Publication: Air Power History
Publication Date: 22-DEC-05
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Author: Wolk, Herman S.
Article Excerpt
In January 2005, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces sponsored a symposium at the National Defense University on Eisenhower and National Security for the 21st Century. Forging the Shield, edited by Dennis E. Showalter [Imprint Publications, Chicago, 2005, 235 pages, $24.95], consists of papers delivered at the symposium along with an introduction by Dennis Showalter and an epilogue by Ernest May.
The symposium was built around the following sessions:
Eisenhower and the Changing National Security Environment; Eisenhower, Science and National Security; Eisenhower's Organization of the Intelligence Community; International Perspectives of the 34th President and his Legacy as Commander in Chief, and A roundtable discussion by Brent Scowcroft, Andrew Goodpaster, Montgomery Meigs, and Louis Galambos.
The presenters demonstrated that the historiography of Eisenhower and his two administrations has reached a new level. It has been almost a quarter century since professor Fred Greenstein's The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader, punctured the picture of President Eisenhower as a lightweight who achieved little and was primarily interested in his golf game. Greenstein showed Eisenhower as a literate, substantive chief executive who proved to be unusually competent in foreign policy and organizing the government for national security affairs.
In his introduction, Dennis Showalter paints a picture of Eisenhower as a confident leader who knew how to marshal all resources to foster the national security. Sergei Khrushchev, who considers the relationship between his father and Eisenhower, points out that in dealing with Eisenhower his father wanted to be recognized as an equal. Premier Khrushchev however, was well aware that America was much stronger than the Soviet Union, militarily and economically. Khrushchev's defense minister, Marshal Georgi Zhukov, emphasized that should war break out
between the United States and the USSR, the Americans would win. The U-2 incident in May 1960 poisoned relations between the two countries. Sergei Khrushchev continues to be somewhat baffled over the timing of the flight, during the Paris Summit and sensitive negotiations over nuclear testing. In Sergei Khrushchev's view however, Eisenhower and Khrushchev built a foundation for peaceful coexistence.
Alex Roland attempts to show that Eisenhower's concern with excessive defense spending and its concomitant effect on American society...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
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