Dwight D. Eisenhower mini-bio: Dwight David Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. He
was the third of seven sons born to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth
Stover. Both parents were of German descent. Eisenhower studied at the West
Point Military Academy from 1911-1915. He served with the infantry, became
the #3 leader of the tank corps, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel
by the end of the First World War. From 1922-1924 he served in the Panama
Canal Zone as executive officer to Gen. Fox Conner. From 1925-1926 he
studied at the Command and General Staff College in Kansas, and from
1928-1933 he served as executive officer to Gen. George V. Moseley:
Assistant Secretary of War, in Washington, DC.
Eisenhower was chief military aide to Gen. Douglas MacArthur from 1933-1935.
He accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines in 1935, and served there as
assistant military adviser to the Philippine government until 1939. Back in
Washington, he held various staff positions and was promoted to Brigadier
General in September 1941. Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff. There he gradually
rose to Assistant Chief of Staff under the Chief of Staff, Gen. George C.
Marshall. Although Eisenhower had no experience in active military command,
Marshall recognized his organizational and administrative strength. It was
his association with Marshall that brought Eisenhower to London in June 1942
as Commanding General of the European Theater of Operations. He was also
appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces of the North African
Theater of Operations, which was renamed the Mediterranean Theater of
Operations after the capitulation of the German army in Africa. In September
1943 Eisenhower oversaw the Allied invasion of Sicily and then of Italy,
which led to the immediate surrender of Italian forces in southern Italy.
However, the German Winter Line fortifications in Italy kept fighting even
after the fall of Berlin.
Eisenhower was in charge of planning and carrying out the Allied landings in
Normandy, France, and the invasion of Germany. The first part of his plan,
named Operation Overlord, was the largest seaborne operation in history.
Under this plan, 2.8 million Allied troops from 12 nations crossed the
English Channel. Starting on June 6, 1944, known as "D-Day", they landed on
the beaches of Normandy. After heavy fighting, the Allies breached the
fortifications and pushed back the defending German forces. Two months later
they reached Paris. Adolf Hitler had ordered the German commander of Paris
to destroy the city rather than let it fall into Allied hands, but that
officer refused to carry out those orders and eventually surrendered the
city to the Allies. After fighting that was not as fierce as was expected,
the city of Paris was liberated on August 25, 1944. Eisenhower was with
French Gen. Charles de Gaulle at the Hotel de Ville, where they greeted the
Allied forces and took part in the French victory parade. After liberating
Belgium and the Netherlands, the Allied troops crossed into Germany. In 1945
US and Soviet armies linked up on the Elbe River, west of Berlin. Soon
Eisenhower met with Russian Gen. Georgi Zhukov and the two made a trip to
the Soviet Union; the first (and only) time Eisenhower did so. After the
German surrender on May 8, 1945, Eisenhower was made the Military Governor
of the US Occupied Zone in Germany, based in Frankfurt. He ordered the
detailed search, documentation, photographing and widespread dissemination
of what went on in the Nazi death camps. By actions such as these,
Eisenhower began the process of documenting the horrors of the Holocaust.
Although he had never been in action himself, Eisenhower was respected as a
brilliant military strategist and skilled political leader during the Second
World War. He successfully dealt with conflicting demands from many sides,
and managed to mollify such tough and determined personalities as Winston
Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery and Gen. George S.
Patton. From 1945 to 1948 Eisenhower was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army,
and from 1950-1952 was Supreme Commander of all NATO forces.
Eisenhower won the 1952 US presidential elections, with Richard Nixon as his
Vice President, and brought the Republicans back to national power after 20
years. He was President from 1953-1960, becoming the first and only army
general to serve as President in the 20th century, formally becoming a
civilian during his term in office. He ended the Korean War and offered
peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin in
1953. He invited Nikita Khrushchev to his first visit to the US in 1959, and
hosted him at his farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where his children and
grandchildren met the family of the Soviet leader. Shortly after that,
however, the Soviets shot down an American U2 spy plane, captured the pilot
and canceled Eisenhower's reciprocal visit to the Soviet Union. Relations
between the two superpowers deteriorated very quickly, leading to an
increasingly rapid nuclear arms race and a dangerous standoff in the Cold
War.
Domestically, Eisenhower began the modernization and integration of American
roads into the interstate highway system, modeled after the autobahn, which
he saw in Germany. In spite of some serious setbacks with US-Soviet
relations, overall his presidency was a successful example of a non-partisan
approach to politics.
After his presidential term expired (US Presidents can only serve two
terms), Eisenhower was again commissioned a five-star general in the army.
He lived in retirement on his farm in Gettysburg, where he wrote his
memoirs. He died on March 28, 1969, at the Army Hospital in Washington, DC,
and was laid to rest in Abilene, Kansas, at the Eisenhower Presidential
Library.
