Dwight D Eisenhower was our thirty-fourth president, serving from 1953 to 1961.
He was born in Texas in 1890, and brought up in Abilene, Kansas. He was very good in
sports in High school and recieved an appointment to West Point. He was stationed in
Texas as second lieutenant where he met Mamie Geneva Doud, whom he married in
1916.
He excelled at many staff assignments and served under the guidance of many
great generals. After Pearl Harbor he was called to Washington for a war plans
assignment. He commanded the allied forces landing in North Africa in November 1942.
On D-Day, 1944, he was the supreme commander of the troops invading France.
After the war he became President of Columbia University. In 1951 he took supreme
command over the new NATO forces. Republican emmissaries to his headquarters near
Paris persuaded him to run for President. On June 4, 1952 he announced his candidacy for
the Republican Party nomination for Presidency. He was soon nominated at the
Republican convention and elected on November 4, 1952. He was able to use the catchy
slogan ?I Like Ike? to help him win.
He was able to serve two terms as President of the United States from January 20,
1953 to January 20, 1961. He saw the end of the Korean War, and promoted ?Atoms for
Peace? and dealt with several crisis in Lebanon, Suez, Berlin, and Hungary in Foreign
affairs. He helped make Alaska and Hawaii become states. Throughout his presidency he
was very concerned with civil rights issues and the interstate highway system in domestic
affairs. Between his two terms he suffered a heart attack in September 1955 in Denver,
Colorado. He left the hospital after seven weeks and was reelected for his second term in
November.
President Eisenhower was very concerned with promoting peace and equality. He
began with the desegregation of schools, of which he had to send troops into Little Rock,
Arkansas to assure the compliance with the Federal courts decision. He also ordered the
complete desegregation of the armed forces. He wrote ? There must be no second class
citizens in this country.? A program that eisenhower was quite proud of was his ?Atoms
for Peace? program which was the loan of American uranium to ?have not? nations for
peaceful purposes.
In March 1961, President Eisenhower returned to active list of regular army with
rank of General of the Army from December 1944. He maintained his office at
Gettysburg College and residence at his farm near Gettysburg, PA, January 1961 – March
1969.
General Dwight D Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969 at Walter Reed Army
Hospital in Washington DC. He was buried in the Place of Meditation at the Eisenhower
Center in Abilene , Kansas on April 2, 1969.
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