He met the world as a man. He spoke his mind. He took action. He trounced what can legitimately be described as an evil army, won the presidency on the strength of his likeability, survived a heart attack, managed the cold war, inducted two new states, built the interstate highways and opened the Space Age. He was beholden to none, a lifelong Army man who exited the stage 42 years ago with a warning: "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."
But as the anniversary of his most manly speech passed this month, Dwight D. Eisenhower was treated like a boy, relegated to another man's house. After fourteen years of squabbling, the commission charged with building a memorial in his honor announced nothing more than an exhibit about the proposed memorial, on display in a transit passage of the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center.
It was a weak move, but not the first. One design for the memorial, put forward by the architect Frank Gehry, would have depicted Ike as a barefoot child at home in Abilene, Kansas, looking out in awe at bas-reliefs representing his adult life.
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