Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969) was an American army officer and statesman who served as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during the Second World War and as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. [1] He directed Operation Overlord, the Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944, and accepted the German surrender the following year. [2] As president he ended the Korean War, oversaw the creation of the Interstate Highway System and NASA, and warned in his farewell address of the influence of a "military-industrial complex". [3]
Early life and military training
Eisenhower was born on 14 October 1890 in Denison, Texas, and was raised in Abilene, Kansas, in a family of modest means. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1915. He missed combat service in the First World War, commanding a tank training centre in Pennsylvania instead. [1]
Between the wars he attended the Command and General Staff College, where he graduated first in his class, and the Army War College, and served as an aide to Generals John J. Pershing and Douglas MacArthur. [2]
Second World War
After the United States entered the war, Eisenhower was brought to Washington to work on war plans and rose rapidly. He commanded the Allied landings in North Africa in 1942 and the subsequent campaigns in Tunisia, Sicily and Italy, and in December 1943 was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force for the invasion of north-west Europe. [1]
He directed the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944 and the campaign across France and into Germany, holding together a coalition of national armies and often-difficult subordinate commanders. Germany surrendered unconditionally at his headquarters in Reims in May 1945. He was promoted to General of the Army and received decorations from many Allied states, including the Soviet Order of Victory. [2]
Between war and the presidency
Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff from 1945 to 1948, then as president of Columbia University, before being recalled to become the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe of the newly formed NATO in 1951. He published a wartime memoir, Crusade in Europe. [1]
Courted by both parties, he ran as a Republican in 1952 and won decisively, defeating Adlai Stevenson; he defeated Stevenson again in 1956.
Presidency
Eisenhower concluded an armistice in Korea in 1953 and pursued a national security policy that relied on nuclear deterrence and covert action rather than large conventional forces. His administration presided over covert operations in Iran and Guatemala, the deepening of the Cold War, and the first American commitments in Vietnam. He proposed the "Atoms for Peace" and "Open Skies" initiatives and received the Atoms for Peace Award. [3]
Domestically he signed the legislation creating the Interstate Highway System, established NASA in 1958 following the launch of Sputnik, and signed the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960. In 1957 he sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce the desegregation of Central High School after the state governor obstructed a court order. [2]
Farewell address and later life
In his televised farewell address of January 1961 Eisenhower warned that the permanent arms industry created by the Cold War posed a risk to democratic government, coining the phrase "military-industrial complex". [3] He retired to a farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He died in Washington, D.C., on 28 March 1969.
Legacy
Eisenhower is consistently ranked by historians among the more successful American presidents, credited with restraint in the use of force, fiscal caution and steady management of Cold War crises. [1]
