Editing Stephen E. Ambrose (section)

====The Eisenhower controversy====
In the introduction to Ambrose's biography of Eisenhower, he claims that the former president approached him after having read his previous biography of the American general [[Henry Halleck]],
but Tim Rives, Deputy Director of the [[Eisenhower Presidential Center]], says it was Ambrose who contacted Eisenhower and suggested the project,<ref name="ny">{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/04/26/100426ta_talk_rayner |author=Rayner, Richard |title=Channelling Ike|magazine= The New Yorker |access-date=May 11, 2010|date=April 26, 2010 }}</ref><ref name=abc>{{Cite news|url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/historian-stephen-ambrose-lie-interviews-president-dwight-eisenhower/story?id=10489472 |title=Did Historian Stephen Ambrose Lie About Interviews with President Dwight D. Eisenhower?|publisher= ABC News|author=Goldman, Russell|date= April 27, 2010 |access-date=May 11, 2010 }}</ref> as shown by a letter from Ambrose found in the [[Eisenhower Presidential Center|Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum]].<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Rayner |first=Richard |url=https://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/04/26/100426ta_talk_rayner |title=Uncovering Stephen Ambrose's fake Eisenhower interviews |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=July 30, 2012}}</ref> In his response, Eisenhower stated that "the confidence I have derived from your work by reading your two books—especially the one on Halleck—give reasons why I should be ready to help out so far as I can."<ref name=hnn126705/><ref>{{cite web |title=Eisenhower and My Father, Stephen Ambrose |url=http://www.hnn.us/article/126907 |website=History News Network |access-date=March 24, 2014 |archive-date=March 24, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140324155208/http://www.hnn.us/article/126907 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Halleck biography "still sits on a shelf" at the [[Eisenhower National Historic Site]] in Gettysburg.<ref name=hnn126705/>

After Eisenhower's death in 1969, Ambrose made repeated claims to have had a unique and extraordinarily close relationship with him over the final five years of the former President's life. In an extensive 1998 interview, before a group of high school students, Ambrose stated that he spent "a lot of time with Ike, really a lot, hundreds and hundreds of hours." Ambrose claimed he interviewed Eisenhower on a wide range of subjects, and that he had been with him "on a daily basis for a couple years" before his death "doing interviews and talking about his life."<ref name="ISA">[http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/amb0int-1 Interview with Stephen Ambrose] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101212023732/http://achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/amb0int-1 |date=December 12, 2010 }} May 22, 1998, Academy of Achievement, Washington, D.C.</ref> The former president's diary and telephone records show that the pair met only three times, for a total of less than five hours.<ref name=hnn126705/><ref name="ny"/> Rives has stated that interview dates Ambrose cites in his 1970 book, ''The Supreme Commander'', cannot be reconciled with Eisenhower's personal schedule, but Rives discovered, upon further investigation, a "hidden" relationship between the two men. Eisenhower enlisted Ambrose in his efforts to preserve his legacy and counteract criticisms of his presidency, particularly those charging that Eisenhower's actions at the end of World War II produced the Cold War. Ambrose wrote a review and book supporting the former general, with Eisenhower providing direction and comments during the process. Rives could not square the questionable interview dates cited by Ambrose in later works, but uncovered a relationship with Eisenhower that was "too complicated" to be described by Ambrose's critics.<ref name=hnn126705/>

In his 2015 book ''The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961'', Irwin F. Gellman wrote that "while some Eisenhower scholars questioned Ambrose's research after [his] book's publication, the enormity of his falsifications was not revealed until after his death. Ambrose lied about his relationship with Eisenhower" and that "Ambrose also manufactured events that never took place".<ref name="gellman">{{cite book |last=Gellman |first=Irwin F. |date=2015 |title=The President and the Apprentice Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CqcXCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |pages=4–5 |isbn=978-0-300-18105-0}}</ref> Historian [[David Greenberg (historian)|David Greenberg]] stated in 2015 that Ambrose's "wanton acts of plagiarism and the posthumous revelation that he fabricated interviews with Dwight Eisenhower have rendered his work unusable".<ref name="greenberg">{{cite news |last=Greenberg |first=David |author-link=David Greenberg (historian) |date=June 24, 2015 |title='Being Nixon' and 'One Man Against the World' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/books/review/being-nixon-and-one-man-against-the-world.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=September 2, 2024}}</ref>