How Dwight Eisenhower became President
Dwight Eisenhower was born on in Denison, Texas, but his family moved to Abilene, Kansas, when Dwight was an infant. As a child, he was involved in an accident that cost his younger brother an eye, which became an important life lesson for him. Dwight developed a love of the outdoors. He loved hunting and fishing and was a good athlete. His mother was a fervent pacifist who owned a collection of history books. These sparked a lasting interest in military history.
Eisenhower's parents set aside time for daily family Bible reading. His mother joined the International Bible Students Association, later known as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Eisenhower became the local meeting hall from 1896 to 1915.
Eisenhower graduated from in 1909. As a freshman, he injured his knee and developed a leg infection which his doctor diagnosed as life-threatening. The doctor wanted to amputate the leg, but Dwight refused to allow it. He recovered without any permanent injury. He and brother Edgar both wanted to attend college. Since money was tight, they agreed to take alternate years at college while the other worked, in order to earn the tuition. Dwight worked as a night supervisor at a creamery. At Edgar's request he worked for a second year. Dwight's friend "Swede" Hazlet was applying to the Naval Academy and urged Dwight to apply too. Eisenhower applied for both Annapolis and West Point. He applied through his U.S. Senator, Joseph L. Bristow. Eisenhower was one of the top finishers in the entrance-exam competition, but he was past the age limit for admission into Annapolis, so he accepted an appointment to West Point in 1911.
At West Point, Eisenhower finished school with a spotty discipline rating. His best subject was English and he enjoyed on science and mathematics. He was active in sports, and was later said that "not making the baseball team at West Point was one of the greatest disappointments of my life, maybe my greatest." He made the football team, and was a varsity starter as running back and linebacker in 1912. He once tackled the legendary Jim Thorpe. Eisenhower suffered a torn knee in that game, which was his last. He re-injured his knee twice, once riding a horse and once in the boxing ring. He graduated in the middle of his class of 1915, which became known as "the class the stars fell on", because 59 members of the class eventually achieved the rank of general.
Eisenhower met Mamie Geneva Doud while he was stationed in Texas. He proposed to her on Valentine's Day in 1916. A November wedding date in Denver was moved up to July 1 due to the pending U.S. entry into World War I. The couple had two sons. Their older son, Doud Dwight "Icky" Eisenhower was born September 24, 1917, and died of scarlet fever on January 2, 1921, at the age of three. Their second son, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, was born on August 3, 1922, while they were in Panama.
After graduation in 1915, Lieutenant Eisenhower served with the infantry at various camps in Texas and Georgia. In 1916, while at Fort Sam Houston, Eisenhower was the football coach for St. Louis College, now St. Mary's University. When the U.S. entered World War I he immediately requested an overseas assignment but was denied and assigned to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas instead. In February 1918 he was transferred to Camp Meade in Maryland. His unit was later ordered to France with the new tank corps, but he never saw combat. The armistice was signed just a week before his scheduled departure. Despite this, he received the Distinguished Service Medal for his work at home.
After the war, Eisenhower was promoted to major, a rank he held for 16 years. In 1919 he was assigned to a transcontinental Army convoy to test vehicles and study the need for improved roads in the nation. He assumed duties at Camp Meade, Maryland, commanding a battalion of tanks. From 1920, Eisenhower served under a succession of renowned generals including Fox Conner, John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall. He became executive officer to General Conner in the Panama Canal Zone, where he served until 1924. Eisenhower later called Connor "the ablest man I ever knew." On Conner's recommendation, Eisenhower attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1925 where he graduated first in a class of 245 officers. He then served as a battalion commander at Fort Benning, Georgia, until 1927.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Eisenhower's career in the army stalled in the depression and peacetime economies. He was assigned to the American Battle Monuments Commission directed by General Pershing, and produced a guide to American battlefields in Europe. He then was assigned to the Army War College and graduated in 1928. After a one-year assignment in France, Eisenhower served as executive officer to General George V. Mosely, Assistant Secretary of War, from 1929 to February 1933.He then was posted as chief military aide to General MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff. In 1932, he participated in the clearing of the Bonus March encampment in Washington, D.C. Eisenhower disagreed with the actions taken against the veterans by MacArthur, though publicly he supported his superior officer.
In 1935, Eisenhower accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines, where he served as assistant military adviser to the Philippine government in developing their army. Eisenhower had strong disagreements with MacArthur which resulted in antipathy between the two men for the rest of their lives.
While in Manila, Mamie suffered a life-threatening stomach ailment but recovered fully. Eisenhower was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1936. He also learned to fly, making a solo flight over the Philippines in 1937 and he obtained his private pilot's license in 1939 at Fort Lewis. Eisenhower returned to the U.S. in 1939 and held a series of staff positions in Washington, D.C., California and Texas. In June 1941, he was appointed Chief of Staff to General Walter Krueger, Commander of the 3rd Army, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He was promoted to brigadier general on October 3, 1941.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff in Washington, where he served until June 1942. He was responsible for creating the war plans against Japan and Germany. He was appointed Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defenses under the Chief of War Plans Division (WPD), and later succeeded General Leonard Gerow as Chief of the War Plans Division. He was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of the new Operations Division (which replaced WPD) under Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall.
At the end of May 1942, Eisenhower accompanied Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces, to London. He returned to Washington on June 3 with a pessimistic assessment. On June 23, 1942, he returned to London as Commanding General, European Theater of Operations based in London. In November 1942, he was also appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force of the North African Theater of Operations. In that capacity he planned the campaign in North Africa, called Operation Torch.
In February 1943, Eisenhower's authority was expanded as commander of AFHQ across the Mediterranean basin to include the British Eighth Army, commanded by General Bernard Law Montgomery. Eisenhower was given his fourth star. He oversaw the successful invasion of Sicily. Once Mussolini had fallen in Italy, the Allies switched their attention to the mainland. Eisenhower argued with Roosevelt and Churchill, who both insisted on unconditional terms of surrender from the Italians, as the Germans increased their forces in the country.Despite the Germans outnumbering the Allied forces 2 to 1, the invasion of Italy was successful.
In December 1943, President Roosevelt decided that Eisenhower would be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. He was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy in June 1944 under the code name Operation Overlord. He argued with Roosevelt over an agreement made with General Charles de Gaulle to use French resistance forces in sabotage operations against the Germans in advance of Overlord. He also argued with Admiral Ernest J. King over King's refusal to provide additional landing craft from the Pacific. He also insisted that the British give him exclusive command over all strategic air forces to facilitate Overlord, and threatened to resign unless Churchill agreed, which he did. Eisenhower designed a bombing plan in France in advance of Overlord.
The D-Day Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, were successful. A month later the invasion of Southern France took place, and many prematurely predicted that victory in Europe would come by summer's end. But German capitulation would not come for almost a year. From then until the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower had command of all Allied forces. Mindful of the inevitable loss of life and suffering that would be experienced by the troops under his command, he made a point of personally visiting every division involved in the invasion.
Once the coastal assault had succeeded, Eisenhower maintained personal control over the land battle strategy. Allied victory in Europe was delayed due to turf wars between American General Omar Bradley and British Field Marshall Montgomery. In recognition of his position in the Allied command, on December 20, 1944, he was promoted to General of the Army. Although he had never seen action himself, he interacted tactfully with larger-than-life figures such as Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and General Charles de Gaulle. He also dealt with Soviet Marshal Zhukov, his Russian counterpart, and they became good friends.
The Germans launched a surprise counter offensive in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 which was turned back in early 1945 by the Allies. German defenses continued to deteriorate on both the eastern front with the Soviets and the western front with the Allies. The British wanted Berlin but Eisenhower decided it would be a military mistake to do so. The division of Germany followed the agreement reached between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. The Soviet Red Army captured Berlin and the Germans finally surrendered on May 7, 1945.
Following the German surrender, Eisenhower was appointed Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, based Frankfurt. He had no responsibility for the other three zones, controlled by Britain, France and the Soviet Union, except for the city of Berlin, which was managed by all four powers. Upon discovery of the Nazi concentration camps, he ordered camera crews to document evidence of the atrocities in them for use in the Nuremberg Trials. Eisenhower altered the orders given by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to permit the bringing in of 400,000 tons of food for civilians. He arranged distribution of American food and medical equipment. His attitude towards the German people was that they were as much victims of the war as the nations invaded by the Nazis.
In November 1945, Eisenhower returned to Washington to replace George Marshall as Chief of Staff of the Army. His main role was rapid demobilization of millions of soldiers. Eisenhower believed that the Soviet Union did not want war and that friendly relations could be maintained. He strongly supported the new United Nations and favored its involvement in the control of atomic bombs. Eisenhower had opposed the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese. He later wrote: "First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon."
By mid-1947, as East–West tensions over economic recovery in Germany and the Greek Civil War escalated, Eisenhower gave up his hopes for cooperation with the Soviets and agreed with a containment policy to stop Soviet expansion.
In 1945 President Truman told Eisenhower during the Potsdam Conference that if desired, the president would help the general win the 1948 election, and in 1947 he offered to run as Eisenhower's running mate on the Democratic ticket if MacArthur won the Republican nomination. As the election approached, politicians from both parties urged Eisenhower to run for president. In January 1948, after learning of plans in New Hampshire to elect delegates supporting him for the forthcoming Republican National Convention, Eisenhower stated publicly that he was "not available for and could not accept nomination to high political office".
In 1948, Eisenhower became President of Columbia University in New York. During that year Eisenhower's memoir, Crusade in Europe, was published and was critically acclaimed as one of the finest U.S. military memoirs. It was also a major financial success as well. His time as the president of Columbia University occurred at the same time as his activity within the Council on Foreign Relations, a study group he led as president concerning the political and military implications of the Marshall Plan. Eight months after his appointment, he became ill, and he spent over a month in recovery at the Augusta National Golf Club. He returned to his post in New York in mid-May, 1949. Many academics at Columbia resented Eisenhower for being an absentee president who was using the university for his own interests. Columbia's liberal faculty members became critical of their president's ties to oilmen and businessmen.
The trustees of Columbia University refused to accept Eisenhower's resignation in December 1950, when he took an extended leave from the university to become the Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Eisenhower retired from active service as an Army general on May 31, 1952, and he resumed his presidency of Columbia. He held this position until January 20, 1953, when he became President of the United States.
In 1950 President Truman once again pressed Eisenhower to run for President as a Democrat. But Eisenhower declared himself to be Republicans and a "Draft Eisenhower" movement began in the Republican Party. He declared his candidacy, and expressed his opposition to the non-interventionist position taken by Senator Robert A. Taft. Henry Cabot Lodge served as his campaign manager. In June 1952 he resigned his command at NATO to campaign full-time. Eisenhower defeated Taft for the nomination. His campaign was noted for the simple but effective slogan, "I Like Ike".
Eisenhower expressed his opposition to Roosevelt's policy at Yalta and and against Truman's policies in Korea and China. He selected Richard M. Nixon as the Vice-President on the ticket in order to provide a strong anti-communist presence as well as some youth to counter Eisenhower's advanced age.
In the general election, Eisenhower insisted on campaigning in the South, refusing to surrender the region to the Democratic Party. The campaign strategy attached the previous Democratic administrations on three issues: Korea, Communism and corruption. Two controversies arose during the campaign. One involved a report that Nixon had improperly received funds from a secret trust. Nixon spoke out publicly in his famous Checkers speech to control potential damage to the campaign, but the matter adversely affected the relationship between the two running mates. The second issue centered around Eisenhower's refusal to confront the controversial Senator Joseph McCarthy on his home turf in a Wisconsin appearance. Just two weeks prior to the election, Eisenhower promised to go to Korea and end the war there. He promised to maintain a strong commitment against Communism.
On Election Day, Eisenhower defeated Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson in a landslide, with an electoral margin of 442 to 89, marking the first Republican return to the White House in 20 years. In the election Republicans won an 8-seat majority in the House and equaled the number of seats in the Senate held by their opponents, with Vice-President Nixon providing the majority vote.
Eisenhower was the last president born in the 19th century, and at age 62, was the oldest man to be elected President since James Buchanan in 1856. He was the only general to serve as President in the 20th century, and the most recent President to have never held elected office prior to the Presidency. Eisenhower's two terms were peaceful ones and saw considerable economic prosperity for the most part. Dwight Eisenhower has consistently been ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.
Eisenhower's parents set aside time for daily family Bible reading. His mother joined the International Bible Students Association, later known as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Eisenhower became the local meeting hall from 1896 to 1915.
Eisenhower graduated from in 1909. As a freshman, he injured his knee and developed a leg infection which his doctor diagnosed as life-threatening. The doctor wanted to amputate the leg, but Dwight refused to allow it. He recovered without any permanent injury. He and brother Edgar both wanted to attend college. Since money was tight, they agreed to take alternate years at college while the other worked, in order to earn the tuition. Dwight worked as a night supervisor at a creamery. At Edgar's request he worked for a second year. Dwight's friend "Swede" Hazlet was applying to the Naval Academy and urged Dwight to apply too. Eisenhower applied for both Annapolis and West Point. He applied through his U.S. Senator, Joseph L. Bristow. Eisenhower was one of the top finishers in the entrance-exam competition, but he was past the age limit for admission into Annapolis, so he accepted an appointment to West Point in 1911.
At West Point, Eisenhower finished school with a spotty discipline rating. His best subject was English and he enjoyed on science and mathematics. He was active in sports, and was later said that "not making the baseball team at West Point was one of the greatest disappointments of my life, maybe my greatest." He made the football team, and was a varsity starter as running back and linebacker in 1912. He once tackled the legendary Jim Thorpe. Eisenhower suffered a torn knee in that game, which was his last. He re-injured his knee twice, once riding a horse and once in the boxing ring. He graduated in the middle of his class of 1915, which became known as "the class the stars fell on", because 59 members of the class eventually achieved the rank of general.
Eisenhower met Mamie Geneva Doud while he was stationed in Texas. He proposed to her on Valentine's Day in 1916. A November wedding date in Denver was moved up to July 1 due to the pending U.S. entry into World War I. The couple had two sons. Their older son, Doud Dwight "Icky" Eisenhower was born September 24, 1917, and died of scarlet fever on January 2, 1921, at the age of three. Their second son, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, was born on August 3, 1922, while they were in Panama.
After graduation in 1915, Lieutenant Eisenhower served with the infantry at various camps in Texas and Georgia. In 1916, while at Fort Sam Houston, Eisenhower was the football coach for St. Louis College, now St. Mary's University. When the U.S. entered World War I he immediately requested an overseas assignment but was denied and assigned to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas instead. In February 1918 he was transferred to Camp Meade in Maryland. His unit was later ordered to France with the new tank corps, but he never saw combat. The armistice was signed just a week before his scheduled departure. Despite this, he received the Distinguished Service Medal for his work at home.
After the war, Eisenhower was promoted to major, a rank he held for 16 years. In 1919 he was assigned to a transcontinental Army convoy to test vehicles and study the need for improved roads in the nation. He assumed duties at Camp Meade, Maryland, commanding a battalion of tanks. From 1920, Eisenhower served under a succession of renowned generals including Fox Conner, John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall. He became executive officer to General Conner in the Panama Canal Zone, where he served until 1924. Eisenhower later called Connor "the ablest man I ever knew." On Conner's recommendation, Eisenhower attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1925 where he graduated first in a class of 245 officers. He then served as a battalion commander at Fort Benning, Georgia, until 1927.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Eisenhower's career in the army stalled in the depression and peacetime economies. He was assigned to the American Battle Monuments Commission directed by General Pershing, and produced a guide to American battlefields in Europe. He then was assigned to the Army War College and graduated in 1928. After a one-year assignment in France, Eisenhower served as executive officer to General George V. Mosely, Assistant Secretary of War, from 1929 to February 1933.He then was posted as chief military aide to General MacArthur, Army Chief of Staff. In 1932, he participated in the clearing of the Bonus March encampment in Washington, D.C. Eisenhower disagreed with the actions taken against the veterans by MacArthur, though publicly he supported his superior officer.
In 1935, Eisenhower accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines, where he served as assistant military adviser to the Philippine government in developing their army. Eisenhower had strong disagreements with MacArthur which resulted in antipathy between the two men for the rest of their lives.
While in Manila, Mamie suffered a life-threatening stomach ailment but recovered fully. Eisenhower was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1936. He also learned to fly, making a solo flight over the Philippines in 1937 and he obtained his private pilot's license in 1939 at Fort Lewis. Eisenhower returned to the U.S. in 1939 and held a series of staff positions in Washington, D.C., California and Texas. In June 1941, he was appointed Chief of Staff to General Walter Krueger, Commander of the 3rd Army, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He was promoted to brigadier general on October 3, 1941.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff in Washington, where he served until June 1942. He was responsible for creating the war plans against Japan and Germany. He was appointed Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defenses under the Chief of War Plans Division (WPD), and later succeeded General Leonard Gerow as Chief of the War Plans Division. He was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of the new Operations Division (which replaced WPD) under Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall.
At the end of May 1942, Eisenhower accompanied Lt. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces, to London. He returned to Washington on June 3 with a pessimistic assessment. On June 23, 1942, he returned to London as Commanding General, European Theater of Operations based in London. In November 1942, he was also appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force of the North African Theater of Operations. In that capacity he planned the campaign in North Africa, called Operation Torch.
In February 1943, Eisenhower's authority was expanded as commander of AFHQ across the Mediterranean basin to include the British Eighth Army, commanded by General Bernard Law Montgomery. Eisenhower was given his fourth star. He oversaw the successful invasion of Sicily. Once Mussolini had fallen in Italy, the Allies switched their attention to the mainland. Eisenhower argued with Roosevelt and Churchill, who both insisted on unconditional terms of surrender from the Italians, as the Germans increased their forces in the country.Despite the Germans outnumbering the Allied forces 2 to 1, the invasion of Italy was successful.
In December 1943, President Roosevelt decided that Eisenhower would be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. He was charged with planning and carrying out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy in June 1944 under the code name Operation Overlord. He argued with Roosevelt over an agreement made with General Charles de Gaulle to use French resistance forces in sabotage operations against the Germans in advance of Overlord. He also argued with Admiral Ernest J. King over King's refusal to provide additional landing craft from the Pacific. He also insisted that the British give him exclusive command over all strategic air forces to facilitate Overlord, and threatened to resign unless Churchill agreed, which he did. Eisenhower designed a bombing plan in France in advance of Overlord.
The D-Day Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, were successful. A month later the invasion of Southern France took place, and many prematurely predicted that victory in Europe would come by summer's end. But German capitulation would not come for almost a year. From then until the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower had command of all Allied forces. Mindful of the inevitable loss of life and suffering that would be experienced by the troops under his command, he made a point of personally visiting every division involved in the invasion.
Once the coastal assault had succeeded, Eisenhower maintained personal control over the land battle strategy. Allied victory in Europe was delayed due to turf wars between American General Omar Bradley and British Field Marshall Montgomery. In recognition of his position in the Allied command, on December 20, 1944, he was promoted to General of the Army. Although he had never seen action himself, he interacted tactfully with larger-than-life figures such as Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and General Charles de Gaulle. He also dealt with Soviet Marshal Zhukov, his Russian counterpart, and they became good friends.
The Germans launched a surprise counter offensive in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 which was turned back in early 1945 by the Allies. German defenses continued to deteriorate on both the eastern front with the Soviets and the western front with the Allies. The British wanted Berlin but Eisenhower decided it would be a military mistake to do so. The division of Germany followed the agreement reached between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. The Soviet Red Army captured Berlin and the Germans finally surrendered on May 7, 1945.
Following the German surrender, Eisenhower was appointed Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, based Frankfurt. He had no responsibility for the other three zones, controlled by Britain, France and the Soviet Union, except for the city of Berlin, which was managed by all four powers. Upon discovery of the Nazi concentration camps, he ordered camera crews to document evidence of the atrocities in them for use in the Nuremberg Trials. Eisenhower altered the orders given by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to permit the bringing in of 400,000 tons of food for civilians. He arranged distribution of American food and medical equipment. His attitude towards the German people was that they were as much victims of the war as the nations invaded by the Nazis.
In November 1945, Eisenhower returned to Washington to replace George Marshall as Chief of Staff of the Army. His main role was rapid demobilization of millions of soldiers. Eisenhower believed that the Soviet Union did not want war and that friendly relations could be maintained. He strongly supported the new United Nations and favored its involvement in the control of atomic bombs. Eisenhower had opposed the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese. He later wrote: "First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon."
By mid-1947, as East–West tensions over economic recovery in Germany and the Greek Civil War escalated, Eisenhower gave up his hopes for cooperation with the Soviets and agreed with a containment policy to stop Soviet expansion.
In 1945 President Truman told Eisenhower during the Potsdam Conference that if desired, the president would help the general win the 1948 election, and in 1947 he offered to run as Eisenhower's running mate on the Democratic ticket if MacArthur won the Republican nomination. As the election approached, politicians from both parties urged Eisenhower to run for president. In January 1948, after learning of plans in New Hampshire to elect delegates supporting him for the forthcoming Republican National Convention, Eisenhower stated publicly that he was "not available for and could not accept nomination to high political office".
In 1948, Eisenhower became President of Columbia University in New York. During that year Eisenhower's memoir, Crusade in Europe, was published and was critically acclaimed as one of the finest U.S. military memoirs. It was also a major financial success as well. His time as the president of Columbia University occurred at the same time as his activity within the Council on Foreign Relations, a study group he led as president concerning the political and military implications of the Marshall Plan. Eight months after his appointment, he became ill, and he spent over a month in recovery at the Augusta National Golf Club. He returned to his post in New York in mid-May, 1949. Many academics at Columbia resented Eisenhower for being an absentee president who was using the university for his own interests. Columbia's liberal faculty members became critical of their president's ties to oilmen and businessmen.
The trustees of Columbia University refused to accept Eisenhower's resignation in December 1950, when he took an extended leave from the university to become the Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Eisenhower retired from active service as an Army general on May 31, 1952, and he resumed his presidency of Columbia. He held this position until January 20, 1953, when he became President of the United States.
In 1950 President Truman once again pressed Eisenhower to run for President as a Democrat. But Eisenhower declared himself to be Republicans and a "Draft Eisenhower" movement began in the Republican Party. He declared his candidacy, and expressed his opposition to the non-interventionist position taken by Senator Robert A. Taft. Henry Cabot Lodge served as his campaign manager. In June 1952 he resigned his command at NATO to campaign full-time. Eisenhower defeated Taft for the nomination. His campaign was noted for the simple but effective slogan, "I Like Ike".
Eisenhower expressed his opposition to Roosevelt's policy at Yalta and and against Truman's policies in Korea and China. He selected Richard M. Nixon as the Vice-President on the ticket in order to provide a strong anti-communist presence as well as some youth to counter Eisenhower's advanced age.
In the general election, Eisenhower insisted on campaigning in the South, refusing to surrender the region to the Democratic Party. The campaign strategy attached the previous Democratic administrations on three issues: Korea, Communism and corruption. Two controversies arose during the campaign. One involved a report that Nixon had improperly received funds from a secret trust. Nixon spoke out publicly in his famous Checkers speech to control potential damage to the campaign, but the matter adversely affected the relationship between the two running mates. The second issue centered around Eisenhower's refusal to confront the controversial Senator Joseph McCarthy on his home turf in a Wisconsin appearance. Just two weeks prior to the election, Eisenhower promised to go to Korea and end the war there. He promised to maintain a strong commitment against Communism.
On Election Day, Eisenhower defeated Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson in a landslide, with an electoral margin of 442 to 89, marking the first Republican return to the White House in 20 years. In the election Republicans won an 8-seat majority in the House and equaled the number of seats in the Senate held by their opponents, with Vice-President Nixon providing the majority vote.
Eisenhower was the last president born in the 19th century, and at age 62, was the oldest man to be elected President since James Buchanan in 1856. He was the only general to serve as President in the 20th century, and the most recent President to have never held elected office prior to the Presidency. Eisenhower's two terms were peaceful ones and saw considerable economic prosperity for the most part. Dwight Eisenhower has consistently been ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.