Eisenhower in War and Peace

New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2012. Sixth printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Very good. xx, 950, [4] pages. Frontis Illustration. Maps. Footnotes. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Jean Edward Smith (October 13, 1932 - September 1, 2019) was a biographer and the John Marshall Professor of Political Science at Marshall University. He was also professor emeritus at the University of Toronto after having served as professor of political economy there for thirty-five years. Smith was also on the faculty of the Master of American History and Government program at Ashland University. Smith received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1954. In 1964, he obtained a Ph.D. from the Department of Public Law and Government of Columbia University. The winner of the 2008 Francis Parkman Prize and the 2002 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, Smith was called "today's foremost biographer of formidable figures in American history." This peerless biographer returns with a new life of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America's thirty-fourth president. As America searches for new heroes to lead it out of its present-day predicaments, Jean Edward Smith's achievement lies in reintroducing us to a hero from the past whose virtues have become clouded in the mists of history. Here is Eisenhower the young dreamer, charting a course from Abilene, Kansas, to West Point, to Paris under Pershing, and beyond. Drawing on a wealth of untapped primary sources, Smith provides new insight into Ike's maddening apprenticeship under Douglas MacArthur in Washington and the Philippines. Then the whole panorama of World War II unfolds, with Eisenhower's superlative generalship forging the Allied path to victory through multiple reversals of fortune in North Africa and Italy, culminating in the triumphant invasion of Normandy. Smith's chronicle of Eisenhower's presidential years is as compelling as it is comprehensive. Derided by his detractors as a somnambulant caretaker, Eisenhower emerges in Smith's perceptive retelling as both a canny politician and a skillful, decisive leader. Smith convincingly portrays an Eisenhower who engineered an end to America's three-year no-win war in Korea, resisted calls for preventative wars against the Soviet Union and China, and boldly deployed the Seventh Fleet to protect Formosa from invasion. This Eisenhower, Smith shows us, stared down Khrushchev over Berlin and forced the withdrawal of British, French, and Israeli forces from the Suez Canal. He managed not only to keep the peace-after Ike made peace in Korea, not one American soldier was killed in action during his tenure-but also to enhance America's prestige in the Middle East and throughout the world. Domestically, Eisenhower reduced defense spending, balanced the budget, constructed the interstate highway system, and provided social security coverage for millions who were self-employed. Ike believed that traditional American values encompassed change and progress. Unmatched in insight, Eisenhower in War and Peace at last gives us an Eisenhower for our time-and for the ages. Derived from a Kirkus review: One of the most favored subjects of eminent historians receives yet another lofty tribute as the prescient general and "most successful" president of the 20th century after Franklin Roosevelt. Having written biographies of FDR, John Marshall and Lucius Clay, Smith is amply qualified to reshape the life of the late, great president, whom the author calls an "enigma." The making of the leader seems to interest Smith most, and he tracks Eisenhower's (1890-1969) early years as the third of seven sons born to a brooding, difficult father who finally found work at a creamery in Abilene, Kansas, and a vivacious, energetic mother whose confidence in her sons' abilities propelled them to prosper in the world. Smith points out a few weaknesses in the general's legend, such as that he lied about his age when applying to West Point, and participated in General MacArthur's clearing of the Bonus Army encampment in Washington, July 1932. Popular, capable, ambitious and a hard worker, Ike was furious that World War I had passed him by, relegated to the peacetime Army-although he leapfrogged the ranks while ingratiating himself with the major generals of the day. Although he had never led an active command, he was swept into General Marshall's War Plans Division of the Army after Pearl Harbor. Smith examines Eisenhower's leadership in the European theater, concluding that he was a master at consensus and delegating, offering the appearance of casual confidence. As president, he capably handled the Suez crisis and sending troops into Little Rock, kept the country out of war and would not abandon his vice president Richard Nixon. He ended his presidency with the still-ringing warning about "the military-industrial complex.".