Eisenhower by John Wukovits is a book in the Great Generals Series edited by General Wesley K. Clark.  Dwight D. Eisenhower was a very interesting man.  He was the perfect leader for the Allied forces in World War II.  His ability to control large personalities (Patton, Montgomery, and Bradley) was a key component of the Allies advance through Europe.  Eisenhower is of course a West Point graduate, but unlike a lot of his classmates, he did not see any fighting during World War I.  He also did not feel class learning was as important as real world experience.  Hence, he was not at the top of his West Point class; however, he did graduate near the top of his officers training school class where things were more practical.

Eisenhower had a relationship with Patton for many years.  In the early 1920s, they worked together to come up with advanced uses of tanks.  Their relationship in many ways kept Patton fighting in Europe even after Patton’s “slapping incidents”.  I believe that keeping an aggressive commander like Patton was a smart decision even if he was a public relations liability at times.

There are multiple decisions that Eisenhower was criticized for during the war; however, Eisenhower never lost focus of his objective of crushing Nazi Germany.  One of the things that many wanted him to do was try to quickly get to Berlin near the end of the war.  Eisenhower argued that there was no military reason to head towards Berlin when the Russians were 20 miles away and his forces were 200 miles out.  It would have cost the Allies 100,000 additional casualties without any objective because according to the agreement between the Russians, British and Americans, Berlin would be handed over to the Russians at the end of the war.  His decision was right on based on the Russians taking 400,000 casualties taking Berlin.

Eisenhower was a soldier’s general.  He would spend time walking among the frontline troops asking them about themselves.  To quote the book, “When his son, John, asked for advice as he began his military career, Eisenhower did not admonish him to study hard, to court favors from influential people, or to be fearless in battle.  He told his son to take care of his men.”  That sums up why his men loved him and why he was so easily elected president.