When Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected to office in 1952, he was convinced that among the obligations he assumed was that of calming the nation, according to veteran Times journalist Jim Newton.
In his new book, “Eisenhower: The White House Years,” (Doubleday) Newton takes a critical look at the eight years that the thirty-fourth president spent in office. Eisenhower’s predecessors, FDR and Harry Truman, had governed the nation through many crises – World War II, the Berlin Crisis, the Soviet atomic bomb, the Korean War and the 1952 steel strike. Therefore, Eisenhower assumed a calm leadership style and consistently sought to find the middle way between anti-communist Republicans and New Deal Democrats.
There are many lessons we can take from Eisenhower’s style of leadership, but most of “those lessons have been lost on the heirs to his political legacy,” says Newton. One such example is the recent, near aversion of a government shutdown prompted by the question of whether to raise the debt ceiling or not. Newton says that American politicians courted crisis at a time when sound and sober leadership was needed.
But Newton doesn’t spare the reader from an insight into Eisenhower’s faults. Eisenhower, like many presidents increased the use of covert operations in foreign countries. He was also greatly opposed to the Supreme Court’s decision that ‘separate but equal’ was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. Eisenhower left office with a chilling message for the American public that seems to ring true today – a warning of a rise of the United States as a military-industrial complex.
WEIGH IN:
What lessons can politicians and the public take from Eisenhower’s era? How do this book and its insights judge the politics of these days?
Guest:
Jim Newton, author of "Eisenhower: The White House Years" (Doubleday); Editor-at-large, L.A.Times, former Los Angeles Times reporter and bureau chief.