After heroic service in World War II (1939-45), Dwight D. Eisenhower was so popular that he was courted as a presidential candidate by both the Democratic and the Republican parties. A brilliant military officer, he served as supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe from 1942 until the end of the war. Eisenhower then proved equal to the task of running the United States during the 1950s. The country enjoyed an extended period of prosperity during his two terms in office. Despite the Cold War, tensions between the United States and its postwar allies and Communist governments in the Soviet Union and China and their allies, Eisenhower managed to keep America out of armed conflict.

During his eight years in the White House, Eisenhower was sometimes criticized as an inactive leader who surrounded himself with a weighty bureaucracy and allowed advisors to dictate policy...