Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality [Hardcover]

Kasey S. Pipes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2010

He called it one of the hardest things he ever did-as difficult as leading the D-Day invasion. When Dwight Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to integrate Central High School in September 1957, he couldn't know that he was fighting the last great battle of his career...one that would change forever both him and his country. This is the story of how one of America's greatest leaders confronted America's greatest sin. This is the unlikely tale of how Ike became a civil rights president."Ike" represents is a revolution in scholarship on Eisenhower and civil rights. Though not uncritical, the book credits his steady personal advance on the issue as well as his accomplishments in the military and as president. Drawing on thousands of primary documents (including newly released material), "Ike's Last Battle" builds to its climax at Little Rock-one of the most pivotal events of the civil rights movement. Little Rock is at the epicenter, but the book will also look at the cause, and the aftermath.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A former speechwriter for Arnold Schwarzenegger and co-author of the 2004 Republican platform, Pipes uses his insider's perspective to look at the Eisenhower presidency in the age of desegregation. Though Pipes can fawn, he doesn't pull punches, showing Eisenhower at his most ignoble (refusing to comfort the mother of a lynched black boy), manipulative (overtly soliciting Chief Justice Earl Warren to rule conservatively in Brown v. Board of Education) and wrongheaded (remarking that Southerners are not "bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes"). Pipes argues, however, that such examples belie the President's complex and ultimately fortuitous take on the situation: personally sympathetic with blacks, Ike nevertheless felt that the government couldn't legislate morality and favored gradual integration, frustrating black rights champions like Thurgood Marshall but helping to defuse the increasingly volatile mood of the country. When the chips were down, of course, Eisenhower defended the ruling without hesitation, famously sending in the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock when Arkansas's governor refused to integrate. An unflattering reminiscence of a difficult time in American politics, Pipes's book nevertheless reminds readers how far the country has come.
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Review

With the 50th Anniversary of Little Rock approaching in 2007, the timing is perfect. This is the last priceless nugget of civil rights history.

The book draws on thousands of newly released documents, many never before made public.

This is the first book on the subject in 25 years. It disproves the claim that that Ike didn't care about civil rights.

Due to the author's outstanding connections with prominent Republicans, he anticipates well-publicized events at the White House, the Nixon Library and the Eisenhower Center.

The Republican National Committee will be assisting the author with book promotion, utilizing its extensive e-mail lists and PR capabilities. --This text refers to the Unknown Binding edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 332 pages
• Publisher: World Ahead Publishing; First edition. edition (January 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977898458
• ISBN-13: 978-0977898459
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,367,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ike's Final Battle, March 20, 2007

By 

Duncan Murray (Eugene, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality (Hardcover)

"Ike's Final Battle" is an incredibly enjoyable chronicle of the birth of the Civil Rights Movement. Going behind the scenes, Pipes reveals Ike's struggle with conflicting forces: his personal sympathy for Blacks and his firm belief that government can't solve all problems.

Ike approached civil rights issues as problems to be managed rather than be solved. Was his caution indicative of a lack of concern or fear that radical change would rip apart America's social fabric?

Pipes also gives readers fresh insights into the attitudes of Truman, JFK, LBJ and Nixon toward America's civil rights struggle. His observations are both surprising and disturbing.

For anyone alive during this troubled era or anyone interested in the early history of the Civil Rights Movement, this book is a "must."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pipes extracts the true Eisenower regarding civil rights, July 5, 2007

By 

Michael Heath (North Woods of Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality (Hardcover)

This book is a fast 300 pg. narrative on Eisenhower's nuanced positions regarding civil rights. The nuance is not whether equal rights for African Americans were right vs. wrong, but instead Eisenhower's struggle on how best to protect the rights of these Americans against the prejudice of southern conservatives who controlled the southern states and the relevant committees of the Senate.

Pipes begins with Eisenhower's experiences and contributions to the cause of equal rights in the military and ends in his retirement, with the climax happening 2/3 of the way through the book when Ike sends federal troops to Little Rock, AK to defend the right of African American students to attend a whites-only public school in spite of a bigoted governor who sends the national guard to keep them out. The book finishes with reflections on his contributions looking back from the time of Kennedy and LBJ moving the ball forward even further.

Pipes provides an incredibly fair report on President Eisenhower's policy positions and actions given the frequent opaqueness of his position depending on the situation and the company he was keeping. Many have attempted to paint Ike as a racist political opportunist or a courageous leader of the civil rights movement, with both positions given to hyperbole. Instead, Pipes portrays a man who respects majoritarian positions while realizing in his heart the wrongness of institutionalized bigotry even though Eisenhower, a man of his time, shares some prejudicial beliefs. The struggle for Eisenhower is often how to move the majority to his position without his having to depend on fiery rhetoric to change hearts and minds.

While Eisenhower was never a die-hard politico, he left the GOP with a wonderful legacy inherent in republicanism as a form of government instituted in 1787. Reading this book in 2007 shows how far the current majority of Republicans have mutated away from the principles of republicanism and Eisenhower, mostly due to the Southern Conservative Democrats who emigrated to the GOP after LBJ led the Democratic party into passing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts.

Pipes' only flaw in the book, so minor it's not worth knocking down a star, is a weak-hearted attempt to define Eisenhower as a conservative even though all empirical evidence in the book and other studies on Eisenhower provide ample evidence that he was a moderate who "got it" regarding our founding ideal of republicanism that holds that government is obligated to defend our individual liberty rights. The examples of Eisenhower's actions in the book are a case study in republicanism, not conservatism, where Ike closely follows the examples of previous Republican presidents who used federal power to protect individual and minority rights (e.g., Madison, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt). Conservatives by definition abhor using federal power to protect individual rights, they instead promote the ideal of "state rights" in hopes the process of "democratic conservatism" at the state level will "protect the will of the people", i.e., conservatives want to employ simple majorities leveraging state power to deny individuals and minority groups equal rights and protections.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Man's Inner Stuggle, April 22, 2007

By 

Steve Iaco (northern new jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality (Hardcover)

This is a very well written, highly engaging book about Eisenhower's inner struggle with racial equality. Generally, historians give President Eisenhower low grades for his handling of civil rights: too slow, too reticent, no vision or leadership. But this was not Ike's way, Kasey Pipes argues. He was a conservative, 19th century man who believed in low-key, incremental progress, in changing people's minds before changing laws. As a military man, he was taught to manage problems, not lead a revolution. The only crusade he was prepared to lead, Pipes says, was the one that liberated Europe.

Ike did boldly effect change where he could: giving African-Americans a combat role during the Battle of the Bulge, desegrating Washington DC as well as military bases in the South. These progressive moves were often made with little fanfare, as Ike believed (probably correctly) publicity would simply stir up a backlash of opposition. However, when the Big Test came at Little Rock, in 1957, he passed with flying colors, sending in the 101st Airborne. Indeed, Pipes observes, Ike's performance at Little Rock compares favorably with President Kennedy's five years later at Ole Miss. (There were no major casualties at Little Rock versus hundreds at Ole Miss).

Pipes, a Republican speechwriter, is a gifted wordsmith, and his first book has a brisk narrative pace. A terrific read.