The more I read about Eisenhower, the more I realize how rotten he was. Folks forget that he eviscerated the Republican Party when he was President, and it took 40 years to repair the damage (by which time, the damage done to the nation was incalculable).
[The more I read about Eisenhower, the more I realize how rotten he was. Folks forget that he eviscerated the Republican Party when he was President, and it took 40 years to repair the damage (by which time, the damage done to the nation was incalculable).]
By not evicting the Chinese from Korea, Ike paved the way for the Vietnam War. He basically punted. I’m not a JFK fan, but some of his problems arose from Eisenhower’s inaction. It’s a travesty that Ike allowed Batista to be toppled. Without Castro in power, there would have been no Cuban missile crisis. And Kennedy was right - you can’t simply threaten a nuclear-armed adversary with nuclear annihilation when he’s holding your kin hostage with the threat of nuclear retaliation. The US needed a conventional deterrent, and not Ike’s BS about a “military industrial complex”, on his way out the door. Since Ike’s time, the civilian component of government spending has tripled as a % of national economic output, whereas military spending has gone down by 2/3.