Military leadership of the victorious Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II invested Dwight David Eisenhower with an immense popularity, almost amounting to devotion, that twice elected him President of the United States. His enormous political success was largely personal, for he was not basically a politician dealing in partisan issues and party maneuvers. What he possessed was a superb talent for gaining the respect and affection of the voters as the man suited to guide the nation through cold war confrontations with Soviet power around the world and to lead the country to domestic prosperity. Eisenhower's gift for inspiring confidence in himself perplexed some analysts because he was not a dashing battlefield general nor a masterly military tactician; apparently what counted most in his generalship also impressed the voters most: an ability to harmonize diverse groups and disparate personalities into a smoothly functioning coalition. Thus Eisenhower's two terms in the White House were a personal triumph in which he transcended the persons and forces around him. About his bewitching, benign and smiling figure there grew an aura of certain success that weathered shifts in his personal popularity and began to wane only in the years after he left the Presidency. Of all his unquestioned great moments, two stand out as landmarks. One is May 7, 1945, when Gen. Alfred Jodl, chief of the German Armed Forces Operations Staff, surrendered unconditionally to the Allies at a schoolhouse in Rheims, France, culminating the European phase of a terrible conflict that had nearly consumed the world. The other is Nov. 6, 1955, when Eisenhower was elected to a second term as President by one of the largest votes ever rolled up by a candidate of any party. His vote of 35.5 million has since been eclipsed, but it was a stunning performance at the time. In the years that followed his military and Presidential victories, he retired to the role of elder statesman, counseling his successors in the White House when they sought his advice and working to help unify (but never to lead) the Republican party along moderate lines. In the campaign of 1964, however, he declined to use his prestige to block the nomination of Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Moderates backing Gov. William W. Scranton of Pennsylvania were disturbed and disheartened. The sources of Eisenhower's qualities of leadership were far different from those of other contemporary statesmen. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a patrician with a master's manner in handling men; Sir Winston Churchill was an aristocrat born to command; Josef Stalin was a tyrant who ruled by ruthless craft; Nikita S. Khrushchev was a peasant's son given to hearty bluster; Harry S. Truman was a commoner who led because he was stubborn. Eisenhower's political appeal, apart from the glory conferred by his military accomplishments, lay in his background and his expression of it. He was a product of Abilene, Kan., a small Middle Western town that did not have a paved street until 1910-- the year after his graduation from high school. He was also the product of a close-knit Mennonite German family that passed on to him the simple pieties of 19th-century agricultural America. Insulated all of his adult life from the rise of industrialism and the anxieties of the job world by the institutional security of Army life, Eisenhower preserved these homilies virtually intact: God helps those who help themselves; the devil find mischief for idle hands; do justice and you will receive justice; prosperity is a sign of divine blessing; a change of heart expiates sin. The heart-warming sincerity with which he uttered these beliefs and their obvious role in fashioning his life created around him an atmosphere of uncomplicated goodness and uprightness. It disarmed his critics and confounded his enemies. Eisenhower's scrubbed face, his dimpled, infectious grin, his exuberance, his quick Jovian anger (and his equally swift return to calm), his paternal manner, all fused into a personality that the American public responded to and heeded. Cloaked with the power to command, he preferred to persuade and conciliate; he seemed to radiate goodwill and diplomacy. He was, in short, a man to be trusted, a man to make the complex simple, to do the job. For these characteristics much was overlooked: his vacations from the White House, his endless golf, his frequent bridge games, his fondness for cowboy stories, his bumbling syntax; for he exemplified the homespun, folksy virtues that many Americans liked to think they themselves possessed, or should ideally possess. Eisenhower's entrance into politics was reluctant. Before the end of World War II Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, the historian, suggested that he consider public office, and his reply was, "God forbid!" In the glow of the war's end, President Harry S. Truman offered to assist the general if he wanted to seek the Presidency in 1948. "Mr. President," he said, "I don't know who will be your opponent for the Presidency, but it will not be I." Pressure built up to draft Eisenhower for the race in 1948. Both Democrats and Republicans had hopes of snaring him because there was nothing in the public record to indicate which party, if either, held his favor. The general squelched talk of a draft for the nomination. "I am not available for and could not accept nomination for high public office," he wrote in a letter. At the time he was on leave from the presidency of Columbia University to serve as commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Europe. Despite Eisenhower's disclaimer, leading Republicans in the East kept their eye on him. In 1950, when the party resurgent in Congress, Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the titular leader, proposed Eisenhower as the nominee for 1952. Soon there was a well-beaten path to Rocquencourt, outside Paris, where the general made his headquarters; it was trod by politicians and businessmen, many of whom assured him, with adroit flattery, of the public clamor for him back home and of the ease with which he could get the nomination. Having indicated that he would accept the party's designation, however, Eisenhower soon discovered that it was not quite his for the asking. Pitted against him was Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, the "Mr. Republican" of the party's conservative wing. The decisive issue between them, as the general saw it, was isolationism. Indeed, Eisenhower agreed to run after he was convinced that Taft would not commit himself to the principles of NATO. The struggle was close, and the general was obliged to do some campaigning. Up to the convention in July, 1952, the outcome was unresolved. With the party machinery in Taft's hands, the issue hinged on how delegate contests in Texas, Louisiana and Georgia would be decided. In a maneuver that outwitted and discomfited the opposition, the Eisenhower forces, masterminded by Dewey, put across a "fair play" amendment to the rules that restricted voting by contested delegations already seated. It swung control of the convention away from Taft and led to Eisenhower's nomination. The victory came after the regular order of the first roll-call, when Minnesota switched 19 votes and gave the general the 604 votes he required for nomination. Other shifts eventually brought his total to 845 votes, while Taft slipped from a high of 500 to 280. As a Vice-Presidential candidate the convention chose Senator Richard M. Nixon of California, a man known then for his conservative views. Eisenhower quickly moved to attain party unity by calling on Taft at his convention offices. Later the two had a dramatic breakfast meeting at Columbia University that brought Taft followers into line, for both agreed, in a communique, that they sought similar foreign and domestic objectives. In the broadest terms, Eisenhower campaigned against his Democratic opponent, Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, on a pledge to clean up "the mess in Washington" and to balance the budget. Shortly before the election he promised he would personally go to Korea and try to end the war there. In its day-to-day unfolding, however, the campaign was much akin to a popularity contest. The country was covered with "I Like Ike" buttons, placards and posters; "All the Way With Adlai" was a fervent, but forlorn, cry. Eisenhower's concepts of loyalty and integrity were tested twice in the campaign, once with Senator Nixon and once with Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin. The Nixon case began with the disclosure that a group of California supporters had placed an $18,000 fund at his disposal while he was in the Senate. In a dramatic television appeal to the nation, Nixon made a sweeping denial of wrongdoing, satisfying Eisenhower's insistence that his running mate be "clean as a hound's tooth." Accepting Nixon's version of the fund, Eisenhower exclaimed: "That's my boy." In the McCarthy episode, the general was persuaded to delete from a campaign speech a defense of General of the Army George C. Marshall, his Army mentor, whom Senator McCarthy had impugned as a traitor. Political advisers had told Eisenhower that he needed McCarthy's support to win the election. These incidents seem not to have aroused voter reaction, for Eisenhower polled 33,936,252 popular votes and 442 votes in the Electoral College; Stevenson received 27,314,992 popular votes and 89 electoral votes. Significantly, Eisenhower's "crusade" (as he called it) carried four states of the Old Confederacy, a Democratic stronghold for generations. But the vote there, as elsewhere, was a personal tribute. The Republican edge in Congress was slight, and it vanished altogether in 1954 and 1956, indicating how far, in the voter's minds, the general stood above party. Eisenhower began his first term in January, 1953, as a symbol of international goodwill as well as of national high purpose. He had traveled to Korea, where a truce was soon effected, bringing back thousands of servicemen. At home the government climate was benign and the press was friendly, even protective, as a seeming new era opened. Even the political opposition struck at the men around the President rather than at Eisenhower himself. John Foster Dulles in the State Department and Ezra Taft Benson in Agriculture were popular targets between 1953 and 1957. Oddly, Old Guard Republicans, long entrenched in Congress, were among the most vocal critics, because the first Republican Administration in 20 years did not make a clean break with the New and Fair Deals. The Old Guard objected when the Administration eased credit, abandoned efforts to balance the budget and, in addition to letting $5-billion in Korean War taxes lapse, sanctioned a further tax reduction of $2.4-billion. On top of this, the Administration put through an extension of insurance coverage under Social Security and accepted a minimum wage of $1 an hour, up from 75 cents. It was the Democrats who gave Eisenhower the votes he required to pass key legislation. In his conduct of the White House the new President introduced the staff concept, under which the workload was distributed among associates. Sherman Adams, a former New Hampshire Governor, headed the staff with the title "The Assistant to the President." Despite some initial creaking, the system worked smoothly, especially late in the fist term when the President was twice stricken with serious illness. Eisenhower attached great importance to business success, a fact evident from the many representatives of big business named to his Cabinet and other key posts. It was a standing joke that his first Cabinet was composed of "eight millionaires and a plumber." Perhaps significantly, the first to depart was the plumber, Martin P. Durkin, who resigned within a year as Secretary of Labor. He said the President had reneged on a promise to press for revision of the Taft-Hartley Act, which restricted the union shop. At least three businessmen named to Cabinet-level posts--Charles E. Wilson, George M. Humphrey and Harold E. Talbott--were subjected to Senatorial questioning on their investments and on possible conflicts of interest between their official and business lives. Talbott, Secretary of the Air Force, later resigned over such charges. Throughout, the President was irritated by suggestions that his policies favored business at the expense of other segments of the population. He firmly believed that what was good for business was good for the nation. His contention seemed borne out by the economic boom that began in mid-1954 and continued through the rest of the first term. Because prosperous times followed a mild recession in 1953, tax concessions to business seemed all the more vindicated. Under Eisenhower, the nation maintained its international leadership even if, at times, its course seemed uncertain and erratic. The Administration had high hopes that, with the Korean truce, psychological warfare would give the West an ascendancy in the battle of ideologies. But when Stalin died in 1953, and again when revolt flared three years later in Hungary and elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain, there was no master plan ready to capitalize on developments. Yet Eisenhower's atoms-for-peace proposal made before the United Nations in 1953, and his open skies inspection plan, presented at the summit conference in Geneva in 1955, contributed markedly toward relaxation of world tensions and a more hopeful outlook. Although the promise of the Geneva conference, attended by Eisenhower, Soviet Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin, French Premier Edgar Faure and British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, never fully materialized, the meeting did produce a tacit understanding that nuclear war would be avoided. The neutral and nonaligned powers, notably India, liked Eisenhower's thinking in these areas. This was significant because other policies of this nation perturbed the neutrals. They did not agree that the cause of peace was being served by the ring of defensive alliances drawn around the Soviet bloc on the United States initiative. Among these was the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, an alliance set up late in 1954 upon French withdrawal from Indochina. At that time Eisenhower also wrote a letter to the Diem Government of South Vietnam, vaguely pledging United States economic and arms assistance. That letter, scarcely noticed at the time, was later used to justify massive American military involvement in Vietnam. Although an uneasy detente existed in Europe, tension prevailed in the Orient, especially between the Peoples Republic of China and the Nationalist regime on Taiwan. This reached a high point in 1955, when the Communists seemed ready to strike at the offshore island. In a dramatic step, Eisenhower asked Congress to underwrite his authority to use American armed force "if necessary to assure the security" of Taiwan. Many believed that the resolution, overwhelmingly approved, kept Communist China from moving against Quemoy and Matsu, Nationalist-held islands off China, because of uncertainty as to how the United States would react. In some areas the United States found itself in trade-and-aid competition with the Soviet Union. Middle East developments in 1955 pointed up the extent of this rivalry. The West, jolted by an Egyptian arms purchase from the Soviet bloc, was drawn into the bidding to finance the Aswan High Dam that the United Arab Republic wanted to build on the Nile. Midway in 1956 the West pulled out of the bidding and in a matter of days the U.A.R. seized the Suez Canal. Tensions mounted as negotiations failed to produce a formula for operation of the waterway, and by fall events were moving swiftly. After Israeli forces entered Egypt, Britain and France threatened on Oct. 30, 1956, to intervene if the fighting was not halted promptly. With world attention divided between the Mideast and Hungary, in the throes of upheaval, the U.A.R. balked, and Anglo-French forces took action. The conflict was speedily taken to the United Nations, where, in the voting for a cease-fire, the United States sided with the Soviet Union against France and Britain. The U.A.R. came out of the struggle triumphant. Invasion forces were obliged to withdraw under United Nations pressure; the U.A.R. retained the Suez Canal, and financing for the Aswan Dam was arranged with the Soviet Union. To many Americans, however, events abroad seemed remote in those years. Anxieties centered rather on the President, who suffered two major illnesses toward the end of his first term. The first, on Sept. 24, 1955, was diagnosed as a coronary thrombosis, a clot in the artery of the heart. It sent the President to the hospital for seven weeks. The second occurred eight and a half months later, on June 8, 1956, and was diagnosed as ileitis, an inflammation of the lower part of the small intestine. Eisenhower underwent a successful operation the next day to bypass the ileum, which was obstructing the intestinal tract. The President was on vacation in Denver when his heart attack occurred. He had just returned to the home of his mother-in-law, Mrs. John S. Doud, from a four-day fishing trip in the Rockies. After complaining of indigestion and intense chest pain, he was taken to the Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver. Heart specialists were called in, including Dr. Paul Dudley White of Boston, who described the attack as "moderate." The patient was cleared to leave the hospital Nov. 10, and he flew to Washington the following day, "happy that the doctors have given me a parole if not a pardon." Throughout the illness the public was kept minutely informed of the President's progress and of the fact that, with his staff, he continued to direct affairs of state. In these tasks he was aided by Vice President Nixon as well as by Sherman Adams. Despite the smoothness with which the President made decisions and despite the general uneventfulness of his recovery, speculation arose on his availability for a second term. After being pronounced medically fit by Dr. White, the President consulted earnestly with his closest advisers. They unanimously favored a second term, telling him it was his duty to continue working for peace if his health permitted. This advice led to Eisenhower's announcement on Feb. 29, 1956, that he would run again. The ileitis attack, coming in June, cast momentary doubt on Eisenhower's candidacy, but a routine recovery from three-hour surgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington relieved public apprehensions. The Republicans renominated him along with Nixon as his running mate. Eisenhower, at the peak of his popularity, conducted a restricted campaign in which he stood on his record of peace and prosperity. He made a limited number of radio and television speeches and undertook only two campaign swings that kept him away from the capital overnight. Stevenson, again the Democratic choice, hammered away at the "breakdown of leadership," at domestic and foreign policies that were "stalled on dead center" and at a "part-time President." He inveighed against a Cabinet representative of "the larger interests" and, with references to "the heir apparent," sought to increase the misgivings of some about Nixon. "Why this anguished cry of some politicians that we have no peace?" Eisenhower asked in the face of attacks on his foreign policy. Countering the charge of undue big-business influence, he demanded to know whether government affairs should be entrusted to "some failure...or a successful businessman." He insisted that his Administration had brought "sense and order" to Washington. Developments in the Middle East in October, touched off by the Israeli march into Egypt and the Anglo-French thrust at Suez, unquestionably helped Eisenhower with the voters, for his quick response to those events put the United States on the side of peace. The election results gave him 35,582,236 votes, a record up to that time, and 457 electoral votes, including those of five Southern states; Stevenson's popular vote was 26,031,322, his electoral total 73. Difficult and fateful problems at home, abroad and in space confronted Eisenhower in his second term. There was mob violence over school integration in the South, and in September, 1957, the President was obliged to send troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce court-ordered school desegregation. Business slumped sharply in the winter of 1957-58, and only slowly recovered. By July, 1959, when a steel strike dealt the economy another stinging blow, employment still had not recovered. The national debt climbed higher than ever. The Soviet Union achieved a stunning scientific success, with strong military implications, when it orbited the first man-made earth satellite in October, 1957. With the collapse of the second summit conference, in May, 1960, the perilous stalemate between the Soviet Union and the West over Berlin continued. Tensions in the Far East reached a peak a month later when the President, in the middle of a trip through the area, was forced to cancel a visit to Japan because of anti-American rioting there. The widening rift between Cuba and the United States brought economic reprisals on both sides and a threat of Soviet intervention that led Eisenhower to declare that he would never "permit the establishment of a regime dominated by international Communism in the Western Hemisphere." And in the Middle East, a policy designed to promote stability did not prevent the decline of Western influence through civil war in Lebanon and revolution in Iraq. The demands of the times would have taxed the energy of the healthiest of men, and they were especially heavy for Eisenhower on account of his heart attack and his bout of ileitis. His health was further compromised Nov. 25, 1957, when he suffered an occlusion of a small branch of the middle cerebral artery on the left side. He was left with a mild aphasia (difficulty in speaking) and he was not pronounced recovered from the stroke until March 1, 1958. Eisenhower sought to preserve his strength and health by daily rests, week- [MISSING END OF ARTICLE]