geeky
Eisenhower was doubly distinguished: he was a prominent soldier and a two term President. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. In that role he was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942 and 1943 and for the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944 and 1945 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.
Eisenhower, or Ike as he was known, was born in Dennison, Texas on October 14, 1890 and was raised in a large Quaker family that moved to Kansas when he was an infant. He attended and graduated from West Point and later married Mamie Geneva Doud on July 1, 1916. The couple had had two sons, the youngest of which died from Scarlet Fever at age three.
In the army, Eisenhower served under a succession of talented generals including Fox Conner, John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall. In December 1943, President Roosevelt decided that Eisenhower—not Marshall—would be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. After World War II, Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman then became President at Columbia University.
Eisenhower was courted by both major political parties before entering the 1952 presidential race as a Republican. He won by a landslide, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson and ending two decades of Democrats in the White House. In the first year of his presidency, Eisenhower deposed the leader of Iran in the 1953 Iranian coup and concluded the Korean War. His policy of nuclear deterrence opted for inexpensive nuclear weapons while reducing the funding for conventional military forces. His goal was to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. In 1954, Eisenhower pronounced his domino theory about the threat presented by the spread of communism. When the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, Eisenhower believed that the US had to play catch-up in the space race.
Eisenhower forced Israel, Great Britain, and France to end their invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis of 1956. In 1958, he sent 15,000 U.S. troops to Lebanon to prevent the pro-Western government from falling to revolution. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a summit meeting with the Soviets collapsed because of the U-2 incident in which the Russians shot down a US spy plane after Eisenhower had denied that such missions were taking place. In his 1961 farewell address to the nation, Eisenhower expressed his concerns about future dangers of massive military spending, especially deficit spending, and warned the nation about what he called the "military–industrial complex".
On the domestic front, Eisenhower opposed Senator Joseph McCarthy's rabid domestic hunt for communists and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking executive privilege. He left most political activity to his Vice President, Richard Nixon. Among his greatest of legacies, he launched the Interstate Highway System, originally intended to improve national defence. He also began the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (which later led to the invention of the internet). On his watch the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created.
On the civil rights front, Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas for the first time since Reconstruction to enforce federal court orders to desegregate public schools. He also signed civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 to protect the right to vote. He implemented desegregation of the armed forces in two years.
Eisenhower was the first term-limited president in accordance with the 22nd Amendment. His two terms were peaceful ones and saw considerable economic prosperity except for a sharp recession in 1958–59. He was re-elected to a second term despite suffering a serious heart attack in his first term.
The Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum is located in Abilene, Kansas. I've visited there three times and it's one of my favorite Presidential historic sites. Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower are interred inside a chapel on the grounds there.