Sublime

“I HAVE NO DOUBT that Lincoln will be the conspicuous figure of the war,” predicted Ulysses S. Grant. “He was incontestably the greatest man I ever knew.”

Eisenhower was uniquely qualified to lead the reappraisal. With the possible exception of Ulysses Grant, who confronted different but equally difficult military issues, no president has been better equipped by outlook and experience to deal with matters of national security.

discreetly to Colonel N. P. Chipman in the War Department, warning him to “quietly and secretly organize all our boys that can assemble at a given signal . . . ready to protect the Congress of the U.S.”99 For many in Washington, the great mystery was how Grant would act in such a crisis. President Johnson

America’s two great military presidents—Grant and Eisenhower—both abhorred war. In 1869, Grant overruled Sherman and Sheridan and brought peace to the Great Plains; in 1953, Eisenhower dismissed the objections of Dulles and Wilson, to say nothing of those of Senator Taft and the congressional Republicans, and brought peace to Korea.

Both Grant and Eisenhower twice won elections by massive margins because the electorate had confidence in their abilities to defend the nation. In Grant’s case, the danger pertained to Reconstruction and restoring the Union. In Ike’s case, it was a Cold War that might turn hot. Here lay Eisenhower’s supreme personal expertise, and he tackled the

Rusling asked Grant if he was sure he was correct. “No, I am not,” Grant shot back, “but in war anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong we shall soon find it out, and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money and may ruin everything.”