Eisenhower

by Jim Newton

Newly discovered and declassified documents make for a surprising and revealing portrait of the president we thought we knew. Belittled by his critics as the babysitter-in-chief, Eisenhower ground down Joseph McCarthy, stimulated the economy to lift it from recession, and turned an $8 billion deficit in 1953 into a $500 million surplus in 1960. The President Eisenhower of popular imagination is a benign figure, armed with a putter, a winning smile, and little else. The Eisenhower of veteran jour