13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A scholar 'declassifies' the Eisenhower presidency ., June 9, 1999
By A Customer
I have kept the paperback version of this book nearby ever since it was published. It acts as an antidote to the warm and fuzzy image of 'Ike' as everyone's weekend golfing grandad, and restores a sense of the Cold War's origins and global strategies to Ike's presidency that pursued it covertly in the Western Hemisphere [Guatemala.] Wiesen Cook's scholarly treatment is anything but sensational; its long footnotes often contain the most startling revelations. Revisionists are often simply realists, and this study's realism is long overdue as a corrective of the highly PR-spun 'memorialization' of The Eisenhower Era.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eisenhower and the Cold War, November 21, 2009
In the 1950's I recall numerous occasions when newscasters would mentioning that President Eisenhower played golf today. It appeared that Ike played so much golf that some wags concluded he was inattentive to world issues and in consequence America's prestige suffered. Some writers commenting on the Presidency focus on Roosevelt and then go right to the Kennedy years as if Ike was just a caretaker president. In 1963 a poll of seventy-five historians ranked Eisenhower twenty-second in "presidential performance," behind Chester A. Arthur.
In "The Declassified Eisenhower" author Cook sets the record straight. Eisenhower was keenly aware of the stakes involved in the Cold War. He also knew that unrestrained military spending was not the answer. He orchestrated a many faceted strategy to oppose the spread on communism short of direct confrontation. Most of these efforts were classified and his reputation suffered. In retrospect, he was the right man at the right time for America.
Eisenhower, a soldier well acquainted with warfare, was adamantly opposed to involving the United States in a nuclear exchange that he was convinced would result in no winners. It is appalling to read about the simple-minded senators and ambassadors that lobbied hard for the US to lob a few nukes into Viet-Nam, China or Russia.
This book, although somewhat dated - it was published in 1984 and never revised -, is an important antidote to those who contend that Ike was soft on Communism or just a caretaker President until Kennedy was elected.
The book consists of three distinct sections. The first and longest section - 217 pages - is a political biography of Eisenhower from the end of WW2 to the completion of his 2nd term as President in 1960. The author makes the point that Ike was very intelligent but was strongly influenced by his close friends and advisers one of which was his brother Milton. The second section is a fascinating account of CIA and State Departments efforts to undermine the freely elected leader of Guatemala during the period 1953-4. This account is a case study of the anticommunist counterinsurgency that was employed throughout the Cold War. The last section discusses economics during the Eisenhower Presidency. There is a intriguing quote from eight senators complain that our military assistance to anti-communist regimes has kept in power dictators that endanger the very values which we seek to safeguard. The State department concluded that the comments resulted from communist propaganda. Among the senators were John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Mike Mansfield, Wayne Morse and William Fulbright.
The author supplements the text with 54 pages of notes and an index making this an excellent source book and guide to further reading.
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