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Character Above All: Dwight D. Eisenhower Essay
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DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Excerpted from an essay by Stephen Ambrose:
Nurture and nature played their respective roles in shaping
Dwight Eisenhower. Physically, he inherited a strong,
 tough, big, athletic body and extremely good looks, with a
quite fabulous grin, along with keen intelligence. He also
inherited a strong competitive streak from his parents,
plus a bad temper, along with unquestioning love, stern
discipline, ambition, and religion. They made him study,
read the Bible aloud, do chores. They instilled in him a
series of controls over his emotions, his temper most of
all. They gave him a solid Victorian outlook on the
relations between the sexes and on proper conduct. All his
life he would blush if he slipped and said a "hell" or a
"damn" in front of a lady......
At West Point, and in his first twenty-five years in the
Army, Eisenhower satisfied few of his ambitions-- he didn't
get to war and he was still a lieutenant colonel-- but he
learned his profession and demonstrated another
characteristic trait, patience.
After Pearl Harbor his star rose, and soon he was in
Washington, making war plans for Chief of Staff George C.
Marshall, and then on to London, to take command of the
American forces in England. This threw him into the middle
of the great decision-making process of the Allies, at the
highest level, dealing daily with Winston Churchill. He
proved to be an outstanding diplomat and politician, not
only with Churchill but with Free French leader Charles de
Gaulle and other Frenchmen as well. He was successful
because he was true to his character....
Indeed, whenever associates described Eisenhower, there was
one word that almost all of them, superiors or subordinates,
used. It was trust. People trusted him for the most
obvious reason-- he was trustworthy. British Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery didn't think much of Eisenhower as a
soldier, but he appreciated other attributes. "His real
strength lies in his human qualities," Montgomery said. 
"He has the power of drawing the hearts of men toward him
as a magnet attracts the bit of metal. He merely has to
smile at you, and you trust him at once." .......
By 1952, the year Eisenhower entered into politics at age
sixty-two, his character, as formed by heredity and
experience, was set in cement. It included qualities of
love, honesty, faithfulness, responsibility, modesty,
generosity, duty, and leadership, along with a hatred of
war. These were bedrock.
Or were they? This paragon of virtue had lived in the
shelter of the Army nearly all his life. Character-testing
opportunities or temptations were almost unknown to him.
It is easy to be virtuous when virtue is rewarded, as it
was in the Army; not so easy when virtue is ignored and
partisanship is rewarded, as in politics.....
On racial matters... Eisenhower seemed to come up short. He
was a segregationist. He was an infant when Plessy v.
Ferguson established the doctrine of separate but equal,
making segregation the law of the land...
As President, segregation proved a...test of character. He
appointed Governor Earl Warren of California to the post of
Chief Justice, something he later regretted. His Attorney 
General, Herbert Brownell, and the Justice Department made
the case for integration in 1954 in Brown v. Topeka before
the Warren Court, something Eisenhower regretted but did
not prevent. The Court ordered the integration of the
public schools with all deliberate speed, which Eisenhower
thought was a terrible mistake because the schools were the
most sensitive place to proceed, by far. He preferred
beginning with public parks, motels, cafes, and the like...
There is no doubt of Eisenhower's dislike for Brown. But
there is also no doubt of his sense of duty and
responsibility. Whatever one thought of Brown, he told
(his childhood friend Swede) Hazlett, "I hold to the basic
purpose. There must be respect for the Constitution--
which means the Supreme Court's interpretation of the
Constitution-- or we shall have chaos. We cannot possibly
imagine a successful form of government in which every
individual citizen would have the right to interpret the
Constitution according to his own convictions, beliefs, and
prejudices. Chaos would develop. This I believe with all
my heart-- and shall always act accordingly."
On the other hand, he abhorred the thought of using force.
He said in a press conference in the summer of 1957 that he
could imagine no circumstances that would lead him to use
the U.S. Army to enforce integration. So he wanted to
uphold the Court, but not use force to do so.......
His willingness to listen, his known sympathy with white
southerners, his failure to give his public support to
Brown v. Topeka, and his general lack of leadership on the
question of the day, gave one southern governor the notion
that he could roll the President. Orval Faubus of Arkansas
defied a court order to integrate Central High in Little
Rock. He called out the Arkansas National Guard and placed
it around the high school, with orders to prevent the entry
into the school of about a dozen Negro pupils.
This was the great moral and character test of the
Eisenhower presidency. He met it head-on. Despite his own
feelings about the mistakes being made in implementing
Brown, and his horror at the thought of using American
troops in American cities, he called out the 101st Airborne
and sent it to Little Rock. At Brownell's suggestion, he
ordered the Arkansas National Guard into federal service,
thus stealing Faubus's army out from under him and putting
it to duty helping the 101st ensure an orderly and peaceful
integration of Central High.
It was a brilliant stroke and the action of a man of
principle. It settled forever the question of whether the
federal government would use force to break down
segregation.....
His special triumphs came in the field of foreign affairs
and were directly related to his character. By making peace
in Korea five months after taking office, and avoiding war
thereafter, and by holding down the cost of the arms race,
he achieved greatness. No one knows how much money he saved
the United States, no one knows how many lives he saved, by
ending the war in Korea and refusing to enter any others,
despite a half-dozen and more virtually unanimous
recommendations that he order a first strike.....
He was an inspiring and effective leader, indeed a model of
leadership. The elements of his leadership were varied,
deliberate, and learned. He exuded simplicity. He
deliberately projected an image of the folksy farm boy from
Kansas. But in fact he was capable of a detached, informed,
and exhaustive examination of problems and personalities,
based on wide and sophisticated knowledge and deep study.
He projected a posture of being above politics, but he
studied and understood and acted on political problems and
considerations more rigorously than most lifelong
politicians ever could.
His magnetic appeal to millions of his fellow citizens
seemed to come about as a natural and effortless result of
his sunny disposition. But he worked at his apparent
artlessness. That big grin and bouncy step often masked
depression, doubt and utter weariness, for he believed it
was the critical duty of a leader to always exude optimism.
He made it a habit to save all his doubts for his pillow.
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