United StatesDateline June 29, 2013, The Eisenhower Library and Museum
Saturday afternoon at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, about three hours west of Kansas City. From the library wall: 'Dwight David Eisenhower was born the year the US census pronounced the frontier closed and died the year man walked on the moon. In between those milestones he planned and led the greatest amphibious military assault in history and waged eight years of peace and prosperity as President.' The Eisenhower story: West Point 1915, Fox Connor's mentorship in Panama, first in his class at the Command and General Staff School, the Philippines under MacArthur, Marshall's call to the War Department after Pearl Harbor, D-Day, VE-Day, NATO. Then eight years as President, two terms, two losses for Stevenson. Korea ended. The interstate highway system. The 1957 Civil Rights Bill. Three balanced budgets. Eight hundred rounds of golf, and a 'Truman and Eisenhower 2012' t-shirt in the gift shop that we both stopped to look at.
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