Dwight D. Eisenhower's Major Accomplishments

Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. He was the third child of seven sons. In Denison, his family lived by railroad tracks where David, his father, cleaned train engines for a living. When Dwight was about a year and a half, his family moved back to Abilene, Texas, so David could get a better job at his brother-in-law's creamery.

Dwight constructed many childhood memories in Abilene like playing baseball and football at Abilene High School. After Eisenhower graduated from high school, he took part in joining the Belle Springs Creamery his father and uncle while also being a fireman. Dwight was enrolled at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York in 1911. In 1915, Eisenhower graduated from

His Republican policies helped him secure many victories in Congress, even though Democrats held the majority in both the House and the Senate. Eisenhower helped strengthen established programs, such as Social Security, and launch important new ones, such as the Interstate Highway System in 1956, which became one of the largest public works program in U.S. history. Yet there were problems and failures as well as achievements. Although he secured from Congress the first civil rights legislation since the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War, he refrained from speaking out to advance the cause of racial justice. He never endorsed the Supreme Court's ruling in 1954 that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional. In 1957, he did send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, when mobs tried to block the desegregation of Central High School, but he did so because he had a constitutional obligation to uphold the

Eisenhower avoided war in Indochina in 1954 when he decided not to authorize an air strike to rescue French troops at the crucial battle of Dienbienphu. After the French granted independence to the nations of Indochina, which were Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, Eisenhower used U.S. power to help create a non-Communist government in South Vietnam, an action that had disastrous long-term consequences. During his last years in office, Eisenhower also "waged peace," hoping to improve U.S. Soviet relations and negotiate a treaty banning nuclear testing in the air and seas. The Soviet downing of a U.S. reconnaissance plane ended any hope for a treaty before Eisenhower left