Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, and he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. He had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43, and he led the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45, from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.  

Eisenhower was of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, and he was reared in a large family in Kansas by parents with a robust work ethic and religious background. As one of six sons, he was conditioned by a competitive atmosphere which instilled self-reliance. He attended and graduated from West Point, and he later married and had two sons. After World War II, Eisenhower served as Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman, then assumed the post of President at Columbia University.  

Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race as a Republican, to counter the non-interventionism of Senator Robert A. Taft, and to crusade against “Communism, Korea, and corruption.” He won by a landslide, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson, and ending two decades of the New Deal Coalition. In the first year of his presidency, Eisenhower deposed the leader of Iran in the 1953 Iranian coup d’état, and he used nuclear threats to conclude the Korean War with China. His New Look policy of nuclear deterrence gave priority to inexpensive nuclear weapons, while reducing the funding for conventional military forces. The goal was to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and to reduce federal deficits.  

In 1954, Eisenhower first articulated the “domino theory” in his description of the threat presented by the spread of Communism. The Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, which enabled him to prevent Chinese Communist aggression against Chinese nationalists, and established the U.S. policy of defending Taiwan. When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, he had to play catch-up in the space race. Eisenhower forced Israel, the UK, and France to end their invasion of Egypt during the Suez Crisis of 1956. In 1958, he sent 15,000 US troops to Lebanon to prevent the pro-Western government from falling to a Nasser-inspired revolution. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a summit meeting with the Soviets collapsed because of the U-2 incident.  
   
On the domestic front, he covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking the modern expanded version of executive privilege. He otherwise left most political activity to his Vice-President, Richard Nixon. He was a moderate conservative who continued New Deal agencies and expanded Social Security.  

Among his enduring innovations, he launched the Interstate Highway System, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which eventually led to the Internet, along with many other invaluable outputs, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), driving peaceful discovery in space, the establishment of strong science education via the National Defense Education Act, and encouraging peaceful use of nuclear power via amendments to the Atomic Energy Act.  

In social policy, he sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, for the first time since Reconstruction, to enforce federal court orders to desegregate public schools. He also signed civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 to protect peoples’ right to vote. He implemented desegregation of the armed forces in two years, and he made five appointments to the Supreme Court. He was the first term-limited president, in accordance with the 22nd Amendment. Eisenhower’s two terms were peaceful ones, for the most part, and the United States enjoyed considerable economic prosperity, except for a sharp recession in 1958–59. Eisenhower is often ranked highly among the U.S. Presidents.