GENERAL DWIGHT EISENHOWER AND THE SOVIET ALLIANCE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Abstract

When Dwight David Eisenhower ran for President in 1952, he, along with his Democratic competitor Adlai Stevenson, was the first presidential candidate to make campaign commercials for television. One of the most notable ones depicted Eisenhower standing next to Soviet Marshal Georgi Zhukov in Berlin in 1945, when the narrator assured viewers: “Ike knows how to handle the Russians,” and that he would effectively lead the American government in the Cold War. Interestingly, nearly all of Eisenhower’s initial experiences with Russian military and government leaders came during a time when the United States and Soviet Russia were allies, during the Second World War. This essay will examine Ike’s complicated views towards the Soviet Union before, during, and after the Second World War, and how they translated into American military and occupation policy. Ike moved from the traditional suspicion of the Soviet government by most American army officers to seeing the Soviet army an essential ally in the attempt to destroy Nazism. After the end of the war, Ike frequently expressed hope the Soviets would be a valuable partner in securing global peace, before finally moving towards Cold War hostility towards the regime in Moscow, although later than many other American military, diplomatic, and political leaders.

Key words: Eizenhauer, Soviet Union, World War II, Cold War, “Berlin question”, Nazis.