Brilliant Biography

I've completed a majestic biography of Dwight Eisenhower by Jean Edward Smith, of Columbia University. The book, Eisenhower in War and Peace, is a marvel that makes good sense of conduct of the supreme allied commander in Europe during the war as well as his eight-year presidency. Ike was nominally Republican, but meet weekly with Senate leader Lyndon Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn, and between them they created the post-war world. Ike hated war, and kept us at peace for his entire presidency. He swiftly ended the Korean War upon taking office, and kept us out of war the rest of his two terms. He is the only post-war president to avoid war. In his Farewell Address in 1961, he warned against the undue influence of the military-industrial complex, and his warning was prophetic. Today you could call it the Perpetual War Machine, and it owns both candidates. At any rate, this is a magnificent, instructive biography, and an exemplar of the heights that can be reached in that discipline.