David Kennedy Eisenhower Analysis

David Kennedy asserts that President Dwight Eisenhower dropped the ball and had an opportunity to lead America out of racism and did not seize it. He states that Eisenhower was a great leader and could have been a warrior against racism.
Kennedy believes that leadership has a premises; Leaders must have followers. His first assertion is that few people would have been capable of leading America out of its racist past, few aside from Eisenhower. He cites Eisenhower’s time in the army, one event when he was assigned to develop a plan for the Pacific and how he used an emotional argument, not a logistical, military one to advocate for American involvement in a Pacific war. He then cites his position as a general and in charge of all of the Allied forces. This job where he was in charge of different forces (army, navy, air force), from different nations who were not used to working together. His leadership strategy at the time was, in order for him to command respect and cooperation was on him to be selfless, generous in attitude, patient, tolerant, absolutely honest and develop confidence and respect. He also had developed mannerisms in public to reflect cheerfulness and certainty of victory. Finally he had an ability to get people working together. Kennedy refers to Montgomery “Eisenhower's real strength was in his human qualities, he was like a magnet, drawing human hearts to him.” To Kennedy his time in the war was proof that Eisenhower had the ability to sway opinions biased off emotions, was well respected and had followers, and had an ability to get people working …show more content…
He gave clear cut examples of Eisenhower’s leadership and Kennedy laid out that he had the ability to potentially end racism. As Kennedy states Eisenhower knew how to make an emotion argument an ability to bring people to work together, ability to have people follow him and a natural charisma. I cannot think of a valid counter argument to Kennedy’s