John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower (August 3, 1922 - December 21, 2013) was a United States Army officer and military historian. As the son of General, later President Dwight D. Eisenhower, his opportunities for front-line service were often restricted, at some cost to his career, though he ended as a decorated brigadier-general. In the administration of President Richard Nixon (his father’s vice-president), he served as United States Ambassador to Belgium.

Early life and education

Eisenhower was born on August 3, 1922 in Denver, Colorado to future U.S. President and United States Army General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie; he was their second child. Their elder son, Doud, known affectionately as "Icky", died in 1921, at age three, after contracting scarlet fever. Eisenhower, like his father, attended the United States Military Academy, graduating on June 6, 1944, the day of the Normandy landings, which his father was commanding.

Career

Eisenhower served in the U.S. Army during World War II and the Korean War, remaining on active duty until 1963; then serving in the U.S. Army Reserve until retirement in 1975 - attaining the rank of brigadier general. A decorated soldier, Eisenhower found his World War II military career thwarted by fears for his safety and concern from the top brass that his death or capture would be a distraction to his father, the Supreme Allied Commander. This issue arose again in 1952 when Major Eisenhower was assigned to fight in a combat unit in Korea while his father ran for President. After a short stint in combat with an infantry battalion, he was reassigned to the safety of division headquarters. In 2008, he wrote about this experience in an opinion piece in The New York Times entitled "Presidential Children Don't Belong in Battle".

During his father's presidency, John Eisenhower served as Assistant Staff Secretary in the White House, on the Army's General Staff, and in the White House as assistant to General Andrew Goodpaster.

In the administration of President Richard Nixon, who had been his father's Vice President, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. In 1972, President Nixon appointed Eisenhower Chairman of the Interagency Classification Review Committee. In 1975, he served President Gerald Ford as chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees.

Marriage and children

Eisenhower married Barbara Jean Thompson on June 10, 1947. Mrs. Thompson was born on June 15, 1926, in Fort Knox, Kentucky, into an Army family. She was the daughter of Beatrice (née Birchfield) and her husband Col. Percy Walter Thompson (November 8, 1898 - June 19, 1974).

Her father was stationed in the American Zone of occupied Austria after World War II. It was there that she met John Eisenhower, whose father was commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces.

They divorced in 1986. In 1988, Barbara married widower Edwin J. Foltz, a former Vice President at the Campbell Soup Company. She died on September 19, 2014, in Gladwyne, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

The Eisenhowers had four children:

• Dwight David Eisenhower II (b. March 31, 1948, West Point, NY), who married Julie Nixon, herself a presidential daughter;
• Barbara Anne Eisenhower (b. May 30, 1949, West Point, NY);
• Susan Eisenhower (b. December 31, 1951, Fort Knox, KY);
• Mary Jean Eisenhower (b. December 21, 1955, Washington, DC).

In 1988, Eisenhower married Joanne Thompson. He lived in Trappe, Maryland, after moving there from Kimberton, Pennsylvania.

Later life and death

A lifelong Republican, Eisenhower voted for Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election, citing dissatisfaction with Republican incumbent George W. Bush's management of U.S. foreign policy. In later years, he had been an opponent of Frank Gehry's proposed design for the National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, which he said was "too extravagant" and "attempts to do too much."

He died at Trappe, Maryland on December 21, 2013. From the death of John Coolidge in 2000 until his own death, Eisenhower was the oldest living presidential child. His burial was at West Point Cemetery on the grounds of the United States Military Academy.

Ancestry

Writing

As a military historian, Eisenhower wrote several books, including The Bitter Woods, a study of the Battle of the Bulge, and So Far from God, a history of the U.S.-Mexican War. In a New York Times review of the latter, historian Stephen W. Sears remarked that Eisenhower "writes briskly and authoritatively, and his judgments are worth reading." John Eisenhower also wrote the forewords to Borrowed Soldiers, by Mitchell Yockelson of the U.S. National Archives, and to Kenneth W. Rendell's Politics, War and Personality: 50 Iconic Documents of World War II.

Bibliography

• The Bitter Woods. Battery Classics. 1969. ISBN 9780898391060. ; Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 9780306806520
• Strictly Personal Doubleday, 1974, ISBN 9780385070713
• Allies, Pearl Harbor to D-Day. Doubleday. 1982. ISBN 9780385114790. ; Da Capo Press, 2000, ISBN 9780306809415
• So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846-1848. Random House. 1989. ISBN 9780394560519. ; University of Oklahoma Press, 2000, ISBN 9780806132792
• Intervention!: The United States Involvement in the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1917. W. W. Norton & Company. 1993. ISBN 9780393313185.
• Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott. Free Press. 1997. ISBN 9780684844510.
• Yanks: The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I. Simon and Schuster. 2001. ISBN 9780743216371.
• General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence. Simon and Schuster. 2003. ISBN 9780743255721.
• Zachary Taylor. Macmillan. 2008. ISBN 9780805082371.
• A Morning in June: Defending Outpost Harry. University of Alabama Press. 2010. ISBN 9780817316693.
• Soldiers and Statesmen: Reflections on Leadership. University of Missouri Press. 2012. ISBN 9780826219701.

Awards and decorations

Other honors

The city of Marshfield, Missouri chose Eisenhower as a 2008 honoree of the Edwin P. Hubble Medal of Initiative. His grandson, Merrill Eisenhower Atwater spoke on his behalf at Marshfield's annual Cherry Blossom Festival. The medal recognizes individuals who demonstrate great initiative in their chosen field.

Family tree

[ Source: Wikipedia ]