I Like Ike

Recently I read Ike: An American Hero" by Michael Korda.


I have been interested in World War II nearly all my life. Books on the war take up several feet of my bookshelves. When I picked up this book, I wondered if I'd learn anything new about Dwight Eisenhower.

I did.

Ike was severely criticized for his management of the war in Europe. The British wanted to have a narrow thrust deep into northern Germany, while Ike favored a broad front, attacking Germany from north to south. Ike's decision was second-guessed during and after the war. Would a narrow front attack have ended the war sooner, saving thousands of lives?

Korda says no. In this decision and many others, Korda supports Ike.

He puts Ike into the tradition of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, a man who rose from humble origins to exalted leadership. Ike followed in the American military tradition of using American technology and unrivaled firepower to win wars. He followed in Grant's footsteps by seeking to destroy the enemy's military capacity, not capture cities and other geographic objectives. As Grant went after Lee's army instead of Richmond, so Ike went after Hitler's armies instead of Berlin and Prague.

One of the war's great controversies still swirls around the policy that Germany, Italy and Japan must surrender unconditionally. Korda supports this decision. At the end of World War I, Germany had not been invaded, their army command remained intact and they deposed the Kaiser themselves. Germany's complete humiliation and destruction ensured that they would have to learn to cooperate with their neighbors.

Korda also points out that Ike was in charge of the world's two greatest amphibious attacks, the one at Salerno, Italy, and the greatest of all, D-Day.

I also learned that Ike opposed using the atomic bomb on Japan. The Japanese were "already defeated" and using the bomb was unnecessary and would only "shock world opinion."

Ike had great energy, patience, common sense, and the greatest advantage of all, the ability to deal with prima donnas like Sir Bernard Montgomery, the British commander. Korda pulls no punches in describing these prima donnas.

Winston Churchill was definitely on the prima donna list. I had always thought that the British aristocracy kept up impeccable manners. This book shreds that assumption. Churchill is twice said to have had "atrocious" table manners. "… A concern for good table manners was essentially middle class or Frenchified."

I also learned more about Ike's life between the war and the presidency, but I was disappointed in the short shrift Korda gave Ike's presidential years.

Laying aside that issue, I liked "Ike" the book.

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