Eisenhower: A Life

The book I read was Eisenhower: A Life, by Paul Johnson.Dwight D. Eisenhower was a hero, he was one of the best presidents we have ever had. He was intelligent and a true leader, he rose to a five star general and oversaw the Allies during the D-Day invasion of France. A famous quote from Eisenhower, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”He was born Dwight David Eisenhower on October 14, 1890 in Denison Texas. The Eisenhowers came to the U.S. in 1741.The third son out of seven, his parents were David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover. When Ike, as he was known, was one him and his family moved to Abilene, Kansas where he would grow up and go to school. Abilene is even
His first posting as a second lieutenant was to infantry at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in 1915.Ike was very well mannered and courteous, he also could unleash his fierce temper but it was kept under control. This was all thanks to his wife Mamie. Mamie Geneva Doud was born in Boone, Iowa, but moved to Denver when she was seven. She attended Miss Wolcott’s finishing school when she was sixteen, and married Ike in July of 1916. Standing at five feet four inches and weighing around one-hundred and thirty-five pounds, Mamie was not a pretty woman, but was always clean-cut, being named of the best-dressed women in 1952 by the New York Dress Institute. Whereas Ike would never wake up past five a.m., Mamie preferred to do her work in bed and not wake up until ten a.m. or even twelve p.m. Mamie played a massive role in Ike’s life, smoothing out the rough edges he acquired from his time in West point. She even went so far to ask her father to convince Ike the marriage would not take place unless he denounced his inclination to become a pilot as she had major dismay of flying. They faced many hardships, moving over twenty-five times during Ike’s army career and living off of nothing but his army
history, and on December 20,1944 Ike became one of them.Ike at first did not want to run for president, he refused many times, he wanted to be discovered in a sense, rather than push himself forward.Thanks to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr, “I like Ike” badges started to appear even before Eisenhower started to campaign for presidency. A massive reason that Ike had for running for president in 1952 was his hostility towards Taft.Taft opposed the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) while Eisenhower was a firm believer in it. Eisenhower was never an avid Republican, but it was what he ran for, and with almost no campaigning beat Taft 46,661 votes to 35,838.Furthermore, Eisenhower pulled in the largest number of votes in history with a whopping 34 million votes.He won the electoral college vote by 442 to 89, and for the first time since 1930, the Republican party was back in charge. During his presidency Eisenhower confronted the Cold War and kept America at peace. Ike sponsored and signed the Civil Rights Bills of 1957 and 1960.On July 7th,1953,he even ended the Korean War, persuading americans to accept a negotiation of peace.On July 29th,1958, he authorized the creation of NASA Ike made his farewell address on January 17,1961, he talked about how the country shouldn’t spend too much on military armaments as it could cripple our