Dwight D Eisenhower

Dwight David Eisenhower grew up in Abilene, Kansas, the second of six sons of a mechanic. The father was a stern disciplinarian and the mother a devout pacifist. Dwight graduated from high school in 1909 and went on to West Point, graduating 61st in a class of 164 in 1915.

During World War One the army refused his requests to serve abroad and instead assigned him to training tank crews on the home front. From 1922-24 he served in the Panama Canal Zone where, under tutelage of the legendary General Fox Conner, he became a serious student of military theory and history. Advancement in the peacetime army was slow, but Eisenhower's fortunes looked up in 1930 when he became assistant to Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur, who called him "the best officer in the Army." In 1935 he accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines and remained there until 1939. Promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in September, 1941, he had, at the outbreak of World War Two, never seen combat nor held an active command.

After Pearl Harbor he became Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations under Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall. Marshall was responsible for Eisenhower's appointment as Commanding General of the European Theater of Operations and subsequently as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in North Africa. He led the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

He served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army from 1945-1948, when he retired to become President of Columbia University (1948-1950). From December, 1950, until May, 1952, he was Commander of NATO forces in Europe, then retired from the Army to run for President of the United States. In November of that year he was overwhelmingly elected over the Democratic candidate, Adlai E. Stevenson. A few days earlier, the U.S. had tested its first thermonuclear device on Bikini Island in the Pacific.