News and Events

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Shifting Currents

Sunday, October 17
5:30 PM (EDT)

Please be sure to join early for a special announcement on the future of ESU's leadership.

From his address to the ESU National Board of Directors meeting
New York June 2, 1964

At one of the very last meetings I had right after the War, with Sir Winston Churchill and myself included, there was a sort of a round table discussion for the future of most of us.  All wanted to rest, but without exception there was expressed the feeling that only in every possible movement that would keep the English speaking peoples allied – only in this way – could the much broader conception of  keeping the UN working, and so on, be accomplished. In time of war, the union between the two peoples was something to stand as a model for all future coalitions, and I wish now we could translate it all into NATO.  But I say this just to assure you of my very deep and abiding hope that not only will the money be coming in for your program, but I would like to see us grow.   I believe that there is great work to be done, and various other organization are trying to do some of the same things.  So long as we are pulling in harness together and in the same direction, we will get certain satisfaction of doing our part, not just as citizens of the United States, but of the world, trying to make of the ESU a base on which this larger campaign can be more effective.

Please join us for a conversation with Andrew J. Polsky professor of political science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY.  Professor Polsky will speak on the Eisenhower Presidency, his post war leadership and how the changing political landscape impacted him in the 1960s when he led the ESU. Topics to be discussed are: Eisenhower the Cold Warrior, partisanship - working across the aisle, a "hidden hand" style, Eisenhower and UK, the nostalgia for Eisenhower and his times.  There will be a Q&A after the presentation.

Professor Polsky is also author of Elusive Victories: The American Presidency at War (Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Rise of the Therapeutic State (Princeton University Press,1991), and editor of The Eisenhower Presidency: Lessons for the Twenty-First Century (Lexington Books, 2015). A scholar of American political development and the presidency, his articles have appeared in such journals as Perspectives on Politics, Studies in American Political Development, American Politics Research, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Polity, and Political Science Quarterly.

From 2005 to 2010, Polsky served as the editor of the political science journal Polity. He has also twice been elected chair of the Hunter College Political Science Department. Professor Polsky received his PhD in Politics from Princeton University.