Dwight D. Eisenhower biography

In 1921, tragedy struck at home, when the Eisenhowers’ firstborn son, Doud Dwight, died of scarlet fever at the age of 3. Mamie gave birth to a second son, John Sheldon Doud, in 1922. That year, Eisenhower assumed the role of executive officer to General Fox Conner in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1924, at Conner’s urging, Eisenhower applied to the Army’s prestigious graduate school, the Command and General Staff School at Ft. Leavenworth,

and was accepted. He graduated first in his class in 1926, with a firm reputation for his military prowess.

From 1927 to 1929 Eisenhower toured and reported for the War Department, under General John Pershing. After finishing his tour in 1929, Eisenhower was appointed chief military aide under General Douglas MacArthur. From 1935 to 1939 Eisenhower served under MacArthur as assistant military advisor to the Philippines. Eisenhower returned to the United States in early 1940. Over the next two years he was stationed in California and Washington state. In 1941, after a transfer to Fort Sam Houston, Eisenhower became chief of staff for the Third Army. Eisenhower was soon promoted to brigadier general for his leadership of the Louisiana Maneuvers. Late that year he was transferred to the War Plans division in Washington, D.C. In 1942, he was promoted to major general. Just months later, he became commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces and led Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.

By D-Day, Eisenhower was promoted to five-star rank. Upon Germany’s surrender in 1945, he was made military governor of the U.S. Occupied Zone. Eisenhower then returned home to Abilene and received a hero’s welcome. A few months later, he was appointed U.S. Army chief of staff. In 1947 he was elected president of Columbia University, a position he held until December of 1950. In 1951 Eisenhower decided to leave Columbia to assume an appointment as first Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. While in Paris with NATO, Eisenhower was encouraged by Republican emissaries to run for president of the United States.

U.S. Presidency

In 1952 Eisenhower retired from active service and returned to Abilene to announce his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination. On November 4, 1952, after winning the election by a landslide, Eisenhower was elected the United States’ 34th president. His domestic policy picked up where Roosevelt’s New Deal and Fair Deal programs left off. In foreign policy, Eisenhower made reducing Cold War tensions through military negotiation a main focus of his administration. In 1953 he orchestrated an armistice that brought peace to South Korea’s border. Also that year, Eisenhower made his famous “Atoms for Peace” speech at the United Nations General Assembly. The United States and Russia had both recently developed atomic bombs, and the speech promoted applying atomic energy to peaceful uses, rather than using it for weaponry and warfare. In 1955, Eisenhower met with Russian, British and French leaders at Geneva to further quell the threat of atomic war.