What are your thoughts about Dwight David Eisenhower?

[OAITW r.2.0]

Sorry no interest in discussing his personal life.

What do you think of him as General...then President?


Have you looked at the 1952 and 1956 Republican platform?

I could have been a E-Republican, but Nixon destroyed Dwight's Legacy.

[onecaliberal]

1. Hed be a Democratic President by todays standard.

[jalan48]

7. I have to agree but it does beg the question what would that make the Democrats back then be

by today's standards?

[onecaliberal]

17. It definitely does. It also demonstrates how crazy the right has become.

[OAITW r.2.0]

19. Great question...but politics was differnt in the late 60s/70s.

There was a political majority between Rs and Ds to get Progressive legislation thru Congress. Then, the Republicans got rid of liberals, then moderates, and pretty much anyone with a conscience.....then they ate themselves. See Yeah!

[OAITW r.2.0]

21. Who? JFK? McGovern? Kerry?

They fought, what Republicans did serve (no counting Ron Reagan John Wayne....who served in valiantly Hollywood).

Pube Party are not exactly war vets on steroids. Most Republicans don't give fuck. So what is the Republican Party? A group of unaffiliated, anti-socialist loners? Need more GUNZ!

[Sophia4]

37. JFK, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy -- all assassinated.

Remember that.

My father said when Adlai Stevenson and Eisenhower were nominated that lots of Democrats wanted to nominate Eisenhower as a Democrat. The parties were not so divided from each other at that time. And Eisenhower was a successful and respected general.

And then after Eisenhower, JFK was nominated and elected as a Democrat only to be assassinated.

I have a lot of questions about who was really behind his assassination as well as those of MLK and Robert Kennedy. It's just a very strange "coincidence" that the leadership of the Democratic Party and of liberals was destroyed by assassination over the period of just a few years. Historians will not so easily accept the nonchalant view that dominates our news media today.

I don't like to be a conspiracy theorist, but it is very strange to have three liberal leaders assassinated so cruelly in such a short time only to be followed by a series of very right-wing, increasingly right-wing "leaders" for many years.

As a nation, we still haven't recovered from those assassinations, the racism that Nixon revived and the selfish philosophy of the Reagan years.

What a loss we suffered.

[hedda_foil]

57. Both parties wanted to nominate him in 1952.

[Freedomofspeech]

2. I was just a kid...

But I think he was the last good republican. He actually hated war.

[brush]

6. He was the last Republican that won legitimately...except maybe Daddy Bush.

Nixon and Reagan both committed treason to win and W and trump cheated.

[left-of-center2012]

60. "the last good republican"

I liked Nelson Rockefeller.
NY governor and V.P. under Ford.

[Binkie The Clown]

3. Possibly the last decent Republican. I grew up with him in the White House. nt

[dawg day]

4. The internet highway system....

He was a forward-looking guy, that's for sure. And he came to speak for peace and against the "military-industrial complex".

His library in Abilene KS is a tribute to peace-seekers. It's really quite moving:
"When this library is filled with documents, and scholars come here to probe into some of the facts of the past half century, I hope that they, as we today, are concerned primarily with the ideals, principles, and trends that provide guides to a free, rich, peaceful future in which all peoples can achieve ever-rising levels of human well-being."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Speech at the Ground Breaking Ceremonies for the Library, October 13, 1959

[Igel]

22. Interstate.

And it was both economic as well as military. Those interstates make mighty fine means to transport troops. They're dual use, and intended as such.

One can speak peace and be prepared for war.

[dawg day]

63. LOL-- INTERSTATE

My vocabulary is shaped by the interneT!

[hlthe2b]

5. Given how much he accomplished, I see why the Historians and PoliSci academics have him at 7th

best President of all time. He was before my time, but I do know quite a bit about him and I have a great deal of respect for him. If we had Republicans in his mold now, I can not even imagine how much we could accomplish.

The take home message, though, is that he, today, would likely be a Democrat. Quite frankly, (though I do not have the same respect for Reagan or Nixon), neither would be likely to be embraced by today's Republicans.

[GP6971]

8. Dedicated to the country

not his own personal fame.

[EarnestPutz]

9. Just his fairwell address....

....was enough to secure his legacy. In cautioning us about the militart-industrial complex,
he said that every bomber that build is one less school that we have. I can't imagine any
modern politician (maybe Bernie Sanders) saying this publicly today. Our military spending
and our overseas wars are sacrosanct today when we really are much safer than during the
fifties.

[msongs]

13. umm bernie is a supporter of the F 35 program nt

[mvd]

27. Yes indeed

Eisenhower couldn't stop all bombers. Neither can Bernie. I feel they both would prefer the bombers not exist. In Bernie's case, he wants them in Vermont rather than elsewhere for jobs.

Eisenhower tried to take the Republican Party in a more progressive direction, but unfortunately failed. His weakness was on gay rights, where he supported bigoted policies.

[dalton99a]

10. The top marginal tax rate was 91 percent during his presidency.

'Nuf said

[Igel]

25. And yet not much has changed.

Except that the top 10% pay more in taxes now (as a percentage of revenues) than they did then.

Why?

Because the amount paid has stayed pretty consistent. With high marginal tax rates, you shelter your income; with lower marginal tax rates, you don't think it's worth the hassle and time. When I was a kid, I had relatives who talked about tax shelters. Nobody talks about tax shelters these days. The result is that you pay about the same amount over time.

But since the rich earn more as a percentage of national income, they pay more.

When I made little back in the '80s I paid little in income tax. But I paid income tax. Now I could make twice that amount (adjusted for inflation) and, were I single, still pay nothing.

It's not the marginal rates that people like to quote. It's the effective rates that matter.

[mountain grammy]

11. I was born under Truman, raised under Eisenhower

my parents were Democrats, but tolerated Ike. Biggest issues with them was discrimination and segregation and they thought Ike didn't do enough to end it. Then there was the Rosenberg execution and Joe McCarthy. The folks had a healthy distrust of Republicans having gone through the Depression, but they respected Eisenhower and thought he did many things right, you know, for a Republican.

As a general, I never heard a discouraging word about the man in our house. To my parents, he won WWII.

[Wellstone ruled]

14. Pretty much the same in our house.

Remember the old Man voting for Ike in 52' that was the one and only time he ever voted Rethug. Nixon started showing his hate filled side in 53'.

[braddy]

26. Eisenhower is the man who sent the 101st Airborne paratroopers (Band of Brothers) to

enforce federal desegregation laws.

[dalton99a]

35. He was actually quite "conservative" on that front

"Principled incrementalism in doing the right thing combined with mystifying deference to white racism"

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/why-dont-we-ike-civil-rights
Why don’t we remember Ike as a civil rights hero?
05/17/14 12:05 PM—Updated 05/18/14 03:31 PM
By Adam Serwer

....

The liberal federal judges Eisenhower appointed would serve as a bulwark against the segregationists later appointed by President John F. Kennedy, who was beholden to southern senators from his party. But as a strong believer in federalism, Ike was reluctant to use federal power to intervene on behalf of civil rights in the states, and his civil rights accomplishments were ultimately dwarfed by another successor, Lyndon Johnson, who during the 1950s served as Ike’s nemesis in the Senate as Eisenhower sought the first civil rights bills since Reconstruction. Tepid measures, they would nevertheless pave the way for Johnson, who as president would defy his own racist history and sign civil rights laws much broader than those Eisenhower had proposed.

In two terms as president, Eisenhower combined what was, at the time, the strongest record on civil rights since Reconstruction with a baffling rhetorical deference to white supremacists and a cold relationship with civil rights leaders.

“He made substantial progress in the area of civil rights, more than any other individual president between Lincoln and Johnson,” said Michael Mayer, a history professor at the University of Montana. “But compared to Johnson? No.”

Eisenhower opposed discrimination but seemed to sympathize far more with the white southerners whose lives would be disrupted by the end of Jim Crow than blacks dwelling under its boot heel. He was an incrementalist skeptical of federal power who often repeated the ideological belief that laws could not shape culture, despite pursuing laws that would extend–albeit modestly compared to Johnson-era efforts–federal authority to protect Americans’ civil rights. Eisenhower would say, “You cannot change people’s hearts merely by laws.”

[mountain grammy]

43. Yes, we watched that on tv

Then got transferred to North Carolina a year later..guess what? Still segregated.

[k8conant]

12. I suppose I liked Ike...

although I liked Adlai Stevenson better. In any case, I certainly liked Ike's denunciation of the military industrial complex.

(NB: I was twelve years old when he left office).

[PoiBoy]

15. Eisenhower was the reason my parents were republicans...

..until JFK turned them into forever Democrats... his farewell speech was insightful and awesome...





Farewell speech Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address



Farewell speech HD:

I've heard Rachel Maddow call herself an Eisenhower Democrat... I can agree...

[Proud liberal 80]

53. Unfortunately

That platform back then was to help white people, even the refugees were from Eastern European Soviet Bloc countries.

Now that platform is something that you would see on the Democratic side. And although it would still benefit more white people, those same white people have been convinced that the “others” are benefiting. So they are against it.

[Blue_true]

62. Bingo. You win a Trump doll to beat the hell out of. nt

[Upthevibe]

16. I haven't really thought much about it but

it's interesting to ponder...

[JI7]

18. the country would be better off if he was the type that Republicans would nominate

but today he would be very unpopular with the republican party. same goes for lincoln.

[3Hotdogs]

20. I saw him in Newark, NJ. Approximately, 1962. He was giving a speech at the

Robert Treat Hotel and I was working in two building from it.

What I remembered was that his face looked red.

The only president I got to shake hands with was Richard Nixon. Lucky me.

[DFW]

41. Lucky you, indeed!

I never met Nixon, but my dad knew him. He was an uptight, insecure, nervous man.

One time, there was a big reception for an event at the US-Canadian border, and my dad had to cover it. He was a D.C. print journalist, and his paper was in upstate NY, so anything having to do with the St. Lawrence Seaway, he had to be there. A few months before, he had run into PM Trudeau (the first one--this was in the early seventies) on vacation. Nixon was with Trudeau when he saw my dad, came over, expecting to be the big M.C., and asked my dad if he had ever met PM Trudeau. Trudeau and my dad had a laugh at that (which Nixon, of course, couldn't get) and both told Nixon that yes, they had, in fact, met before. That took the wind out of Nixon's sails pretty quickly. He said, "oh," and slunk away.

[Tactical Peek]

23. When asked if the United States should have a military parade . . .

Link to tweet

/photo/1


* edited - now that I have Snopsed second instead of first, I should add that these remarks are imputed to him.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/eisenhower-military-parades/

[smirkymonkey]

45. Someone ought to tweet that to IQ45.

I wish the media would pick up on this and start the meme that the reason Trump needs a parade is because he is WEAK. Which we all know to be the truth, but it hasn't really sunk in for him yet.

[Skittles]

24. last decent Republican president

[erinlough]

28. Just what I was going to post.

My dad, a ww2 vet, and my mom, a life long dem even voted for him.

[northremembers]

29. WWII Changed him

Eisenhower voted against the New Deal three times. Seeing the effects of fascism in Europe changed his outlook and he was the one who brought into the Republican party the idea of not trying to overturn the New Deal.

I think he was a great president, but the darkest part of his legacy continues to shape the world and our relationship with it. His policy was investment domestically, partnership with Europe, and control/coercion with the rest of the world. This double standard is what's created most of our problems for the past 60 years.

Imagine if the policy of the Marshal Plan had been integrated with decolonization (FDR's vision at the Atlantic conference). Eisenhower's covert policies are now an open centerpiece of Trump's platform. Covert coercion has defined who we are as a nation in the 21st century in a way Eisenhower specifically meant to steer us away from. At the end of the day, though, it was his policy. He made a lot of good choices, but this one was not one of them and he had a much better policy sitting right in front of him.

[shanny]

30. Outstanding general, decent president domestically but in foreign affairs

some glaring blind spots: he let Allen Dulles at the CIA (and his brother John Foster Dulles at State) run wild, and sow a lot of seeds that STILL plague us today.

https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/the-dulles-brothers-and-their-legacy-of-perpetual-war-94191c41a653

"The great nations of Europe and East Asia were devastated by the War and for the most part lay prostrate at the feet of the American collossus. Together John Foster and Allen seized the day and fastened the U.S. government upon the world as a hyperactive, ruthless empire committed to perpetual war. In doing so, they also helped fasten an equally hyperactive and ruthless garrison state upon the American people themselves.

This interventionism was framed under the rubric of the Cold War: an all-encompassing struggle pitting the “forces of freedom” against revolutionary communism and Soviet imperialism. In reality it was all about Washington’s own global hegemony, which was advanced especially for the sake of the elite corporate interests that the Dulles brothers had served all throughout their careers."

As much as we all admire him for his "cross of iron" speech, warning us of the dangers of the MIC, he himself loosed the hounds, so to speak. Clearly he regretted that; I think we all do.

[jes06c]

31. His shenanigans in Iran

created a mess that we're still trying to clean up. And I wish he had done a little more to fight McCarthy. He was better than Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush, or Trump, although that's not a high bar to clear, and if I had been alive during the 50s I'd still have voted for Stevenson both times. Still, I guess I'd say he's about as good as it gets for a Republican, with the possible exception of Theodore Roosevelt.

You know what the funny thing is? He was a two term president with great approval ratings, easily won re-election, receives high marks from historians, was a genuine war hero, and yet you never hear modern day Republicans mention him. Ever.

[DAMANgoldberg]

32. Some of his progeny was all-in for Obama

Though I was not around when he was, I could have voted for him easily.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-obama-like-eisenhower/

https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/26/politics/obama-eisenhower/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Eisenhower#Endorsement_of_Barack_Obama

[oasis]

33. Great general. He skillfully coordinated the efforts of the allied commanders

on the western front. In the East, Soviet Gen. Zhukov landed the first blow of the one-two punch that finally crushed Hitler's forces.

Ike was a fine president, although Donald Trump would have disapproved of the enormous amount of time he spent golfing.

[Thekaspervote]

34. PBS did a wonderful 3 hr episode on his life

Most Americans recall Kennedy when it comes to the civil unrest In the south brought on by the SCOTUS ruling regarding desegregation, but that ruling came during the last of DDE’s term. He was a known racist, but when faced with what was the right thing to do he did it, and without hesitation. Following that decision, he somewhat angrily told the media when pressed that when elected he swore to uphold the law and the constitution and that was what he was going to do! And added that the day this country has a leader that rules by his own beliefs and not by law and the constitution would be the day we would no longer have a democracy.

He’d turn over in his grave over dodart... and probably is!!!

[Rhiannon12866]

36. From what I've read, Eisenhower was not at all fond of Nixon

In fact, unlike more recent POTUS/VP relationships, Ike pretty much ignored him. However, Eisenhower did serve as an unofficial advisor to LBJ.

[Exotica]

38. The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/books/review/the-president-and-the-apprentice-eisenhower-and-nixon-1952-1961.html?referer=https://www.google.se/

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., someone who unquestionably understood charisma, considered Vice President Richard Nixon “one of the most magnetic personalities” he had ever encountered. “When you are close to Nixon,” King observed in 1958, “he almost disarms you with his apparent sincerity.” But King also worried that there might be a hidden duality to Nixon, or worse, a facade. If the vice president was actually insincere, King warned, he could be “the most dangerous man in America.”

Nixon’s vice-presidential years are arguably the least well known of his long political career. It has been over 20 years since Stephen Ambrose wrote the first and until now only major book to focus on Nixon’s vice presidency. Much has since been released about the Eisenhower administration, and Ambrose’s own research methods have been called into question. But the reason Nixon’s activities between 1952 and 1961 are comparatively little understood also relates to a problem inherent in studying vice presidencies. Big decisions emanate from the White House, not the vice president’s office (though Dick Cheney may have broken the mold). Furthermore, the most influential vice presidents know to keep their advice confidential.

Snip

In this long-awaited second volume, Gellman continues trying to set the record straight. He sees far less animosity in the peculiar political marriage between Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower than did Jeffrey Frank in his elegant and indispensable “Ike and Dick.” Gellman agrees with most historians that Eisenhower was prepared to drop Nixon from the ticket in 1952 over allegations about a secret fund set up by Southern Californian businessmen. Gellman, who has found the notes Eisenhower made while watching Nixon give the so-called Checkers speech, concludes that the general gained new respect for his running mate. Persuaded that Nixon was being honest, and impressed by his savvy and political courage, Eisenhower started to groom him for the presidency.

Although Nixon is clearly the “apprentice” of the title, what Gellman describes is more like a symbiotic relationship. Young enough to be Eisenhower’s son, Nixon traveled around the world for the president, serving as his eyes and ears. Presidential cynicism played a role in these assignments. Eisenhower exploited Nixon’s unassailable anti-Communist credentials to defend his policies abroad. At home, Eisenhower used Nixon to rally the Republicans’ restive right-wing base, occasionally wincing when Nixon verged on charging Democrats with treason but never ordering him to curtail his Reds! Reds! Reds! roadshows.

Snip

[Rhiannon12866]

39. Thanks very much! Looks like an update!

I'm fascinated by presidential history, looks like a terrific read!

[Thirties Child]

40. My first vote in a presidential election was for Ike.

[MountCleaners]

42. My Dad met five presidents

Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Of those five, he said Eisenhower and Kennedy were the nicest. That's just a personal impression, though. He said Nixon was an awful person.

[Javaman]

44. eisenhower was part of the staff that helped general macarther remove

the bonus marchers from the Washington area in 1932. a few of them were killed.

eisenhower, while condemning the MIC, was one of the people most responsible for it's creation.

there is no repuke that I like.

[el_bryanto]

46. On the Bonus Marchers

That was a terrible situation - what do you think he should have done ? He was in the military, and he received a terrible order from someone who had the authority to give that order?

Bryant

[Javaman]

47. They shouldn't have shot them nor should they have burned them out

shooting protesters is a hard choice? the U.S. Army used to against citizens? hard choice? a man of better merit would have not followed illegal orders which were in violation of posse comitatus act of 1878

a better president would have handled it differently, such as FDR who offered the bonus marchers jobs.

Army intervention
At 4:45 p.m., commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six M1917 light tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch. The Bonus Marchers, believing the troops were marching in their honor, cheered the troops until Patton ordered[citation needed] the cavalry to charge them, which prompted the spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"[citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army#Army_intervention

Shacks that members of the Bonus Army erected on the Anacostia Flats burning after its confrontation with the army.
After the cavalry charged, the infantry, with fixed bayonets and tear gas (adamsite, an arsenical vomiting agent) entered the camps, evicting veterans, families, and camp followers. The veterans fled across the Anacostia River to their largest camp, and Hoover ordered the assault stopped. MacArthur chose to ignore the president and ordered a new attack, claiming that the Bonus March was an attempt to overthrow the US government; 55 veterans were injured and 135 arrested.[14] A veteran's wife miscarried. When 12-week-old Bernard Myers died in the hospital after being caught in the tear gas attack, a government investigation reported he died of enteritis, and a hospital spokesman said the tear gas "didn't do it any good."[20]

During the military operation, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, later the 34th president of the United States, served as one of MacArthur's junior aides.[21] Believing it wrong for the Army's highest-ranking officer to lead an action against fellow American war veterans, he strongly advised MacArthur against taking any public role: "I told that dumb son-of-a-bitch not to go down there," he said later. "I told him it was no place for the Chief of Staff."[22] Despite his misgivings, Eisenhower later wrote the Army's official incident report that endorsed MacArthur's conduct

[el_bryanto]

48. OK that kind of ducks the question - once he recieve the order

should have have refused to follow that order?

I am not defending McCarthurs actions - they were awful; I'm questioning that once Eisenhower received the order what should he have done.

[Javaman]

49. i didn't duck it at all. I answered in the first sentence or did you miss it?

They shouldn't have shot them nor should they have burned them out

shooting protesters is a hard choice? the U.S. Army used to against citizens? hard choice? a man of better merit would have not followed illegal orders which were in violation of posse comitatus act of 1878

and why are you defending these actions?

what have we become as democrats?

[el_bryanto]

50. You are trying to conflate Eisenhower with McCarthur

I have not defended those actions, what I am saying is that you are trying to paint Eisenhower as equal in guilt to McArthur and therefore unfit to be President. I don't think that is accurate.

[Javaman]

51. OMG

it was an illegal order.

it's not just macarthur who had to follow those orders.

jesus christ we are done and yes you are defending those actions.

just stop it.

[el_bryanto]

52. You have kind of lost the thread I am afraid

MacArthur received orders from Hoover not to charge the Bonus Army - he decided he would anyway.

Eisenhower said "I told that dumb son-of-a-bitch not to go down there," he said later. "I told him it was no place for the Chief of Staff." He did also write the after action report that endorsed the action, however.

Eisenhower received an order from MacCarthur to participate in driving out the Bonus Army - an action that lead to at least one death. He complied with this order.

MacArthur is completely culpable - he chose to attack the Bonus Army. MacArthurs actions were a crime, and he should have been removed from power - but he was feared in America at that time.

Eisenhower followed an order. Your argument is that his willingness to follow that order (and his participation in the growth of the Military Industrial Complex) makes him unfit to have been President. I am unconvinced, and specifically I asked what he should have done once he received the order from MacArthur.

Bryant

[shanny]

55. +1

[rurallib]

54. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice

but I am sure most here would say was a great Justice.

From what I have seen Eisenhower never really described Warren as a "mistake" but supposedly said he was 'disappointed' in the trend of Warren's decisions.

Warren had been the governor of California and the Republican VP candidate in 1948.

Me? I was a kid, but it seemed like everybody we knew loved IKE. I retrospect Eisenhower had some problems but in general was a solid president.
I would say bringing on Nixon and the Dulles brothers were his 2 big mistakes.

[gladium et scutum]

58. It was Warren, as Attorney General and Governor of California,

strongly supported the internment of Japanese Americans. He lobbied the Roosevelt Administration heavily to take that action. In later years he personally admitted that that had been a mistake.

[MineralMan]

56. I think he died quite some time ago.

The GOP he represented died a few years later. Let the dead bury the dead.

[Paladin]

59. Brilliant general, greatly undervalued president. (nt)

[FarCenter]

61. Ike was the last true executive President to manage the Executive branch.

No president since has had his prior experience with managing a large organization. George H W Bush comes closest, having been the CIA director briefly and having managed Zapata Oil.

[MicaelS]

64. Eisenhower was a warmonger of the first order.

The fascination of some people on the Left with Eisenhower, simply because of his anti MIC speech as he left office never ceases to amaze me. He presided over the enormous buildup of the US Nuclear Arsenal, and regularly contemplated Thermonuclear War with the USSR. Eisenhower was no Dove.

I can't copy and paste the entire article, it's far too long, but the 4 paragraphs below hits the highlights. I suggest you read the entire article.

http://hnn.us/articles/47326.html

Peace activists love to quote Dwight Eisenhower. The iconic Republican war hero who spoke so eloquently about the dangers of war and the need for disarmament makes a terrific poster-boy for peace. The image of Eisenhower as the “man of peace” is so useful that I almost hate to burst the bubble. But if you look at the historical record there is no escaping the other Eisenhower: the Eisenhower who said “he would rather be atomized than communized,” who reminds us how dangerous the cold war era really was and how easily political leaders can mask their intentions with benign images.


Early on, he noted in his diary what he later said in public: nuclear weapons would now be “treated just as another weapon in the arsenal.” “We have got to be in a position to use that weapon,” he insisted to Dulles. That became official policy in NSC 5810/1, which declared the U.S. intention to treat nuclear weapons “as conventional weapons; and to use them whenever required to achieve national objectives.” By early 1957, Eisenhower told the NSC that there could be no conventional battles any more: “The only sensible thing for us to do was to put all our resources into our SAC capability and into hydrogen bombs.” He found it “frustrating not to have plans to use nuclear weapons generally accepted.”

His whole reason for fighting was to prevent the communists from imposing a totalitarian state in America. He had long recognized the irony that nuclear war would lead to the very totalitarianism he abhorred. But he confessed to the Cabinet that he saw no way to avoid it: “He was coming more and more to the conclusion that … we would have to run this country as one big camp—severely regimented.” After reading plans for placing the nation under martial law, giving the president power to “requisition all of the nation’s resources–human and material,” he pronounced them “sound.”

It is hard to give up the “man of peace” that peace activists have come to admire. And perhaps it’s not fair to give him up. After all, we can never know what another person truly believes. But the record of the other Eisenhower is so consistent and so extensive (I’ve offered only a sampling here) that it is hard to ignore. More importantly, it is dangerous to ignore, because the other Eisenhower was the one who made actual policy. It was a policy that put anticommunist ideology above human life, made by a man who would “push whole stack of chips into the pot” and “hit ‘em … with everything in the bucket”; a man who would “shoot your enemy before he shoots you” and “hit the guy fast with all you’ve got”; a man who believed that the U.S. could “pick itself up from the floor” and win the war, even though “everybody is going crazy,” as long as only 25 or 30 American cities got “shellacked” and nobody got too “hysterical.”