Do you think Dwight Eisenhower was a good President? (user search)
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  Do you think Dwight Eisenhower was a good President? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Do you think Dwight Eisenhower was a good President?  (Read 17939 times)
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« on: December 12, 2012, 01:33:35 PM »

Eisenhower was certainly one of the better presidents on foreign policy issues during the Cold War - his "New Look" calmed down tensions with the Soviet Union significantly and made the 1950s not the decade of the Third World War.

Of course, he also made some missteps there. The Dulles brothers pretty much created a lot of the problems the United States would face down later in the Cold War in meddling in Iran and in Latin America. Treating every third world populist leader as if he were a communist was a huge mistake, and made it literally impossible for the United States to form working relationships with anyone in those countries except for the psychotic military despots and far-right fringes. I do think Ike did the right thing with regard to the Suez Canal, and he handled the Hungarian uprising in a way that also prevented us all from not being born.

He completely mismanaged the economy, presiding over two separate recessions during his term in office. Plus he signed the absolutely awful Landrum-Griffin Act, failed to speak out against McCarthy (he just kind of waited around for the Senate to do anything about that) and completely dragged his feet on Civil Rights, largely because he was uninterested in doing anything on that front as President. When push came to shove, yes, he did send in federal troops, but he waited far too long and let the situation get completely out of hand.

He also gets some negative marks for openly courting the segregationist vote, a first for a Republican candidate.

I wouldn't have voted for him in '52 or '56, but on the whole, I'd say he did a decent job as President. Certainly the best Republican president of the 20th Century, IMO.
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