The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

by William I. Hitchcock

He pretended to be a nonpartisan political amateur, just an “old soldier” incapable of duplicity, while in fact he followed a ruthless and successful strategy: attack your opponent relentlessly, stress ideological themes in order to stir up enthusiasm in the base, and promise to “fix the mess in Washington.” He posed as an outsider, speaking for the average American. For a man who had been a government employee since 1915, who had worked in Washington for many years, whose friends were among the wealthiest power brokers in the nation, and who had aligned himself closely with Truman’s foreign policies, this was as neat a political bait and switch as American politics has seen in the 20th century. And Ike did it all with a smile.