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Dwight Eisenhower: Wars
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From 1929 to 1933, Eisenhower served in the office of the assistant secretary of war. He produced a long report on industrial mobilization in the event of war. In 1933 he became assistant to the chief of staff, Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Although MacArthur was too flamboyant for Eisenhower's taste, MacArthur appreciated and depended on Eisenhower's administrative and writing abilities. When MacArthur went to the Philippines in 1935 as military adviser to the Commonwealth, he asked the War Department to detail Major Eisenhower to him as senior assistant. Eisenhower spent the next four years in the Philippines helping MacArthur build up the defenses of the islands.
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Shortly thereafter, Eisenhower became chief of the War Plans Division (subsequently Operations Division), the office widely regarded as the brains of the Army, and threw himself into drafting basic strategy for the war against the Axis. In late February 1942, Marshall asked for a memorandum to outline for the President and the Combined Chiefs the general strategy the Allies should pursue. In response, Eisenhower drafted a document that was in effect a precis of the next three years of the war. He observed that there were many desirable objectives the alliance might pursue, but warned that the resources did not exist to tackle every problem. Instead, he wrote, it was crucial to concentrate exclusively on those operations that were necessary to defeat the Axis. In his view, such a resolutely disciplined strategic conception offered the only hope of victory.
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After his inauguration, Eisenhower worked to end active American involvement in the Korean War which, despite his aversion to the expansion of Communism, he felt had developed into a stalemate. He accomplished his goal when an armistice was signed in 1953. He ... oversaw the massive public works project that bears his name—the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system. The project brought about the expansion of interstate commerce, as well as the creation of the suburb and a new middle-class consciousness.
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After the war, Eisenhower reverted to the permanent rank of major--one he was to hold for 16 years. In spring 1919, took part in the army's Transcontinental Convoy designed to demonstrate the need for better roads and a transcontinental highway system. The entourage left from Washington and followed a route that approximated the planned Lincoln Highway. The "truck train," as Ike called it, consisted of 81 military vehicles, 37 officers, several hundred enlisted personnel, and numerous civilian vehicles. The army vehicles included one small tank, which was the responsibility of Eisenhower and his friend, Major Sereno Brett. An estimated 3.5 million people viewed the convoy, which arrived in San Francisco in September.
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After the war, Eisenhower served as chief of staff for the American army and saw the size of that army drop from 8 million to 1 million as a result of demobilisation. In 1948, he retired from the army but became head of NATO in 1950. He then stood for the US presidency. He was first elected president in 1952 (though sworn in as president in 1953) and re-elected in 1956 (inaugurated in 1957)
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Eisenhower's personal qualities were precisely right for the situation in the months that followed. He had to deal with British generals whose war experience exceeded his own and with a prime minister, Winston Churchill, whose strength and determination were of the first order. Eisenhower's post called for a combination of tact and resolution, for an ability to get along with people and yet maintain his own position as the leader of the Allied forces. In addition to his capacity to command respect and affection, Eisenhower showed high executive quality in his selection of subordinates.
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