The Age of Eisenhower Quotes

“When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, Eisenhower was a 49-year-old lieutenant colonel stuck in a distant outpost in the Pacific. Less than three years later, in June 1942, General Eisenhower took command of the entire European Theater of Operations in the war with Germany. Some contemporaries expressed wonder and sheer bafflement at this meteoric rise to fame and power by the once-obscure staff officer who had never commanded troops in the field. Yet inside the armed forces and in Washington, D.C., Eisenhower had developed a reputation for planning brilliance, hard work, supreme organizational skills, and personal qualities of tact, loyalty, devotion to duty, and optimism. Eisenhower himself said it best: he had been preparing all his life for this moment, and he would make the most of it.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Kennedy drew as his chief lesson from the Bay of Pigs affair never to trust the experts, especially the generals and the CIA planners who had all but promised success. But this lesson he could have learned by heeding Ike’s warning, proffered just weeks before, that “in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Kennedy had mocked the old asshole then; he was not laughing now.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Eisenhower chose an honorable path, one that kept his reputation for decency and integrity intact. Yet the price of that noble act was a dramatic worsening of the cold war. It is fair to ask if the price was too high.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“As a pro-American, anticommunist, moneymaking tropical den of iniquity, Batista’s Cuba found plenty of sympathetic supporters in the corridors of power in Washington.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“The missile race fueled the dramatic expansion of the military-industrial complex.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“In January 1957 Eisenhower declared that the United States would fight to protect its interests in the Middle East; more than six decades later it is fighting still.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“With good reason, Nixon concluded years later that Eisenhower “was a far more complex and devious man than most people realized.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Eisenhower, with his sixth sense for picking winners and losers, understood this. During his long recovery he spent many hours wondering if Nixon could fill his shoes. His conclusion: decidedly not.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Here lie the elements of the Eisenhower phenomenon: by personifying and reconciling these contradictions, he made Americans believe that they, like him, could have it all.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Eisenhower did not lead the nation toward civil rights reform, but he could sense which way history was moving and did not wish to be left behind.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Yet this element of caution could not obscure the basic fact: after more than half a century, the nation’s highest court had faced American apartheid squarely and condemned it.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Leading by example and exhortation rather than using federal law: that was Eisenhower’s preferred method. On civil rights, it seemed, he planned to speak loudly and carry a small stick.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“It is a paradox, hardly the only one of these years, that a man who so ardently championed America’s dynamic, free-market society, and who asserted that America could defy communism while sustaining its democratic values, did so much to obscure the inner workings of the nation’s security from public debate. In this sense the Age of Eisenhower would live on long after Ike had passed from the scene.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Here, in the story of the growth of the CIA, is the most striking evidence that Eisenhower, who warned later generations about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, did so much to build it.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“The Old Guard Republicans in the Senate shared many of McCarthy’s prejudices and fears and were sympathetic to his brand of reactionary, isolationist, conspiracy-laden, communist-obsessed, vulgar populism.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“In these first months of his presidency, Eisenhower laid down a blueprint for the warfare state—an official plan to mobilize the nation and put it on a permanent war footing. The military-industrial complex had begun to take shape.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Ike flatly contradicted the rhetorical fulminations of Dulles: “Roll-back sank, it was finished off as of that day.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Put another way, the United States consistently spent 10 percent or more of its GDP each year on defense during the Eisenhower years, a higher percentage than any peacetime administration in U.S. history, before or since.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“There would be many sincere words of peace during his presidency, but Ike was always preparing for war.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“We may anticipate a state of affairs in which two Great Powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilization and life of the other, though not without risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“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.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Eisenhower proposed to widen the scope of the program in a move that would add 10 million working people to the social security rolls.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Second, Eisenhower recast domestic politics by strengthening a national consensus about the place of government in the lives of American citizens.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Third, Eisenhower established a distinctive model of presidential leadership that Americans—now more than ever—ought to study. We might call it the disciplined presidency.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Eisenhower built the United States into a military colossus of a scale and lethality never before seen and devoted an enormous amount of the national wealth to this effort.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Unlike the isolationist faction in his own party, he believed that to defend freedom and liberty at home, Americans would have to defend these principles overseas as well.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Kempton summed up Eisenhower’s political motto: “Always pretend to be stupid; then when you have to show yourself to be smart, the display has the additional effect of surprise.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“It is the central paradox of the Eisenhower presidency: that a man so successful at the ballot box and so overwhelmingly popular among the voters could have been given such poor marks by the political class.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“domination. Only deterrence and a credible threat to use nuclear weapons would halt Soviet expansionism. Eisenhower’s UN speech certainly held out the hope that”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

“Over eight years, 50 percent of Democrats approved of his performance. In our more polarized times, such cross-party affinity is rare. On average only 23 percent of Democrats approved of George W. Bush during his eight years in office, while a mere 14 percent of Republicans offered their approval of Barack Obama during his two terms. Eisenhower had that rarest of gifts in politics: he brought Americans together.”
― William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s