Dwight D. Eisenhower
U.S. President 1953–1961, Supreme Allied Commander in WWII
Also known as: Eisenhower, Ike, General Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) commanded the Allied forces in the European theatre of the Second World War and served as U.S. President from 1953 to 1961. Quigley invokes him both as the operational commander of the Mediterranean and Western European campaigns and, in the later 1950s, as the moderate-Republican counterweight to the John Foster Dulles foreign policy he formally headed.
Mediterranean and European command
Quigley's wartime narrative places Eisenhower at the center of the North African and Italian operations. Operation Torch — the November 1942 Allied landing in French North Africa — "under the over-all command of General Eisenhower, involved landings at three points: on the Atlantic coast of Morocco… and at two points on the Mediterranean coast in Algeria" (T&H 764). When Italy sought a separate peace in September 1943, "Eisenhower refused" to send airborne forces to defend Rome but "published the Italian surrender on September 8th, one day before the American Seventh Army landed at Salerno" (T&H 777). Churchill's later effort to redirect Mediterranean resources to the Aegean failed because Eisenhower would not divert forces from the Italian campaign (T&H 772).
President and the moderate-Republican coalition
As president, Eisenhower headed the administration whose foreign policy was publicly identified with the "massive retaliation" doctrine of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Quigley argues that the actual policy was "followed only halfheartedly by Eisenhower in the middle of the White House," who "sought to keep the moderate middle group of voters" together (T&H 895). The same coalition logic shaped domestic politics: the Republican electoral combination that "supported the New Deal in the 1930s and… Eisenhower in the 1950s" represented, in Quigley's reading, the continuity of a centrist American consensus that bracketed both the neo-isolationist right and the labor left (Politics 2).
Cited in
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 764 Quigley
Operation Torch, under the over-all command of General Eisenhower, involved landings at three points: on the Atlantic coast of Morocco… and at two points on the Mediterranean coast in Algeria.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 772 Quigley
Churchill tried to persuade Eisenhower to shift forces from Italy to the Aegean or to persuade Turkey to declare war on Germany.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 777 Quigley
Eisenhower refused, and published the Italian surrender on September 8th, one day before the American Seventh Army landed at Salerno.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 895 Quigley
It was pursued by John Foster Dulles, with permanent injury to our allies… but it was not followed in the Pentagon and was followed only halfheartedly by Eisenhower in the middle of the White House.
- politics · p. 2 Quigley
The coalition that voted together to support the New Deal in the 1930's and to support Eisenhower in the 1950's is reflected in a number of other trends.