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Ike the Soldier
Ike the Soldier [paperback] Miller, Merle [Sep 29, 1988]
859 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1987
About the author
Merle Miller
43 books26 followersMerle Miller, born in Montour, Iowa, wrote almost a dozen books, including more than half a dozen novels. His first, ''That Winter'' (1948), was considered one of the best novels about the postwar readjustment of World War II veterans. His other novels included ''A Day in Late September,'' set in suburban Connecticut on a Sunday in September 1960, ''The Sure Thing,'' ''Reunion,'' and his masterwork, the monumental "A Gay and Melancholy Sound" (1960).
Oral biographies accounted for his greatest success. The first of them, ''Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman,'' was published in 1974. It was adapted from an abortive television series for which the former President spent many hours in the early 1960's talking with Miller, the researcher and writer for the project.
His Johnson biography, a book for which he conducted 180 interviews and consulted almost 400 oral histories, was a best seller in 1980. Although he said he began the biography disliking the former President, in part because Miller was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, he ended up appreciating Mr. Johnson's parliamentary achievements and calling him ''one of the most complex, fascinating Presidents of all time.''
In 1971, Miller wrote a widely discussed essay for The New York Times Magazine, ''What It Means to Be a Homosexual,'' which, he said, brought him more than 2,000 letters, many of them from other homosexuals thanking him for helping to restore their self-respect. This article, and the enlarged book published from it, "On Being Different," made Miller the first nationally-known advocate for gay rights. He closely followed that famous essay with the novel "What Happened," fictionalizing some of his own horrific life experiences which lay behind the NYT essay.
Miller attended the University of Iowa and spent a year at the London School of Economics. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 and served as an editor of Yank magazine, in both the Pacific and in Europe, until his discharge in September 1945. He worked briefly as an editor at Time and Harper's magazines.
Oral biographies accounted for his greatest success. The first of them, ''Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman,'' was published in 1974. It was adapted from an abortive television series for which the former President spent many hours in the early 1960's talking with Miller, the researcher and writer for the project.
His Johnson biography, a book for which he conducted 180 interviews and consulted almost 400 oral histories, was a best seller in 1980. Although he said he began the biography disliking the former President, in part because Miller was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, he ended up appreciating Mr. Johnson's parliamentary achievements and calling him ''one of the most complex, fascinating Presidents of all time.''
In 1971, Miller wrote a widely discussed essay for The New York Times Magazine, ''What It Means to Be a Homosexual,'' which, he said, brought him more than 2,000 letters, many of them from other homosexuals thanking him for helping to restore their self-respect. This article, and the enlarged book published from it, "On Being Different," made Miller the first nationally-known advocate for gay rights. He closely followed that famous essay with the novel "What Happened," fictionalizing some of his own horrific life experiences which lay behind the NYT essay.
Miller attended the University of Iowa and spent a year at the London School of Economics. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 and served as an editor of Yank magazine, in both the Pacific and in Europe, until his discharge in September 1945. He worked briefly as an editor at Time and Harper's magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 16, 2022
‘He went to a lot of trouble to appear average, to seem ordinary, to appear guileless. And he fooled most people most of the time, including most of his biographers.’
Published posthumously in 1987, Miller squeezed 600 pages squeezed into 1200. Pages of trivia, gossip, and speculation. Lots of quotable epigrams and original source material. Enough intimate insights to give the reader a deep understanding of Ike. However, given Miller’s Plain Speaking: an Oral Biography of Harry S Truman controversy and all the questionable quotes from impossible-to-trace sources, how are readers to separate fact and fiction?
‘Omar Bradley later said, “Ike liked people and it is awfully hard for them not to like him in return.”’
Starts smartly with Ike’s years at West Point, then backtracks to a detailed biography of his entire family almost back to the Flood. No bit of trivia or controversy is too minute to earn a place, including advertising taglines from businesses cited.
‘He did not do much to interfere with the freewheeling reign of Joseph R. McCarthy.’
Miller gets verifiable facts wrong. For example, David A Nichol’s Ike and McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower's Secret Campaign against Joseph McCarthy, reveals that Ike covertly torpedoed McCarthy while never mentioning his name. (Miller had his own very public issues with McCarthy.)
"I want every American unit not actually in the front line to see this [concentration camp, Ohrdruf]. We are told that the American soldier does not know what at he is fighting for. Now, at least, he will know what he is fighting against." (D. D. Eisenhower)
Presumably, most of Miller’s material in meticulously researched and documented. His style was “warts and all” minutia, but even a one percent fabrication rate becomes tens of pages of error. How is the reader to known what to believe?
Eisenhower was "the wistful exponent of a simpler and lost America."
Published posthumously in 1987, Miller squeezed 600 pages squeezed into 1200. Pages of trivia, gossip, and speculation. Lots of quotable epigrams and original source material. Enough intimate insights to give the reader a deep understanding of Ike. However, given Miller’s Plain Speaking: an Oral Biography of Harry S Truman controversy and all the questionable quotes from impossible-to-trace sources, how are readers to separate fact and fiction?
‘Omar Bradley later said, “Ike liked people and it is awfully hard for them not to like him in return.”’
Starts smartly with Ike’s years at West Point, then backtracks to a detailed biography of his entire family almost back to the Flood. No bit of trivia or controversy is too minute to earn a place, including advertising taglines from businesses cited.
‘He did not do much to interfere with the freewheeling reign of Joseph R. McCarthy.’
Miller gets verifiable facts wrong. For example, David A Nichol’s Ike and McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower's Secret Campaign against Joseph McCarthy, reveals that Ike covertly torpedoed McCarthy while never mentioning his name. (Miller had his own very public issues with McCarthy.)
"I want every American unit not actually in the front line to see this [concentration camp, Ohrdruf]. We are told that the American soldier does not know what at he is fighting for. Now, at least, he will know what he is fighting against." (D. D. Eisenhower)
Presumably, most of Miller’s material in meticulously researched and documented. His style was “warts and all” minutia, but even a one percent fabrication rate becomes tens of pages of error. How is the reader to known what to believe?
Eisenhower was "the wistful exponent of a simpler and lost America."
May 4, 2012
I knew little to nothing of Ike when I purchased this book. I finished it hungry for more on this man. Having read books on Churchill, MacArthur, FDR etc. it added to my sense that there ARE people in history who changed history and who--but for this or that tiny and seemingly inconsequential happenstance in their past--might not have been there to change it.
August 17, 2022
This one took me a little while to finish for a couple of reasons. I think it was rather tedious to begin with. This may have been due to my lack of knowledge of Eisenhower more than the writing. Miller's style of presentation really didn't change much throughout the book so it was probably just me. He really goes into great detail about various relationships that Eisenhower had with people throughout his lifetime. And that list he point of view a reader must accept. We are reading about how people related to a man who was simply yet extremely brilliant. And for the most part straight forward.
I am not an Ike scholar by any stretch of the imagination so I cannot speak to the accuracy of what Miller presents, but I would say this tome is indispensable for an understanding of the man who had one goal in his military career, defeat the enemy. He may have been short sighted in some respects to political posturing by nations he was leading as the supreme commander, but his goal was first and foremost, defeat the Nazi war machine.
I think the book is work reading. There are personalities at play and some remarkable secondary players and insight into other big names. Maybe it will take you a year to read. Maybe a little longer. Enjoy the last work of Merle Miller and when you're finished you will definitely have a sense of accomplishment and a little more insight into a remarkable man, a world on the edge of ruin, and maybe a lesson to guide the next great man or woman as they guide us through a world that always seems on the edge.
I am not an Ike scholar by any stretch of the imagination so I cannot speak to the accuracy of what Miller presents, but I would say this tome is indispensable for an understanding of the man who had one goal in his military career, defeat the enemy. He may have been short sighted in some respects to political posturing by nations he was leading as the supreme commander, but his goal was first and foremost, defeat the Nazi war machine.
I think the book is work reading. There are personalities at play and some remarkable secondary players and insight into other big names. Maybe it will take you a year to read. Maybe a little longer. Enjoy the last work of Merle Miller and when you're finished you will definitely have a sense of accomplishment and a little more insight into a remarkable man, a world on the edge of ruin, and maybe a lesson to guide the next great man or woman as they guide us through a world that always seems on the edge.
June 2, 2022
What a soldier!!
Miller gives credit to Ike as a military leader and a shaker of world events, something The History Channel couldn't/wouldn't do. THC recently did two hours on WWII and never even mentioned the Supreme Allied Commander!
Miller's work is voluminous and heavily documented, a true historian's product. It is a massive work. It is worth our time and effort to read it thoroughly unlike watching History Channel fiction .
Miller gives credit to Ike as a military leader and a shaker of world events, something The History Channel couldn't/wouldn't do. THC recently did two hours on WWII and never even mentioned the Supreme Allied Commander!
Miller's work is voluminous and heavily documented, a true historian's product. It is a massive work. It is worth our time and effort to read it thoroughly unlike watching History Channel fiction .
October 31, 2021
Sometimes interesting. Sometimes the story of baby-men more worried about one upping each other over getting the job done.
February 18, 2023
An epic study of Ike's military career, especially his relationships of many of his contemporaries, and his hold on a fragile WWII colalition.
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July 24, 200892E
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March 16, 2009355 Mil
August 22, 2011
Different perspective on Eisenhower's life from the standpoint of his "peers" in the military.
May 21, 2014
The best biography of IKe as general I have ever read
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews