A more indepth book about the Time during Korean war where IKE contemplated and via background moves bluffed (or not) that If NK and USSR/Red China didn't end the korean war He would expand it into Red China with Nuclear bombs on China A interesting look back at how before Cuban Missile crisis we could have Gone Nuclear ( )

Dwight Eisenhower liked playing cards as much as he liked playing golf, but he was better at cards and one reason for that was his skill at bluffing. Evan Thomas explores how this particular skill carried over into his presidency in his 2012 biography “Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World.”

Having spent a career in the U.S. Army, culminating in his appointment as Supreme Commander in World War II and a military success that led to his election to the presidency in 1952, Eisenhower came to believe you shouldn’t fight wars unless you were fully committed to victory. Put another way, all or nothing.

Throughout the 1950s, the Cold War threatened to turn into a hot one. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons pointed at each other. Smaller wars threatened to break out everywhere, such as over the Suez Canal, and any small war could ignite a larger one.

What Ike knew, thanks to the U-2 flights and other espionage, was that the Soviets were bluffers, too. They didn’t have nearly the nuclear weaponry or the delivery capacity they pretended to have. But they could still be formidable in a conventional war. Ike’s bluff, in a nutshell, was all or nothing. There would be no small wars. If the Soviets wanted a fight, they would have to face American nukes. Would Eisenhower really have done it? Nobody really knows, but most important, Nikita Khrushchev didn’t know, and as a result, Thomas argues, the 1950s, for all their tension, were a relatively peaceful time. “The United States was blessed to be led by a man who understood the nature of war better than anyone else, and who had the patience and wisdom, as well as the cunning and guile, to keep the peace” he writes.

Presidents after Eisenhower, beginning with John F. Kennedy, have committed American troops to smaller wars, such as in Vietnam and Afghanistan, without being fully committed to victory. The consequences have not been pretty.

Thomas suggests that Ike bluffed not just the Soviets but the American people, as well. He pretended in public to be a low-key, slightly confused old man who would rather play golf than focus on the nation’s business. In truth the golf was a means of relieving the tension from his intense attention to affairs of state. Even today some historians still fall for the bluff and underestimate Eisenhower’s presidency, says Thomas. ( )

Overall, this book is more a reminder than a cutting edge history. The author makes a good effort to show Granddad Ike was not all a big smile and "aw shucks." Nevertheless, the author goes to great length to describe Ike's bluff. He avoids suggesting Ike was with out principle or that his entire administration was a big lie. Ike always had enough weaponry to defend the USA and to project power. The bluff, if indeed it was a bluff, was that he wouldn't fight but he wanted others to know it would not be to their advantage to test us too far. The main thought one should glean is that Ike was prepared to let his reputation speak for him.
What does come through loud and clear is that the fifties, contrary to a certain fondness and wistfulness, was not a benign period. Taking it year by year, as the author does, sets one to questioning how could we ever look back at those years as a peaceful time. Perhaps that is really what Ike's bluff was all about, that the fifties contrary to the assumed peacefulness was really a very hot time. Surely it couldn't be said that Ike was acting for another age? ( )

This book is about Eisenhower's foreign policy/military decisions during his presidency--nothing else. I've viewed Ike's terms in office as sort of holding; this book says different--Ike saved the world from nuclear holocaust and we didn't even know it. I enjoyed this book because the author got inside the president's mind...not just regurgitated history...what Ike actually felt during the various episodes during 1953-1960. I found it curious that Ike mistrusted the military, gained from many years of association. Then, when Kennedy failed at the Bay of Pigs, he tried not to say: "I told you so." Also, this book also provides some background and insight on Ike's 1960 prescient comment about the military industrial complex. ( )

Okay, but spent too much time talking about Ike's golf game and not enough about his diplomacy. Also repetitive in spots, discussing Ike's temperament. The point was clinched early and didn't need repeated anecdotes. ( )