Ike: An American Hero

I found reading Ike’s biography to be a review of my childhood and teen years and all that marked those years. One of the most memorable things in my young life was writing a get well letter to Ike and receiving a prompt answer from Mamie. I don’t much remember Truman and I worshiped Kennedy along with all my generation but to me Ike was and will always be “my president”.

This was an informative and enjoyable reading of the history of our country in the Second World War and Life and Times of "IKE!"This covered my early, teen and adult lifetime. Ile was a "Wise and Good Man!" I am thankful Marshall place him over all the allied armies. One of our great Presidents. Everyone should read this with pleasure and profit.--Shelby Floyd

Michael Korda's Ike is a fascinating look into one of the most famous men of the twentieth century. He was a first-rate solider and statesman, this life-long solider would leave office warning the nation of the growing military-industrial complex. This is an incredible story of a boy from Abilene, Kansas who would rise to become one of the most famous figures on the world stage. If history had not intervened he probably would have retired from the army a bird colonel and we never would heard about him.The book begins with Korda explaining how the United States mistreats its heroes of the past, through endless amounts of revision it tears down one giant after another. Then the narrative shifts to the moments before the great invasion of D-Day. General Eisenhower is making not only on the most important decisions of his life, but in all of world history. Then from there the story changes again, it goes back to his time as a boy. Actually Korda spends a minute trying to explain the entire family history leading up to the birth of David Dwight Eisenhower whose first two names would later be switched around. There is almost no hint of what was ultimately going to come. His army career is pretty basic he moves slowly up the chain of command with his commanding officers seeing his greatest value as coaching the base's football team.Eisenhower gets married to Mamie Doud, and she ends up becoming a typical Army wife always looking to `push hubby' through. Eisenhower played no significant role in World War I; he was just a staff officer, although, he did run into another officer, only slightly senior to him, George Patton."Both men were fiercely ambitious, but Ike did his best to conceal his ambition, whereas Patton wore his on his sleeve. Unlike Ike, Patton was eccentric, erratic, vain, deeply emotional, and a full-fledged military romantic, in love with the whole idea of glory, capable of writing, as Ike would surely not have been, of his beloved cavalry, `You must be: a horse master, a scholar; a high minded gentleman; a cold blooded hero; a hot-blooded savage.' Such words--and sentiments--came easily to Patton, who saw himself (and wanted others to see him) as a cavalier, a swashbuckling hero on horseback, a student of war history and war poetry; and who at times seriously believed himself to be the reincarnation of great warriors of the past. Perhaps no solider has ever had a more romantic view of war, and, at the same time, a better understanding of its hard practicalities, than Patton."p.148Dwight D. Eisenhower spent sixteen years at the rank of major. He was just a major when Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928, which is odd when it is considered that Major Eisenhower would be the next Republican to win election. Eisenhower spent a few good years as the top aid to General MacArthur when the General was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. At this point Eisenhower had actually made lieutenant colonel."MacArthur's remaining year as Army Chief of Staff was painful, as Roosevelt, with the deft political cunning for which he soon became famous, carefully undercut the position of the person he regarded as one of the two `most dangerous men in America,' while all the time continuing to profess admiration and warm affection for him, he was only too aware that the New Dealers, as they were already beginning to be known, viewed him with deep suspicion, hated him for his reactionary political views, and were afraid he might harbor political ambitions which would bring him in open conflict with the administration--that he might become, in fact, the proverbial `man on a white horse' in the event of a fascist putsch in America. In short, their feelings about General MacArthur were a paranoid as his about them."p.205When World War II broke out Eisenhower would begin to make his mark on the world, in a little over three and half years he would rise from lieutenant colonel to five-star-general. In that time he over saw the invasion of Sicily and the invasion of the Italian mainland. As the Supreme Allied Commander, he had to be both politician and solider. He was great at both roles. In the politician angle he had great success, especially in Britain. While in Britain there was one lady there named Kay Summersby, who Eisenhower may have known a little too well. She was officially his chauffeur but she proved to be a lot more than that."Perhaps the only people of consequence who snubbed Kay were King George VI, who was always petrified by the slightest hint of an improper relationship because of the misfortunes of his older brother, and who deliberately treated her like a chauffeur, which is to say a servant; and General Marshall, who considered part of his job to telephone Mamie once a week, and was deeply suspicious of Kay Summersby. Whatever virtues Ike may have had, however--and he had many--discretion about his friendship with Kay was not one of them, and people can hardly be blamed then or now for drawing the logical conclusion."p.284During the D-Day invasion Eisenhower, like General Grant in the Civil War--as Kordra points out--was concerned with armies not territories. His primary mission was to defeat the Army of Germany not to capture particular points of real estate. It was this attitude that attracts his primary criticism as a general. However, it was Eisenhower who kept allies bound together and united no matter how hot-headed their leaders' personalities may have been, Eisenhower got the best out of each of them."Since 1945, almost everybody has had a say about the supposed mistakes that were made in the last year of the war--especially the presumed failure of on the part of the western Allies to take Berlin and the failure to confront the Soviet Union over the borders and the independence of the eastern European countries. Many if not most of these have been blamed on Roosevelt, but it should always be borne in mind that the president did not live to write his own memoirs, or to criticize those of others. Ike, when he came to write his, was careful not to join in postwar criticism of Roosevelt. Ike himself had shown no interest in wasting the lives of American soldiers to get to Berlin, and several times he offended even angered Churchill by going over the heads of the prime minister and the president to deal directly with Stalin, as if he himself were a head of state, to ensure that there would be no accidental clashes between Allied and Soviet troops as their front lines began to touch." p.432-3When Eisenhower he served in a number of posts, finally, in 1952, Eisenhower decided to run for the Republican Nomination for president. He would win beating Senator Robert Taft, and he would go on to win the election against his Adlai E. Stevenson. He would have an eventful and successful presidency. Under him there would be an inter-state highway system and an end to the Korean War. He would send soldiers to protect the `Little Rock Nine' students who braved the way against segregation in education and all other aspects of life. The Cold War would continue with spy planes and talks of a `missal gap.' There also was the crisis in Hungry and Suez Canal."It was the end of more than Eden's career--it was the end of Britain's remaining pretensions to independent, imperial power; it was the end of the fiction, still persisting from World War II, that the United States, Great Britain, and France were equal world powers. (Britain would shortly abandon Malaya, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and much else besides; France would shortly lose Morocco, Algeria, and most of its African colonies.) Ike had acted swiftly, decisively, and undeniably for the good; and although he felt great sympathy for his old friends in Britain, and even greater sympathy for the gallant but ill-advised Hungarians, he carefully managed events to avoid a clash with the Soviet Union, and he preserved peace--not a perfect peace, to be sure, or one without victims and compromises., but still peace. The Soviet Union had threatened to use atomic weapons on London and Paris at the height of the Suez Crisis, and in order to discourage American intervention in Hungary, but Ike had taken all this blustering calmly in his stride and kept a firm control of events." p.693-4Eisenhower retired for good, in 1961, when his successor John F. Kennedy, who had beaten Ike's vice president, Richard Nixon, took office. He would live into 1969, just long enough to see Nixon, whose daughter would marry his grandson, become president.Michael Korda wrote a great biography on the thirty-fourth president very detailed and informative. There are also historical allusions to other time periods littered thought the book, which as a history buff, I really do appreciate that. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wanted to know more about Dwight D. Eisenhower and World War II.

I liked the entire book and had difficulty putting it down. The author is very good explaining Ikes life and brought up several things which were a surprise. For example, the fact that Ike never commanded troops in battle while he was a junior officer because his bosses said he was too important on the staff.

One of the best biographies I’ve read. I could not put it down. His coverage of Mamie and military wives is exemplary. As a 28-year military veteran, I learned more about effective leadership from Korea’s book than from any other biography I’ve ever read.

I am a lover of history but am much more familiar and comfortable with political and cultural than military history. Much of this book focuses on Ike' s military career and I am appreciative of the insight it gave into the army culture. Understanding how his skill set developed over years as a staff officer actually served him better than the combat commands his peers had under their belts helped clarify the picture for me as he became supreme commander of the European theater, and then what he brought to the presidency. Korda suggests that Ike' s presidency is substantially under rated precisely because his management style simply made it look too easy. If you are looking for a basic biography of Eisenhower, this is not your best choice, but it is definitely worth your time.

I love this book. It would go on my personal "Mount Rushmore" of biographies. I learned so much about being cool under fire (combat and politically) than I ever imagined. As with most biographies, there is short shrift to the last years of Ike's life. Otherwise it is excellent. The asterisks in the book lead to insightful notes and anecdotes and are highly recommended.

This is popular history, most of it good, but highly opinionated and colored by the author. Some of the typographical and grammatical errors in the book are a bit surprising. “Truman” is misspelled as “Trumen”in one instance -where both the correct and incorrect spellings are used in the same sentence.The short shrift given to Eisenhower’s domestic accomplishments is fairly disappointing, given Ike was one of the most popular presidents in the history of modern polling.

I can’t remember enjoying reading a biography more, and I have read hundreds!It is almost as good as his book about T E Lawrence. That one is a harder read and must have been harder to write because of the controversy surrounding Lawrence.What I like about Korda is that he is not afraid to come right out and state his own opinion authoritatively. That is very helpful with Eisenhower because he never sought the limelight unless it served his cause. It takes a perceptive writer therefore to see what was really going on and report it accurately.Sometimes however, in giving his clear opinion Korda though clear doesn’t present enough evidence to allow the reader to make up his own mind. I think there is only one instance in this book where Korda is critical of Eisenhower, which was when Roosevelt also gave him a nudge, as Eisenhower found it tough to move all his troops eastwards in Algeria to kick the Germans out of Tunisia. I haven’t read Eisenhower’s own account but I suspect he might have thought he was just taking necessary care, rather as Monty, the bete noire in this book to the author and also, he says to Eisenhower and the other American generals was prone to do.In fact although Korda is British this reads as a very American history. Monty is strongly criticised, not so much for his generalship, although that is criticised, again for being too slow, but for his attitude. Alexander is damned with faint praise. Brooke is damned for being totally wrongheaded.I have no idea to what extent all these criticisms are justified. Korda reminds us many of these matters are still controversial among historians and I am not well-read enough to have a firm opinion. Korda has his views and credit to him for stating them clearly but again, he does not present enough evidence for us to form a clear opinion.Having said all that this is a biography of Eisenhower and Korda’s focus is constant and carefully considered. As a boy he was a keen student of history and particularly the history of warfare despite having loving but pacifist Mennonite parents!He came from a poor family in Abilene, which then did not have a right side of the tracks and as his parents couldn’t afford to send him to college he joined the army.He turned out to have prodigious skills in training troops and also in logistics and for this reason was deprived of combat opportunities almost continually until he was given the job of overseeing Torch, the landings in North Africa in 1942.From that point on his genius was to accommodate a bewildering variety of conflicts within the Allied operation, between the Brits and Americans, and most tortuous, between the Vichy French and the Free French, and between different factions of both these factions!Ike seems to have let everyone have their say before making a decision and seen some right in everyone, but then been firm and consistent in his judgment which allowed him to get on with everyone well enough to do his job.In particular this showed in his relationships with Monty and Patton both of whom were constantly straining at the leash, and in Monty’s case sometimes running off with it according to this account.Another problem with this book is that his account of Eisenhower’s eight years of presidency occupies only about fifty pages. Admittedly there are some fascinating insights highlighting his attitude to Suez and the U2 incident, about Khruschev, about the rapid development of Third World countries and rebellions against American hegemony which succeeding presidents would have to try and deal with and also about Eisenhower’s attitude to race relations.Despite these criticisms what this book does so well is to bring out the character, the beliefs, the integrity and the skills of a man not really interested in the limelight who managed to co-ordinate a pan-European victory and subsequently hold down the presidency for eight years.

Cannot praise highly enough. Any one interested in the second world war must read this.

A very readable, interesting and enjoyable book. Michael Korda's knowledge of his subject and the period is encyclopedic and his prose jumps from the page. He brings the reader inside the heart of Allied command, charts the triumphs, trials, stresses and disasters of a whole world of military men and women; while shining a forensic laser beam of light on the career and leadership of Dwight D. Eisnhower. One might argue that some of his conclusions about Russia (the book was written in 2007)might be coming back to bite him on the putin, but this is a minor carp. The work is a must read for any student of WWII or even a casual reader of the greatest calamity the world has known. A fitting biography of a true hero.

A really thick but but very informative. I enjoyed the reading. I'm often put off by something so thick but do not be put off it's well worth it.