Dwight David Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969), nicknamed "Ike" was the 34th President of the United States, serving two terms from January 20, 1953 to January 20, 1961. During World War II, he was General of the Army and Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in Europe. He is a member of the Republican Party.
He was Chief of the General Staff of the United States Armed Forces from 1945 to 1948 and Supreme Allied Commander Europe from April 2, 1951 to May 30, 1952.
As President of the United States, he oversees the ceasefire in Korea, launches the space race, develops the network of interstate highways and makes the development of nuclear weapons one of his priorities. as part of the Cold War with the USSR.
Family origins
Third of seven children of David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Eisenhower (née Stover), David Dwight Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890 in Denison (Texas) into a modest family, of Mennonite tradition of German origin whose surname is Eisenhauer. Dwight's mother, Ida Eisenhower, was a Jehovah's Witness. He is baptized David Dwight but commonly called Dwight. The order of the two first names is permanently reversed upon his incorporation into the military academy at West Point.
The name of his ancestors was originally written "Eisenhauer". It was in 1741 that Hans Nicolas Eisenhauer emigrated from Saarland to settle in America, in the British colony of Lancaster (Pennsylvania).
The Eisenhower family moved to Abilene, Kansas in 1892. It was during his schooling in Abilene that young Dwight Eisenhower was given the nickname “Ike” by his childhood best friend. His upbringing is based on Christian family values. Nevertheless, his mother was a follower of the Jehovah's Witnesses from 1895, as was his father, and the Eisenhower residence served as a meeting place for several years.
At the age of 19, in 1909, he graduated from high school in Abilene and started working in a dairy because his parents did not have the financial resources to send him to university. He attempts the naval academy entrance exam but is ineligible due to his age. He finally entered the University of Kansas City to prepare for a military career and brilliantly passed his exams which made him automatically admitted to the West Point Military Academy.
Military career
In 1911, Dwight Eisenhower was admitted to the West Point Military Academy. He graduated, four years later, 61st out of 164 with the rank of Lieutenant, in the average of his promotion and was assigned, on leaving school, to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas (his promotion will be qualified more later by historians of "the class on which the stars fell, in English The class the stars fell on" by the many generals it gave). It was there that he met Mamie Geneva Doud (1896–1979), whom he married on July 1, 1916, and with whom he had 2 sons, Doud Dwight Eisenhower (1917-1921, following scarlet fever) and John Sheldon David Doud Eisenhower (1922-2013).
In 1917, he was promoted to captain and served as an instructor in several training camps while the country was engaged in the First World War. Despite his requests, he did not obtain a posting in Europe and, in 1918, took command of the Tank Training Center at Camp Colt in Pennsylvania.
At Camp Meade, near Washington, in 1920, promoted to the rank of major, he joined the Infantry Tank School where he found an armored corps officer:Colonel George S. Patton, who was also a great bridge player. Together they publish, like de Gaulle, articles advocating the use of tanks in order to avoid a new trench warfare. His ideas are not appreciated by his superiors and he is even threatened with a court-martial.
He was then assigned to the Panama Canal Zone under the orders of General Fox Conner who recognized his value and enrolled him, in 1925, in the training school for command and staff functions at Fort Leavenworth in where he graduated first in his promotion, which earned him important assignments, notably with General John Pershing and General Douglas MacArthur.
In 1927 he was a member of the American War Memorials Commission and in 1928 graduated from the American War College. In 1929, he was seconded to Paris before joining the Department of War (equivalent to the Ministry of War).
In 1933, Chief of Staff to General Douglas MacArthur, he accompanied the latter to Manila while he was military adviser to the Philippine government. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1936.
At the end of 1939, it was at his request, when war had started in Europe, that Dwight Eisenhower returned to the United States and was assigned to Fort Lewis in Washington State. Promoted to the rank of colonel, he became chief of staff of the 3rd Army in June 1941, assigned to Fort Houston in Texas. In charge of troop training, he particularly distinguished himself by his strategy during the maneuvers, which took place in September 1941 in Louisiana, and in which more than 400,000 men took part. At the end of these, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. He returned to Washington a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor to be assigned to the War Department under the orders of General Marshall. He became its assistant in February 1942 and headed the Operations Division of the General Staff under the orders of General Patton. Promoted to two-star general, in June 1942 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the American forces in Europe. He then supervised all military operations both in Europe and in North Africa. He commanded the November 1942 landing in North Africa, Operation Torch, where, faced with the differences between the British and Americans, he demonstrated all his talent as a conciliator and negotiator to reconcile views rather than oppose them. This operation is also, despite the lack of material resources, a valuable lesson for the landings that followed. In February 1943, he was promoted to 4-star general while preparing for the Tunisian campaign against the forces of the Afrika Korps.
In 1943, Dwight Eisenhower was in charge of the invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky and Ladbroke) and Italy. He is also forced to intervene in the settlement of the dispute between Generals Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle over the exercise of French leadership in North Africa. His preference goes to Giraud who, on May 29, 1943 in the grounds of the summer palace in Algiers, publicly decorated him with the insignia of Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, to the great displeasure of de Gaulle who complained that he had not been consulted.
At the Inter-Allied Conference in Tehran in November 1943, it was decided that a second Allied front would be opened in the West. The Americans providing the majority of the men and equipment, the chief of the operation would therefore be American. As President Roosevelt could not do without his military adviser, General George Marshall, it was quite naturally Eisenhower who was chosen for this mission. He then left the theater of Mediterranean operations for London.
At the head of the SHAEF (Supreme Headquarter Allied Expeditionary Force), Eisenhower plans the landing in Normandy and the installation of the bridgehead in France, Operation Overlord and commands the largest invasion force of all time. Often questioned by the British but supported by Marshall, Eisenhower, by his calm, his psychological finesse responds perfectly to the strong characters that are Montgomery, Patton and General de Gaulle. Faced with the stubbornness of the French general who defended the political sovereignty of France, Eisenhower renounced the establishment of AMGOT and even authorized the 2nd DB of General Leclerc to enter Paris in August 1944. Less than a year later, Eisenhower achieves the goal set:to obtain the unconditional capitulation of Germany.
On December 20, 1944, he was promoted to five-star general ("General of the Army", the equivalent of the distinction of Marshal of France).
In June 1945, it was created by General de Gaulle Compagnon de la Liberation.
In the aftermath of the war, Eisenhower succeeded Marshall as Chief of Staff of the US Army, a position he left in 1948 to become president of Columbia University8. However, he maintains contact with the general staff where he acts as an adviser. In 1950, President Truman appointed him Supreme Commander of NATO.
In 1964, Dwight David Eisenhower left documents relating to the Second World War in a grave at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. It will not be open, according to his wishes, until the morning of June 6, 2044, the 100th anniversary of the Normandy landings.
Election campaign
In 1948, President Harry Truman proposed to Dwight David Eisenhower to be his running mate as vice-presidential candidate, but he refused.
When he had just been appointed Commander-in-Chief of NATO (1950) and was setting up his headquarters in Paris, emissaries from the Republican Party came to ask him to be their candidate for the presidential election of 1952. He lets himself be persuaded and begins an electoral campaign which takes him through forty-five states. His speeches seek to reassure Americans and his strategy is never to mention the name of his adversary, Adlai Stevenson, but to attack the record of his predecessor. Its platform revolves around three themes:ending corruption in Washington, ending the Korean War, and confronting communist subversion as the country is in the midst of McCarthyism.
However, the election campaign did not go smoothly. The Republican running mate is Richard Nixon. He is accused of embezzlement for his own benefit, which he denies. For his part, Eisenhower receives the support of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who claims that many government posts are infiltrated by Communists.
In November 1952, Eisenhower was elected with 55% of the vote against his Democratic rival. His mandate began on January 20, 1953.
34th President of the United States (1953-1961)
Re-elected in 1956 against the same Adlai Stevenson, his two terms were marked by the end of the Korean War, the beginning of direct contacts with the leaders of the USSR, materialized in particular by Khrushchev's visit to the United States in 1959, but also by the pursuit of a policy of containment of communism, the condemnation of the Anglo-Franco-Israeli expedition to Egypt, the arrival of Fidel Castro in Cuba, the creation of NASA, the fight against racial segregation in the army and at school or even the reduction of inflation. He was assisted during his terms by personalities such as John Foster Dulles, his Secretary of State (equivalent to Minister of Foreign Affairs), and George Humphrey, his Secretary of the Treasury.
Foreign policy
On the external level, Dwight David Eisenhower leads a policy of firmness in order to push back the Soviet zone of influence. Eisenhower launches a "nuclear deterrent" program aimed at increasing the arsenal of the United States. At the same time, on December 8, 1953, he launched the Atoms for Peace program aimed at developing, nationally and internationally, the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Atoms for Peace also led to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Stalin's death on March 5, 1953 changed East-West relations and it was time to relax. Eisenhower and the Soviet government put an end to the Korean War and the president refuses to engage militarily alongside France in Indochina. The consequence is the independence of Cambodia, Laos and the separation of Vietnam into two parts which entails, for the United States, a long and difficult war. The time is rather for clandestine actions orchestrated by the CIA such as the overthrow of the government of Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mossadegh in August 1953 (Operation Ajax) and the seizure of power by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, that of the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala in June 1954 (Operation PBSUCCESS) and the failed attempt in Indonesia in 1958. In 1956, the Soviet intervention in Budapest and the Suez crisis remind us that the Cold War is far from over.
In 1957, the launch by the USSR of the Sputnik satellite surprised the Western world. Eisenhower then reinforced the defense policy and accelerated the development of intercontinental missiles, defined the Eisenhower doctrine and committed the country to a very ambitious space program.
The year 1960 marks the breakdown of dialogue with Khrushchev due to the affair of a U2 spy plane shot down on Soviet territory as well as by the radicalization of the Cuban revolution that the president will try, without success, to curb. After having seen quite favorably for a few months the seizure of power by Fidel Castro in January 1959, on March 17, 1960 he gave his written consent to the opening of anti-Castro training camps, the culmination of which was in April 1961, a few months later. his departure from the White House, the Bay of Pigs landing. He imposed the first economic retaliation measures against Cuba from June 1960, which were rendered ineffective by the aid provided by Khrushchev to Fidel Castro. Although anti-colonialist in the Katanga affair for fear of communist expansion in Africa, he sided with Belgium. He would have asked in August 1960 in ambiguous terms to Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, "the removal" of the Congolese head of state Patrice Lumumba, supported by the USSR. Dulles will wire that way. The disappearance of John Foster Dulles still helps to maintain a peaceful relationship between Moscow and Washington.
In addition, in 1957, he appointed his brother, Professor Milton Stover Eisenhower (1899-1985), adviser and special ambassador on Latin American affairs.
Domestic politics
Domestically, President Eisenhower's terms were characterized by relative prosperity and the revival of the consumer economy after the war years. It is to him that we owe the approximately 65,000 km of highways linking the States to each other, which have a definite impact on the way of life of Americans. We also owe him some progress in the social field with the extension of health insurance, retirement at 62 for women and the increase in trade union rights.
One of the most irritating issues was caused by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his fight against supposed communist infiltration in government. Although he was never able to obtain any indictments, he was in the eyes of some Americans a self-proclaimed bulwark against the Communist advance. Eisenhower never sought to confront him directly, but he managed to obtain a motion of no confidence against him in 1954 by using a new means of expression to his advantage:television. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, accused of spying for the benefit of the USSR and executed on June 19, 1953, were, indirectly, the victims of anti-communist vigilance. The new president refused to pardon them, despite the serious doubts that tormented him about their guilt, and despite pressure from the ambassador in Paris.
In the cultural field, Eisenhower enacts the law creating the National Cultural Center in Washington DC.
Immigration, civil rights and minorities
The Second World War and the imperatives of production allowed minorities, blacks in particular, to evolve their role in American society. Egalitarian demands are beginning to appear, particularly in the field of education. In May 1954, a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, banned segregation in public schools, and in October 1955 a black student was admitted to a university in the southern state of Alabama. The great popular movements began in December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, and saw the arrival of a charismatic organizer, Martin Luther King. However, the civil rights vote was not without difficulty. In 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond even used his right to speak to make a twenty-four hour and twenty-seven minute speech to delay the Senate vote. President Eisenhower had to bring in the military to force some schools to open to black students.
Federal government and state powers
The presidency of Eisenhower marks a certain increase in federal power which, for example, establishes its authority over territorial waters. The creation of a Department of Education, Health and Human Services funds federal projects but takes little authority away from the states as can be seen in the government's difficulties in imposing desegregation in schools.
Retirement
Unable to seek a third term, Eisenhower left the White House in January 1961. He retired to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (which has since become the Eisenhower National Historic Site) where he devoted himself to writing his memoirs. He does not completely abandon politics. His successor John Kennedy remains in contact with him during the missile crisis. By telephone, he supports the acceptance of the concession demanded by Khrushchev:the withdrawal of nuclear missiles from Cuba in exchange for the promise not to invade the island. In November 1968, his vice-president Richard M. Nixon was elected to the presidency (the latter had failed 8 years earlier to succeed him, beaten in 1960 by John Kennedy). While he publicly expressed his contempt for the character during the 1960 campaign, he called for a new candidacy of his former vice-president in 1966 in the face of the moral rebellion of youth towards the values of the United States. Two months later he attended the wedding between his grandson David and Julie Nixon, daughter of the new president-elect.
He spent most of the last year of his life at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington DC to treat his heart problems. He died there on March 28, 1969. He received a military funeral and a state funeral in Washington, D.C. in the presence of dignitaries from 78 countries and thousands of anonymous people, then was buried at the Eisenhower Center alongside his son Doud Dwight .