![]() ![]() (Check out Amanda’s Bakery and Bistro.) In addition to the Eisenhower library, Abilene is home to the Greyhound Hall of Fame. It features stately homes and an old-fashioned downtown. With 6,400 people, Abilene could be cast as the all-American small town. Then he learned a West Point education was free, and he might gain admission because a Kansas senator was making appointments based on merit, not family connections.Īnd so Dwight Eisenhower of tiny Abilene, Kansas joined what was later called “the class the stars fell on.” From the 1915 class at West Point, there would be four generals (including Eisenhower and Omar Bradley), seven lieutenant generals, 24 major generals and 25 brigadier generals. For two years after high school in Abilene, he worked at a local creamery. His success required hard work, patience and a degree of humility, perhaps gained through hard experience. Unlike his contemporaries - the American generals George Patton and Douglas MacArthur, or the British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery - Ike was never burdened by an unmanageable ego. Rumors of a relationship between the general and his wartime chauffeur, Kay Summersby, are left unsaid.Īs a military officer and politician, Eisenhower always seemed content to have people underestimate him. The library ignores critics who fault Eisenhower for failing to publicly challenge the red-baiting Sen. Blink and you could miss references to Ike’s vice president, Richard Nixon. Like other presidential libraries, however, the library glosses over the less pleasant moments of biography. The museum is comprehensive in its review of Eisenhower’s successes - the diversity of military training and experience that prepared him for leadership in war, the D-Day invasion of France and victory over Nazism, creation of the interstate highway system, his decision to send troops to enforce desegregation at Little Rock’s Central High School, the appointment of Earl Warren as chief justice of the Supreme Court. In “Eisenhower in War and Peace,” the respected biographer Jean Edward Smith recites the major achievements of the Republican Eisenhower’s eight years as president and then concludes, “With the exception of Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower was the most successful president of the twentieth century.”Īgree with Smith or not, it’s safe to say that historians are rethinking their original appraisals of Eisenhower’s time as president. ![]()
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