Stories About Eisenhower

Famous leaders had a life. What shaped them? How did they handle the good and the bad things that came their way? What made them rise above the crowd and become persons we grew to admire? Who helped them along the way and who tried to block their progress?

We think a good way to answer these and many other questions about Dwight Eisenhower is to present a series of brief stories … none of them more than four pages and most of them much shorter … that tell us something important about him by describing episodes in his life.

Click on a title below to check out a story that might interest you. Each story can be printed out in PDF format and has a hot link provided if you wish to email the story to a friend. From time to time we will be adding new stories, so drop by often.

The Early Years, October 1890 – May 1911
      Ida's Story
      Ike and the Apple Tree
      Ike’s First “Tough and Prolonged War”  

West Point Through World War I, June 1911 – November 1918
      Cadet Eisenhower Learns From a Mistake
     Ike and the Team
     Ike Deals with a Cheater
      Ike Chooses Mamie Instead of Money

The Interwar Years, December 1919 – November 1941
      Ike Learns that America Deserves a Good Highway System — in 1919
      Eisenhower and Patton: Soundly Rebuked by High Command
     Ike's Tragedy and Troubles, 1920-1921
     “The Man Who Made Eisenhower”
     Ike is Asked to Opt Out
      Humility and Leadership: Ike Learns A Painful But Valuable Lesson

World War II Years, December 1941 – November 1945
      Ike Sets Wartime Pacific Strategy – In Three Hours
      Dealing with the Devil
      Ike and Monty - Command Collisions
      The Death Camps
      Ike Accepts Responsibility… For Better or Worse
      Ike Gets Ready to Bail Out
      Why Didn’t General Eisenhower Try to Capture Berlin?
      The Story Behind Ike's Fifth Star
      Bring Back Daddy!

Chief of Staff/Columbia/NATO Years,
December 1945 – January 1952
      Ike's First Major Public Speech
      A Battle that Ike Lost
      Facing the Iron Curtain

Campaigns and the White House Years,
February 1952 – January 1961
      Ike Offers Not to Run
      Project Solarium
      Eisenhower and the Media
      Ike and the Sputnik Crisis
      Ike Desegregates the Nation’s Capital
      President Eisenhower Vetoes His Own Bill
      The Wisconsin Paragraph
      Mamie Goes Home for the First Time
      The Suez Crisis
      Dien Bien Phu
      The U-2 Incident
      Ike, Milton, and the McCarthy Battle
      The First Lebanon Crisis
      Ike and Antarctica
      Ike and Golf