Dwight David Eisenhower

Eisenhower, Dwight David 

Born Oct. 14,1890, in Deni-son, Texas; died Mar. 28, 1969, in Washington, D.C. US statesman and military leader; general of the army (1944).

Eisenhower graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1915 and subsequently served in the American Army in the USA and abroad, in the War Department, and on the Army Staff. With the coming of World War II, Eisenhower was appointed in June 1942 as commander of US forces in Europe, and in November 1942 as commander of Allied forces in North Africa and the Mediterranean. In 1943 he was made supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe and directed the landing of the British and American forces on the coast of northwestern France. This landing established the second front in Europe. Eisenhower was awarded orders of many countries, among them the Soviet Order of Victory (1945). After the rout of fascist Germany, Eisenhower was appointed commander of US occupation forces in Germany. He was US Army chief of staff from November 1945 to February 1948, and he was supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s armed forces in Europe from 1950 to 1952. During the years 1948–52 he was president of Columbia University in New York.

Eisenhower, a Republican, was president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. In domestic politics, the Eisenhower administration drastically reduced expenditures for social services, supported the anticommunist propaganda unleashed by rightist groups, and openly violated many civil rights guaranteed in bourgeois-democratic societies. In foreign policy, the Eisenhower administration continued the arms race and the cold war and sought to strengthen the strategic position of the USA in various regions of the world. Its military strategy was based on increasing the capabilities of nuclear arms, accelerating the development of strategic aviation, and building a fleet of missile-carrying nuclear submarines. Under Eisenhower, relations with the USSR and other socialist countries were governed by the principle of “brinkmanship,” and steps were taken to subvert the socialist order in Central and East European countries (the so-called “liberation” doctrine). The Eisenhower administration initiated a program to create new, aggressive military alliances and to acquire more military bases. An armed intervention against the government of Guatemala was organized in 1954. The Eisenhower doctrine was proclaimed in 1957. It was aimed at strengthening the position of the USA in the Middle East and counteracting the nationalist liberation movement within the area.

The Eisenhower administration, however, recognized the increasing might of the global socialist system and therefore took some realistic steps in the area of international relations. In 1953 an armistice was signed in Korea, and in 1955, Eisenhower took part in the Geneva conference attended by the heads of government of the USA, the USSR, Great Britain, and France. In 1959 the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR accepted an invitation from Eisenhower and paid a state visit to the USA.