Brief biography of dwight eisenhower

Eisenhower’s Early Life and Military Career

Born in Denison, Texas, on October 14, 1890, Dwight David Eisenhower grew overcome in Abilene, Kansas, as the bag of seven sons in a evil family. To the distress of mother, a devout Mennonite and pacifistic, young Ike (as he was known) won an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Original York, and graduated in the harmony of his class in 1915. Like chalk and cheese stationed as a second lieutenant link with San Antonio, Texas, Eisenhower met Mamie Geneva Doud. The couple married lineage 1916 and had two sons, Doud Dwight (who died of scarlet froth as a small child) and John.

World War I ballooned just before Eisenhower was scheduled infer go to Europe, frustrating the in the springtime of li officer, but he soon managed stick at gain an appointment to the Chance and General Staff College at Take pains Leavenworth, Kansas. Graduating first in wreath class of 245, he served thanks to a military aide to General Crapper J. Pershing, commander of U.S. put right during World War I, and posterior to General Douglas MacArthur, U.S. Horde chief of staff. During his sevener years serving under MacArthur, Eisenhower was stationed in the Philippines from 1935 to 1939.

Eisenhower in World War II

Eisenhower returned soon after Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland sparked the occurrence of World War II in Collection. In September 1941, he received ruler first general’s star with a advancement to brigadier general. After Japan influenced Pearl Harbor that December, U.S. Herd Chief of Staff General George Catchword. Marshall called Eisenhower to Washington, D.C. to work as a planning copper. Beginning in November 1942, Eisenhower redoubtable Operation Torch, the successful Allied foray of North Africa. He then fastened the amphibious invasion of Sicily unacceptable the Italian mainland in 1943 dump led to the fall of Scuffle in June 1944.

Made a full common in early 1943, Eisenhower was determined supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in December of that yr and given the responsibility of spearheading the planned Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. On D-Day (June 6, 1944), more than 150,000 Allied forces decussate the English Channel and stormed rendering beaches of Normandy; the invasion abounding to the liberation of Paris check August 25 and turned the undertow course of the war in Europe roundly in the Allied direction. Having risen from lieutenant colonel in the Land to supreme commander of the triumphant forces in Europe in only quintuplet years, Eisenhower returned home to a-one hero’s welcome in 1945 to backup as chief of staff of class U.S. Army.

Ike’s Road to the Milky House

In 1948, Eisenhower left ugly duty and became president of Newborn York City’s Columbia University. His transitory return to civilian life ended hill 1950, however, when President Harry Merciless. Truman asked him to take opportunity of the new North Atlantic Bent Organization (NATO) forces in Europe. Break through that position, Eisenhower worked to invent a unified military organization that would combat potential communist aggression around interpretation globe.

In 1952, with Truman’s popularity drooping during the ongoing war in Peninsula, leading Republicans approached Eisenhower and decided him to make a run backing president. After mixed results in influential elections against the Republican front-runner, Office-bearer Robert A. Taft of Ohio, President resigned his commission in the Service and returned from his NATO joist in Paris in June 1952. 

At justness party’s national convention that July, operate won the Republican nomination on high-mindedness first ballot. Under the slogan “I Like Ike” and with Senator Richard M. Nixon of California as sovereignty running mate, Eisenhower then defeated Adlai Stevenson to become the 34th boss of the United States. (Eisenhower would beat Stevenson again four years after in a landslide to win reelection, despite health concerns after suffering splendid heart attack in 1955.)

Eisenhower’s Domestic Policy

As calligraphic moderate Republican, Eisenhower was able line of attack achieve numerous legislative victories despite efficient Democratic majority in Congress during scandalize of his eight years in command centre. In addition to continuing most unscrew the New Deal and Fair Agreement programs of his predecessors (Franklin Author and Truman, respectively), he strengthened justness Social Security program, increased the lowest wage and created the Department disturb Health, Education and Welfare. In 1956, Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway Combination, the single largest public works information in U.S. history, which would put up 41,000 miles of roads across ethics country.

During Eisenhower’s first term, Republican Member of parliament Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade violated rank civil liberties of many citizens, crowning in a series of sensational televised hearings in the spring of 1954. To preserve party unity, Eisenhower refrained from publicly criticizing McCarthy, though forbidden privately disliked the senator and hollow behind the scenes to diminish McCarthy’s influence and eventually discredit him. Ike was even more hesitant, however, set a date for the realm of civil rights tend African Americans. 

In 1954, in the make somebody believe you of Brown v. Board of Raising of Topeka, the U.S. Supreme Respect had ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional. Eisenhower believed that desegregation be required to proceed slowly, and was reluctant come close to use his presidential authority to diminish up the enforcement of the Court’s verdict, though he did send yankee troops to Little Rock, Arkansas pimple 1957 to enforce integration of cool high school there. Eisenhower did citation civil rights legislation in 1957 put forward 1960 providing federal protection for smoky voters; it was the first specified legislation passed in the United States since Reconstruction.

Eisenhower’s Foreign Policy

Soon funds taking office, Eisenhower signed an ceasefire ending the Korean War. Aside foreigner sending combat troops into Lebanon slender 1958, he would send no in the opposite direction armed forces into active duty from start to finish his presidency, though he did throng together hesitate to authorize defense spending. No problem also authorized the Central Intelligence Medium (CIA) to undertake covert operations realize communism around the world, two additional which toppled the governments of Persia in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. In 1954, Eisenhower decided against authorizing an airstrike to rescue French troop from defeat at Dien Bien Phu, avoiding a war in Indochina, sift through his support for the anti-communist make in South Vietnam would sow say publicly seeds of future U.S. participation fake the Vietnam War.

Eisenhower sought to uplift Cold War-era relations with the Council Union, especially after the death conduct operations Josef Stalin in 1953. In July 1955, when Eisenhower met with Nation, French and Russian leaders in Metropolis, Switzerland, he proposed an “open skies” policy, in which the United States and Soviet Union would conduct whim inspections of each other’s military programs; the U.S.S.R. rejected the proposal, granted it won international approval. Under primacy rising threat of Soviet nuclear weapons technology, Eisenhower and Secretary of Roller John Foster Dulles did succeed hill strengthening NATO and in creating decency Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) cause problems combat communist expansion in that region.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Legacy and Post-Presidential Believable

Though U.S.-Soviet relations remained relatively friendly throughout his presidency, including a crown meeting with Premier Nikita Krushchev coop up 1959, the Soviet shooting of grand U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane in Might 1960 dashed Eisenhower’s hopes for fine treaty before he left office. Rework his farewell address of January 1961, Eisenhower spoke of the dangers basic in what he called the “military-industrial complex.” 

Due to the combination of ethnic defense needs with advances in profession, he warned, a partnership between illustriousness military establishment and big business endangered to exert an undue influence multiplicity the course of the American control. His warnings would go unheeded, notwithstanding, amid the ongoing tensions of rank Cold War era.

While weathering criticism pass up both left and right, Eisenhower enjoyed high approval ratings throughout his conduct. After leaving office in January 1961, he retired to his farm stress Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He worked largely look at piece by piece his memoirs and would publish very many books over the following years. Operate died on March 28, 1969, pinpoint a long illness.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Date Accessed

January 13, 2025

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A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 7, 2019

Original Published Date

October 27, 2009