I’ve finished 3 books on President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mandate for Change and Waging
Peace are Ike’s memoirs of his first and second Presidential terms,
respectively. Going Home to Glory is the story of Ike’s final eight years of
life, as told by his grandson David Eisenhower, along with his wife Julie Nixon
Eisenhower.
The two White House memoirs are very dry and told in a
strictly factual, unemotional fashion. I still adored them, and finished with a
great appreciation for a President overshadowed by the unwarranted adoration
for his successor (JFK). Kennedy and his supporters campaigned on the idea that
the Eisenhower era was stagnant and parochial, an erroneous assertion that
survives to this day. The truth is far
different.
Here was a President who kept the peace in the face of near
constant Soviet and Chinese provocation, while simultaneously expanding the
ring of ‘containment’ that would eventually break the USSR; a President who balanced the budget multiple
times, at times refusing to cut taxes to do so, and led America to
unparalleled prosperity ; a President who included women in his Cabinet and
sent federal troops in to desegregate Little Rock schools; a President who
warned that any dollar spent on defense above the level of military adequacy
was a dollar misspent, and had the military reputation to enforce that
doctrine; a President who refused to intervene in Vietnam barring a coalition
effort; a President convinced that aiding Latin America and Africa was not only
moral but a means of fighting the Cold War; a President who valued
bipartisanship and the UN, advocated for a “United States of Europe”, and
expanded the reach of social security; but also a President who believed in
self-determination, the value of duty, limited Federal intervention, free
markets and the moral greatness of America.
His Presidency deserves a second look.
Their contents deserve an A, but given the dull style I can
only grade these two a B.
Going Home to Glory begins
with the conclusion of his administration and ends with his death in 1969. book
is the opposite of his Grandfather’s stylistically; it is warm and endearing
and a joy to read. Grade: A.
Also read so far this year: Belles on their Toes by Frank B
Gilbreth Jr and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
and The Rise of Ransom City by Felix
Gilman.
I’d rate the former a B- and the latter a well served A.
