Start your free trial today. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. His birth name was David Dwight Eisenhower. Mamie Eisenhower was an American first lady and the wife of famed U. Army commander and 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Franklin D. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and After his death, the Reverend Billy Graham became just the fourth private citizen in American history to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, a recognition usually reserved for elected officials and military leaders.
As spiritual counsel to a dozen presidents, Graham was On January 5, , in response to the increasingly tense situation in the Middle East, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered a proposal to a joint session of the U. Congress calling for a new and more proactive American policy in the region. The Eisenhower Dwight D. Eisenhower became legendary for his ability to get officers and armies from different nations to work together to defeat Nazi Germany.
But if needed, he was also willing to take Harry S. Truman , the 33rd U. In the White House from to , Truman made the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan, helped rebuild postwar Europe, worked to After the Soviets launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik, on October 4, , Eisenhower resisted panicked public demands for huge increases in military spending since he knew that the nation's defenses remained strong.
He insisted that he would not spend one penny less than was necessary to maintain national security—nor one penny more. Although Eisenhower now gets credit he deserves for preserving peace and prosperity, historians have not overlooked the limit of his achievements. His "hidden hand" eventually helped push Senator Joseph R.
McCarthy out of the national spotlight, but Eisenhower's unwillingness to confront McCarthy directly allowed the senator to continue to abuse his power and sully the reputations of those he wrongfully accused. Despite some significant actions to advance civil rights, Eisenhower remained a gradualist who firmly believed that changes in individual hearts and minds more than the passage of laws would eliminate racial barriers.
Despite this conviction, Eisenhower did not try to change contemporary thinking about racial issues by speaking out in favor of civil rights. He did take actions to end racial segregation, but he was unwilling to use his moral authority as President to advance the most important movement for social justice of the 20th century. Although he avoided war, Eisenhower did not achieve the peace he desired. He was unable to secure a test-ban treaty, which he hoped would be an important part of his legacy.
The covert interventions he authorized in Iran and Guatemala yielded short-term success but contributed to long-term instability. Eisenhower, in short, achieved both important successes, but he sometimes fell short of his most cherished objectives. He left office a popular President, and his stature has grown with the passage of time. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. In , he did send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, when mobs tried to block the desegregation of Central High School, but he did so because he had a constitutional obligation to uphold the law, not because he supported integration.
Eisenhower also refrained from publicly criticizing Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who used his powers to abuse the civil liberties of dozens of citizens who he accused of anti-American activities. Eisenhower privately despised McCarthy, and he worked behind the scenes with congressional leaders to erode McCarthy's influence. Eisenhower's indirect tactics eventually worked, but they also prolonged the senator's power since many people concluded that even the President was unwilling to confront McCarthy.
Six months after he became President, Eisenhower agreed to an armistice that ended three years of fighting in Korea. Only on one other occasion—in Lebanon in —did Eisenhower send combat troops into action.
Yet defense spending remained high, as Eisenhower made vigorous efforts to wage the Cold War. He placed new emphasis on nuclear strength, which was popularly known as massive retaliation, to prevent the outbreak of war. He also frequently authorized the Central Intelligence Agency CIA to undertake covert actions—secret interventions to overthrow unfriendly governments or protect reliable anti-Communist leaders whose power was threatened.
The CIA helped topple the governments of Iran in and Guatemala in , but it suffered an embarrassing failure in when it intervened in Indonesia. Eisenhower avoided war in Indochina in when he decided not to authorize an air strike to rescue French troops at the crucial battle of Dienbienphu. During his last years in office, Eisenhower also "waged peace," hoping to improve U. But the Soviet downing of a U.
After leaving office, Eisenhower had a mediocre reputation with most historians. Some even wondered whether a President who often made garbled public statements really understood most issues or whether staff assistants made the important decisions for this general in the White House. As time passed and more records from the Eisenhower administration became available for research, it became clear that Eisenhower was a strong leader who was very much in charge of his own administration.
Historians still point to the limitations in Eisenhower's record in areas such as civil rights, and they debate the long-term consequences of his covert interventions in Third World nations.
Yet his ranking is much higher, with many historians concluding that Eisenhower was a "near great" or even "great" President. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. From to Eisenhower served under MacArthur as assistant military advisor to the Philippines. Eisenhower returned to the United States in early Over the next two years, he was stationed in California and Washington state. Eisenhower was soon promoted to brigadier general for his leadership of the Louisiana Maneuvers.
Late that year he was transferred to the War Plans division in Washington, D. In , he was promoted to major general. In December of that year, he was promoted to five-star rank. After Germany's surrender in , he was made military governor of the U. Occupied Zone. Eisenhower then returned home to Abilene and received a hero's welcome. A few months later, he was appointed U. Army chief of staff. In , he was elected president of Columbia University, a position he held until December of when he decided to leave Columbia to accept an appointment as first Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In Eisenhower retired from active service and returned to Abilene to announce his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination. On November 4, , after winning the election by a landslide, Eisenhower was elected the United States' 34th president. In foreign policy, Eisenhower made reducing Cold War tensions through military negotiation a main focus of his administration. In he orchestrated an armistice that brought peace to South Korea's border.
The United States and Russia had both recently developed atomic bombs, and the speech promoted applying atomic energy to peaceful uses, rather than using it for weaponry and warfare. In , Eisenhower met with Russian, British and French leaders at Geneva to further quell the threat of atomic war.
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