Dwight D. Eisenhower

His mother reversed his given names at birth so the household would not contain two Davids, and the family left Texas for Kansas before he was two. They were River Brethren, a pacifist sect, and the front room of the Abilene house served as the local congregation's meeting hall for 19 years — his mother later took up with the Bible Students who became Jehovah's Witnesses. Eisenhower worked nights at a creamery to put his brother Edgar through a year of college, on an agreement that they would swap the following year. Then he found an education that cost nothing. West Point took him in 1911. A torn knee ended his football and nearly cost him a commission.

He spent the First World War training tank crews at a camp in Gettysburg and never got overseas, which he treated as a personal failure for 25 years. He was a major for 16 of them. Then the second war, an army group, a continent, and eight years in office: Korea ended, paratroopers at Little Rock, 41,000 miles of interstate, two coups run out of the CIA, and a farewell address that put a phrase into the language. BriefHistory sets out the command and the two terms. This page is about the officer who nearly did not get either.

Doud Dwight Eisenhower, whom the family called Icky, was born in September 1917 and died of scarlet fever on January 2, 1921, at three years old. Eisenhower wrote decades later that it was the greatest disappointment and disaster of his life, and the one he had never been able to forget completely. He sent Mamie flowers on the boy's birthday for the rest of his. The other thing he carried was a habit of writing down the blame before it was due. On the eve of the Normandy landings he drafted a short statement announcing that the invasion had failed, that he had withdrawn the troops, and that if any blame or fault attached to the attempt it was his alone. He pocketed it, misdated it by a month, and forgot it was there.

He asked for an 80-dollar government-issue casket and to be buried in the plain green field jacket the Army had named after him, wearing three of his decorations and none of the rest. A small chapel in Abilene holds him, Mamie, and the son who died at three. For 20 years historians filed him near the middle of the field — genial, golfing, passive. Then his private papers opened, and in 1982 a political scientist named Fred Greenstein argued that the mangled syntax and the golf had been deliberate cover for a president who ran everything himself. He now finishes in the top 10 of most surveys. Congress put his name on the interstate system in 1990.

Dwight D. Eisenhower's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Operation Overlord mission
  He commanded it and wrote a note taking sole blame in case it failed 1944
• Crusade in Europe book
  Drafted in about seven weeks and a bestseller for years 1948
• Federal-Aid Highway Act law
  It authorized 41,000 miles of limited-access road and rebuilt American geography 1956
• Civil Rights Act of 1957 law
  The first federal civil rights legislation since 1875 1957
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration company
  Created by the act he signed in July 1958 1958
• Farewell Address speech
  Delivered January 17, 1961, three days before he handed over the office 1961

• 1892 aged ~2 The family leaves Texas for Abilene, Kansas Their front room served as a church meeting hall for 19 years.
• 1915 aged ~25 Graduates in the middle of the West Point class the stars fell on 59 of his classmates became generals.
• July 1, 1916 aged 25 Marries Mamie Doud in Denver, months ahead of schedule The date was moved up because the country was about to enter the war.
• January 2, 1921 aged 30 His son Doud Dwight dies of scarlet fever at three He called it the one disappointment he could never forget.
• 1926 aged ~36 Graduates first out of 245 at the Command and General Staff School
• June 5, 1944 aged 53 Writes a note taking sole blame if the Normandy landings fail He misdated it July 5 and left it in his wallet.
• September 24, 1955 aged 64 Suffers a heart attack in Denver during his first term
• January 17, 1961 aged 70 Warns of the military-industrial complex in his farewell address
• March 28, 1969 aged 78 Dies of heart failure at Walter Reed at 78

• George C. Marshall 1880–1959
  Army chief of staff who organized U.S. victory in World War II and later designed the Marshall Plan. mentor
• Douglas MacArthur 1880–1964
  Commander who led major Pacific campaigns, oversaw Japan’s occupation, and became central to the Korean War controversy. served under
• George S. Patton 1885–1945
  Armored commander whose aggressive leadership made him one of the most prominent American generals of World War II. commanded
• Earl Warren 1891–1974
  Chief justice whose Court transformed civil rights, voting, representation, and criminal procedure. appointed
• Joseph McCarthy 1908–1957
  Senator whose unsupported accusations and investigations gave “McCarthyism” its name and damaged civil liberties. opposed
• John Foster Dulles 1888–1959
  Eisenhower's Secretary of State who built Cold War alliances and advocated massive nuclear retaliation. appointed