Editing Dwight D. Eisenhower (section)

=== President at Columbia University and NATO Supreme Commander ===
{{Multiple image|total_width = 600
| image1            = Eisenhower Yule Log.jpg
| caption1          = Eisenhower lighting the Columbia University Yule Log, 1949
| image2            = EisenhowerAlmaMater.jpg
| caption2          = Eisenhower posing in front of ''[[Alma Mater (New York sculpture)|Alma Mater]]'' at Columbia in 1953
| image3            = General Eisenhower presents Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru an honorary degree from Columbia University.jpg
| caption3          = As [[President of Columbia University|president of Columbia]], Eisenhower presents an honorary degree to [[Jawaharlal Nehru]].
}}
In 1948, Eisenhower became President of [[Columbia University]], an [[Ivy League]] university in [[New York City]], where he was inducted into [[Phi Beta Kappa]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbk.org/WEB/pbkdocs/Phi%20Beta%20Kappa%20Presidents%20.pdf |title=ΦΒΚ U.S. Presidents |access-date=August 16, 2017 |publisher=Phi Beta Kappa |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161008021125/https://www.pbk.org/WEB/pbkdocs/Phi%20Beta%20Kappa%20Presidents%20.pdf |archive-date=October 8, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref> The choice was subsequently characterized as not having been a good fit for either party.<ref>{{harvnb|Ambrose|1983|loc=ch. 24}}</ref> During that year, Eisenhower's memoir, ''[[Crusade in Europe]]'', was published.<ref>''Crusade in Europe'', Doubleday; 1st edition (1948), 559 pages, {{ISBN|1125300914}}</ref> It was a major financial success.<ref name="owen-171-172"/> Eisenhower sought the advice of Augusta National's Roberts about the tax implications of this,<ref name="owen-171-172">{{harvnb|Owen|1999|pp=171–172}}</ref> and in due course Eisenhower's profit on the book was substantially aided by what author [[David Pietrusza]] calls "a ruling without precedent" by the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Department of the Treasury]]. It held that Eisenhower was not a professional writer, but rather, marketing the lifetime asset of his experiences, and thus he had to pay only capital gains tax on his $635,000 advance instead of the much higher personal tax rate. This ruling saved Eisenhower about $400,000.<ref>Pietrusza, David, ''1948: Harry Truman's Victory and the Year That Transformed America'', Union Square Publishing, 2011, p. 201</ref>

Eisenhower's stint as the president of Columbia was punctuated by his activity within the [[Council on Foreign Relations]], a study group he led concerning the political and military implications of the [[Marshall Plan]] and [[The American Assembly]], Eisenhower's "vision of a great cultural center where business, professional and governmental leaders could meet from time to time to discuss and reach conclusions concerning problems of a social and political nature".<ref name="warshaw-20"/> His biographer [[Blanche Wiesen Cook]] suggested that this period served his "political education", since he had to prioritize wide-ranging educational, administrative, and financial demands for the university.<ref>{{harvnb|Cook|1981|loc=ch. 3}}</ref> Through his involvement in the Council on Foreign Relations, he also gained exposure to economic analysis, which became the bedrock of his understanding in economic policy. "Whatever General Eisenhower knows about economics, he has learned at the study group meetings", one Aid to Europe member claimed.<ref>{{harvnb|Cook|1981|p=79}}</ref>

Eisenhower accepted the presidency of the university to expand his ability to promote "the American form of democracy" through education.<ref name="warshaw-18">{{harvnb|Jacobs|1993|p=18}}</ref> He was clear on this point to the trustees on the search committee. He informed them that his main purpose was "to promote the basic concepts of education in a democracy".<ref name="warshaw-18"/> As a result, he was "almost incessantly" devoted to the idea of the American Assembly, a concept he developed into an institution by the end of 1950.<ref name="warshaw-20">{{harvnb|Jacobs|1993|p=20}}</ref>

Within months of becoming university president, Eisenhower was requested to advise Secretary of Defense [[James Forrestal]] on the unification of the armed services.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|pp=140–141}}</ref> About six months after his appointment, he became the informal [[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]] in Washington.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|pp=145–146}}</ref> Two months later he fell ill with what was diagnosed as acute gastroenteritis, and he spent over a month in recovery at the [[Augusta National Golf Club]].<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|pp=162–164}}</ref> He returned to his post in New York in mid-May, and in July 1949 took a two-month vacation out-of-state.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|pp=168–169, 175}}</ref> Because the American Assembly had begun to take shape, he traveled around the country during summer and fall 1950, building financial support for it, including from [[Columbia Associates]], a recently created alumni and benefactor organization for which he had helped recruit members.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|pp=152, 238–242, 245–249}}</ref>
Eisenhower was unknowingly building resentment and a reputation among the Columbia University faculty and staff as an absentee president who was using the university for his own interests. As a career military man, he naturally had little in common with the academics.<ref>{{harvnb|Ambrose|1983|pp=479–483}}</ref> The contacts gained through university and American Assembly fundraising activities would later become important supporters in Eisenhower's bid for the Republican party nomination and the presidency. Meanwhile, Columbia University's liberal faculty members became disenchanted with the university president's ties to oilmen and businessmen.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

He did have some successes at Columbia. Puzzled as to why no American university had undertaken the "continuous study of the causes, conduct and consequences of war",<ref name="y-s-ix"/> Eisenhower undertook the creation of the [[Institute of War and Peace Studies]], a research facility to "study war as a tragic social phenomenon".<ref name="jacobs-235-236">{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|pp=235–236}}</ref> Eisenhower was able to use his network of wealthy friends and acquaintances to secure initial funding for it.<ref>{{harvnb|Ambrose|1983|pp=484–485}}</ref> Under its founding director, international relations scholar [[William T. R. Fox]], the institute began in 1951 and became a pioneer in [[international security studies]], one that would be emulated by other institutes in the United States and Britain later in the decade.<ref name="y-s-ix">{{harvnb|Young|Schilling|2019|p=ix}}</ref> The Institute of War and Peace Studies thus became one of the projects which Eisenhower considered his "unique contribution" to Columbia.<ref name="jacobs-235-236"/> As the president of Columbia, Eisenhower gave voice to his opinions about the supremacy and difficulties of American democracy. His tenure marked his transformation from military to civilian leadership. His biographer Travis Beal Jacobs also suggested that the alienation of the Columbia faculty contributed to sharp intellectual criticism of him for many years.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|1993|pp=17ff}}</ref>

The trustees of Columbia University declined to accept Eisenhower's offer to resign in December 1950, when he took an extended leave from the university to become the Supreme Commander of the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] (NATO), and he was given operational command of NATO forces in Europe.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|pp=251–254}}</ref> Eisenhower retired from active service as an army general on June 3, 1952,<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|p=279}}</ref> and he resumed his presidency of Columbia. Meanwhile, Eisenhower had become the Republican Party nominee for president of the United States, a contest that he won on November 4. Eisenhower tendered his resignation as university president on November 15, 1952, effective January 19, 1953, the day before his inauguration.<ref>{{harvnb|Jacobs|2001|p=299}}</ref>

At home, Eisenhower was more effective in making the case for NATO in Congress than the Truman administration had been. By the middle of 1951, with American and European support, NATO was a genuine military power. Nevertheless, Eisenhower thought that NATO would become a truly European alliance, with the American and Canadian commitments ending after about ten years.<ref>{{harvnb|Ambrose|1983|pp=502–511}}</ref>