Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Art of Leadership

Dwight D. Eisenhower was an excellent leader by virtually every measure. Yet by that same measure, excellent political, business, scientific, philanthropic, educational, cultural, and military leaders crowd four centuries of American history. What makes Eisenhower nearly unique is that he accomplished a feat matched by just two other Americans. Like George Washington and Ulysses Grant, Eisenhower served as both the army’s commanding five star general and the nation’s commander in chief during two full terms as president. Critics find Eisenhower easy to dismiss or downgrade. He was stolid, not dazzling, proficient, not brilliant, modest, not boastful, amiable, not flamboyant. Yet, during the Second World War, Eisenhower did not preside over but decisively led the victorious campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, France, the Low Countries, and Germany that first crushed Mussolini’s Italy then Hitler’s Third Reich from the west as the Soviet Red army crushed it from the east. From 1953 to 1961, he did not preside over but decisively led his White House administration that ended the Korean War within six months of taking office; kept Americans from combat in any more wars throughout all eight years in office; diplomatically resolved the 1956 Suez Canal War; overthrew an anti-western, pro-Soviet regime in Iran and replaced it with a pro-western regime that lasted a quarter century; managed solid economic expansion for seven of eight years; balanced three federal budgets and kept military spending mostly level; and initiated the federal highway system, St. Lawrence Seaway, and National Space and Aeronautics Agency (NASA), to name his presidency’s highlights. Yet, despite his overwhelmingly successful generalship and presidency, controversies shadowed his leadership. Critics…