LET’S STOP THE MADNESS … SUPPORT RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2012

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was a five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45, from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.

A Republican, Eisenhower was a moderate conservative. As President, he concluded negotiations with China to end the Korean War. His New Look, a policy of nuclear deterrence, gave priority to inexpensive nuclear weapons while reducing the funding for the other military forces to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits at the same time.

Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower preached a doctrine of dynamic conservatism. His foreign policy was marked by "the brave new world of CIA-led coups and assassinations. It was Eisenhower whose CIA deposed the leaders of Iran, Guatemala, and possibly the Belgian Congo. His administration also planned the Bay of Pigs Invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba, which John F. Kennedy was left to carry out.

Mideast and Eisenhower doctrine

Soon after taking office, the Eisenhower administration, in cooperation with the British government, authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to help the Iranian army overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, and restore the Shah to power.

After the Suez Crisis of 1956 the United States became the protector of unstable friendly governments in the Middle East. Most Arab countries were skeptical about the "Eisenhower doctrine" because they considered "Zionist imperialism" the real danger. They did, however, take the opportunity to take free money and weapons. Egypt and Syria openly opposed the initiative and were supported by the Soviet Union. However, Egypt received American aid until 1967.

The French asked Eisenhower for help in French Indochina against the Communists, supplied from China, who were fighting the First Indochina War. This eventually led us into the Vietnam War.

Relations with Congress

In 1961, Eisenhower became the first U.S. president to be constitutionally prevented from running for re-election to the office, having served the maximum two terms allowed by the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment was ratified in 1951, during Harry S. Truman's term, but it stipulated that Truman would not be affected by the amendment.

He was also the first outgoing President to come under the protection of the Former Presidents Act; two then-living former Presidents, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman, left office before the Act was passed. Under the act, Eisenhower was entitled to receive a lifetime pension, state-provided staff and a Secret Service detail.

LegacyAfter

Eisenhower left office, his reputation declined and he was seen as having been a "do-nothing" President. This was partly because of the contrast between Eisenhower and his young activist successor, John F. Kennedy. Despite his unprecedented use of Army troops to enforce a federal desegregation order at Central High School in Little Rock, Eisenhower was criticized for his reluctance to support the civil rights movement to the degree which other activists wanted. Eisenhower was also criticized for his handling of the 1960 U-2 incident and the international embarrassment, the Soviet Union's perceived leadership in the Arms race and the Space race, and his failure to publicly oppose McCarthyism. In particular, Eisenhower was criticized for failing to defend George Marshall from attacks by Joseph McCarthy, though he privately deplored McCarthy's tactics and claims. Such omissions were held against him during the liberal climate of the 1960s and 1970s.

Although conservatism was riding on the crest of the wave in the 1950s, and Eisenhower shared the sentiment, his administration played a very modest role in shaping the political landscape. Instead of adhering to the party's right-wing orthodoxy, Eisenhower instead looked to moderation and cooperation as a means of governance.

Eisenhower described his position on space and the need for peace during his General Assembly of the United Nations, New York City, September 22, 1960.

"The emergence of this new world poses a vital issue: will outer space be preserved for peaceful use and developed for the benefit of all mankind? Or will it become another focus for the arms race – and thus an area of dangerous and sterile competition? The choice is urgent. And it is ours to make. The nations of the world have recently united in declaring the continent of Antarctica 'off limits' to military preparations. We could extend this principle to an even more important sphere. National vested interests have not yet been developed in space or in celestial bodies. Barriers to agreement are now lower than they will ever be again."

Eisenhower also warned about the emerging military-industrial complex in his Chance for Peace Speech:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ... Is there no other way the world may live?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower