Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Ike and Mamie: The Story of the General and His Lady

By Lester David and Irene David.

When picking out presidential biographies to read, I lean towards (a) something reasonably comprehensive as to what they did in their lives/in office, and (b) any book I can find that shows some presidential personality. The last book I read on Eisenhower didn't have too much of it, but this book has it in spades. It's a dual biography of husband and wife, though it leans more towards a biography of Mamie as affected by Ike than a book that goes too much into say, Ike's presidential work. I found it lively to read and got through it very quickly, which is impressive. 

The book's argument is that Mamie was more independent and stronger than she let on in public, even though she wasn't one of the more prominent first ladies. 

Fun facts:

• Mamie's parents decided to show up the morning after their wedding at the hotel to "surprise" them with a packed family car to ride home in. Ike's reaction to this is not documented.
• Mamie lived in 37 different places, ranging from "a bat-infested shanty" to palaces to the White House.
• Mamie was raised as a rich girl, not a chef. Ike did the cooking. All she learned at cooking school was to mix mayonnaise.
• Mamie's dad had given them a car, which she did not know how to drive that particular model of (and it wasn't very reliable anyway). Nevertheless, she hauled ass to go see Ike one day at a camp, driving into ditches at least six times and somehow bouncing out, weaving into opposite lanes and ditches...luckily for her she was driving at the crack of dawn and not too many people were driving. Ike insisted on teaching her how to drive before she headed home, but eventually she stopped driving entirely.
• I felt very bad for them losing their first son, "Icky," (what a nickname), to scarlet fever. They had a second son, John, who for obvious reasons Mom was very protective of. At one point John was a pilot and Mamie enlisted pilot Jacqueline Cochran to investigate his flying situation. Jacqueline agreed once she found out he didn't have that much flying experience and talked him out of a long trip.
• Supposedly their marriage was in trouble (not exactly shocking) after their first son died. One lady suggested that Mamie, and I quote, "vamp him." I guess it worked!
• John apparently created a "Hindenburg Line" at school, where he and his buddies threw chalk at people and included the teacher. "He draws the curtain on what happened at home when his father found out, and so will we." 
• To quote an employee of theirs: "There I was, twenty-six years old, in the Army, a big boy. And she was afraid I'd hear naughty language."
• Amusingly, everyone but Ike found out before he did that he was getting his fourth star. One guy heard it on the BBC first! He cussed a lot on that topic.
• Mamie had a very good time meeting people as First Lady, shaking 600-700 hands a day. 
• Mamie got VERY upset when the dog peed on a fancy carpet, pouting about how they couldn't get the stain out for weeks. Ike's response: "Mamie, I've got a few other things more important than that to worry about." Legit. 
• The grandkids got to meet Khruschev and hit it off with him. When asked to talk about this in school, grandson David, a sixth grader, said something like "If I didn't know any better I'd be a Communist because Khruschev was such a nice guy." "It made the family kind of unhappy with me." 
• When Mamie was staying in the hospital with Ike, she specifically requested having a pink toilet seat. Of course the hospital didn't have that and they wondered if it'd be risky if they painted one but it wasn't dry on time. Reasonably presuming that Mamie had gotten one in Washington before, they called the White House and got one. FAVORITE FACT OF THIS BOOK.
• Second favorite fact: the words "He had a good bowel movement" being shared with the press all around the world. 
• Mamie got a reputation for being an alcoholic (especially during the war/Kay rumor years), but it turns out she had vertigo/Meniere's. 

A lot of the book--seriously, it's just chapters and chapters on this topic--is dedicated to whether or not Ike and his wartime chauffeur Kay Summersby had an affair or not. The authors literally interview everyone still alive and prove over and over and over again that THEY DID NOT, even if Kay published a book at the end of her life (while she was dying of cancer and presumably needed the money) indicating otherwise, mostly citing that she never said anything of the sort under normal circumstances, there would have been plenty of eyewitnesses had they been, etc. Supposedly the rumor was started by Truman, who hated Eisenhower anyway.

This book doesn't really go into Ike's work, but I note that his entire second term is talked about in only TWO PAGES and then goes one-two-skip-a-few to the end. 

But overall, I was amused and entertained, so four stars there. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower

By Tom Wicker.

Another American Presidents book series. Honestly, I found this pretty dull (I'm somewhat reminded of the boring McKinley book, but this is at least better than that), but it could just be me, my mood, or not much interest in the subject matter. Who really remembers Eisenhower anyway? He's sandwiched in between two far more interesting people.

Anyway, notable bits from this book:

• "Eisenhower was not hostile to blacks or oblivious to their problems..." but that said, apparently he wasn't into integration either. Ugh. 
• Quote from Nixon: "I was just Ike's prat boy. Ike always had to have a prat boy, someone who'd do the dirty work for him...." Uck.
• Eisenhower got razzed for Sputnik/letting the Russians beat us. Attempts to catch up didn't go so well.
• When asked to give a major idea of Nixon's, Eisenhower bitched that, "If you gave me a week, I might think of one, I don't remember." 
• Apparently a standout thing about Eisenhower was his farewell speech warning people of the military industrial complex. 
• His personal tastes and hobbies were...basically 1950's boring, to sum it up. Or as his son put it, "strictly cornball."
• He enjoyed badmouthing people too.

So so far, none of this was great, right? BUT. In the last chapter, the author finally recounts the time that he met and hung out with Eisenhower for a week while writing about his travels, and really enjoyed it and thought he was great. They flew around on his plane. "I had never supported him politically, but I was totally taken with him as a person." The author says he was a presence, never made him feel uncomfortable to be around a Great Man, had a magnetic quality to him. "I never spent another personal moment with him, but forty years later, to me, Ike is still a commanding presence." Too bad the rest of this book isn't as personable as the end of it. "In putting together this book, I have tried not to let that well-remembered presence influence my judgment or conclusions," the author states. I can see that, but maybe more personality would have helped this book?

In the end, the author dubs him "a great man--but not quite a great president." He didn't have super major incidents going on, he prevented war but didn't really make any peace, the world was about the same when he left office. "It seems unnecessary to try to make him out a great president," the author concludes.

I guess?

Two and a half stars.

The Accidental President: Harry S Truman and the Four Months that Changed the World

By A.J. Baime.

Obviously reading the last two Truman books, I found the first four months of his presidency a lot more interesting than the rest of it. Hence why I threw in a third book focusing on that. It was indeed comprehensive and bringing the situation at the time to life, which I really appreciated. This book "poses a new thesis" about how he had the most challenging four month period in any American presidency. Truman was an ordinary guy--no college, never owned his own hoe, never governed a city or state, and became president by accident, in his opinion. I'm not going to list the stuff like the author did, but it's a packed paragraph full of death, falls, victories, etc. "Never had fate shoehorned so much history into such a short period." 

Nobody really knew how the hell Truman ended up with the job, nobody seemed to know much about him and Roosevelt didn't tell him diddly and the secretaries wouldn't return his phone calls. He was pretty much picked for being the least hurtful of the ticket. Someone randomly said, "Anything can happen in this country!" 

I do think it's adorable how Truman fell in love circa age six and never loved anyone else. She was beautiful and popular, he had glasses and was a "sissy." "Harry sat next to Bess Wallace at church school. Somehow he knew already that he would devote his whole life to this one person. It took him five years to get up the courage to say hello." Circa age 26, he finally got somewhere by bringing a cake plate back to the house after her family had gone through hard times and her dad killed himself. I can't help but find that all cute.

I'm amused that the political factions in Truman's area when he first got into politics were called the Goats and the Rabbits. Also there's a quote: "Do you mean seriously to tell me that you actually believe that Truman can be nominated and elected to the United States Senate?" Then later someone says to him, "For the first six months you'll wonder how you got here, and after that you'll wonder how the rest of us got here." 

Also funny: someone calls the house at 3:30 a.m., Bess answers, and hears, "I'd like to congratulate the wife of the senator from Missouri." "I don't think that's funny," Bess yells, slams down the phone....then realizes that was one of the campaign workers. 

I think I got exhausted on bookmarking notes to take the more intense it got here.... you definitely feel bad for Truman having to make literally the worst and hardest decision in the world ever, on very little experience or ANYTHING. "I am going to have to make a decision which no man in history has ever had to make. I'll make the decision but it is terrifying to think about what I will have to decide." There's lots of details on the bomb, dealing with Churchill and Stalin, people's relief at the war ending soon... anyway, I think I've pooped out on writing this review, but these things happen sometimes. I give it four stars if you're into the topic.