The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961

Overview

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Waging Peace, 1956, 1961 recounts his second presidential term as a campaign to prevent hot war and manage a precarious nuclear peace. Written in a measured first-person voice, the memoir emphasizes prudence, alliance cohesion, and credible deterrence as the core instruments of American statecraft. Beginning with the shocks of 1956, Suez and Hungary, Eisenhower frames the period as an unrelenting test of judgment under pressure, when each crisis risked spiraling into superpower confrontation.

Strategy and Doctrine

Eisenhower defends a strategy that married fiscal restraint to military strength. He argues that solvency was a strategic asset and that unchecked defense spending could erode national power as surely as military weakness. He continues to justify the “New Look” reliance on nuclear deterrence while highlighting efforts to make that posture more stable through arms control proposals and verified agreements. Throughout, he insists that diplomacy backed by force, rather than force used in place of diplomacy, best served American interests and global peace.

Cold War Flashpoints

Suez stands as a defining episode: Eisenhower’s refusal to endorse Anglo-French-Israeli military action and his use of financial and diplomatic leverage to halt the invasion are presented as a proof of independent American leadership devoted to legality through the United Nations. In the same season, the Hungarian uprising and its brutal suppression tested the limits of U.S. influence; he recounts the choice not to intervene militarily in the Soviet sphere, understanding the real risk of general war.

The memoir tracks the 1958 crises in the Middle East and Asia. Under the new Eisenhower Doctrine, U.S. Marines landed in Lebanon to stabilize the government without widening the conflict, an example he offers of limited force used to protect a broader peace. In the Taiwan Strait, shelling of the offshore islands brought the United States and China to the brink; he describes calibrated military signaling that deterred escalation while avoiding a direct clash.

Negotiations, Summits, and Setbacks

Eisenhower details the Berlin confrontations beginning with Khrushchev’s 1958 ultimatum. He recounts the search for a framework that would preserve Western rights without provoking war, culminating in the 1959 Camp David conversations, which cooled tempers and birthed cautious optimism. That momentum collapsed with the 1960 U-2 incident; he explains the necessity of aerial reconnaissance for deterrence and treaty verification, accepts responsibility for authorizing flights, and laments the wrecked Paris Summit. He continues to press the case for verifiable arms control and notes the temporary nuclear test moratorium, holding it up as a tentative step toward restraint.

Science, Space, and the Home Front

The launch of Sputnik is portrayed as both a challenge and a catalyst. Eisenhower describes strengthening science education through the National Defense Education Act and organizing a civilian space program under NASA to focus the nation’s response. He emphasizes intelligence discipline over headline-grabbing rhetoric, disputing claims of a “missile gap” and arguing that sober assessments, not panic, should guide policy.

At home, he recounts enforcing federal court orders during the Little Rock crisis, the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, and the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states. Economic stewardship, through recession and recovery, is presented as integral to national security and the legitimacy of American leadership.

Legacy

The closing chapters reflect on the burdens of command and the risks of militarization. Eisenhower revisits themes carried into his Farewell Address: an enduring need to balance military strength with democratic oversight and economic health. He describes a careful transition to the incoming administration, emphasizing continuity in alliances and deterrence. Waging Peace presents the second Eisenhower term as a disciplined effort to keep crises contained, pursue arms control where possible, and prove that firmness, patience, and coalition diplomacy could preserve freedom without war.