The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961
Based on twenty years of research, a book that rewrites the history of the Eisenhower presidency

“Irwin Gellman has emerged from years in the archives to tell the fascinating story of President Dwight Eisenhower and his relationship with his vice president, Richard Nixon. Gellman dispels the fog that has long enveloped this subject and casts new light on a critical Cold War presidency. Masterfully written, The President and the Apprentice is a must-read for anyone who, like me, loves good political history.”—Allen Matusow, author of The Unraveling of America
 
More than half a century after Eisenhower left office, the history of his presidency is so clouded by myth, partisanship, and outright fraud that most people have little understanding of how Ike’s administration worked or what it accomplished. We know—or think we know—that Eisenhower distrusted his vice president, Richard Nixon, and kept him at arm’s length; that he did little to advance civil rights; that he sat by as Joseph McCarthy’s reckless anticommunist campaign threatened to wreck his administration; and that he planned the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. None of this is true.
 
The President and the Apprentice reveals a different Eisenhower, and a different Nixon. Ike trusted and relied on Nixon, sending him on many sensitive overseas missions. Eisenhower, not Truman, completed the desegregation of the military. Eisenhower and Nixon, not Lyndon Johnson, pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through the Senate. Eisenhower was determined to bring down McCarthy and did so. Nixon never, contrary to recent accounts, saw a psychotherapist, but while Ike was recovering from his heart attack in 1955, Nixon was overworked, overanxious, overmedicated, and at the limits of his ability to function.
 
Based on twenty years of research in numerous archives, many previously untouched, this book offers a fresh and surprising account of the Eisenhower presidency.
 
“Irwin Gellman’s superb research and plausible reconstruction of the Eisenhower-Nixon relationship may well revolutionize the meaning of historical revisionism. The President and the Apprentice is an unsettling tour de force.David Levering Lewis, author of King: A Biography and W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography
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The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961
Based on twenty years of research, a book that rewrites the history of the Eisenhower presidency

“Irwin Gellman has emerged from years in the archives to tell the fascinating story of President Dwight Eisenhower and his relationship with his vice president, Richard Nixon. Gellman dispels the fog that has long enveloped this subject and casts new light on a critical Cold War presidency. Masterfully written, The President and the Apprentice is a must-read for anyone who, like me, loves good political history.”—Allen Matusow, author of The Unraveling of America
 
More than half a century after Eisenhower left office, the history of his presidency is so clouded by myth, partisanship, and outright fraud that most people have little understanding of how Ike’s administration worked or what it accomplished. We know—or think we know—that Eisenhower distrusted his vice president, Richard Nixon, and kept him at arm’s length; that he did little to advance civil rights; that he sat by as Joseph McCarthy’s reckless anticommunist campaign threatened to wreck his administration; and that he planned the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. None of this is true.
 
The President and the Apprentice reveals a different Eisenhower, and a different Nixon. Ike trusted and relied on Nixon, sending him on many sensitive overseas missions. Eisenhower, not Truman, completed the desegregation of the military. Eisenhower and Nixon, not Lyndon Johnson, pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through the Senate. Eisenhower was determined to bring down McCarthy and did so. Nixon never, contrary to recent accounts, saw a psychotherapist, but while Ike was recovering from his heart attack in 1955, Nixon was overworked, overanxious, overmedicated, and at the limits of his ability to function.
 
Based on twenty years of research in numerous archives, many previously untouched, this book offers a fresh and surprising account of the Eisenhower presidency.
 
“Irwin Gellman’s superb research and plausible reconstruction of the Eisenhower-Nixon relationship may well revolutionize the meaning of historical revisionism. The President and the Apprentice is an unsettling tour de force.David Levering Lewis, author of King: A Biography and W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography
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The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961

The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961

by Irwin F. Gellman
The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961

The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961

by Irwin F. Gellman

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Overview

Based on twenty years of research, a book that rewrites the history of the Eisenhower presidency

“Irwin Gellman has emerged from years in the archives to tell the fascinating story of President Dwight Eisenhower and his relationship with his vice president, Richard Nixon. Gellman dispels the fog that has long enveloped this subject and casts new light on a critical Cold War presidency. Masterfully written, The President and the Apprentice is a must-read for anyone who, like me, loves good political history.”—Allen Matusow, author of The Unraveling of America
 
More than half a century after Eisenhower left office, the history of his presidency is so clouded by myth, partisanship, and outright fraud that most people have little understanding of how Ike’s administration worked or what it accomplished. We know—or think we know—that Eisenhower distrusted his vice president, Richard Nixon, and kept him at arm’s length; that he did little to advance civil rights; that he sat by as Joseph McCarthy’s reckless anticommunist campaign threatened to wreck his administration; and that he planned the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. None of this is true.
 
The President and the Apprentice reveals a different Eisenhower, and a different Nixon. Ike trusted and relied on Nixon, sending him on many sensitive overseas missions. Eisenhower, not Truman, completed the desegregation of the military. Eisenhower and Nixon, not Lyndon Johnson, pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through the Senate. Eisenhower was determined to bring down McCarthy and did so. Nixon never, contrary to recent accounts, saw a psychotherapist, but while Ike was recovering from his heart attack in 1955, Nixon was overworked, overanxious, overmedicated, and at the limits of his ability to function.
 
Based on twenty years of research in numerous archives, many previously untouched, this book offers a fresh and surprising account of the Eisenhower presidency.
 
“Irwin Gellman’s superb research and plausible reconstruction of the Eisenhower-Nixon relationship may well revolutionize the meaning of historical revisionism. The President and the Apprentice is an unsettling tour de force.David Levering Lewis, author of King: A Biography and W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780300181050
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication date: 07/28/2015
Pages: 816
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Irwin F. Gellman is an independent scholar. His books include The Contender, an account of Richard Nixon’s time in Congress.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: Changing the Story 1

Part 1 1952-1957

1 The Nominees 15

2 The Fund Crisis 29

3 To Victory 55

4 The General as a Manager 69

5 The Worst Kind of Politician 91

6 The Collision 103

7 Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Civil Rights 125

8 Eisenhower and Civil Rights: The First Term 136

9 The, Nixon, and Dulles 157

10 Nixon in Asia 170

11 The Battles over Asia 193

12 Trouble with Good Neighbors 206

13 The U.S. Response to Neutralism 222

14 Incumbent Politics 232

15 The Ill-Will Tour versus the Big Lie 240

16 The Incapacitated President 259

17 The Hutschnecker Fiction 273

18 Ike's Decision to Run 285

19 Nixon's Agony 302

20 Stassen's Folly 314

21 The Land of Smear and Crab 331

22 The Hungarian Revolution and the Freedom Fighters 348

Part 2 1957-1961

23 Ike and Dick Return 363

24 Prelude to the Struggle 372

25 The Civil Rights Act of 1957 379

26 Little Rock and Its Consequences 402

27 The Implosion 425

28 The Steel Solution 448

29 Nixon in Africa 462

30 Ike's Cold War 483

31 A Near-Death Experience 494

32 Inside and Outside the Kitchen 514

33 Ike's Hopes Collapse 536

34 Ike, Nixon, Kennedy, and Castro 543

Conclusion: Ike and Dick 563

Appendix: Eisenhower's Notes on the "Checkers Speech" 571

List of Abbreviations 577

Notes 579

Bibliography 711

Index 777

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