Dwight Eisenhower: Cold Warrior

01VOA Learning English presents America's Presidents.

02Today we are talking about Dwight Eisenhower.

03He took office in 1953 and was re-elected in 1956.

04Eisenhower was famous before he became President of the United States.

05He was a general in World War II and led the Allied invasion of Europe.

06The attack began with the air and sea operation called D-Day.

07As President, Eisenhower became known for his efforts to keep peace.

08He tried to have good relations with the Soviet Union especially.

09He believed one of the best ways to do that was to build America's military strength.

10When Americans think of Eisenhower, they often note the growth of the U.S.

11defense industry and tensions with the Soviet Union.

12Those tensions became known as the Cold War and lasted long after Eisenhower left office.

13Music Dwight David Eisenhower was born in Texas but raised in the state of Kansas.

14His parents had seven sons.

15The future president was the third.

16Eisenhower's parents did not have much money.

17His father worked as a mechanic.

18His mother was a member of the Mennonite Church, which opposed war and violence for any reason.

19But young Dwight, who used the nickname Ike, enjoyed reading about military history and doing physical activities.

20He played football and liked hunting and fishing.

21When he finished high school, Eisenhower earned a position at the U.S.

22Military Academy, better known as West Point.

23At first, he did not excel as a soldier.

24Eisenhower tested some of the Army's traditional ideas.

25But in time, military leaders came to value Eisenhower's ability to think independently and strategically.

26He accepted increasingly important positions.

27In only a few years, Eisenhower took command of Allied troops during World War II.

28He directed invasions in North Africa, Italy, and finally in Western Europe.

29His words, OK, let's go, launched the invasion of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944.

30Eisenhower's personal life changed during his military years.

31He married a young woman named Mamie Dowd in 1916.

32The following year, they had a son named Dowd Dwight.

33However, the boy became sick and died at the age of three.

34In 1922, the Eisenhowers had a second son named John.

35Mamie and the boy spent many months separated from Dwight.

36And even when the family was together, they were often moving from place to place.

37They moved nearly 30 times during Eisenhower's military career.

38After he retired from active duty in the Army, Eisenhower accepted a position as president of Columbia University in New York.

39Then he returned to the military to lead NATO forces in Europe.

40In the early 1950s, Republican Party officials urged Eisenhower to be their candidate for president.

41Many Americans approved of Eisenhower's war record, his efforts to contain communism, and his wide smile.

42They seemed to agree with his campaign slogan, I like Ike, and decisively elected him into office.

43His 1952 election brought an end to the Democratic Party's 20-year control of the White House.

44The American Party Eisenhower was a political moderate in many of his ideas.

45He continued some of the domestic policies of former presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

46Eisenhower also wanted the government to invest in public works projects.

47Notably, he approved a bill to build more than 65,000 kilometers of roads.

48Today, the U.S.

49highway system connects all parts of the country and supports the nation's economy.

50Eisenhower also worked hard to have peaceful relations with other countries.

51In his first months as president, he signed the agreement that ended fighting in the Korean War.

52He also tried to ease tensions between the United States and Soviet Union.

53In 1952, the U.S.

54government tested the first hydrogen bomb.

55It was even more powerful than the atomic bomb.

56Soon, the Soviet Union carried out a hydrogen bomb test of its own.

57The two countries became actively involved in an arms race that made many people around the world very, very nervous.

58Eisenhower did not fully trust the Soviet leadership, but made some efforts to achieve an agreement on arms control.

59At the same time, he approved a plan for U.S.

60airplanes to fly secretly over the Soviet Union to gather information.

61In 1959, Eisenhower and the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, met in the American state of Maryland.

62Modern presidents use a mountain retreat there, which Eisenhower called Camp David, after his grandson.

63The U.S.

64and Soviet officials did not develop a treaty, but they did agree to meet again the following year.

65However, the agreement collapsed.

66In 1960, Soviet missiles brought down one of the American spy planes, called a U-2.

67The pilot was captured.

68At first, Eisenhower's government denied that the plane was secretly gathering information.

69Officials said it was only a weather aircraft.

70But then the Soviets produced evidence that the U-2 was, in fact, a spy plane.

71Khrushchev said he could not trust Eisenhower and his government, and he ended talks on limiting or disarming nuclear weapons.

72During his two terms in office, Eisenhower tried many ways to avoid all-out war.

73Eisenhower approved other secret actions, especially by the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA.

74Eisenhower sent U.S.

75Marines into Lebanon to try to end unrest there, and he decided against ordering airstrikes on Viet Minh forces when they surrounded French troops at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam.

76In all these efforts, Eisenhower used the threat of U.S.

77military power to help achieve his foreign policy goals.

78But he warned Americans against letting businesses aiding the defense industry become too powerful.

79In his final speech as president, Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of what he called the military-industrial complex.

80He did not want the country to depend only on war to resolve conflicts.

81And he did not want the U.S.

82government to spend so much on weapons that it could not provide other services to Americans.

83Shortly after that speech, Eisenhower retired to a home he and his wife had bought in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

84Many Americans were sad to see him go.

85Eisenhower's presidency lasted most of the 1950s.

86During that time, the American economy was, for the most part, strong.

87Many Americans had enough money to buy homes and televisions.

88At the same time, Eisenhower's presidency was a time of unease.

89Racial discrimination was intense.

90In 1954, the U.S.

91Supreme Court declared that states could no longer have separate public schools for white and black students.

92Some whites strongly objected to the decision.

93They tried to block black students from entering schools, sometimes using violence.

94Eisenhower sent troops to enforce the federal law to desegregate public schools.

95Later, Eisenhower used the power of his office to enforce other desegregation and voting rights laws.

96But he did not speak up strongly in support of civil rights.

97Eisenhower also did not publicly criticize Senator Joseph McCarthy, who accused the U.S.

98government of protecting Soviet spies.

99Eisenhower strongly disliked McCarthy.

100But he permitted the Red Scare to continue until the lawmaker could discredit himself.

101Finally, despite Eisenhower's efforts, the Cold War did not end.

102In fact, tensions between the U.S.

103and Soviet Union increased.

104Although Eisenhower succeeded in keeping the country out of war, many events during his presidency created the conditions for later conflicts.

105Nevertheless, Eisenhower was a popular president both before, during, and after his time in office.

106During his final years, he wrote several books about his life, traveled, and advised later presidents.

107He had suffered a heart attack during his first term in office and eventually suffered another one.

108He died at the age of 78 with his family by his side.

109I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.