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Comments

• [1] Gary from Manhattan September 20, 2007 - 09:33AM

  Yes, I like Ike. Few people know this, but the Internet owes its very existence to Ike. Ike approved the funds for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; originally just ARPA), which led to a development of a network of military computers scattered around the U.S. that could maintain communications after a nuclear attack. We now call that network of computers the Internet. It's a good bet that Adlai Stevenson would not have approved such funding.

  
  
• [2] Leon Freilich from Park Slope September 20, 2007 - 12:03PM

  "I AM NOT AN IKE"

  The Internet and the Interstate

  Are Eisenhower's legacy;

  He also left us Richard Nixon,

  The model for Bushocracy,

  
  
• [3] rc September 20, 2007 - 12:09PM

  Its a shame that we do not have the kind of political leadership that Eisenhower offered with us today. He did warn about the military industrial complex, did try to make peace with the Soviets, and built the interstate highway system.

  Unfortunately he will take a hit on civil rights, in terms of not being as aggressive on the issue as some would have wanted. He sent the troops in to open up those schools in the south, but did it in the context of enforcing the law.

  But all in all an under appreciated President and American.

  
  
• [4] chestine from NY September 20, 2007 - 12:25PM

  I think Ike's exit speech, the night before JFK took office, should be as well known in its entirety as JFK's inaugural address. I htink he warned us with military and WWII hero's credibility but we didn't listen. I suspect taht by the time he told us what was happening, things were already irretreivable from that military-industrial complex. There are those who say JFK stood up to the military industrial complex and died for it. But I have come to think also that we have become what the Russians predicted at the time, soft and oblivious due to our consumerism (and so teh story went, the Russians would take over, so you had to say your rosary every day and pray for the conversion of Russia...) -

  
  
• [5] MichaelB from UWS of Manhattan September 20, 2007 - 01:51PM

  I sense similarities between Ike and George Washington, in their roles as military commanders and as Presidents, insomuch as their temperments, integrity, and their relationship to their own ambitions were concerned.

  
  
• [6] Julie Leininger Pycior from Home: Hastings-on-Hudson [http://www.manhattan.edu/academics/arts/hist/faculty/julie.pycior.sht September 20, 2007 - 03:21PM

  Alas I missed the show, as I was teaching, but I wonder how the guest squares his benign view of Ike with the Eisenhower/Dulles

  a) doctrine of "massive retaliation", i.e., tactical nuclear weapons as a viable military option

  b) ratchetting up of covert military CIA operations, from Iran to Guatemala to Congo to South Vietnam to devising the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Most of the "blowback" we've had to deal with ever since stems from these, no? (See Chalmers Johnson or Steven Kinzer.)

  Leonard, thanks for the show -- a great gift.

  
  
• [7] Leland Deane from NY September 22, 2007 - 11:09AM

  Why can't we have an audio archive of this show?

  The Leonard Lopate Show responds:

  Thank you for alerting us to this technical problem. We will add the audio for this segment shortly.