When I was growing up, President Eisenhower was viewed in our house as a kindly old duffer who was a good general and, at best, a so-so president. As I grew up, matured and read more, I came to realize what an exceptional figure he was and how much he dominated the world we Americans have lived in.
In his excellent book, Commander in Chief, Eric Larrabee writes of Eisenhower at war's end:
"Eisenhower's truly astonishing accomplishment was swallowed up in the victory itself. Not many really noticed, as he so often arranged it, the plece of legerdemain that had been performed. The conduct of the war had been removed from British hands so deftly that they had no legitimate cause for complaint. His policy was simplicity itself: "he would not let either a British or an American general single-handedly," writes Martin Blumenson; "both British and Americans had to win it together." There was going to be no mean-spirited haggling over honor or glory; victory was going to be shared... "His real achievement," writes [Stephen] Ambrose, "was that he had won without alienating the British." The word "indispensable" should be used with care, but no candidate has been proposed for the role of doing what Eisenhower did.
"Churchill understood. "Let me tell you what General Eisenhower has meant to us ...," he wrote to President Truman after Roosevelt had died and the European war had ended. "In his headquarters unity and strategy were the only reigning spirits. . . . At no time has the principle of alliance between noble races been carried and maintained at so high a pitch. In the name of the British Empire and Commonwealth I express to you our admiration of the firm, far-sighted, and illuminating character and qualities of General of the Armies Eisenhower." And lastly, which no one much noticed either, the design of Roosevelt had been supplanted by the design of Eisenhower. America was not going to withdraw from European concerns as the President had wished but would embrace them as Eisenhower had learned to do. In the figure of this man we were in Europe to stay, and on this rock would be built the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the world we have lived in since."
Ike is a leader to look to for guidance in our own time.
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