ABSTRACT
Dwight D. Eisenhower was a military hero before he became president. Immensely popular, with an infectious boyish grin, he represented, like Abraham Lincoln, an important aspect of the American tradition. His parents were neither influential nor wealthy. He grew up in Abilene, Kansas, a small farming community where his father managed a creamery. Through sheer force of intelligence and character, Ike (his nickname from boyhood) succeeded in passing the highly competitive entry tests to West Point military academy. Practically his whole adult life was spent in the army, his career reaching its peak when he was appointed allied supreme commander of the D-Day invasion forces in 1944. He stayed in Germany for only a few weeks after accepting the surrender of the Nazi armed forces in May 1945 as American military governor. His European command was far more than a military one. He had to handle temperamental Allied generals as well as American, not to mention statesmen as varied as Churchill and General de Gaulle. He succeeded brilliantly, playing a decisive diplomatic and military role. After three years (1945-8) as US army chief of staff, and an uncomfortable spell as president of Columbia University, he was appointed by Truman in 1951 to the overall command of the allied forces being organised in Europe under NATO.
