Dwight D Eisenhower
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Websites
Dwight D Eisenhower Library and Museum
www.eisenhower.archives.gov/
Information about the presidential library in Abilene, Kansas – which includes Eisenhower’s childhood home and the graves of the president and his first lady. There are also digital reproductions of official documents relating to Eisenhower’s military and political careers, including his hand-corrected draft of his order of the day for D-Day (‘The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you …’)
Domino Theory Principle
http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/domino.htm
The text of the presidential news conference of 7 April 1954 when Eisenhower first espoused the domino theory of international politics: ‘You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.’
The Eisenhower Doctrine
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1957eisenhowerdoctrine.html
The text of Eisenhower’s message to Congress on 5 January 1957, in which he outlined his ‘doctrine’. The Soviets’ response is also well worth a look.
Military–Industrial Complex Speech
www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/speeches/
eisenhower001.htm
The text of the speech, given by Eisenhower on 17 January 1961, which has gained increasingly in importance in the decades since.
About the Eisenhower Tapes
www.whitehousetapes.org/pages/tapes_dde.htm
In the 1990s, researchers discovered that, like his successors, Eisenhower had secretly taped conversations before and after he became president. On this website, you can listen to some of these – from 1950-1, when Eisenhower was considering and actually running for president, and from 1955, when he discussed what he seems to have considered sensitive issues with Nixon, members of his staff, politicians, foreign leaders and journalists.
Eisenhower’s Warning: The military-industrial complex forty years later
www.worldpolicy.org/journal/hartung01.html
Interesting article that first appeared in World Policy Journal, in which William D Hartung reveals how the military–industrial complex is alive and well and living in the Bush administration.
With Ike, Rumors Were Steamier than Facts
www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/history/faculty/TROYWEB/
WithIkeRumorsWereSteamierThanFacts.htm
Article by Gil Troy in the Washington Post, in which the truth (or lack of it) behind the gossip about Eisenhower and his wartime chauffeur is considered: ‘the willingness to turn the uncertainties about Eisenhower and Summersby into fact says more about us than about him.’
President Dwight D Eisenhower: His UFO story
www.presidentialufo.com/eisenhow.htm
Did Ike really meet aliens at Edwards Air Force Base?
Books
Eisenhower: Soldier and president by Stephen E Ambrose (Pocket Books, 2003)
One-volume biography drawn from numerous interviews with Eisenhower himself, and peopled with such eminent figures as Roosevelt, Churchill, de Gaulle, Nixon and Khrushchev.
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Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The decision to halt at the Elbe by Stephen E Ambrose (Norton, 2000)
In the final months of World War II, with the Allied forces streaming into Germany on two fronts, a line had to be drawn to prevent a clash between the Soviet and Anglo-American armies. Ambrose describes the political and military aspects of the situation, explains the alternatives and considers the results.
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Eisenhower: Allied supreme commander by Carlo d’Este (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004)
As well as the key military issues, d'Este reveals the truth about Eisenhower’s alleged romance with his British driver Kay Summersby, his troubled marriage and his eye for the political future.
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The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953-1961 by Richard V Damms (Longman, 2002)
A review of Eisenhower’s record – from the mishandling of the civil rights movement to the escalation of the arms race and the intensification of the Cold War. Damms argues that the presidency marked an important stage in the evolution of modern America, but left a decidedly mixed legacy for future presidents.
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