♪ ♪ (theme music plays) RUBENSTEIN: Hello.

I'm David Rubenstein.

Today, we're going to be in conversation with Susan Eisenhower, who is a granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and also the author of a book about her grandfather, How Ike Led.

Thank you very much for being with us, Susan.

EISENHOWER: Well, David, thank you very much for this opportunity.

RUBENSTEIN: So your grandfather was, um, President of the United States.

Was president from 1953 to 1961, elected in 1952, reelected in 1956.

When he was first elected, you were, by my calculations, one year old, you probably don't remember that, but you were nine when he left.

So, uh.

EISENHOWER: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: When you were, you know, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, did you go to the White House very much?

Do you have any memories of the White House?

EISENHOWER: Oh, we spent a lot of time there because, uh, my father was working in Washington as well at the Pentagon.

Um, and so we did spend a lot of time there visiting with my grandparents.

And uh, I can tell you, I can still go into the White House, and when I smell the fourth floor polish, uh, it brings back, uh, real memories of, uh, playing in those corridors on the ground floor, uh, in between, uh, tour guides, uh, of the executive mansion.

And I also know where all the secret staircases are too.

There are a lot of them in that house actually.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, uh, President, uh, Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a retreat called Shangri-La in the Catoctin mountains.

Uh, your grandfather renamed it Camp David.

Was that upsetting to you that he didn't name it after you, or did or was there a fight in the family about that?

EISENHOWER: Oh, never a fight.

Actually at that time, uh, Granddad named the two presidential yachts, one for my older sister, Barbara Anne, and one called the Susie E. And then when my younger sister Mary was born, they'd run out of presidential yachts, so the outboard motor boat got called the Mary-Jean.

Uh, but of course the thing is, is that historic events took place at Camp David, so it was not likely that they were going to rename that camp after the Khrushchev visit in 1959.

Uh, they did decommission, uh, those presidential yachts, and actually the Barbara Anne became, uh, John Kennedy's Honey Fitz.

RUBENSTEIN: So your grandfather was born, uh, in the Midwest.

Um, and, uh, ultimately, uh, was one of seven brothers, is that right?

EISENHOWER: That's right.

Six survived.

RUBENSTEIN: What did his father do?

He grew up in, uh, Abilene Kansas, is that right?

EISENHOWER: Yes, his father, um, was sort of the family rebel, I guess, because they came from a German Mennonite, uh, family.

Uh, a part of a religious community, and, uh, Ike's father, uh, didn't want to be a farmer like, uh, the other Eisenhower's and he, uh, also, um, didn't want to be, um, a German speaker.

Um, so actually Ike's generation was the first generation not to speak German, which was pretty amazing.

Uh, in any case, um, you know, they, they lived out on the, on the plains and, uh, these boys had a real, uh, rough and tumble, uh, start to their, uh, their life.

And I think it was, uh, you know, it was a great environment in which to grow up.

RUBENSTEIN: How did he wind up going to West Point?

Did he always want to be a soldier or what was the reason he went there?

EISENHOWER: Well, you know, he loved history.

He loved history so much his mother had to, uh, lock up his history books in a, uh, cupboard because he would, uh, not tend to his chores.

And you can imagine my poor great-grandmother had to rotate these boys through household chores because she didn't have any help otherwise.

Uh, in any case, um, he, he loved history, but certainly the military was not in the cards.

They were, um, a deeply religious family, but they were also, uh, pacifist.

Um, so when Ike finally decides the only way he's gonna get a college education is to get a free one, thanks to Uncle Sam, he went off to first apply to, um, uh, Annapolis to the Naval Academy.

Um, and then he was too old for that because he'd put his older brother through college and then went to West Point.

So it's rather interesting unlikely trajectory.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, he graduated at a time when it was, World War I was almost over.

He didn't really get into combat, but later he did get to know and worked for General Pershing.

What was that about?

How did he get to know General Pershing?

EISENHOWER: Well, David, if you'll allow me for a minute, I think, uh, that World War I period is extremely relevant today.

Uh, you might be interested to know that instead of being sent to the front, he was put, uh, in charge, actually a commander of Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

And on the Gettysburg battlefield, the military, uh, tried to teach, um, a newly formed tank corps, um, how to, um, uh, shoot from mobile vehicles.

So, this was the first war we were gonna use those tanks.

Um, and it was the only tank corps, uh, in the army.

Now, what's significant about that is not only did Ike train the tank corps, um, but in September of that, uh, 1918, the Spanish, uh, flu influenza came into the camp and Eisenhower had to, um, manage a very serious situation, uh, for which there were no guidelines or regulations.

Uh, I say this quickly to point out that at the age of 28, he received a distinguished service medal, uh, for his extraordinary command of Camp Colt, uh, 10,000 men under his command at age 28.

So it's from there, he goes, uh, to the front, um, just as the war is coming to an end.

Um, I mean, he didn't get there right away, but Pershing sends him, uh, to right the American battlefields of France.

And, uh, so the combination of Eisenhower's experiences as a tank man, and then understanding well the terrain of Europe played a very, uh, big role in his intuitive sense of that war when, uh, the second world war came.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, it was reported that before World War II, uh, Eisenhower was thinking that maybe his career wasn't going anywhere because he was, I think, in his early 50s and still wasn't a general, he was working as an aid in effect to General MacArthur, a very important person, but he was not really commanding a large group of people, and wasn't in combat.

So is it true that he was worried about the future of his career?

Did he ever consider just leaving the military or he just thought he would stay until the end of his career in the military?

EISENHOWER: Well, it's interesting.

Uh, I do know, uh, of at least two job offers he was given.

Uh, one during, uh, the Great Depression, and then, uh, also a bit later just before the war broke out.

And I think, um, Eisenhower had just, at some point, understood, um, that a war was coming, and this is what he had trained for, and he was gonna stay in the army come, uh, hell or high water.

Now, um, the other thing that is worth noting here is that just before the United States got into, uh, World War II, um, he was the winning strategist of, uh, one of the teams, uh, put together for the largest war games in American history, that's the "Louisiana Maneuvers".

So he was already coming to, uh, the attention, uh, not just in MacArthur, but of George Marshall too.

RUBENSTEIN: So when the World War II breaks out, ultimately, um, your grandfather is selected to lead the first kind of Western assault in Europe, which is really in Northern Africa leading up to Italy.

Uh, why was, um, General Eisenhower chosen for that?

He wasn't, uh, a combat veteran, really?

Who was the person who said, "We really want to have Eisenhower lead this effort in Africa and Italy?"

EISENHOWER: Well, I, I'll tell you some of, um, some of Eisenhower's friends told him that he was being sent to be the fall guy, uh, because he was actually put in command of the North African, uh, campaign.

Um, and the British, many of the British generals outranked him.

That couldn't be very easy issuing orders to people who actually have a higher rank than you do.

Um, but, you know, he, um, uh, I think he was already known and in the military as, uh, being a strategist.

Uh, I, uh, in 1925, for instance, he graduated from Command and General Staff College.

He was number one in his class.

Um, that was mostly, um, you know, a strategy, um, a war college.

And so, um, he had some talents in this area.

Uh, may, of course mistakes were made.

He learned a lot from that.

Um, but, um, we, uh, certainly the American, uh, entry into the war at that point, uh, saved the British who were really quite pinned down in that area.

RUBENSTEIN: It was widely thought at the time that when there was a D-Day invasion or the equivalent of it, that it would be led by General George Marshall, who was uh, the army chief of staff and, and, and more senior than Eisenhower.

Why did, uh, FDR ultimately select Eisenhower, uh, to lead the D-Day invasion?

And was that a surprise to Churchill or to Marshall?

EISENHOWER: We won't know whether it was, um, a surprise for Marshall because, uh, George Marshall, I'm a great admirer of his, by the way, um, was, uh, notorious for keeping his own counsel.

Apparently he was actually as a person rather hard to read.

Um, and I'm sure that he must've been disappointed, but, uh, he made it very clear to, uh, President Roosevelt that he would do whatever, um, President Roosevelt thought was right.

My own feeling, um, uh, is that Roosevelt must have looked at the situation and, and thought, you know, the old classic line, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Uh, because Eisenhower had already been successful, uh, in the, um, invasion of Sicily, and, and things were, um, you know, going pretty well.

And, um, so the big, uh, cross-channel invasion was the, um, you know, the, the great, uh, iconic moment, uh, that would hopefully turn the tide of the war.

Uh, and Marshall already had very, very well established relationships in Washington, a great relationship with Roosevelt, and by the way, had also been, uh, um, uh, you know, the architect of the, the war in the Far East too.

So I think, um, you know, it seemed to be working, so Roosevelt decided to continue with the formula.

RUBENSTEIN: So when your grandfather was given the task of being the Supreme Allied Commander to lead the most important invasion ever in military history, I suppose, uh, was he, uh, worried about whether he could succeed or not?

Did he ever prepare for failure?

EISENHOWER: Well, first of all, uh, Eisenhower and any good military man is a contingency planner, and so, um, you know, and certainly, um, you, you plan for setbacks.

And you plan for victory.

Uh, but this was a particularly complicated operation 'cause it is the largest combined military operation in military history.

And, uh, this means that, uh, Eisenhower had an array of, um, uh, subordinates who were not, um, American.

Uh, they were, they were British, Canadian.

Uh, there were all kinds of, um, units from, uh, other countries, and, uh, they were integrated as a force for the first time, um, in the conduct of warfare.

Um, so that already was a new kind of job.

And, their choice of where to cross the channel, uh, was tricky because it was not the shortest, uh, distance between, um, Southern England and France.

Uh, they did that to take the German enemy by surprise.

But I would say that it was a very, very challenging, uh, undertaking.

And Eisenhower actually almost doubled the size of the force in the planning stages, because he believed that that, uh, level of firepower was gonna be necessary.

RUBENSTEIN: So it is said that in anticipation of not succeeding, um, General Eisenhower prepared a statement where he would basically take the blame for it, is that correct?

EISENHOWER: That is correct.

Uh, this was a note that he wrote.

Um, he said that if any fault attaches to the operation, uh, it's his, you know, the responsibility is his and his alone.

Um, I think that's very moving because actually as you get into the details of what was happening just before, um, the decision to deploy those troops, um, he had been warned that, uh, the airborne forces were likely to be eviscerated after they dropped because the Germans had moved a division into the area.

And then of course the notorious and, uh, very troubling, uh, weather forecast.

Uh, we forget that, um, the chairman of the, uh, uh, weather forecasters, um, said that there was a chance for an opening, but his committee didn't agree on that assessment.

Um, so, uh, between the airborne drop and the concern, uh, that they might fail, and the weather forecast, I would say that it, that decision was really one for the history books.

RUBENSTEIN: They didn't have weather satellites in those days, I guess, so they didn't know for sure.

EISENHOWER: Exactly.

No, they didn't.

And it was that opening that really not only created an element of surprise, which was important strategically, uh, but it gave them enough time to, uh, establish that beachhead.

And Eisenhower famously says just before he makes the decision, "How long have I got?"

'Cause he had only 24 hours to, uh, you know, uh, secure the beachhead to start bringing in supplies and men.

RUBENSTEIN: After the war is over, uh, General Eisenhower comes back, he stays in the military, uh, for a while, but then he later becomes, uh, uh, President of Columbia University, and later becomes, uh, of course, presidential nominee.

But he, a-amazingly to many people reading this today, it was surprising to me, he was actually offered the democratic nomination for president in 1948 by Harry Truman, who said, "I won't run.

Why don't you be the democratic nominee?"

Why did Eisenhower turn that down?

EISENHOWER: Well, uh, by the way, not just in '48, but '52 as well, um, Truman made that offer.

But see, first of all, nobody knew whether General Eisenhower was a Republican or a Democrat.

So not only did the Democrats come calling, but the Republicans did too.

And every time they got to, either party got to a point where they didn't think they could maybe necessarily pull off the election, they'd go ask go Ike to take up, uh, their standard.

RUBENSTEIN: So finally, the Republicans persuade him to become, uh, the nominee of the party in 1952, um, did he, um, really compete in primaries or are they just kind of handed in the nomination?

EISENHOWER: Well, the thing is, I think, um, Eisenhower would have loved it if they'd handed him the nomination, but it didn't work like that.

And what was really underway within the Republican Party, um, was, um, you know, tremendously deep divisions after, uh, Governor Thomas Dewey, uh, failed to win the presidency in 1948.

Uh, so the party by that time was taken over by a very, very conservative wing run by, um, Senator Robert Taft.

And Taft was an isolationist.

And I think that's one reason, uh, it, wasn't a close call for Ike.

He understood that if the isolationists won, uh, won big, uh, in 1952, that everything he'd worked for during the war, and as the first commander of NATO forces, could well be jeopardized.

Uh, so I think that was a big part of, um, why he finally decided to throw his hat in the ring.

RUBENSTEIN: So he threw his hat in the ring, he gets the nomination, and then he's asked, "Well who do you want to have as vice-president?"

And he said, "Oh, I thought the convention makes that decision."

And they say, "No, it's your decision."

Uh, why did he pick Nixon?

Was he recommended?

Did he ever, had he ever met Nixon?

EISENHOWER: Well, from everything I've read it, it, it, it seems like a very, very different process for selecting vice-presidents in those days.

And yes, obviously the ultimate decision was Eisenhower's, but the party tended to play a much bigger role.

And I think that probably part of, um, uh, Nixon's attraction, as he came from a big state, the State of California, also, he had, um, um, strong anticommunist credentials that, uh, seem to, um, auger for uniting the party after all.

Because, uh, Eisenhower was known to be a moderate, or at least he made it pretty clear when he got out on the campaign trail, that he was a moderate.

Um, and, um, the, one of the big tasks for him was unifying a very, very fractured party that just managed to squeak in, um, uh, uh, and control both the House and the Senate in, uh, uh, '53.

RUBENSTEIN: So during the campaign in '52, Eisenhower says, "I will go to Korea," implying that he will go there and see if he can fix the problem we're having in the Korean war.

Did he have a plan?

And, and why does that so upset, uh, Harry Truman such that they almost never talked again?

EISENHOWER: First of all, I think the, you know, the campaign, uh, campaigns are always, uh, fractious.

And, uh, you know, Eisenhower and Truman were, were friends, so, um, you know, that put their relationship under strain.

But, um, Eisenhower's campaign promise to go to Korea was really very, uh, important for Eisenhower's thinking because, uh, uh, by that time the war was in, in stalemate.

We were losing, uh, we were losing troops and making little to no progress at all in the, uh, advancement of the war.

And, um, so he went, um, he was there at a packed schedule, actually he even flew over the front to see what the terrain looked like.

Remember, this is a military man, and he comes back, um, actually consults with his old boss, Douglas MacArthur, for MacArthur's views on this.

MacArthur had just been fired, not too long before, um, for having kind of outlandish views in the minds of some people, um, on this subject.

And Eisenhower decided we're just gonna have to really press for an armistice here.

There were proposals on the table, and, and that's what ended happening.

RUBENSTEIN: What do you think it was like between MacArthur and Eisenhower?

MacArthur is this gigantic military figure, um, Eisenhower is kind of his assistant, and all of a sudden Eisenhower becomes president and MacArthur can't even get any votes to be, to win a primary anywhere?

EISENHOWER: I don't know.

Somebody should write that book, what a pair those two were, because they, they couldn't have been more diff-different from a personality perspective.

You know, I'm convinced having researched all that, that, uh, Eisenhower was determined somehow to be the un-MacArthur.

You know, the opposite of his boss, who was, uh, flamboyant, who was controversial, who was a highly-opinionated, um, who sometimes went on such tears with the staff.

So, uh, you see a very different leadership style coming from Dwight Eisenhower.

But still having said that, I think that they both ultimately, uh, deeply respected, um, you know, the va, their various, um, uh, leadership, um, achievements.

I don't see how they could otherwise.

MacArthur, however, wanted to be president of United States and his protege, um, actually got elected instead.

So, you know, that's a classic, isn't it?

RUBENSTEIN: Now in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that all schools had to be desegregated, uh, with all deliberate speed, um, it wasn't happening so quickly in Little Rock and President Eisenhower sends in military troops.

Uh, did president Eisenhower support that decision?

And was it difficult to send in military troops to enforce the decision?

EISENHOWER: From all my research and actually even from his own memoirs and his speeches, um, you know, felt very, very strongly about this.

The Supreme Court had spoken.

However, I think it's worth noting that Brown vs. Board of Education that's Brown I and Brown II, there were two decisions, uh, on that case, uh, really, um, were not part of what's called "Settled Law".

So there was still some debate about whether or not, um, you know, um, Plessy versus Ferguson could be overturned.

The point being is that Eisenhower lent the political power of the presidency, uh, to supporting, um, the, the findings of the Supreme Court and did so, uh, in no uncertain terms.

In Little Rock Arkansas, they, uh, were, uh, expected, uh, to submit their desegregation of schools' plan, they did, but then, um, you know, there were court battles back and forth.

And, and, uh, the governor, um, went back on his assurances to the President of the United States.

I'll tell you he didn't do that with him.

Um, and so he deploys the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas.

So, just to remind, uh, all of us at the 101st Airborne Division was one of the two American divisions that did D-Day.

This was a very serious signal that Eisenhower was sending on, uh, Brown vs. Board of Education.

RUBENSTEIN: So it was reported by many people that Richard Nixon was, uh, not that popular with Eisenhower and some in the party.

And so President Eisenhower was thinking that maybe he would have a different vice president in '56.

Did he really want to have, Nixon to stay on the ticket?

EISENHOWER: Well, you know, um, uh, from a management perspective, Ike liked to test, um, people's, um, uh, viewpoint and their sincerity, and I'd also add their personal drive.

And yes, I, I think, uh, from what I read in Eisenhower's diaries and the rest of it, he gave some passing consideration to others.

He tried to get, um, individuals to sort of, uh, seek, um, Nixon's thoughts on the subject.

Uh, but again, I think, you know, it was a consideration, um, that involved other members of the Republican Party as well.

Um, as it turned out, um, uh, Richard Nixon was, um, his, uh, vice president again.

Uh, one of the most interesting things I ran across is actually that, uh, Ike even thought about starting a third party at one stage.

Uh, think of how history would have been different if he'd decided to do that.

RUBENSTEIN: So, um, he's reelected overwhelmingly in the second term.

And then, um, because of the constitutional amendment that was then enforced, he couldn't run a third term.

And he retires to Gettysburg.

Why did he pick Gettysburg as a place to establish his residence?

EISENHOWER: Well, you know, he, he was there in 1918 during the Spanish flu, um, epidemic and, uh, the Tank Training Corps.

And, you know, interestingly enough, uh, he still knew a lot of people in downtown Gettysburg, the locals, from that experience, uh, during World War I.

Uh, so it was close to Washington.

It wasn't that far from New York, and my, uh, grandparents really very much wanted to have a place out in the country, 'cause my grandfather was a hunter, and a fisherman, and an outdoors kind of guy.

And, uh, you know, he was ready to get back out there with, uh, uh, you know, the horses and the cats and the cows and everything else.

RUBENSTEIN: So, um, you were 17 when he died, but you had your teenage years to spend some time with them.

Did you spend a lot of time in Gettysburg?

EISENHOWER: Well, I went to elementary school in Gettysburg.

This is in his post-presidency.

Um, we also moved up to Gettysburg before he left the White House.

Uh, so, um, of course we, we actually lived on an adjacent farm and, uh, you know, uh, my parents were very careful to try and keep our, our family life separate from official life.

But, uh, Ike loved to bring up, um, world leaders to the Gettysburg Farm.

Uh, and so that was kind of an invasion of normal family life to have somebody like Winston Churchill come to the farm, uh, Nikita Khrushchev, uh, came to the farm in 1959.

So, uh, sometimes we were brought out to show how well behaved we were.

RUBENSTEIN: So, um, many people who are watching this, no doubt were not alive when President Eisenhower was president.

So they may not be as familiar with him as you are and, and as I am.

Uh, what would you like the people who are younger to know about President Eisenhower?

What do you think they should take away from your book and your, your knowledge of him?

EISENHOWER: Well, um, there are, are a couple of things.

First of all, I, I would say that, um, he did have a two-term presidency that he called the "Middle Way" And he believed it was important, um, to retain, uh, outstanding relationships with members of, uh, the other party and also outstanding relationships with all three, among all three co-equal branches of government.

Uh, because of, uh, the personal approach that he took to, uh, building and sustaining these relationships, uh, he managed, during a period of tremendous technological change and advancement, uh, to balance the budget three times in eight years, to get close to it on two other occasions.

As a matter of fact, he left John Kennedy with a budget surplus.

Uh, he managed after the, he ended the Korean War and after the end of that war, there were no combat casualties of American troops.

Um, and so peace and prosperity I think is probably his biggest legacy.

Uh, and then I would say also, I came to realize really probably how monumental it was that he reshaped the Republican Party.

Taking it, um, from an isolationist party to an internationalist party, um, that, that brought us other, uh, leaders like, uh, Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush and others, um, uh, if we had had that persistent problem of isolationism, our country would have been more deeply divided in the coming years.

He was, uh, he was, um, a decent, generous man who, uh, could be as tough as he had to be.

Um, but I hope that, um, I managed to paint a portrait of a human being, uh, because that's what he was.

And he was, uh, a fine one at that.

RUBENSTEIN: Susan, um, I wanna thank you for a very interesting conversation about your grandfather and, uh, I appreciate you letting us know these inside stories and, reporting them in your book, which I enjoyed reading a great deal.

Thank you.

EISENHOWER: Well, thank you very much.

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