biography
| name: |
Eisenhower, Dwight D(avid)
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nickname Ike
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pronunciation:
[iyznhower]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1890–1969)
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| biography:
| US statesman and 34th president (1953–61), born in Denison, Texas, USA. He trained at West Point (1915) and undertook further military studies. A fast-rising staff officer in Washington, DC, he was appointed an assistant to General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines (1935–9). As World War 2 progressed, he continued to rise in rank and responsibilities, and was assigned to command the Allied forces during their invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy (1942–3). His talent for both strategic planning and staff co-ordination led him (Dec 1943) to be named supreme commander of the Allied invasion of Normandy, and he directed the campaign from D-Day (6 Jun 1944) to the surrender of Germany (May 1945). After commanding the US occupation forces in Germany, he returned to the USA to serve as army chief-of-staff (1946–8) before retiring from active duty. He served as president of Columbia University (1948–50) and head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1951–2) before the Republicans drafted him as their presidential candidate in 1952. Under the motto ‘I like Ike’ he won by a landslide over Adlai Stevenson, and did the same in 1956. His record as president was mixed, but in the following years his low-profile approach came to seem more attractive. He established a truce in the floundering Korean War in 1953, but still maintained American presence as the main bar to Communist expansionism. With the Eisenhower doctrine he promised aid to Middle Eastern nations resisting Communism. In 1956 he sent troops to restore order in racially troubled Little Rock, Arkansas. But at the same time, he did little to restrain the Cold War machinations of secretary of state John Foster Dulles or the red-scare. |
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