Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th (1953–1961) President of the United States, supreme commander of Allied Forces during the latter part of World War II, and General of the United States Army. He also served as president of Columbia University from June 7, 1948 to 1952.
Military Career
His first distinctive work involved exploring the feasibility of crossing the North American continent with modern mechanised equipment, shortly after World War I.
After 1941, he was chosen, over thousands of potential officer candidates, to an assignment as Chief of the War Plans Division (February 1942) and rose from that post to become the US commander of the European theater by June 1942. He was overall commander for the North African landings in November of that year, and in February 1943 took command of Allied forces in North Africa.
On December 24, 1943, after the successful invasion of Sicily in July and Italy in September, he was appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces.
When World War II was over, General Eisenhower became head of the military occupation government of Germany. As the Army's Chief of Staff, he advocated merger of the Army, Navy, and Air Force into a single military force.
Eisenhower in Politics
For the 1948 election, Harry S. Truman secretly told Eisenhower that if he ran for president as a Democrat, Truman would be his running mate. He refused because he did not want to be president. For the 1952 election, he was approached again by both parties. He ran for the Republicans because he was a strong believer in the two-party system, and there had not been a Republican president in over twenty years.
Eisenhower won the election with 442 electoral votes against Stevenson's 89. As a moderate Republican, he was able to garner votes across the political spectrum.
Although he had no sympathy for the African American civil rights movement, Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock High School after Governor Orval Faubus attempted to defy a Supreme Court ruling ordering desegregation of public schools.
Eisenhower endorsed the United States Interstate Highway Act in 1956 — the largest American public works program in history, providing a 41,000-mile highway system. He had been impressed during the war with the German Autobahns and recalled his own involvement in a military convoy in 1919 that took 62 days to cross the United States.
During his campaign he promised to stop the Korean War, and it was one of the first things he accomplished as president. He formulated the Eisenhower Doctrine and resisted entreaties to get involved in Vietnam. In his farewell address, he warned against the "military-industrial complex."
Early Life and Family
Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas, as the third of David Jacob and Ida Elizabeth Stover Eisenhower's seven sons. The family moved to Abilene, Kansas, in 1892. He graduated from Abilene High School in 1909.
Eisenhower married Mamie Geneva Doud of Denver, Colorado on July 1, 1916. He had two children: Doud Dwight (1917–1921) and John Sheldon Doud (born 1922).
Military Career Timeline
- June 1911 — Attends West Point
- June 1915 — Graduates, commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant
- February 1942 — Chief of the War Plans Division
- June 1942 — Commanding General, European Theater of Operations
- November 1942 — Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, North Africa
- December 1943 — Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force
- June 6, 1944 — Commander, Allied Forces, Normandy Invasion
- December 1944 — Promoted to General of the Army
- November 1945 — Chief of Staff of the United States Army
- December 1950 — Supreme Allied Commander, NATO
- May 1952 — Retired from active service
Supreme Court Appointments
- Earl Warren — Chief Justice — 1953
- John Marshall Harlan — 1955
- William J. Brennan, Jr — 1956
- Charles Evan Whittaker — 1957
- Potter Stewart — 1958