crisis, but I felt like he was almost making excuses for Eisenhower otherwise.
Smith also goes a bit overboard in portraying Eisenhower as a fearless advocate for civil rights, highlighting Little Rock. Well yes --- if you focus on Little Rock, Ike looks pretty heroic, but there was a whole lot of tepid support for Brown which came before that. Anyone who has read David A. Nichols' A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution knows that the Eisenhower legacy on civil rights is a good deal more complex. While Ike wasn't an obstructionist, he was hardly enlightened in the area of race relations, and definitely wasn't leading any charges in the war for racial equality.
Having said that, the footnote where Smith absolutely DESTROYS Ambrose for basically making up stuff about Eisenhower's views on segregation, and then goes on to lay waste to Ambrose's "pernicious" distortions was one of the most enjoyable things I have read in a long time. I should give the book an extra star just for that.
All in all, a very worthwhile book, which definitely should be on the reading list of anyone seeking a better understanding of Eisenhower.
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