| Amid Chaos at Home and Rising Threats Abroad, Look to Eisenhower as a Model of Leadership By Newt Gingrich At a time when political partisanship is undermining national unity, strong leadership is crucial. This is especially true as the US enters a new era of competition with the Chinese Communist dictatorship — a rivalry that will determine whether our grandchildren live in a world that is free and prosperous or cruel and oppressive. Add serious threats from Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Islamist terrorists, and it becomes clear how important political and military leadership is going to be. Sometimes on my podcast “Newt’s World,” I take a deep dive into the lives of “immortals” of American history, men and women of unmatched courage and accomplishment. On this week’s episode, I discuss President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Few people provide a better model of leadership for our current moment than Eisenhower. He was honest, patriotic, incredibly practical, always willing to work hard, and able to relate to everyday people no matter how powerful he became. These qualities will always make for a good leader, no matter the time or place. Eisenhower’s prescience and his strategic understanding of science and technology in establishing the United States as a pre-eminent global power were essential to securing freedom for generations of Americans to come. The five-star general was influential in bringing World War II to an end and his efforts throughout the war, especially with the planning and execution of D-Day, stopped the Nazi war machine. He also ended the Korean War and maintained active communications with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.In order to do Eisenhower’s life justice, this episode is part one of a three-part series on his life. I begin by focusing primarily on his military career right up until D-Day, which I argue is perhaps the single most complicated thing that humans have ever done. |
