Ike's Bluff

Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World (2012) by Evan Thomas. Anyone interested in recent American history should enjoy this book. Thomas has thoroughly researched his subject, and through this  partial biography we come to feel that we know Eisenhower better. The book focuses on the eight years, from 1953 to 1961, that Ike served as president. Thomas really humanizes the president, telling us about Ike's struggle to control his temper, about the difference between the public and the private man, and about the toll the presidency took on Eisenhower's health. The bluff of the title is a play on Ike's prowess as a poker player (he had to quit playing poker because he kept cleaning out his fellow officers). But as president, Ike bluffed the Soviet Union, convincing them that he was ready and willing to use nuclear weapons, when in fact he did everything he could to keep the U.S. out of war, and might not have used nukes even if we got in a war. The only drawback to this book is that Thomas never really got inside the head of the former president. Crucial to Ike's bluff was that no one should know whether he was really willing to launch a massive attack on our enemies, and he kept it that way, even to his wife and children. I found this a most enjoyable book, even though in the end Ike remains something of an enigma. Grade: A-