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Dwight Eisenhower: Wars
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In the lead-up to the presidential election, Eisenhower campaigned as a "non-politician," never mentioning his main competitor, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, by name. Instead he allowed other Republicans to run a Cold War campaign accusing the Democrats of being "soft on Communism" while he preserved his genial public image. For this reason he chose a hard-line, right-wing Senator from California, Richard Nixon, as his running mate. Eisenhower, as one of the country's two greatest war heroes, but with a much more congenial personality than MacArthur's, he was always likely to be elected. Eisenhower and Nixon won the November election with 442 electoral votes, against Stevenson's 89.
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Eisenhower molded the giant force that on June 6, 1944, landed on the beaches of Normandy. Although meeting fierce German resistance, his command of the air meant the Germans were immobile and could not be resupplied. Eisenhower's the forces broke through at St. Lo (July 18, 1944), and landed ... in southern France (August 15, 1944). The Germans rapidly retreated to Germany, many escaping through the Failaise Gap that the American field commander, General Omar Bradley, had failed to close. The liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944, seemed to herald a quick end to the war. But a German counterattack, called the "Battle of the Bulge" in the Ardennes in mid-December 1944, caught the Allies by complete surprise.
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Eisenhower accompanied Conner to Panama in 1922, where the general assumed command of the 20th Infantry Brigade. The young major became his chief of staff. The two men developed a unique relationship when Conner decided to superintend Eisenhower's military education. Under Conner's tutelage, Eisenhower perfected his administrative and tactical techniques by drafting formal orders for each day's operations in the brigade and by analyzing the tactical problems of fighting on the terrain in Panama. The general ... directed an intensive reading program that introduced Eisenhower to Plato and Tacitus, influential thinkers such as Nietzsche, the various military writers of his day, and Clausewitz, whose On War he read three times.
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Eisenhower and Montgomery clashed one last time as the end of the war approached. Eisenhower wanted the Allies to concentrate on the industrial heartland of Germany and leave Berlin to the Russians. Montgomery wanted the Allies to use the power they had to get to Berlin before the Russians. Eisenhower believed that the nearer the Allies got to Berlin, the more fanatical the fighting would become. This would only cause more Allied casualties. This proved to be correct with the Russians losing 100,000 men for the battle to take Berlin.
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Eisenhower served two terms as President, from January 20, 1953 until January 20, 1961. He saw an end of the Korean War, and dealt with crises in Lebanon, Suez, Berlin and Hungary. He promoted Atoms for Peace, saw Alaska and Hawaii become states and was concerned with civil rights issues. Long before the Republican convention, Eisenhower groomed Nixon as his successor, but although he could win elections, Eisenhower could not convert personal loyalty into support for his parties’ candidate.
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By the end of the war, Eisenhower had risen to the rank of captain. Declining an offer to train incompetent soldiers to turn the wrong way and ... hit each other with their rifle barrels, he opted to become assistant to General MacArthur. As commander of US forces in the Philippines, MacArthur's main task was creating ethnic jokes about the Filipinos. Eisenhower was reluctantly obliged to put his pies on the back burner
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