William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 672 pp., $35.00.

LAST OCTOBER, NEARLY two decades after Congress ordered work to begin, construction finally got underway on a $150 million memorial located just off the National Mall in Washington, dc to honor Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Developed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry, the monument had been the subject of a protracted battle—one that lasted far longer than the thirty-fourth president’s two terms in office. Critics worried about its cost and size, traditionalists scoffed at its unorthodox design and Eisenhower’s descendants claimed it was too modest, failing to evoke the glories of Ike’s military and political career.

In the end, the site—which will be known as “Eisenhower Park,” marked by a steel tapestry with eight-story-high columns spread over a four-acre public space—reflects a compromise among the different ways we remember Eisenhower: the everyman from Kansas and the commanding general who liberated Europe; the reluctant, neophyte politician who was beloved by the public, modernized campaigning and tried to remake the Republican Party; and a presidency that evokes a simpler time, yet charted America’s global dominance and presided over the rise of the national-security state.

Such controversy over how Eisenhower should be memorialized is not surprising, because his legacy has never been a simple one. Ike’s political opponents on the right and left initially defined him as an amiable old duffer who could never quite rekindle his World War II heroism. This popular perception prevailed for several decades. Yet since the 1980s, when the Eisenhower archives started opening up, a revisionist interpretation gained momentum. Scholars suddenly heralded Ike’s “hidden hand” approach, marked by deceptively sophisticated thinking and disciplined decisionmaking.

Today, Eisenhower is considered one of the all-time greats. In a 1962 poll asking historians to list the finest presidents, Ike placed twenty-second. In 2018, he ranked seventh. Part of this popular rise can be attributed to the rise of an Eisenhower canon from scholars such as John Lewis Gaddis, Richard Immerman and David Nichols, who have scoured the archives to praise Eisenhower’s strategic acumen; from journalists Jim Newton, Evan Thomas and Bret Baier, who have written fast-paced histories of Ike’s presidency; and from personal reminiscences from writers like Ike’s grandson, David.

This spasm of admiration for Eisenhower also reveals something about our contemporary political culture, helping to explain the resurgence of scholarship and why the controversy over the memorial in Washington proved so intense. There is nostalgia for the seeming simplicity and tranquility of the Eisenhower years, although even a cursory study of them offers a reminder of how turbulent they actually were. But more significantly, there is great admiration for Eisenhower’s leadership style of careful discipline and hard-headed pragmatism, and a longing for a commander in chief with such a strong vision, dignity and fundamental decency. Simply put, there are not many leaders in Washington right now who are like Ike.

When reflecting on what’s roiling America today, the Eisenhower era seems especially relevant. It is impossible to revisit this history and not hear the echoes. Because whether it is the buckling of America’s system of global alliances and partnerships, the triumph of “America First,” the questioning of science and devaluing of expertise, or the coarsening of America’s political discourse and promotion of dark conspiracies about enemies lurking within, we are witnessing a full-frontal assault on the very country that Eisenhower helped create.

William Hitchcock’s The Age of Eisenhower thus arrives opportunely. Hitchcock, who teaches at the University of Virginia, skillfully synthesizes earlier scholarship and draws on new archival research to offer the best single account of Eisenhower’s presidency to date. This is an eighteen-wheeler of a book—it is big and confident and full of interesting stuff. Some scholars may harrumph that Hitchcock does not fundamentally alter the view of Eisenhower or reinterpret his most consequential policies, but he offers a lively and insightful exploration of how Ike’s brand of no-nonsense leadership defined an era.

Eisenhower has always confounded observers. “Other than optimism and pragmatism,” James Reston of the New York Times asked in 1956, “what skills did Eisenhower possess that made him such a political phenomenon?”

Ike was a study in contrasts. His political persona was a throwback of modest middle-class simplicity, yet he helped usher in the modern campaign era with slick tv commercials and Madison Avenue image advisers, and hung out with corporate chieftains on the most exclusive golf courses. He championed a can-do spirit of hard work but spent a lot of time on vacation or convalescing from numerous health crises (a heart attack, stroke and ileitis). He often spoke with circumlocutions and vague statements that cloaked a sophisticated mind and deep understanding of politics and policy. He created the massive infrastructure of the national-security state, but then eloquently warned of its dangers. He sought to restrain the use of military power, but in fact diversified and deepened American interventions and expanded its global commitments—using the CIA to help overthrow governments, increasing foreign military assistance so others could do the fighting for us and doubling down on the use of invasive intelligence assets like the U-2. And while he was at best personally ambivalent about the social transformation of civil rights, Ike allowed his Justice Department to take bold stances with the Supreme Court and confront Southern leaders’ attempts to defy the law.

Eisenhower entered office determined to consolidate the gains of the war he had led. Before Ike turned to politics, Harry Truman had enlisted his support to make the case to Congress for America’s role in Europe and a strong NATO—and he fought hard against the “America First” impulse that was championed by Republican Ohio senator Robert Taft. Although Eisenhower and Truman had a bitter falling out—with Ike calling his predecessor feckless, and his attorney general later publicly accusing Truman of allowing a communist spy to remain in his U.S. government job—Ike largely continued the Cold War strategy that Truman established. Writing in 1955, Reinhold Niebuhr observed that Eisenhower stood for “95 per cent of the foreign policy of the previous administration.” Hitchcock largely agrees, crediting Ike for putting America’s national-security policy on solid footing—both in terms of resources and public support.

More than any other modern president, Eisenhower was a strategist. He read Clausewitz, studied at the Army staff college and had been tested in war. This experience gave him a keen sense of how to match means to ends, and he instinctively understood the essence of “grand strategy,” where foreign and domestic policy are linked and must be considered holistically. Ike also understood that good process helps make good policy, so he created and closely managed the modern national-security decisionmaking system, presiding over hundreds of formal nsc meetings that helped produce a mountain of strategic documents (this voluminous record is one reason Ike has become the subject of so much good scholarship). And he delivered several important speeches to outline his approach and make the case for his decisions.

The heart of Eisenhower’s strategy was to restore greater balance in national-security policy by taking the fight to the Soviets and projecting American power, while also ending costly wars like Korea and putting the defense budget on a more sustainable footing. From today’s perspective, when politics is again dominated with questions about America’s staying power and calls for nation building at home, Eisenhower’s stark warnings about the difficult trade-offs between priorities at home and abroad and the danger of “humanity hanging from a cross of iron”—as best described in his remarkable 1953 “Chance for Peace” speech, which tried to reframe the Cold War following the death of Stalin—are bracing. They also help illustrate how the political ground has scrambled on many of these questions—where once a Republican president was seen as an eloquent advocate for a national-security approach of quiet strength and careful allocation of defense dollars.

His overriding goal was straightforward: to navigate strategy between the extremes of isolationism and cynical hysteria (as personified by Taft and Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy) and weak incompetence (as Ike perceived Truman and Adlai Stevenson) to put U.S. policy on a sustainable footing. Instead of rolling back America’s global commitments, the Eisenhower era saw them grow and diversify. While working to develop new global partnerships and alliances, he also added to the toolbox of America’s influence by pushing for weapons modernization and innovations in covert action. And while known for avoiding wars—the only time Ike ordered U.S. troops into harm’s way was in 1958 in Lebanon—Eisenhower expanded the means to project American influence. This included taking actions that remain controversial, such as fomenting coups in Iran and Guatemala, launching a CIA paramilitary campaign in Laos and setting the stage for the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.

This presents a paradox for Eisenhower’s legacy: the roots of trouble lay buried in many of his strategic successes. For example, consider the examples of Eisenhower’s restraint, perhaps most notably his decision not to come to France’s assistance in Vietnam in 1954. For decades historians have carefully studied and argued over Ike’s handling of Dien Bien Phu, and while Hitchcock does not unearth new evidence, his interpretation of events is quite rewarding. Ike proved to be neither a hawk nor a dove; he wanted to keep the United States out of direct conflict (following the mantra of “no more Koreas”), but at the same time wanted to use other tools to try to prevent Vietnam falling to communism, such as providing arms and political support to the French. This policy decision avoided conflict yet set the United States on a course for greater involvement in Southeast Asia. As Hitchcock eloquently observes, Ike’s decisions planted “seeds that would yield a harvest of sorrow.”

This is also an example of how leaders can become hoisted with their own petard. Ike’s warnings about the Soviet threat and the dangers of falling “dominoes,” when combined with his more restrained policies, left allies confused and critics emboldened. His tough talk often limited his ability to maneuver. He would not be the last president to come to regret overpromising while underdelivering.

But in this instance, history has proven kind. What was once seen to be appeasement later became considered wise and prudent. Dien Bien Phu was universally seen as a failure, with critics decrying such betrayal of close allies as an “Asian Munich” and as one of the most humiliating diplomatic defeats in American history. Yet seen in the larger context of America’s entanglement in Vietnam, this episode illustrates how hard it is for presidents to get credit for keeping the country out of trouble. It is reminiscent of the way George H. W. Bush’s decision not to take out Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War was perceived for years as one of weakness—and how, for subsequent presidents, the determination to show strength led to greater intervention with disastrous consequences.

There are also parallels to Syria today, where one sees similarities between Eisenhower’s struggles with intervention in Vietnam and Barack Obama’s approach to Syria—with Ike’s handling of Dien Bien Phu resembling Obama’s handling of the “red line.” Both presidents were reluctant to see the United States get stuck in a quagmire in regions considered vitally important yet impossible to fix; both tried to thread the needle between full-scale military intervention and doing nothing; and both faced harsh criticism from even their most ardent supporters for whiffing at the chance to show resolve. And like Eisenhower and Vietnam, Obama’s legacy will always have to account for his handling of Syria.

Eisenhower had considerable political skills, but he lacked an affinity for ideology. He tried to transcend partisanship, talking of forging a “middle way” between Republicans and Democrats, and even toying with replacing Vice President Richard Nixon with a Democrat on his 1956 reelection ticket or forming a new political party. He never got very far.

The key to Ike’s political success was that he was reassuring—his Midwestern mix of confidence and humility were a core part of his appeal. However, his presidency was buffeted by the anxieties it provoked, whether from aggressors abroad or enemies within. Although Ike tried to remake the gop into a party of “modern Republicanism”—lifting it out of the political ditch it had been stuck in for two decades before his election in 1952—he ultimately failed to build a lasting coalition. Moreover, the antibodies to Ike’s brand of centrist conservatism would only become more dominant—whether carried by McCarthy or Barry Goldwater, or eventually Nixon. Today it is hard to think of many Republican foreign-policy leaders who profess to want to carry forward the Eisenhower tradition.

Ike’s battles with McCarthy are especially instructive. The Wisconsin senator did not invent red-baiting (Nixon, among others, deserves blame), but he mastered its dark arts. Ike didn’t confront McCarthy directly, and in fact he caved to him when politically expedient—most shamefully by not coming to the defense of his friend and mentor George Marshall. Instead, he waged a Washington-style guerrilla campaign of carefully timed press leaks and legal maneuvers—a classic hidden-hand approach. Yet while McCarthy eventually self-immolated, the pathology he unleashed shaped foreign-policy debates for decades to come.

From today’s perspective, Eisenhower fought an admirable struggle against political extremism. We must wish there were more Republican leaders like him. Yet, ultimately, Ike failed.

He could not extinguish the fires McCarthy fueled—and whether it was Democrats being afraid to be seen as “weak” on national security, or Republicans susceptible to what historian Richard Hofstadter called the “paranoid style,” McCarthy’s nativist, pessimistic, cruel, fear-based legacy distorted the political debate about national security. One can see how it inflicted (and ultimately damaged) Ike’s successors who pursued a similar pragmatic, centrist approach in foreign policy—whether it was George H. W. Bush struggling with the twin challenges of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot, or Barack Obama’s grappling with Trumpism. And, remarkably, right now we have a president who takes great pride in his direct lineage to the McCarthy era, having learned the trade from the senator’s young henchman, Roy Cohn.

These trends were apparent as Eisenhower’s presidency wound down. By mid-1957, Ike had achieved his high-water mark. He had overcome a series of health problems the year before that had kept him on the sidelines, yet still won a convincing reelection in November. That election coincided with an extraordinary eruption of global crises—with the showdown with the British, French and Israelis over Suez, and responding to the Soviet Union’s brutal crackdown in Hungary—which forced him off the campaign trail to preside over urgent White House meetings. It is hard to recall many other moments of such political and geopolitical intensity. The result left Ike newly emboldened. He felt the political winds at his back, and articulated a new security commitment to the Middle East—the “Eisenhower Doctrine”—which in many ways the United States still follows today.

But within a year, Ike’s political fortunes came crashing down. The economy sputtered, and in October 1957 the Soviets launched a 184-pound satellite into space. After Sputnik, Eisenhower began to lose control of his presidency’s narrative. The prospect of the enemy owning the heavens created a massive wave of fear, with Americans worried that Ike had been asleep at the switch while the Soviets pushed ahead. Eisenhower responded by delivering earnest speeches to try to reassure the public and put Moscow’s accomplishment in context while also launching a series of policy initiatives: rushing America’s own satellite into orbit, reforming the Pentagon and boosting the defense budget, and creating institutions like NASA.

Despite these efforts, after the Sputnik moment a powerful myth took hold: America was losing, it lacked resolve and it needed to be more aggressive in the world. Pundits like Joseph Alsop made bogus claims about the missile gap, and politicians like John F. Kennedy ran with them. Ike’s efforts to project calm and pragmatism were no match. He no longer seemed to be the confident sentinel or master statesman. Restraint was seen as weakness, pragmatism as lack of conviction, humility as defeatism. Despite Eisenhower’s frustrations with what he considered a “cult of professional pessimists,” his legacy proved vulnerable to the argument that it required a new generation to provide intellectual and moral strength.

Hitchcock sums up The Age of Eisenhower as an era defined by a government that is “moderate, efficient, empathetic, responsive, and compassionate,” leading with “restraint, wisdom, and a constant insistence on frugality.” Eisenhower’s presidency had no shortage of intense policy debates, and plenty of mistakes were made. Yet these attributes, which Eisenhower embodied, came to define what Americans expected from public service. Now, at a moment when we are giving Ike his due through thoughtful books and vast memorials in Washington, the question is whether this proud legacy can survive its greatest test.

Derek Chollet is executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and author of The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America’s Role in the World.