Dwight Eisenhower

The strategic savvy of an underestimated leader.

In 1898, when the 42-year-old George Bernard Shaw stepped down as drama critic of London’s Saturday Review, he introduced his successor, Max Beerbohm, 26, with these words: “The younger generation is knocking at the door, and as I open it there steps sprightly in the incomparable Max.”

During the 1952 campaign, Dwight Eisenhower boldly announced that if he won the presidency, "I shall go to Korea." He believed he could broker peace in the Korean conflict, which had reached a stalemate under Harry Truman. About two months before he took office, Ike flew to Korea on a visit that…

During the 1952 campaign, Dwight Eisenhower boldly announced that if he won the presidency, “I shall go to Korea." He believed he could broker peace in the Korean conflict, which had reached a stalemate under Harry Truman. About two months before he took office, Ike flew to Korea on a visit that…

Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, and Kelly Ayotte, and of all you desperate GOP candidates, threading the needle between a working class base in thrall to a demagogue and another fairly large bloc that detests him: Ike feels your pain. So does John Kennedy, and a very large group of the best and the…

There is an old saw that the English and the Americans are two peoples divided by a common language. While there is a certain element of humor in this, there was more than an element of truth in it during the war years (1942-45) in the European Theater. Niall Barr highlights this and other…

Whether Donald Trump emerges from the Republican convention as the GOP presidential nominee is an open question at the moment. I happen to believe that he will; but it is theoretically possible that he will not—and we might well see a brokered convention, or a fractured convention, in Cleveland…

After the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts approved a revised design for the Eisenhower memorial last month, a New York Times reporter asked Anne Eisenhower, Ike’s granddaughter, whether the controversial design could now, at long last, get built, despite the objections of her own family and countless…

A half-forgotten exchange of letters between two titans of the Republican party, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, contains an urgent lesson for the presidential candidates who will debate at the Reagan Library on Wednesday: Tell the country that you will be the president of all Americans, and…

Like Lazarus, or maybe Frankenstein’s monster, the appalling plan for the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C., appears to be sputtering to life once more. Only two months ago it seemed safely kaput. 

You don’t have to be an Eisenhower Memorial groupie—yes, there are such people—to enjoy a new 56-page congressional report called “A Five-Star Folly.” But it helps. The mound of detail will bury all but the sturdiest student of what is shaping up to be one of the most memorable Washington fiascoes…

The tangled tale of the proposed Eisenhower Memorial next to the National Mall in Washington gets more complicated by the week. On April 3, the National Capital Planning Commission stunned just about everybody by rejecting the memorial design submitted by “celebrity architect” Frank Gehry and…

The effort to design, fund, and build a monument to Dwight Eisenhower has been underway for 15 years now.  So, unsurprisingly, while money has been spent and headquarters have been staffed, ground has not yet been broken. For that matter, the proposed design of the monument has, as Hannah Hess…

Peter Baker of the New York Times writes that President Obama is doing things differently in his second term.  The president is operating behind the scenes and employing stealth rather than public persuasion in the:

The beleaguered Eisenhower Memorial Commission holds its next public gathering later this month, and before its members duck-walk into the hearing room, huddled in a hoplite phalanx against a shower of eggs and rotten vegetables unloosed by an audience of neo-classicist fuddy-duddies, they should…

Lee Smith writes:

The controversial proposal for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial now has a new component: a smartphone app, which, according to the memorial’s designers, visitors will be able to use on-site to “contextualize Eisenhower’s impact” and view historical and biographical content. Postmodern…

The memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed by architect Frank Gehry fails miserably to capture the essence of our 34th president. Bruce Cole’s article “Doing Right by Ike” in a recent issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD makes this point, coupled with this indisputable plea: Let’s give Ike the memorial…

You may have heard a bit about the recent controversy over the Eisenhower Memorial here in Washington, D.C. The design by Frank Gehry centers on a minuscule statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a boy in a park surrounded by 80-foot-tall images of a stark Kansas countryside. But you might wonder, why…

According to Gallup, Barack Obama's quarterly approval hit an all-time low in the president's eleventh quarter in office at 41 percent.