Dwight Eisenhower

Dwight David Eisenhower (English: Dwight David Eisenhower, October 14, 1890 - March 28, 1969), a U.S. Army general and politician, with the highest military rank of five-star general, nicknamed Ike. Eisenhower held important positions during World War II, serving as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and serving as President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. Eisenhower was born and raised in Abilene County, Kansas, to a German immigrant family - the Eisenhower family. His family was strongly religious, and his mother believed in the Mennonites, but Eisenhower himself did not start participating in organized Christian churches until 1952. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married Mamie Dodd, with whom he had two children. During World War I, he was refused entry to Europe to fight in the war because of his German ethnicity and was assigned to train members of a tank division in a military camp in the United States. After the First World War, he was sent to serve under different officers and was promoted to brigadier general in 1941. After the United States officially declared war on the Axis Powers in the middle of World War II, General Eisenhower was responsible for planning and supervising the Allied forces' Operation Torch in the North African battlefield and the invasion of Sicily in the southern Italian battlefield in Europe. Later, he supervised the advance against Nazi Germany's occupied areas (such as the Normandy landing). After the end of World War II, due to his outstanding military exploits, he was appointed by then-U.S. President Truman as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army (1945-1948) and President of Columbia University (1948-1953). He was also recommended as the first Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1951-1952). In 1952, Eisenhower ran as the Republican candidate. His main intention in running for office is considered to be to prevent his party rival, fellow Republican Senator Robert A. Taft, from pursuing isolationist policies after being elected. Taft had publicly opposed the establishment of NATO because he did not want the postwar United States to fall into the quagmire of "foreign entanglements" again. Eisenhower won overwhelmingly in that election and his re-election in 1956, defeating his Democratic opponent Adlai Stevenson II twice in a row. Eisenhower's main domestic and foreign goals during his term were to reduce the federal fiscal deficit and curb the expansion of communist forces. In 1953, as the Korean War came to an end, he threatened to use nuclear weapons when facing the People's Republic of China's military, but ultimately agreed to sign the Korea Agreement