Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David Eisenhower, the son of a small farmer, was born in Denison, Texas, on 14th October, 1890. He attended West Point Military Academy and graduated in 1915 (61/164).

Eisenhower became a temporary lieutenant colonel during the First World War. He was appointed commander of a heavy tank brigade in Pennsylvania but was not sent to Europe during the conflict.

After the war Eisenhower served under George Patton at Fort Meade, Maryland. These two pioneers of tank warfare became close friends. Promoted to the rank of major Eisenhower was appointed as chief of staff to Brigadier General Fox Connor when he was sent to Panama in 1922. Connor was a great influence on Eisenhower and introduced him to books written by philosophers and military strategists such as Plato, Tactitus, Clausewitz and Nietzsche.

Eisenhower entered the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1942. He graduated two years later as head of the class. He then served under General John Pershing at the American Battle Monuments in France. This included working on the commission's guide, American Armies and Battlefields in Europe.

In February 1932, Eisenhower was appointed to the staff of General Douglas MacArthur. Along with George Patton, Eisenhower was involved in dealing with the Bonus Army in Washington. MacArthur, was later criticized for using tanks, four troops of cavalry with drawn sabers, and infantry with fixed bayonets, on the protesters.

Promoted to lieutenant colonel, Eisenhower also served under MacArthur in the Philippines. In his diaries Eisenhower makes it clear that he did not like MacArthur and in 1939 took up an appointment with the 15th Infantry Regiment at Fort Lewis. In March 1941 he was promoted to colonel and became chief of staff to General Walter Krueger in 3rd Army headquarters at San Antonio, Texas.

Eisenhower's career in the US Army had so far being fairly unspectacular but he had impressed General George Marshall, U.S. Chief of Staff, and a week after Pearl Harbor was recruited to help prepare the plans for war with Japan and Germany. In March 1942, Eisenhower was sent to England as head of European Theatre of Operations (ETO).

In July, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill decided that the Allies should open a Second Front to help the Red Army fighting in the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin favoured an invasion of Europe but Roosevelt and Churchill opted for an invasion of northwest Africa. Given the code-name Operation Torch, Eisenhower was appointed Allied commander of the invasion.

Over 100,000 Vichy troops were stationed in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. It was hoped that the French troops not to resist the Allied invasion. On 8th November 1942, Allied forces landed in Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. The French troops fought back at Oran and General Mark Clark immediately began negotiations with Admiral Jean-Francois Darlan, overall C-in-C of Vichy forces, in an attempt to negotiate a ceasefire.

Adolf Hitler threatened Henri-Philippe Petain that the German Army would invade Vichy if his troops did not resist. When Darlan surrendered on the 11th November, Hitler carried out his threat and occupied the rest of France. French troops in Morocco stopped fighting but some joined the Germans in Tunisia.

Eisenhower now controversially appointed Jean-Francois Darlan as the political head of the French North Africa. The decision infuriated General Charles De Gaulle and the French Resistance who claimed that Darlan was a fascist and a Nazi collaborator. However, the decision was endorsed by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt who both agreed with Eisenhower that the deal with Darlan would assist military operations in the area.

In January 1943, General Jurgen von Arnium took control of the German forces in Tunisia. Later that month he was joined by General Erwin Rommel and his army in southern Tunisia. Rommel was in retreat from Egypt and was being chased by General Bernard Montgomery and the 8th Army.

Montgomery now spent several weeks in Tripoli building up his supplies. Arnium and Rommel decided to take this opportunity to attack Allied forces led by General Kenneth Anderson at Faid Pass (14th February) and Kasserine Pass (19th February). The Deutsches Afrika Korps then headed for Thala but were forced to retreat after meeting a large Allied force on 22nd February, 1943.

General Harold Alexander was now sent to oversee Allied operations in Tunisia whereas General Erwin Rommel was placed in command of the German forces. On 6th March 1943, Rommel attacked the Allies at Medenine. General Bernard Montgomery and the 8th Army fought off the attack and the Germans were forced to withdraw. Rommel now favoured a full retreat but this was rejected by Adolf Hitler.

By April 1943 the Allies had over 300,000 men in Tunisia. This gave them a 6-to-1 advantage in troops and a 15-to-1 superiority in tanks. The Allied blockade of the Mediterranean also made it difficult for the German Army to be supplied with adequate amounts of fuel, ammunition and food.

Eisenhower now decided to make another effort to take Tunis. General Omar Bradley, who had replaced General George Patton, as commander of the 2nd Corps, joined General Bernard Montgomery for the offensive. On 23rd April the 300,000 man force advanced along a 40 mile front. At the same time there was a diversionary attack by the 8th Army at Enfidaville. On 7th May 1943, British forces took Tunis and the US Army captured Bizerte. By 13th May all Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered and over 150,000 were taken prisoner.

After the success of Operation Torch, Eisenhower was promoted to full general and given the task of organizing the invasion of Sicily. General Harold Alexander was commander of ground operations and his 15th Army Group included General George Patton (US 7th Army) and General Bernard Montgomery (8th Army). Admiral Andrew Cunningham was in charge of naval operations and Air Marshal Arthur Tedder was air commander.

On 10th July 1943, the 8th Army landed at five points on the south-eastern tip of the island and the US 7th Army at three beaches to the west of the British forces. The Allied troops met little opposition and Patton and his troops quickly took Gela, Licata and Vittoria. The British landings were also unopposed and Syracuse was taken on the the same day. This was followed by Palazzolo (11th July), Augusta (13th July) and Vizzini (14th July), whereas the US troops took the Biscani airfield and Niscemi (14th July).

General George Patton now moved to the west of the island and General Omar Bradley headed north and the German Army was forced to retreat to behind the Simeto River. Patton took Palermo on 22nd July cutting off 50,000 Italian troops in the west of the island. Patton now turned east along the northern coast of the island towards the port of Messina.

Meanwhile General Bernard Montgomery and the 8th Army were being held up by German forces under Field Marshal Albrecht Kesselring. The Allies carried out several amphibious assaults attempted to cut off the Germans but they were unable to stop the evacuation across the Messina Straits to the Italian mainland. This included 40,000 German and 60,000 Italian troops, as well as 10,000 German vehicles and 47 tanks.

On 17th August 1943, General George Patton and his troops marched into Messina. The capture of the island made it possible to clear the way for Allied shipping in the Mediterranean. It also helped to undermine the power of Benito Mussolini and Victor Emmanuel III forced him to resign.

Eisenhower was now placed in charge of the invasion of Italy. On 3rd September, 1943, General Bernard Montgomery and the 8th Army landed at Reggio. There was little resistance and later that day British warships landed the 1st Parachute Division at Taranto. Six days later the US 6th Corps arrived at Salerno. These troops faced a heavy bombardment from German troops and the beachhead was not secured until 20th September..

On 23rd September 1943, Pietro Badoglio and General Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Italian surrender aboard Nelson off Malta. The German Army continued to fight ferociously in southern Italy and the Allied armies made only slow progress as the moved north towards Rome. The 5th Army took Naples on 1st October and later that day the 8th Army captured the Foggia airfields.

General Albrecht Kesselring now withdrew his forces to what became known as the Gustav Line on the Italian peninsula south of Rome. Organized along the Garigliano and Rapido rivers it included Monte Cassino, a hilltop site of a sixth-century Benedictine monastery. Defended by 15 German divisions the line was fortified with gun pits, concrete bunkers, turreted machine-gun emplacements, barbed-wire and minefields. In December 1943, the Allied suffered heavy loses while trying to capture the monastery.

In January 1944, Eisenhower and General Harold Alexander, Supreme Allied Commander in Italy, ordered a new Cassino offensive combined with an amphibious operation at Anzio, a small port on the west coast of Italy. The main objective of the operation was to cut the communication lines of the German 10th Army and force a withdrawal from the Gustav Line.

Attacks on Monte Cassino on 17th January resulted in the Germans reserves moving to the Gustav Line and on 22nd January troops led by General John Lucas landed at Anzio. Lucas decided not to push straight away to the Alban Hills. This enabled General Heinrich Vietinghoff to order the 14th Army to return to the area and contain the 6th Corps on the Anzio bridgehead.

On 12th February the exhausted US Army at Cassino were replaced by the New Zealand Corps. Alexander now decided to use these fresh troops in another attempt to capture Cassino. General Bernard Freyberg, who was in charge of the infantry attack, asked for the monastery be bombed. Despite claims by troops on the front-line that no fire had come from the monastery, General Harold Alexander agreed and it was destroyed by the United States Air Force on 15th February, 1944.

Eisenhower was criticised by some Allied military leaders as being over cautious during the invasion of Sicily of Italy. However, he had impressed Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt as a man who was able to command soldiers from several different countries. Recognized as an excellent coalition commander, Eisenhower was appointed head of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and was given responsibility for Operation Overlord, the invasion of Europe.

Eisenhower now had the task of organizing around a million combat troops and two million men involved in providing support services. The plan, drawn up by Eisenhower, George Marshall, Bernard Montgomery, Omar Bradley, Bertram Ramsay, Walter Bedell-Smith, Arthur Tedder and Trafford Leigh-Mallory, involved assaults on five beaches west of the Orne River near Caen (codenamed Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah) by the British 2nd Army and the American 1st Army. Follow-up forces included the Canadian 1st Army and the American 3rd Army under Lt. General George Patton.

The invasion was preceded by a massive aerial bombardment of German communications. This resulted in the destruction of virtually every bridge over the Seine. On 6th June, 1944, 2,727 ships sailed to the Normandy coast and on the first day landed 156,000 men on a front of thirty miles. It was the largest and most powerful armada that has ever sailed.

The Allied invasion was faced by 50 divisions of the German Army under General Erwin Rommel. At Omaha, steep cliffs favoured the defenders and the US Army suffered 2,500 casualties. The Allies also sent in three airborne divisions, two American and one British, to prepare for the main assault by taking certain strategic points and by disrupting German communications. Of the 23,000 airborne troops, 15,500 were Americans and of these, 6,000 were killed or seriously wounded. Over the next couple of days 156,215 troops were landed from sea and air in Normandy, at a cost of some 10,300 casualties.

The invasion was a great success but he was later criticised by Omar Bradley and George Patton for not fighting a more positive campaign and argued that if he had forced General Bernard Montgomery to have fought more aggressively in Caen the German Army would have been trapped in Normandy. Instead they were able to retreat back to Nazi Germany and the war was able to continue into 1945.

After the war Eisenhower served briefly as US member of the Allied Commission governing Germany. In November 1945, Eisenhower took over from General George Marshall, as US Army Chief of Staff. His book, Crusade in Europe, was published in 1948.

Eisenhower retired in 1948 and became presidency of Columbia University. In 1951 he returned to Europe as Supreme Commander of NATO. Although Eisenhower had never identified himself with any particular political party, in 1952 he was approached about being the Republican Party candidate for president. He accepted and in November easily defeated the Democratic Party candidate, Adlai Stevenson by 33,936,252 votes to 27,314,922.

Joseph Parrish, Dwight Eisenhower, The Chicago Tribune (1955)
Joseph Parrish, Dwight Eisenhower, The Chicago Tribune (1955)

On 20th January, 1953 Eisenhower became the first soldier-President since Ulysses Grant (1869-77). Eisenhower left party matters to his vice-president, Richard Nixon. His political philosophy was never clearly defined. He was against enlarging the role of government in economic matters but he did support legislation fixing a minimum wage and the extension of social security. Eisenhower also refused to speak out against Joe McCarthy and members of the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) until they began to attack his army commanders in 1954.

Eisenhower's government was severely concerned about the success of communism in South East Asia. Between 1950 and 1953 they had lost 142,000 soldiers in attempting to stop communism entering South Korea. The United States feared that their efforts would have been wasted if communism were to spread to South Vietnam. Eisenhower was aware that he would have difficulty in persuading the American public to support another war so quickly after Korea. He therefore decided to rely on a small group of Military Advisers' to prevent South Vietnam becoming a communist state.

Eisenhower remained close to John McCloy and according to Kai Bird (The Chairman: John J. McCloy: The Making of the American Establishment): "On at least one occasion, in February 1954, he (McCloy) used a Chase National Bank plane to ferry himself and the rest of Ike's gang down from New York in order to keep a golf date with the president at the Augusta National range." McCloy worked for the Rockefeller family law firm, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.

It was Eisenhower who first introduced John McCloy to Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison. Soon afterwards, Chase Manhattan Bank began providing the men with low-interest loans. In 1954 McCloy worked with Richardson, Murchison and Robert R. Young in order to take control of the New York Central Railroad Company. The activities of these men caused a great deal of concern and the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) eventually held hearings about what was described as "highly improper" behaviour. The takeover was a disaster and Young committed suicide and New York Central eventually went bankrupt.

Tsar Nicholas II addressing the Duma (10th May, 1906)
Dwight D. Eisenhower

In 1950 Dwight D. Eisenhower had purchased a small farm for $24,000. According to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson (The Case Against Congress), several oil millionaires, including W. Alton Jones, B. B. Byers and George E. Allen, began acquiring neighbouring land for Eisenhower. Jonathan Kwitny (Endless Enemies) has argued that over the next few years Eisenhower's land became worth over $1 million: "Most of the difference represented the gifts of Texas oil executives connected to Rockefeller oil interests. The oilmen acquired surrounding land for Eisenhower under dummy names, filled it with livestock and big, modern barns, paid for extensive renovations to the Eisenhower house, and even wrote out checks to pay the hired help."

In 1956 there was an attempt to end all federal price control over natural gas. Sam Rayburn played an important role in getting it through the House of Representatives. This is not surprising as according to John Connally, he alone had been responsible for a million and a half dollars of lobbying.

Paul Douglas and William Langer led the fight against the bill. Their campaigned was helped by a speech by Francis Case of South Dakota. Up until this time Case had been a supporter of the bill. However, he announced that he had been offered a $25,000 bribe by the Superior Oil Company to guarantee his vote. As a man of principal, he thought he should announce this fact to the Senate.

Lyndon B. Johnson responded by claiming that Case had himself come under pressure to make this statement by people who wanted to retain federal price controls. Johnson argued: “In all my twenty-five years in Washington I have never seen a campaign of intimidation equal to the campaign put on by the opponents of this bill.” Johnson pushed on with the bill and it was eventually passed by 53 votes to 38. However, three days later, Dwight D. Eisenhower, vetoed the bill on grounds of immoral lobbying. Eisenhower confided in his diary that this had been “the most flagrant kind of lobbying that has been brought to my attention”. He added that there was a “great stench around the passing of this bill” and the people involved were “so arrogant and so much in defiance of acceptable standards of propriety as to risk creating doubt among the American people concerning the integrity of governmental processes”.

The decision by President Eisenhower to veto this bill angered the oil industry. Once again Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison began negotiations with Eisenhower. In June, 1957, Eisenhower agreed to appoint their man, Robert B. Anderson, as his Secretary of the Treasury. According to Robert Sherrill in his book, The Accidental President: "A few weeks later Anderson was appointed to a cabinet committee to "study" the oil import situation; out of this study came the present-day program which benefits the major oil companies, the international oil giants primarily, by about one billion dollars a year."

According to Jonathan Kwitny (Endless Enemies) from 1955 to 1963, Richardson, Murchison, and Rockefeller interests (arranged by John J. McCloy) and the International Basic Economy Corporation (100% owned by the Rockefeller family) gave "away a $900,000 slice of their Texas-Louisiana oil property" to Robert B. Anderson, Eisenhower's Secretary of the Treasury.

In 1956 Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson again. This time the margin was even greater with Eisenhower winning 35,585,316 votes to Stevenson's 26,031,322. The following year he controversially sent federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the Supreme Court decision to desegregate schooling.

In foreign affairs during this period he relied heavily on Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. During the Suez Crisis President Dwight Eisenhower refused to support the Anglo-French action against Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. Afterwards his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, became concerned about the growing influence of the Soviet Union in the Middle East.

In January 1957 made a speech in Congress where Eisenhower recommended the use of American forces to protect Middle East states against overt aggression from nations "controlled by international communism". He also urged the provision of economic aid to those countries with anti-communist governments. This new foreign policy became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.

Eisenhower made his last speech as president on the subject of the Military Industrial Congress Complex in 17th January, 1961. Probably the most controversial speech of his career he gave the American people a serious warning about the situation that faced them: "Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

The speech was written by two of Eisenhower’s advisers, Malcolm Moos and Ralph E. Williams. However, this was not the speech they had written. Eisenhower had made some important changes to the original draft. For example, Eisenhower’s speech is a warning about the future. He does not explain how he dealt with this problem during his presidency. After all, Eisenhower gave important posts to John McCone and Robert Anderson, two key figures in the “Military-Industrial Complex”. He was also the president who succumbed to the pressures of Tommy Corcoran to order the CIA to work with United Fruit in the overthrow of democratically elected government of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. Eisenhower also encouraged and benefited from the activities of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. It was this fanatical anti-communism that fueled Cold War tensions and stimulated the arms race that was such an important ingredient in the development of the “Military-Industrial Complex”.

Another important aspect of the speech is that Eisenhower does not mention the role of politicians in this problem. This is strange as it was only through politicians that the military and the business community got what they wanted. This was one aspect of the speech that Eisenhower changed. In the original draft, Moos and Williams had used the phrase, the “Military-Industrial Congressional Complex”. This is of course a more accurate description of this relationship. However, to use the term “Congressional” would have highlighted the corruption that was taking place in the United States and illustrated the role played by Eisenhower in this scandal.

In 1961 Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson began reporting on Eisenhower taking money from the oil industry. Eisenhower did not take legal action against the journalists and the story did not receive very much publicity. In 1968 Pearson and Anderson returned to the topic in their book, The Case Against Congress (1968). "On January 19, 1961, one day before he left the White House, Eisenhower signed a procedural instruction on the importation of residual oil that required all importers to move over and sacrifice 15 percent of their quotas to newcomers who wanted a share of the action. One of the major beneficiaries of this last-minute executive order happened to be Cities Service, which had had no residual quota till that time but which under Ike's new order was allotted about 3,000 barrels a day. The chief executive of Cities Service was W. Alton Jones, one of the three faithful contributors to the upkeep of the Eisenhower farm."

The authors went on to claim that hree months later, W. Alton Jones was flying to Palm Springs to visit Eisenhower when his plane crashed: "Jones was killed. In his briefcase was found $61,000 in cash and travelers' checks. No explanation was ever offered - in fact none was ever asked for by the complacent American press - as to why the head of one of the leading oil companies of America was flying to see the ex-President of the United States with $61,000 in his briefcase."

When Eisenhower left office as one of the most popular presidents in American history. He retired to his farm in Gettysburg and devoted much of his time to writing his memoirs. Mandate For Change (1963), Waging Peace (1965) and At Ease (1967).

Dwight David Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969.

Primary Sources

(1) Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (1948)

For three years, soon after the first World War, I served under one of the most accomplished soldiers of our time. Major General Fox Conner. One of the subjects on which he talked to me most was allied command, its difficulties and its problems. Another was George C. Marshall. Again and again General Conner said to me, "We cannot escape another great war. When we go into that war it will be in company with allies. Systems of single command will have to be worked out. We must not accept the 'co-ordination' concept under which Foch was compelled to work. We must insist on individual and single responsibility - leaders will have to learn how to overcome nationalistic considerations in the conduct of campaigns. One man who can do it is Marshall - he is close to being a genius."

(2) Dwight Eisenhower made several references to General Douglas MacArthur in his diary during the Second World War.

29th January, 1942: MacArthur has started a Hood of communications that seem to indicate a refusal on his part to look facts in the face, an old trait of his. He has talked about big naval concentrations; he has forwarded (probably inspired) letter from Mr. Quezon; statements (Quisling) from Aguinaldo; he complains about lack of unity of command, about lack of information. He's jittery!

3rd February, 1942: Looks like MacArthur is losing his nerve. I'm hoping that his yelps are just his way of spurring us on, but he is always an uncertain factor. The Dutch want planes; the Australians want planes; ABDA has to have planes; China must get them; the British need them in Near East. What a mess!

8th February, 1942: Another long message on "strategy" to MacArthur. He sent in one extolling the virtues of the flank offensive. Wonder what he thinks we've been studying for all these years. His lecture would have been good for plebes. Today another long wail from Quezon. I'll have to wait though, because it is badly garbled. I think he wants to give up.

23rd February, 1942: Message to MacArthur was approved by president and dispatched. I'm dubious about the thing. I cannot help believing that we are disturbed by editorials and reacting to "public opinion" rather than to military logic. Watson is certain we must get MacArthur out, as being worth "five army corps. " He is doing a good job where he is, but I'm doubtful that he'd do so well in more complicated situations. Bataan is made to order for him. It's in the public eye; it has made him a public hero; it has all the essentials of drama; and he is the acknowledged king on the spot. If brought out, public opinion will force him into a position where his love of the limelight may ruin him.

19th March, 1942: MacArthur is out of Philippine Islands. Now supreme commander of "Southwest Pacific Area." The newspapers acclaim the move - the public has built itself a hero out of its own imagination. I hope he can do the miracles expected and predicted; we could use a few now. Strange that no one sees the dangers. Some apply to MacArthur, who could be ruined by it. But this I minimize; I know him too well. The other danger is that we will move too heavily in the Southwest. Urging us in that direction now will be: Australians, New Zealanders, our public (wanting support for the hero), and MacArthur. If we tie up our shipping for the SW Pacific, we'll lose this war.

(3) Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (1948)

General Clark reported that apparently Darlan was the only Frenchman who could achieve cooperation for us in North Africa. I realized that the matter was one that had to be handled expeditiously and locally. To have referred it back to Washington and London would have meant inevitable delays in prolonged discussions. So much time would have been consumed as to have cost much blood and bitterness and left no chance of an amicable arrangement for absorbing the French forces into our own expedition.

Already we had our written orders from our governments to cooperate with any French government we should find existing at the moment of our entry into Africa. Moreover, the matter at the moment was completely military. If resulting political repercussions became so serious as to call for a sacrifice, logic and tradition demanded that the man in the field should take complete responsibility for the matter, with his later relief from command becoming the symbol of correction. I might be fired, but only by making a quick decision could the essential unity of effort throughout both nations be preserved and the immediate military requirements met.

We discussed these possibilities very soberly and earnestly, always remembering that our basic orders required us to go into Africa in the attempt to win an ally - not to kill Frenchmen.

I well knew that any dealing with a Vichyite would create great revulsion among those in England and America who did not know the harsh realities of war; therefore I determined to confine my judgment in the matter to the local military aspects. Taking Admiral Cunningham with me, I flew to Algiers on November 13, and upon reaching there went into conference with General Clark and Mr. Murphy, the American consul general in the area. This was the first time I had seen Murphy since his visit to London some weeks before.

They first gave me a full account of events to date. On November 10, Darlan had sent orders to all French commanders to cease fighting. Petain, in Vichy, immediately disavowed the act and declared Darlan dismissed. Darlan then tried to rescind the order, but this dark would not allow. Next the news was received in Algiers that the Germans were invading southern France, and now Darlan said that because the Germans had violated the 1940 armistice he was ready to cooperate freely with the Americans. In the meantime General Giraud, at first shocked to discover that the local French would not follow him, had become convinced that Darlan was the only French official in the region who could lead North Africa to the side of the Allies. When the Germans entered southern France Giraud went to Darlan to offer cooperation. The fighting at Casablanca had ceased because of Darlan's order; at other places the fighting was over before the order was received.

(4) Dwight Eisenhower was highly critical of Admiral Ernest King in his diary during the Second World War.

23rd February, 1942: Admiral King, commander in chief of United States fleet, and directly subordinate to the president, is an arbitrary, stubborn type, with not too much brains and a tendency toward bullying his juniors. But I think he wants to fight, which is vastly encouraging. In a war such as this, when high command invariably involves a president, a prime minister, six chiefs of staff, and a horde of lesser "planners," there has got to be a lot of patience-no one person can be a Napoleon or a Caesar.

10th March, 1942: One thing that might help win this war is to get someone to shoot King. He's the antithesis of cooperation, a deliberately rude person, which means he's a mental bully. He became Commander in Chief of the fleet some time ago. Today he takes over, also, Stark's job as chief of naval operations. It's a good thing to get rid of the double head in the navy, and of course Stark was just a nice old lady, but this fellow is going to cause a blow-up sooner or later, I'll bet a cookie.

14th March, 1942: Lest I look at this book sometime and find that I've expressed a distaste for some person, and have put down no reason for my aversion, I record this one story of Admiral King. One day this week General Arnold sent a very important note to King. Through inadvertence, the stenographer in Arnold's office addressed it, on the outside, to "Rear Admiral King." Twenty-four hours later the letter came back, unopened, with an arrow pointing to the "Rear," thus: (Here a long, heavy arrow has been drawn in a diagonal line underneath and pointing to the word "Rear.") And that's the size of man the navy has at its head. He ought to be a big help winning this war.

(5) Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery wrote about Dwight Eisenhower in his autobiography, The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery (1958)

I would not class Ike as a great soldier in the true sense of the word. He might have become one if he had ever the experience of exercising direct command of a division, corps, and army - which unfortunately for him did not come his way. But he was a great Supreme Commander - a military statesman. I know of no other person who could have welded the allied forces into such a fine fighting machine in the way he did, and kept a balance among the many conflicting and disturbing elements which threatened at times to wreck the ship.

Where does his strength lie? He has a good brain and is very intelligent. But his real strength lies in his human qualities; he is a very great human being. He has the power of drawing the hearts of men towards him as a magnet attracts the bits of metal. He merely has to smile at you, and you trust him at once. He is the very incarnation of sincerity. He has great common sense. People and nations gave him their confidence.

(6) Douglas MacArthur, interviewed by Barry Goldwater in 1963.

Eisenhower was probably the best staff man in the Army. He had a magnificent talent for getting along with people. He could get Patton and Montgomery and Bradley in the room, and before they left, they would be an agreement. Ike had a positive genius for resolving differences. Perhaps it was because you couldn't dislike him even when he disagreed with you.

(7) Working undercover as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the investigative journalist, Stetson Kennedy discovered the organization switched its support from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party when Dwight Eisenhower was selected as its presidential candidate in 1952.

It was Eisenhower's record as an enforcer of racial segregation in the US armed forces, that opened up the possibility of swinging the traditionally Democratic South into the Republican camp. "My policy for handling coloured troops will be absolute equalitative treatment, but there will be segregation where facilities are afforded," Eisenhower had said in 1942 - and the Klan proceeded to make much of this fact.

On July 16th of that same year, a directive bearing Eisenhower's signature went out to the red Cross clubs in London, ordering that, "Care should be taken so that men of two races are not needlessly intermingled in the same dormitory or at the same tables in the dinning-halls."

Finally, when in campaigning for the presidency Eisenhower announced his opposition to civil rights legislation by Congress, the Klan took off the wraps and went all out for Ike. On election day, more Negroes than ever before in American history defied the Klan terror and marched to the polls - but nevertheless at least five million were kept from voting. The hate propaganda did its work, and Kludd Shuler's prediction that five Southern states would go for Eisenhower came true.

(8) Dwight Eisenhower, wrote about Joseph McCarthy in his diary on 1st April, 1953.

Senator McCarthy is, of course, so anxious for the headlines that he is prepared to go to any extremes in order to secure some mention of his name in the public press. His actions create trouble on the Hill with members of the party; they irritate, frustrate, and infuriate members of the Executive Department. I really believe that nothing will be so effective in combating his particular kind of troublemaking as to ignore him. This he cannot stand.

(9) Dwight D. Eisenhower, diary entry (24th July, 1953)

A few days ago I had luncheon with Governor Byrnes of South Carolina, my great friend, a man in whose company I always find a great deal for enjoyment.

He came to talk to me about the possibility of a supreme court ruling that would abolish segregation in public schools of the country. He is very fearful of the consequences in the South. He did not dwell long upon the possibility of riots, resultant ill feeling, and the like. He merely expressed very seriously the opinion that a number of states would immediately cease support for public schools.

During the course of this conversation, the governor brought out several times that the South no longer finds any great problem in dealing with adult Negroes. They are frightened at putting the children together.

The governor was obviously afraid that I would be carried away by the hope of capturing the Negro vote in this country, and as a consequence take a stand on the question that would forever defeat any possibility of developing a real Republican or "opposition" party in the South.

I told him that while I was not going to give in advance my attitude toward a supreme court opinion that I had not even seen and so could not know in what terms it would be couched, that my convictions would not be formed by political expediency. He is well aware of my belief that improvement in race relations is one of those things that will be healthy and sound only if it starts locally. I do not believe that prejudices, even palpably unjustified prejudices, will succumb to compulsion. Consequently, I believe that federal law imposed upon our states in such a way as to bring about a conflict of the police powers of the states and of the nation, would set back the cause of progress in race relations for a long, long time.

(10) President Dwight Eisenhower, television broadcast on Little Rock (24th September, 1957)

At a time when we face grave situations abroad because of the hatred that communism bears towards a system of government based on human rights, it would be difficult to exaggerate the harm that is being done to the prestige and influence and indeed to the safety of our nation and the world. Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation. We are portrayed as a violator of those standards which the peoples of the world united to proclaim in the Charter of the United Nations.

(11) Barry Goldwater, With No Apologies (1979)

I have served in the Senate of the United States during the terms of six Presidents - three Republican and three Democratic. I think Dwight Eisenhower was the best of the lot and least understood. Ike was a product of his military background, but he didn't radiate that aura of condescending, imperial authority which everyone recognized in George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur.

(12) Drew Pearson & Jack Anderson, The Case Against Congress (1968)

Fletcher Knebel in the Des Moines Register carefully listed the numerous gifts presented to the Eisenhower farm, including a John Deere tractor with a radio in it, a completely equipped electric kitchen, landscaping improvements and ponies and Black Angus steers-worth, all together, more than half a million dollars. Compare this outpouring to the $1,200 deep freeze-and the resulting uproar over it - given to President Truman by a Milwaukee friend of General Harry Vaughn. But no newspaper dug into the highly compromising fact that the upkeep of the Eisenhower farm was paid for by three oilmen - W. Alton Jones, chairman of the executive committee of Cities Service; B. B. (Billy) Byars of Tyler, Texas, and George E. Allen, director of some 20 corporations and a heavy investor in oil with Major Louey Kung, nephew of Chiang Kai-shek. They signed a strictly private lease agreement, under which they were supposed to pay the farm costs and collect the profits. Internal Revenue, after checking into the deal, could find no evidence that the oilmen had attempted to operate the farm as a profitable venture. Internal Revenue concluded that the money the oilmen poured into the farm could not be deducted as a business expense but had to be reported as an outright gift. Thus, by official ruling of the Internal Revenue Service, three oilmen gave Ike more than $500,000 at the same time he was making decisions favorable to the oil industry. The money went for such capital improvements as: construction of a show barn, $30,000; three smaller barns, about $22,000; remodeling of a schoolhouse as a home for John Eisenhower, $10,000; remodeling of the main house, $110,000; landscaping of 10 acres around the Eisenhower home, $6,000; plus substantial outlays for the staff including a $10,000-ayear farm manager.

How the money was paid is revealed in a letter dated January 28, 1958, and written from Gettysburg by General Arthur S. Nevins, Ike's farm manager. Addressed to George E. Allen in Washington and B. B. Byars in Tyler, Texas, it began, "Dear George and Billy" and discussed the operation of the farm in some detail. It said, in part:

"New subject - The funds for the farm operation are getting low. So would each of you also let me have your check in the usual amount of $2,500. A similar amount will be transferred to the partnership account from W. Alton Jones's funds."

In the left-hand corner of the letter is the notation that a carbon copy was being sent to W. Alton Jones.

During his eight years in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower did more for the nation's private oil and gas interests than any other President. He encouraged and signed legislation overruling a Supreme Court decision giving offshore oil to the Federal Government. He gave office space inside the White House to a committee of oil and gas men who wrote a report recommending legislation that would have removed natural-gas pipelines from control by the Federal Power Commission. In his appointments to the FPC, every commissioner Ike named except one, William Connole, was a pro-industry man. When Connole objected to gas price increases, Eisenhower eased him out of the commission at the expiration of his term.

On January 19, 1961, one day before he left the White House, Eisenhower signed a procedural instruction on the importation of residual oil that required all importers to move over and sacrifice 15 percent of their quotas to newcomers who wanted a share of the action. One of the major beneficiaries of this last-minute executive order happened to be Cities Service, which had had no residual quota till that time but which under Ike's new order was allotted about 3,000 barrels a day. The chief executive of Cities Service was W. Alton Jones, one of the three faithful contributors to the upkeep of the Eisenhower farm.

Three months later, Jones was flying to Palm Springs to visit the retired President of the United States when his plane crashed and Jones was killed. In his briefcase was found $61,000 in cash and travelers' checks. No explanation was ever offered - in fact none was ever asked for by the complacent American press - as to why the head of one of the leading oil companies of America was flying to see the ex-President of the United States with $61,000 in his briefcase.

(13) Jonathan Kwitny, Endless Enemies (1984)

In 1961 John Foster Dulles was dead. Allen Dulles had been reappointed to head the CIA as the very first decision announced by President-elect Kennedy. And President Eisenhower retired to a 576-acre farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The farm, smaller then, had been bought by General and Mrs. Eisenhower in 1950 for $24,000, but by 1960 it was worth about $1 million. Most of the difference represented the gifts of Texas oil executives connected to Rockefeller oil interests. The oilmen acquired surrounding land for Eisenhower under dummy names, filled it with livestock and big, modern barns, paid for extensive renovations to the Eisenhower house, and even wrote out checks to pay the hired help.

These oil executives were associates of Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison, billionaire Texas oilmen who were working with Rockefeller interests on some Texas and Louisiana properties and on efforts to hold up the price of oil. From 1955 to 1963, the Richardson, Murchison, and Rockefeller interests (including Standard Oil Company of Indiana, which was 11-36 percent Rockefeller-held at the time of the Senate figures referred to earlier, and International Basic Economy Corporation, which was 100 percent Rockefeller-owned and of which Nelson Rockefeller was president) managed to give away a $900,000 slice of their Texas-Louisiana oil property to Robert B. Anderson, Eisenhower's secretary of the treasury.

In the Eisenhower cabinet, Anderson led the team that devised a system under which quotas were mandated by law on how much oil each company could bring into the U.S. from cheap foreign sources. This bonanza for entrenched power was enacted in 1958 and lasted fourteen years. Officially, it was done because of the "national interest" in preventing a reliance on foreign oil.

In effect, the import limits held U.S. oil prices artificially high, depleted domestic reserves, and reduced demand for oil overseas, thereby lowering foreign oil prices so that European and Japanese manufacturers could compete better with their U.S. rivals. It is difficult, of course, for a layman to understand how any of these things is in the national interest.

Meanwhile, President Kennedy turned the State Department over to Dean Rusk, who had held various high positions in the department under President Truman. For nine years - the entire Eisenhower interregnum for the Democrats and then some - Rusk had been occupied as president of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Has anybody stopped to think that from 1953 until 1977, the man in charge of U.S. foreign policy had been on the Rockefeller family payroll? And that from 1961 until 1977, he (meaning Rusk and Kissinger) was beholden to the Rockefellers for his very solvency?

(14) Dwight Eisenhower, speech on the Military-Industrial Complex (17th January, 1961)

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen...

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.