But Dwight D. Eisenhower was the quintessential man of his times. Even his moniker (Ike) exuded an abbreviated normalcy that fit the America of Howdy Doody, I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best. Ike was like your trusted neighbor, your corner grocer or your wise uncle who knew things before you even sensed them. His grin was comforting and reassuring, leaving unspoken the many horrors of war that he had witnessed. America wanted to move on and we did so (even amidst the specter of the red scare and the atomic bomb) under Ike during a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
All of this is brought to mind during a new one-man show, Eisenhower, This Piece of Ground now being performed off Broadway by the accomplished stage and screen actor John Rubenstein. Here, we find Eisenhower reminiscing near the end of his life from his farm house in Gettysburg -- the homestead he and his wife, Mamie, had always longed for. Augmented with rear-projected photographs and film, we travel on a journey with Ike from his boyhood years to the 1960s. In the process, we learn about his parents, his childhood, his siblings, his upbringing, his years at West Point, his rise in the military and his service in two wars.
This is a fully formed three-dimensional Ike with his classic training, his organizational acumen, his human insights and his temper intact. He talks about FDR, Truman, McCarthy, Taft, Patton, MacArthur and Marshall. But he also talks about the young men he met as he sent them off to battle on D Day and the son he and Mamie lost at age three to Scarlett Fever.
No doubt about it, Ike was an American hero. He could have run for president as a Democrat or Republican. Both parties wanted him. He tells us why he ran as a Republican; why he treasured the two-party system and disdained extremists and why he liked JFK but still had his doubts about him. Should Ike have spoken out sooner and more forcefully against McCarthy and McCarthyism? Should he have leveled with the public from the outset about the U2 incident and the capture of Francis "Gary" Powers? And why did he wait so long to warn us about the military industrial complex and what might he have done to deter its threat? These topics are addressed as well.
Shortly after he left office historians ranked Eisenhower near the bottom of the list of American presidents. Ike bristled at this ranking but kept much of that to himself. The public Eisenhower was cautious, circumspect, careful. He played his cards close to his chest and that made him quite an adept politician even though he was not viewed as such. Maybe that's why today historians rank Ike among America's top five presidents, right after Lincoln, Washington, FDR and Teddy Roosevelt. Quite an ascent for a man who lacked charisma, was not a compelling speaker, eschewed drama and favored a low-key, corporate style of leadership. But maybe we shouldn't take these rankings too seriously after all -- especially since Obama is already in the top ten (right behind Reagan) and LBJ is right behind Obama at number 11.
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