General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
This revealing biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower by his son, John (a retired officer-turned-military historian), focuses on Ike's career as a soldier, providing illuminating insight into the U.S. Army of the 1940s and the campaign strategies of WWII, as well as into the life of a great 20th-century leader.
Blessedly jargon-free and written in an entertaining and accessible style, General Ike reveals its subject through fascinating vignettes that underscore his relationships with major players on the world stage. We meet early influences like John J. Pershing and Fox Conner; a pair of brilliant irritants, Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton; role model and career booster General George C. Marshall; Britain's Field Marshal Montgomery ("Ike's dynamic headache"); and two extraordinary statesmen of the day, Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill. Each man brought out a different facet of Ike's character, and each contributed to his unique legacy of leadership.
Subtitled "A Personal Reminiscence," General Ike is far from objective or unbiased. However, neither is it reverential, ponderous, or aggrandizing. In a charming, self-effacing author's note, John Eisenhower sums up his intentions succinctly: "I have given a son's view of a great military leader -- highly intelligent, strong, forceful, kind, yet as human as the rest of us." To that end, this is an informative and thoroughly satisfying read. Anne Markowski
FROM THE PUBLISHER
General Ike is a book that John Eisenhower always knew he had to write, a tribute from an affectionate and admiring son to a great father. John chose to write about the "military Ike," as opposed to the "political Ike," because Ike cared far more about his career in uniform than about his time in the White House. A series of portraits of Ike's relations with soldiers and statesmen, from MacArthur to Patton to Montgomery to Churchill to de Gaulle, reveals the many facets of a talented, driven, headstrong, yet diplomatic leader. Taken together, they reveal a man who was brilliant, if flawed; naive at times in dealing with the public, yet who never lost his head when others around him were losing theirs. Above all, General Ike was a man who never let up in the relentless pursuit of the destruction of Hitler.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
Not surprisingly, this is a loving portrait of Ike. To judge from this volume, John thinks that his father's biggest flaw was that he didn't toot his own horn enough. He attributes this excessive modesty to an overreaction to ''MacArthur's histrionics,'' and writes, ''I wonder if Ike's abhorrence of theatrics contributed to his being viewed for a while by those not in the know as a 'do-nothing' President.''
— Max Boot
Publishers Weekly
This thoroughly worthwhile memoir recalls the author's father in his association with various distinguished soldiers and statesmen of the past century. The roster begins with Fox Conner (a pre-WWII general and Ike's mentor), John J. Pershing (the AEF commander in WW I) and George Patton (when both he and Ike were officers in the Tank Corps of 1919). The final trio is Charles de Gaulle, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Winston Churchill. In the author's view, De Gaulle's French patriotism brought out the best and the worst in him, in dealing both with Ike and with his fellow countrymen. Monty never understood Ike, asked the impossible and grumbled when he didn't get it. And Churchill (at whose funeral Ike represented the U.S.) is inscrutably sui generis in the author's eyes as in those of so many others. In between are sketches of MacArthur, Marshall and Patton (as a subordinate general). Possibly the most moving piece recalls the period of 1940-1941, the last days of the peacetime army, when the younger Eisenhower, now the author of such titles as Yanks and The Bitter Woods, was a cadet at West Point, and his father was dreaming of staying with troops in the coming war. But the author paints no one in rosy hues, not even his father, and his research puts them all in their proper context. (June 6) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Eisenhower, the author of seven books and a retired brigadier general in the Army Reserve, is of course also the son of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower assisted his father during World War II as a staff officer, and his observations of his father at the time form the basis of this book on war and leadership. Each chapter deals with a complicated situation that "General Ike" had to confront. Dwight Eisenhower had the perfect personality to be the commanding general of the Allies-he was a tough decision maker when he had to be but was also a diplomat who could compromise if necessary. Eisenhower's observations give the reader unusual insight into the relationships General Ike developed during the war, with MacArthur, Patton, and Charles De Gaulle just a few of the complicated personalities discussed here. The book is short, but it is not meant to be an in-depth biography on the level of Stephen Ambrose's Eisenhower. Recommended for public and academic libraries.-Mark Ellis, Albany State Univ. Lib., GA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An excellent appreciation of Dwight Eisenhower�s skills as a military commander, though by a biased observer--the general�s son, himself a distinguished officer and historian. Now in his ninth decade, John Eisenhower (Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott, 1997, etc.) had thus far not written at length about his father. Students of military history will be glad that he did, however, for here he offers observations that other, more remote biographers have not ventured or elaborated--in particular, on the matter of Ike�s influences as a junior officer. Perhaps surprisingly, given the subsequent movie treatment, one of the strongest of those influences was George S. Patton, who, with Eisenhower, courted official disgrace after WWI by arguing for the supremacy of tank warfare in ground combat. They were right, of course, as WWII bore out; of that future war, Patton effusively predicted, "Ike would be the Robert E. Lee and Patton would be Ike�s Stonewall Jackson." That prediction was less accurate, as readers will discover. Elsewhere, Eisenhower considers the curious role that Douglas MacArthur had on Ike�s career, then goes on to study closely Ike�s record as theater commander for the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944. That close account turns up some criticisms, along with a few surprises, almost all of them having to do with the political aspect of balancing the egos and ambitions of the likes of Bernard Montgomery, Charles de Gaulle, and Josef Stalin, to say nothing of Patton and MacArthur. Eisenhower, for example, remarks that the Battle of the Bulge might have had a more satisfactory resolution had Ike ordered General Omar Bradley "to remove his tacticalheadquarters from Luxembourg to Namur, where he could control the main battle to blunt the German spearheads." Such comments will be more meaningful to knowledgeable students of WWII tactics than to general readers, but in the main, Eisenhower�s account is nontechnical and free of jargon--and carries you along from start to finish. Soon to be bedside reading for West Point cadets and budding generals. We�ll hope that Eisenhower follows with an account of his father�s presidential years.
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