A General's Politics

...Franklin Roosevelt too was devious, and put off making decisions...

...The book's aim is to shed light on "the real paradoxes of the President, the ambiguities of his career, and the countless barely reconcilable facets of his personality...

...David Eisenhower's Eisenhower at War could hardly be more different from Brendon's work, albeit not in the ways one might expect...

...The "air barons" would not have spared a plane in support of OVERLORD, the most important Allied venture of the War, except for orders from the top, which came all too seldom...

...His bosses, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, nagged...

...Judging Eisenhower alongside other presidents, besides abolishing the double standard, would make his achievements clear...

...As Brendon sees it, this is almost invariably his damnably infirm purpose at work, and not—as the author's own evidence suggests—a circuitous yet frequently effective style of decision-making...

...No one grasped the paradox that Ike combined common decency with uncommon deviousness, that he was not only a model of magnanimity but a dedicated opportunist...

...OVERLORD, the code name for the Allied invasion of Normandy, was feasible only if Russia kept the pressure on, so that Germany could not reinforce its French garrison with troops drawn from the East...

...But the Soviets were vague and uncommunicative on military matters, and Eisenhower could never be sure they would help until they actually did...

...Brendon understands that for Eisenhower delay and ambiguity were conscious strategies as well as character traits, yet in practice tends to fall back on the second explanation...

...Today, thanks to Ambrose and books such as Herbert Parmet's Eisenhower and the American Crusades (1972) and Fred I. Green-stein's The Hidden-Hand Presidency (1982), we know that Eisenhower was also subtle, complex, disingenuous, and in many ways the opposite of what he seemed to be...

...it could have been composed by a liberal Democrat in the 1950s so far as point of view is concerned...

...Now Piers Brendon has supplied the necessary alternative to it...

...Eisenhower has previously been praised for holding his multinational force together, but no book I know of makes it so clear that his was an almost impossible job, one that probably no other American could have filled...

...Nevertheless, the task of leading a coalition army was inherently so political that David Eisenhower has no trouble justifying his theme, even if he exaggerates it...

...Brendon underrates Eisenhower's presidency out of political and personal prejudice to some degree, but also by neglecting to make comparisons...

...These were not accidental gains, they were the outcome of deliberate policies...

...At the most one might anticipate a pious work, long on anecdote and short on critical rigor...

...Brendon's not giving it is the chief weakness in what is otherwise an attractive study...

...troops Brendon knew in Cornwall as a boy during World War II...

...Since Eisenhower never had enough combat troops, Soviet cooperation at key moments was as essential as it was uncertain...

...Taking office with inflation raging he tamed it, unlike Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter...

...The author has turned the usual criticism of Eisenhower's wartime role, that he was more politician than general, on its head, making Eisenhower's political activity the central focus of his book...

...Though imperfect, as all presidents are, Eisenhower was a gifted leader and deserves credit where it is due...

...Actually, as the text demonstrates, military concerns occupied Ike much of the time...

...That does not keep biographers from acclaiming his leadership, nor should it...

...This may surprise readers unfamiliar with the development of Eisenhower scholarship...

...Finding the country fiercely divided he left it more of a piece, unlike Nixon who healed no wounds...

...For, as Brendon adds, "there is scarcely a single aspect of Ike's life or character about which the evidence is not conflicting or contradictory...

...In contrast to Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, Ike ended the War he inherited and started no new ones...

...Still, this is an ambitious and successful work that enhances its subject's reputation in the best possible way...

...Eisenhower did not control the strategic air forces, which never willingly supported his campaigns...

...The British badgered Ike constantly on behalf of their strategic priorities, which were in many cases very different from those of the United States...

...Quite obviously the Germans gave Eisenhower less trouble than the Russians, the British, the air barons, the Pentagon, and his own generals...

...Knowing that the author is Eisenhower's grandson, that he has not written a major book before, and that his formal training consists of nothing beyond a law degree, would prejudice practically anyone...

...Churchill was relentless, pressing each issue to the limit and then some, raising apparently settled questions again until it must have seemed as if they would never be resolved...

...On the contrary, Ike begins with an affectionate remembrance of the U.S...

...author, "American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945-1960" We have long needed a good one volume biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower...

...He believes other writers have omitted the crucial role the eastern front played in Eisenhower's thinking...

...Thus, where Eisenhower does not act Brendon usually attributes the failure to "infirmity of purpose.'' And when Eisenhower does act, for Brendon it is often too slowly, or in the wrong way, or after having wavered, or with second thoughts that retroactively lessen the deed...

...This drastically overstates the case it seems to me—and ultimately to Brendon also, because his account of Eisenhower in the postwar years backs away from the analysis and is much more conventional than the reader has been led to expect...

...It was, in fact, Ike's guile, his ability to take the high moral line and lace it with low cunning, or even to ignore morality altogether in practice while paying elaborate lip service to it, which made him such a formidable military and political figure...

...Eisenhower is always being judged according to ideal standards seldom applied to more liberal presidents...

...Indeed, the latter part of Ike errs in the opposite direction...

...Brendon not only agrees with this view, he takes it further than anyone else...

...This resulted from the decision made in 1942 to form a 90-division army, instead of building the 200-division force military leaders called for...

...In fact, one has only to read his Preface to know that David Eisenhower is engaged in an important venture—and, it soon becomes apparent, is well qualified to carry his projected three volumes through to completion...

...Eisenhower at War shows how dependent the Allies were upon Russia, not just in Normandy but right up to the end...

...His Ike is relatively short (417 pages of text), brightly written, yet solidly based on research in original documents...

...Further, though he is English, Brendon has not written one-sidedly or tried to score points at our expense...

...But no one really plumbed the depths of his personality or came to an informed estimate of the calculating and self-regarding intelligence there enshrined...

...He believes that politics moved to center stage for Eisenhower in 1943, hence the point of departure...

...Here is his explanation of why Eisenhower was the most successful leader of coalition warfare in history: "Ike's closest associates knew that he was capable of duplicity and sophistry...

...For many years most people accepted Eisenhower on his own terms, as a candid, friendly, sincere man of the people...

...Field Marshal Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, despised Eisenhower...

...Although he identifies the Russian factor nicely, David Eisenhower's main achievement is to expose the appalling difficulties his grandfather faced as a coalition leader...

...The definitive Eisenhower (1983, 1984) by Stephen Ambrose, though masterly, runs to two large volumes and is intended for highly motivated readers...

...Brendon offers many examples that show Eisenhower trying out different approaches in private before committing himself publicly, saying one thingto one person and its opposite to another...

...David Eisenhower has honored his grandfather not by celebrating him, but rather by presenting evidence that speaks for itself more eloquently than any tribute...

...That he won through anyway says all that needs to be said about his remarkable abilities...

...I wish David Eisenhower had done some things differently...

...Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery wanted his job, or, that failing, to usurp his authority...

...Reviewed by William L. O'Neill Professor of history, Rutgers...

...Yet Eisenhower's own generals, even the sensible Omar N. Bradley, thought lie had gone over to the British...

...They always came through, but the suspense was killing...

...As a historian I regret the skimpy documentation, though most readers will not care that the end notes are few and terse...

...Eisenhower at War is too long by half and, at the same time, it draws upon too narrow a range of sources...