Objective Analysis of Eisenhower's Presidency
Objective Analysis of Eisenhower's Presidency
During his years in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower demonstrated a real passion for supporting the military establishment. He had fallen under a spell of the many conservative businessmen who appointed to positions of influence in the government. He believed the objective should be to strike a balance between the nation’s security requirements and its economic well-being, the best method to him was to eliminate the wastes found in the military establishment by unifying the services.
On September 25, 1952, as he was about to leave on a month-long, 26 state campaign travel, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, addressed a rally at the Baltimore Armory, his speech was quite firm and appropriate, he was discussing issues that had long been a matter of concern to him and the strength of the domestic economy. He saw that America was sinking huge sums into the defense establishment. America’s challenge, he told Baltimore audience, was to achieve “security with solvency”.
As Eisenhower saw it, defense spending, which then exceeded $60 billion annually, had gone out of control because of a lack of direction on the part of President Truman and his advisors. The American people spent over enough during the two world wars, but after each conflict military budgets had been cut to the bone leaving the military unprepared and the country in not so good defense. In 1940, Eisenhower announced his conviction that Germany would be defeated in 1944.
The promise of victory was bright, but the path of victory was highly uncertain, according to Eisenhower, the greatest single element of that uncertainty was the success or failure of the Anglo-U.S. invasion in Western Europe.
About two months before D-Day, Eisenhower and his top commanders were gathered in a room, beside a sand table model of the target beaches. After the commanders had spoken they pieced together the total picture of the operation. Winston Churchill overheard Eisenhower and the commanders speaking and told them “That the fate of the world is in their hands.”