CinemaNow - Biography - Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower towered over American life for more years than any hero since George Washington. Like Washington, his feats as both military saviour and president brought his nation through the most perilous days of its history. As Supreme Commander in Europe, he led the crusade against Hitler from a faltering start in North Africa to the masterminding of the coalition that crushed Hitler in Europe, the greatest military campaign there has ever been. The Eisenhower presidential years are too often seen as the carefree "Happy Days", when all a leader had to do was preside over the greatest stretch of peace and prosperity America would know. But in fact the seemingly sunny '50s found Ike and the country faced with repeated crises that threatened the U.S. with annihiliation from both within the national fabric and by nuclear armageddon. In endless procession, Ike met and defeated the dangers. He ended the Korean War without the atomic holocaust demanded by congressional hawks. He resisted the French demand to join them in the Dien Bien Phu quagmire with American troops and tactical nukes. At the Chinese coastal islands of Quemoy and Matsu, he prevented invasions and counter-invasions by Nationalists and Communists that would have dragged the U.S. into WWIII. In the Suez crisis he used high pressure diplomacy to turn off the imperialist attacks of America's Israeli, British and French allies against Egypt to rescue America's reputation for moral leadership. Repeatedly he averted cataclysmic military showdowns with the Soviets in Poland, Hungary, Berlin and Cuba. At home, he formulated the key strategies to defeat the divisive, witch-hunting Senator Joe McCarthy, and later called out federal troops in the Little Rock riots to force the first integration of United States's schools in the milestone "Brown v. Topeka" civil rights decision. He would have his faults, defeats and heartbreaks. But in fighting up from prairie poverty to brilliant leadership of the free world, he caught the global imagination as no man before or since. The granite determination and the fabulous grin that came straight from the heart brought him to the presidency by storm and to a popularity that has never faded. Dwight Eisenhower's epic life and spirit made far more than a political chant out of the enduring words, "I like Ike." DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER will feature appearances by riveting on-camera authorities including leading historians and those who knew him including: Herbert Brownell, Ike's Attorney General and campaign manager; Tex McCrary, the promotional wizard who created the Ike tidal wave before Eisenhower ever knew he was going to run; Stephen Ambrose, the best and most acclaimed of the Eisenhower biographers; and Colonel Rod Paschal, an outstanding military historian.