HOW IKE LED

A granddaughter of the 34th president celebrates his life and accomplishments.

The author, who published a memoir, Mrs. Ike (1996), about her grandmother, turns her attention to her grandfather in this mix of biography, memoir, and history; she has few negative things to say about him other than the fact that he did not like phone calls but rather “far preferred to meet his colleagues in person.” Instead, she celebrates his remarkable life, noting his humility and “intellectual honesty” and how he was “transparent and accountable” to the public and possessed a “determination to put the country first.” The author is clearly determined to remind readers of his many accomplishments—not only in World War II (he organized D-Day, among many other operations), but during the eight years of his presidency (1953-1961). She credits him for laying the groundwork for civil rights—e.g., he sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to facilitate school integration—balancing budgets, keeping us out of war, working hard to get the U.S. into space, refusing to attack his critics in public, and declining to diminish himself by responding to Sen. Joseph McCarthy and, later, to the Democrats (JFK among them) who tried to use the early Soviet space achievements for a political advantage. She shows him as an empathetic family man with a strong moral compass. In the epilogue, the author attacks the tribalism poisoning our current political climate. “Our culture no longer understands what was deeply ingrained in Eisenhower and many of his generation,” she writes. “Today we seem to think that strength is derived from winning every small fight, while raising ourselves up for recognition and advancement, even if others have to be diminished in the process….To [him] the exact opposite was fundamental to his beliefs.”

A patent paean to a beloved grandfather and his military, political, and family achievements.