A First Verdict

The final judgment on any President lies with history--and historians. Few scholars would care today to deliver a definitive verdict on Dwight Eisenhower, but many have formed tentative opinions. Asked by TIME to assess Ike as President, general and citizen, some leading historians had some well-defined--and remarkably consonant--views:

-James MacGregor Burns, Williams College, author of Presidential Government: "The Eisenhower Administration was a fine consolidating Administration, with all the benefits that come from consolidation and with all its problems. But the serious questions are whether then, or at any time, we can afford consolidation. The greatest thing about Eisenhower was that he did not turn back the clock."

-Clinton Rossiter, Cornell University, author of The American Presidency: "I think Eisenhower will not be remembered as a great President. He will be remembered as a great person. I don't think Eisenhower intended to be a great President, because he didn't believe in the exercise of presidential power. The country needed him in a deep-down peace-serenity-virtue kind of way, but it was a four-year, not an eight-year need. Still, for the first time since Jack Kennedy, I shed tears."

-Sidney Hyman, University of Chicago, author of The Politics of Consensus: "Marshal Joffre once said that it takes 16,000 men to train one major general. And it often takes many more casualties to train a President. But when you look at Ike's presidency from the perspective of time, lots of things the days hide are revealed by the years. You see that there were surprisingly few casualties required to train Eisenhower. There's nothing dramatic about the kind of work that Eisenhower did, so he suffers by comparison with the trombones-and-drums kind of President. But in terms of what service he performed, I would give him a B-plus."

-James Banner, Princeton University: "His Administration was a period of drift rather than mastery. There was a social revolution occurring, and Eisenhower was not aware of it. He left it to Kennedy and Johnson, who came almost too late. At the same time, it was Eisenhower and only Eisenhower who struck out at the military-industrial complex. That was the high point of his presidency."

-Frank Freidel, Harvard University, author of a multi-volume biography of F.D.R.: "He elected to retain Government responsibility for the welfare of the people. This was his most significant accomplishment. It is what made it possible for Kennedy and Johnson to move forward. If one of the right-wing group had been elected, Kennedy and Johnson would have had to spend a lot of time recouping. With the Eisenhower years as a plateau and a period of consolidation, it was possible to move forward in the Kennedy-Johnson years."

-Arthur Link, Princeton University, editor of the papers of Woodrow Wilson: "Hemmed in, hobbled by a lifetime of experience in the Army, Mr. Eisenhower never really came to grips with the basic problems of presidential leadership. Still, historians will be generous to him. He did, at the end of a period of extreme political turmoil and bitterness, bring to the presidential office something of an irenic quality that enabled him to effect a healing of wounds and a reconciliation of the leadership of both parties."

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