.
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower GCB OM GCS CCLH KC NPk (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American
military officer and statesman who served as the
34th president of the United States from
1953 to 1961. During
WW2, he became a
five-star general in the Army and served as
Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in
Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful
invasion of Normandy in 1944–45 from the
Western Front.
Eisenhower, born David Dwight Eisenhower, was raised in
Abilene, Kansas, in a large family of mostly
Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His family had a strong religious background. His mother became a
Jehovah's Witness. Eisenhower, however, did not belong to any organized church until 1952. He graduated from
West Point in 1915 and later married
Mamie Doud, with whom he had two sons. During
WW1, he was denied a request to serve in Europe and instead commanded a unit that trained tank crews. Following the war, he served under various generals and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in 1941. After the United States entered World War II, Eisenhower oversaw the invasions of North Africa and Sicily before supervising the invasions of France and Germany. After the war, he served as Army Chief of Staff (1945–1948), as president of
Columbia University (1948–1953) and as the first
Supreme Commander of NATO (1951–1952).
After the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff in
Washington, where he served until June 1942 with responsibility for creating the major war plans to defeat
Japan and
Germany. He was appointed Deputy Chief in charge of Pacific Defenses under the Chief of War Plans Division (WPD), General
Leonard T. Gerow, and then succeeded Gerow as Chief of the War Plans Division. Next, 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, who spotted talent and promoted accordingly.
At the end of
May 1942, Eisenhower accompanied Lt. Gen.
Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the
Army Air Forces, to
London to assess the effectiveness of the theater commander in
England, Maj. Gen.
James E. Chaney. He returned to Washington on June 3 with a pessimistic assessment, stating he had an "uneasy feeling" about Chaney and his staff. On June 23, 1942, he returned to London as Commanding General,
European Theater of Operations (ETOUSA), based in London and with a house on
Coombe, Kingston upon Thames, and took over command of ETOUSA from Chaney. He was promoted to lieutenant general on July 7.
In
December 1943, President Roosevelt decided that Eisenhower – not Marshall – would be Supreme Allied Commander in
Europe. The following month, he resumed command of ETOUSA and the following month was officially designated as the
Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), serving in a dual role until the end of hostilities in Europe in
May 1945. He was charged in these positions with planning and carrying out the Allied
assault on the coast of Normandy in
June 1944 under the code name
Operation Overlord, the liberation of
Western Europe and the invasion of Germany.
Eisenhower, as well as the officers and troops under him, had learned valuable lessons in their previous operations, and their skills had all strengthened in preparation for the next most difficult campaign against the Germans—a beach landing assault. His first struggles, however, were with Allied leaders and officers on matters vital to the success of the Normandy invasion; he argued with Roosevelt over an essential agreement with
De Gaulle to use
French resistance forces in covert and sabotage operations against the Germans in advance of Operation Overlord. Admiral
Ernest J. King fought with Eisenhower over King's refusal to provide additional landing craft from the Pacific. Eisenhower also insisted that the British give him exclusive command over all strategic
air forces to facilitate Overlord, to the point of threatening to resign unless
Churchill relented, which he did. Eisenhower then designed a bombing plan in France in advance of Overlord and argued with Churchill over the latter's concern with civilian casualties; de Gaulle interjected that the casualties were justified in shedding the yoke of the Germans, and Eisenhower prevailed. He also had to skillfully manage to retain the services of the often unruly
George S. Patton, by severely reprimanding him when Patton earlier had
slapped a subordinate, and then when Patton gave a speech in which he made improper comments about postwar policy.
In
1952, Eisenhower entered the presidential race as a
Republican to block the isolationist foreign policies of Senator
Robert A. Taft; Taft opposed NATO and wanted no foreign entanglements. Eisenhower won
that election and the
1956 election in landslides, both times defeating
Adlai Stevenson II. Eisenhower's main goals in office were to contain the spread of
communism and reduce federal deficits. In 1953, he threatened to use nuclear weapons until China agreed to peace terms in the
Korean War.[
disputed –
discuss] China did agree and
an armistice resulted which remains in effect. His
New Look policy of nuclear deterrence prioritized inexpensive nuclear weapons while reducing funding for expensive Army divisions. He continued
Harry S. Truman's policy of recognizing
Taiwan as the legitimate government of China, and he won congressional approval of the
Formosa Resolution. His administration provided major aid to help the French fight off Vietnamese Communists in the
First Indochina War. After the French left, he gave strong financial support to the new state of
South Vietnam. He supported regime-changing military coups in
Iran and
Guatemala orchestrated by his own administration. During the
Suez Crisis of 1956, he condemned the Israeli, British, and French invasion of Egypt, and he forced them to withdraw. He also condemned the Soviet invasion during the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action. After the Soviet Union launched
Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower
authorized the establishment of
NASA, which led to the
Space Race. He deployed 15,000 soldiers during the
1958 Lebanon crisis. Near the end of his term, he failed to set up a summit meeting with the Soviets when a
U.S. spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. He approved the
Bay of Pigs invasion, which was left to
John F. Kennedy to carry out.
On the domestic front, Eisenhower was a
moderate conservative who
continued New Deal agencies and
expanded Social Security. He
covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking
executive privilege. He
signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent Army troops to enforce federal court orders which integrated schools in
Little Rock, Arkansas. His largest program was the
Interstate Highway System. He promoted the establishment of strong science education via the
National Defense Education Act. His two terms saw
unprecedented economic prosperity except for a
minor recession in 1958. In his
farewell address to the nation, he expressed his concerns about the dangers of massive military spending, particularly
deficit spending and government contracts to private military manufacturers, which he dubbed "the
military–industrial complex". Historical evaluations of his presidency place him among the
upper tier of American presidents.
