LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Dwight Eisenhower: Soviet Union
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Following the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower was appointed Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, based in Frankfurt am Main. Germany was divided into four Occupation Zones, one each for the U.S., Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Upon full discovery of the death camps that were part of the Final Solution (Holocaust), he ordered camera crews to comprehensively document evidence of the atrocity for use in the war crimes tribunals. He made the decision to reclassify German prisoners of war (POWs) in U.S. custody as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEFs)... depriving them of the protection of the Geneva convention. As DEFs, their food rations could be lowered and they could be compelled to serve as unfree labor (see Eisenhower and German POWs). Eisenhower was an early supporter of the Morgenthau Plan to permanently remove Germany's industrial capacity to wage future wars.
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Following the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower was appointed Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone, based in Frankfurt am Main. Germany was divided into four Occupation Zones, one each for the U.S., Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. In addition, upon full discovery of the death camps that were part of the Final Solution (Holocaust), he ordered camera crews to comprehensively document evidence of the atrocity so as to prevent any doubt of its occurrence. He made the controversial decision to reclassify German prisoners of war (POWs) in U.S. custody as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEFs). As DEFs, they could be compelled to serve as unpaid conscript labor. An unknown number may have died in custody as a consequence of malnutrition, exposure to the elements, and lack of medical care (see Eisenhower and German POWs).
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Eisenhower launched his administration with high hopes of ending the Cold War. Fulfilling a campaign pledge, the President-elect went to Korea in December 1952 to examine the military and diplomatic stalemate. After his inauguration, he quickly halted the fighting in Korea, but the negotiation of a cease-fire was the prelude to an uneasy truce rather than a genuine peace. He was more successful in securing the termination of the four-power occupation of Austria and the restoration of Austrian sovereignty in 1955. More comprehensive efforts to ease tension between the United States and the Soviet Union were less productive. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who favored a firm stand against communism, strongly influenced the President.
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Once Allied invasion forces were securely on French soil and advancing, Eisenhower faced a choice of two proposals on the further strateigic conduct of the war. The British wanted to send their forces under General Montgomery forging ahead on a narrow front to take Berlin and crush the Nazis. Most of the American staff - excluding General Patton and a few others - favored a broad-front advancement strategy. Possible success of either strategy was delayed by the British failure of Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands in September 1944 and the German counterattack in December 1944. Yet it was not until General Omar Bradley's forces crossed the Rhine in early March 1945 that General Eisenhower finally decided definitely to pursue the broad-front strategy and agreed with the Soviets to meet their forces southeast of Berlin. In this article, which does not favor Eisenhower, Karl describes these events and others in detail.
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Eisenhower's farewell address on 17 January 1961 warned the nation against depending on an economy that was based on a military-industrial complex. Written by political scientist Malcolm Moos with help from brother Milton Eisenhower, the speech echoed the president's conviction that wars must be made obsolete. While he believed that the Soviet threat was being exaggerated, President Eisenhower argued for sufficiency, not superiority. The "military industrial complex" became a slogan used by the New Left in the 1960s to attack American capitalism, and became a standard ingredient of Soviet propaganda. Most Americans... ignored it.[28]
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Ill-fortune likewise dogged Eisenhower's final bid for an accommodation with the Russians. Premier Nikita Khrushchev boycotted a projected summit conference at Paris in May 1960. Khrushchev's excuse was the shooting down of an American U-2 plane that had been photographing installations in the USSR. Democrats criticized Eisenhower for jeopardizing peace with spy missions. They ... charged that the administration was falling behind the Soviet Union in the development of missiles and other weapons of the space age. The secrecy that shrouded military planning precludes an objective judgment about Eisenhower's stewardship in that area.
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