across the Rhine River and capture western Germany was
successful, and Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945.
From July to November 1945, Eisenhower served
as the military governor of the American Occupation
Zone, headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany. On 19
November 1945, he was named chief of staff of the U.S.
Army, and on 11 April 1946 his wartime rank of Gen-
eral of the Army was made permanent as he oversaw the
demobilization of American forces in Europe.
Eisenhower retired from the army in 1948 to be-
come the president of Columbia University in New
York. However, he was recalled to service only two years
later when, on 16 December 1950, President Harry S.
Truman named him as supreme allied commander of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He served
in this command for two years until he retired on 31
May 1952; he resigned his army commission in July of
that same year.
From the end of the war until 1952, Eisenhower
was seen as a potential presidential candidate; however,
because he was not overtly political, he would not spec-
ify whether he was a Republican or a Democrat, and
both major American political parties courted him to
run in 1948 and 1952. Following his resignation from
the army, Eisenhower declared himself on 4 June 1952
to be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomi-
nation that year. He won the nomination, was elected
overwhelmingly in 1952, and was reelected in 1956.
During his two terms as president, Eisenhower oversaw
the end of the Korean War and dealt with a wide variety
of issues, including the Suez Canal crisis, the invasion of
Hungary by the Soviet Union in 1956, the sending of
American troops into Lebanon in 1958, increasing ten-
sion in Vietnam, and the launching of the Sputnik satel-
lite into Earth orbit by the USSR, the growing debate
over civil rights in the United States, and the creation
of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
(HEW) in 1953. He left office widely popular, although
his vice president, Richard M. Nixon, failed to succeed
him as president.
Eisenhower left Washington on 20 January 1961
and returned to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
with his wife Mamie. On 28 March 1969, he died of
heart failure at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in
Washington, D.C., at the age of 78. Although he was
eligible to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery,
he was laid to rest instead in the Place of Meditation
at the Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kansas, where his
national library is located. In an obituary, The New York
Times said of him: “Military leadership of the victori-
ous Allied forces in Western Europe during World War
II invested Dwight David Eisenhower with an immense
popularity, almost amounting to devotion, that twice
elected him President of the United States. His enor-
mous political success was largely personal, for he was
not basically a politician dealing in partisan issues and
party maneuvers. What he possessed was a superb tal-
ent for gaining the respect and affection of the voters
as the man suited to guide the nation through cold war
confrontations with Soviet power around the world and
to lead the country to domestic prosperity.” Although
perhaps better known for his two terms as president of
the United States, Eisenhower’s service as head of Allied
armies in the Second World War serve to make him one
of the great commanders in the history of warfare.References: Kinnard, Douglas, Eisenhower: Soldier-States-
man of the American Century (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s,
2002); Hatch, Alden, General Ike: A Biography of Dwight
D. Eisenhower (New York: Henry Holt and Company,
1944); Parmet, Herbert S., Eisenhower and the American
Crusades (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972);
Holland, Matthew F., Eisenhower Between the Wars: The
Making of a General and a Statesman (Westport, Conn.:
Praeger, 2001); Bader, Brian R., “Dwight David Eisen-
hower,” in Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Military History and
Biography, edited by Franklin D. Margiotta (Washington,
D.C.: Brassey’s, 1994), 297; Murray, G. E. Patrick, Eisen-
hower versus Montgomery: The Continuing Debate (West-
port, Conn.: Praeger, 1996); “Dwight D. Eisenhower,”
in Command: From Alexander the Great to Zhukov—The
Greatest Commanders of World History, edited by James
Lucas (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1988), 201;
“Dwight D. Eisenhower: A Leader in War and Peace,”
The New York Times, 29 March 1969, 1.Elchingen, duc de See ney, michel, duc
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