"A
feeling came over me that the expression
'The United States of America'
would
now
and henceforth mean something different
than it had ever before.
From here on it
would be the nation I would be serving,
not myself."
-1952
Remembering his first day at West Point
I
come from the very
heart of America
-DDE |
Dwight David Eisenhower’s
life of public service was built around certain basic values that
he shared with most Americans. Central to his thought and his public
image was a powerful dedication to democracy, that is, to the right
of the people to choose their own government and to judge the policies
and the leaders who implemented the nation’s
public programs. Whether those programs
were conducted in local or state
governments
or in Washington, D.C., Eisenhower
was confident that the people could
over the long haul decide for themselves
what they wanted their
public authorities to decide and
do and what they wanted to decide
and do for themselves. His confidence
in the people was returned to him
manifold when they expressed their
confidence in his judgment
of what was best for the country.
1907
Camping with friends
along the Smoky Hill
River. Dwight, front
center. (Dwight D.
Eisenhower Library) |
Eisenhower’s democratic
ethic was solidly grounded in the experiences of his family life,
his childhood,
and his education. Sharing a small home in Abilene, Kansas, with
a large family, he learned from an early age decisive lessons about
the give and take that democratic government inherently requires.
Ike celebrated Abilene as an extended family and a classroom in
self-sufficiency. For him the town was a leveling ground where
bloodlines counted for
little, and bank accounts for less. Compromise and team play were
as essential at home as they were in sports and local government.
Here too, he began to learn something important about sharing and service
to others. Taking part in small-town
Kansas society and its educational system taught him to appreciate
the role individuals could play in shaping lives and careers and providing
the entire community with leadership. The individual loomed large in
that setting, and even though most of Eisenhower’s career would
take place in large national and international organizations, he never
lost his sense for the importance of individual effort as a building
block of democracy and our distinctive American form of political economy.
These fundamental values were reinforced at the U.S. Military Academy,
and to Eisenhower “Duty, Honor, Country” became his call
to a lifetime of service to the nation. As a consequence, his life
story became an essential part of his legacy to the American people.
Eisenhower’s dedication to democracy and leadership involved
a pragmatic idealism attuned to the needs of a modern administrative
state. No philosopher, he was interested in making society and those
institutions in which he worked successful and efficient. Neither a
company of soldiers nor a university nor the presidency could serve
democracy without effective, engaged leadership, and Eisenhower thought
a great deal about how leaders should behave. He had high standards
for himself and others. No matter how bitter the internal struggles
were— either in his great unified international commands in World
War II, in NATO or in the presidency—he worked endlessly to
promote cooperation and compromise. He was precise about responsibilities
and
authority, and thus civil-military relations never created a problem
in his mind: civil authority had to be supreme or democracies would
falter. His constitutionalism as general and as president was unwavering.
Leaders, he believed, had an obligation to develop and implement
effective strategies, but they also had to be ever mindful of the
morale of those
who served with them. He was relentlessly positive to those around
him even in moments of great stress such as D-Day, the Sputnik crisis,
and the U-2 affair.
|
The
nature of today's
weapons, the nature
of modern communications,
and the widening
circle of new nations
make it plain that
we must, in the
end, be a world
community of open
societies.
-Speech
to
U.N. General Assembly,
August 13, 1958 |
The challenges of military leadership led him to
write during World War II, “Without confidence, enthusiasm and
optimism in the command, victory is scarcely obtainable.” His
unique embodiment of these traits, and his skill and courage in planning
and executing the invasion of Normandy on D-day, June 6, 1944, won
him both the respect and the extraordinary affection of his fellow
citizens. His leadership during the crisis of World War II elevated
him to the rare post of statesman and first citizen of the free world.
Lauded and honored, he nevertheless remained humble about his accomplishments
and his role in the great alliance. He became an international leader
who remembered, as he once explained, “I come from the very heart
of America.” Thus he was a genuine representative and reflection
of the American people in the crucial years when this nation was becoming
a global leader. His broad humanitarianism was combined with a profound
internationalism grounded in his sure sense that American security
depended upon the manner in which the United States met its global
responsibilities. As a result he was unusually successful in representing
American values to the world at large in both wartime and peace.
For
many Americans following the Depression and World War II, the need
for a rearticulation of American values and principles was great,
and historical circumstances uniquely qualified Eisenhower to meet
that need successfully. One of the best known military heroes to
emerge from World War II, Eisenhower found himself, as a civilian,
the first
American president to face nuclear weapons of mass destruction
from the beginning of his presidency. These weapons, capable of destroying
mankind itself, and remarkably more varied, complex and threatening
to national and international
security than any before in history, presented a need for exceptional
leadership. To an unusual degree the World War II hero met the new
challenge domestically and internationally. Eisenhower’s profound
understanding of the scope of the security problem led him to say that
political relations now were not “merely man against man or nation
against nation. It is man against war.” The universal appeal
of his ardent pleas for peace received a widely positive resonance
which enhanced his historical stature as a statesman of peace as well
as a wartime general.
October
12, 1948 Installation
as President of Columbia
University, New York.
Accompanying him is
Albert Jacobs; seated
in the foreground is
Mamie, on her right
is John.
(Dwight D. Eisenhower
Library) |
A better understanding of the great public issues
of the day, he was certain, would serve democracy well, and at Columbia
University he strongly supported scholarly study of the nature and
historical evolution of communism, of war and peace, of human resource
issues, and of democratic citizenship. He was deeply disappointed
when education and compromise failed to prevent a crisis over civil
rights
in the South, and he responded quickly and forcefully when federal
authority was challenged at Little Rock. With the dispatch to Little
Rock, Arkansas, of a thousand paratroopers from the 101st Airborne
Division, he left no doubt that the orders of the federal courts
would be enforced. Without the rule of law, he reminded Americans,
democracy
would not work.
Decisive when challenged in this manner, he was nevertheless
cautious in his approach to the use of force in national affairs
as well as international relations. He actively promoted arms control
and believed that by avoiding war and strengthening our economy,
we
would ultimately win the great Cold War struggle against the Soviet
Union and the international communist movement. History proved
him right.
He was certain that by rewarding individual effort and encouraging
competition, the U.S. style of capitalism had made this nation’s
economy the strongest in the world. Our form of competitive capitalism,
he thought, had decisive long-term advantages over authoritarian, centralized
communism, so long as we could maintain our cooperative alliances with
the other capitalist democracies. On that issue too, history came down
on his side.
May
6 1954 Eisenhower signs
H.R. 8127, the Highway
Legislation (Dwight
D. Eisenhower Library) |
Like most of his fellow citizens, Eisenhower respected
individual effort without losing sight of what government could and
should do for its citizens. As president, he brought his style of
quiet activism to the task of establishing the strategic architecture
needed
to protect America’s security in the space age. He sought civilian
control of space exploration, establishing NASA, and developing at
the same time the means to ensure the intelligence gathering from space
that would keep America informed of its enemies’ capabilities.
He fundamentally structured the global arms control and legal regimes
for space with which we live today. He also vastly improved the transportation
infrastructure essential to national defense with the Federal Aid Highway
Act of 1956, the Transportation Act of 1958 for railroads, and the
approval of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1954. Two new states — Alaska
and Hawaii — were added to the union on his watch. These accomplishments,
combined with his reorganization of the Department of Defense, meant
that at the end of his two-term presidency, America was better prepared
domestically and internationally to carry to completion the strategy
of containing communist power.
As Supreme Commander of Allied forces
in World War II, as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, as President
of Columbia University, as the military commander of NATO forces, and
as President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower established
a legacy of great service to American society and to its democratic
principles. He induced change by making America’s institutions
more responsive to American ideals and international realities,
and as the last American president born in the 19th century, he
was able to provide
this nation with a transitional, guiding vision for the last half of
the 20th century, a vision that is still compelling today. Eisenhower
became a living symbol of continuity and of enduring values in an age
of accelerating change. He protected democracy, listened to the voices
of the people, and provided powerful leadership in a successful quest
to achieve the two goals he knew the American people wanted above all — prosperity
and peace.
