AFTER PRESIDENT EISENHOWER recovered from his September 1955 heart attack, the doctors had told him that there was no medical reason for him not to run for a second term, and they predicted that he could lead an active life for a period of as long as ten years.1 In November 1965, when he and Mamie were at Augusta for a week, he remarked one night that the ten years were up. The next day, in Mamie’s cabin, he suffered a second heart attack. He was rushed to a nearby Army hospital, and two weeks later was transferred to Walter Reed. Recovery was slow, but for a seventy-five-year-old man who had been struck by two major heart attacks, surprisingly good. Soon the doctors were allowing him to play golf again, although they restricted him to a cart and to a par-three course.
Still, his heart was failing, and he knew it. He was a man who had spent his lifetime facing facts, making his decisions on the basis of reality rather than wishful thinking. The end was approaching, and he began to prepare for it. He dispersed his herd of Angus cattle and otherwise put his affairs in order. He had already decided he wanted to be buried in Abilene, where he had had a small Meditation Chapel built, just across the street from his childhood home and just west of the Eisenhower Library and Museum. It was a small, simple, dignified chapel constructed with native sandstone, quite in keeping with the quiet little town on the Plains. In 1967 he had Icky’s body moved there from Fairmont Cemetery in Denver, and had it placed at the foot of the places reserved for his body and Mamie’s.
That winter, on his way to Palm Desert, Eisenhower stopped off in Abilene to visit the chapel. When he arrived in California, he was still upset and depressed, not at the thought of his own death, but by the tiny plaque on the floor over Icky’s body, the physical reminder of what he and Mamie had lost in 1921 when four-year-old Icky died. He soon recovered his natural good spirits, helped by his friends, some good cards at bridge, and the opportunity to play golf in the lovely desert climate. Rather than grouse at being restricted to a par-three course, he made jokes about it, telling an old Abilene friend that “I suppose in another year I will be having to play the ladies’ tees even on that course.”2 That was the winter he scored his hole in one, about which he bragged incessantly.
On the golf course one day that winter, he scared the wits out of his friends when he suffered a temporary loss of memory and some confusion. Rusty Brown, his secretary, called Goodpaster, who flew out to California with some Army doctors. By the time they arrived, the next morning, Eisenhower had recovered and wanted to stick to his schedule, which included a talk to a high-school history class from Los Angeles, a lunch with Sam Goldwyn, and a dinner with the President of Turkey. The doctors were able to persuade him to cancel the talk to the history class, but he kept his other appointments.3
His thoughts were turning back toward his youth. Visitors noted that he was much more inclined to reminisce about his days as a cadet, or his childhood in Abilene, or his experiences as a junior officer, than he was about SHAEF or the White House. In April 1968, he heard that a proposed governmental reorganization plan included transferring all of the affairs of the American Battle Monuments Commission to the Veterans Administration. He immediately wrote President Johnson: “From my viewpoint, both as a junior officer who once served with the Battle Monuments Commission and as one who has followed its affairs over these many years, I hope that you will decline to approve this particular move.” His reason went beyond nostalgia. The commission was in charge of what surely must be some of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world. No American can visit them, especially the one at Omaha Beach, without feeling a surge of pride, so magnificently are they maintained. Eisenhower explained to Johnson that the cemeteries were closed to future burials, and that they were monuments rather than mere cemeteries. “Nearly all of them are in foreign countries and every one of them is precious to the families and relatives of those who died during those two world conflicts. The American Battle Monuments Commission has always maintained the highest possible standards in the care of these cemeteries.”4 Johnson granted the request.
Eisenhower wrote that letter from the hospital at March Air Force Base, because in April of 1968 he had suffered his third major heart attack. A month later, he had recovered enough strength to be moved to Ward Eight at Walter Reed. Despite his invalid status, he had not lost his flair for giving commands. He ordered the commanding officer at March to give the nurses accompanying him on the flight east a few days’ leave in Washington before returning to their duties.
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At Walter Reed, Eisenhower had the finest care the Army and modern medicine could provide. Mamie moved into a tiny room next to his suite. Dominated by a high hospital bed, it was cramped and uncomfortable, but it was where she wanted to be. (She would not consider living at Gettysburg alone; she once commented, “Whenever Ike went away, the house sagged. When he came home, the house was alive again.”) For a woman who loved to surround herself with knick-knacks and family photographs, it was surprisingly bare. She passed the time by sewing facecloths together and stuffing them with foam to make pillows for her friends.5 There was a constant stream of visitors, who were not allowed more than a few minutes with the general, and who therefore spent hours chatting with Mamie. One of her favorites was another patient in the hospital, Mrs. William (“Kitsy”) Westmoreland, a bright, cheerful woman who was a favorite of everyone who knew her. Kitsy had contracted a stomach ailment in Vietnam, where she had made herself a hero with the troops by working regular eight-hour shifts in the hospitals there. An Army brat herself, Kitsy was full of jokes about life in the service, and she managed to keep Mamie laughing, despite the surroundings.
By July, Eisenhower had recovered enough strength to take an active interest in the presidential campaign. He remained committed to Nixon, a commitment that was solidified by the courtship then going on between his grandson, David, and Nixon’s daughter Julie. He decided to make a preconvention endorsement of Nixon. On July 15, when Nixon stopped in for a short visit, Eisenhower informed him of his decision. Nixon was naturally delighted, but worried about the timing. After he left, Nixon wrote a letter to Eisenhower on the subject. Eisenhower had told him he would make the endorsement public on the day the convention opened. Nixon said that by that time a number of favorite sons planned to release their delegates so that they could cast their ballots for Nixon. Thus, Nixon told Eisenhower, “we face the distinct possibility that in the public mind the decision would have been made before your endorsement was announced . . . I hesitate to bring these additional facts up for consideration because I shall indeed be most grateful for your announcement of support whenever it comes. In view of our discussion, however, I felt that you should know of these possibilities since they bear on the critical question of the timing of your announcement and the relationship of that timing to the effect your announcement will have on the voters in November.” In other words, he wanted Eisenhower to make the endorsement immediately.6
Two days later, Eisenhower released his statement. He said he supported Nixon for the nomination “because of my admiration of his personal qualities: his intellect, acuity, decisiveness, warmth, and above all, his integrity.” He sent Nixon a copy of the press release, with a handwritten note across the top: “Dear Dick—This was something I truly enjoyed doing—DE.”7
The convention opened in Miami on August 5. That evening, Eisenhower put on a business suit, and television cameras were brought into Walter Reed. He gave a speech to the delegates, who stopped their usual frenetic activity for a few minutes and listened in respectful silence as he gave them some words of encouragement. The next morning, Eisenhower suffered yet another heart attack.
This attack took a new form. It did not cause additional muscle damage, but it did upset the rhythm of the heart, causing it to periodically go out of control and fibrillate. Instead of beating, it merely vibrated, pumping no blood. Whenever a fibrillation began, the doctors were able to restore rhythmic beating through electrical impulses. Everyone feared that this was the end. John and Barbara moved into the guesthouse at Walter Reed while their children stayed with friends around Washington. John bgean the detailed planning for the funeral. But, after a week, the fibrillations stopped, and soon Eisenhower was out of danger. He was even able to receive visitors again.
On Eisenhower’s seventy-eighth birthday, General Westmoreland, recently promoted to Chief of Staff of the Army, called, accompanied by Kitsy. Eisenhower congratulated Westy on his appointment and urged him to take good care of the Army. That afternoon, the Army Band gathered outside Eisenhower’s room to play a serenade for him. Eisenhower was wheeled to his bedroom window, where he acknowledged the tribute with a smile and a wave of a small five-star flag. His extreme weakness was obvious, and brought tears to everyone’s eyes.
He was, however, calm and cheerful. He told John that his mind was eased because a law had been passed that provided widows of former Presidents lifetime Secret Service coverage. “This last August,” he said, “when it looked like I might cash in my chips, my only worry was about Mamie. This puts my mind at rest on that count at least.”
On October 24, he dictated a letter to Nixon. He said he hoped for, and expected, a big victory, big enough to give Nixon “a strong, clear mandate” and a Republican Congress. Such an outcome would, Eisenhower said, put Nixon in a position to unite the country, deal with dissension and lawlessness, cope with Vietnam, and “change the ingrained power structure of the federal government (the heritage of years of Democratic rule), placing more responsibility at state and local levels.” He congratulated Nixon on his treatment of Vietnam during the campaign: “You have stood steady and talked straight, despite what must have been heavy pressures and temptations to reach for popular support through irresponsibility.”8
Nixon’s victory in November was not by the margin Eisenhower had hoped for, but he was delighted that at least Nixon had won. In December, as Nixon began naming his Cabinet, he asked Eisenhower if he would receive each appointee. Eisenhower agreed, indeed told Nixon “I am quite anxious to meet the ones I do not know.” He also sent Nixon some advice on replacing Earl Warren, who had resigned, asking Nixon to destroy the memo after he read it (Nixon did not; it is now in the Eisenhower Library). Eisenhower suggested Herb Brownell, or elevating Potter Stewart up to Chief Justice and appointing William Rogers to the vacancy on the Court.9
Eisenhower summoned the strength to write by hand on November 29, 1968, the day of the Army-Navy game, a telegram to be sent to the Army football coach. “For 364 days out of the year it is Army, Navy, Air Force, forever,” he scribbled. “Today it is Army, Army, Army. My heart, though somewhat damaged, will be riding with you and the team. Good Luck!!”10
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As the end approached, his thoughts were increasingly with his family. For Thanksgiving, 1968, Mamie arranged for each member of the family to share the turkey feast with him. “With the precision of an Army drill instructor,” Julie Nixon recalled, “Mamie arranged for members of each family [the Nixons as well as the Eisenhowers] to share a course of the meal with Ike in his bedroom.” Susie Eisenhower and Tricia Nixon had juice with him, David and Julie (both of whom had campaigned for Nixon) shared the fruit cup, and so on, until Barbara Eisenhower and Pat Nixon joined him for the pumpkin pie. Julie was depressed by his appearance: “He was so thin and wasted under the Army-issue sheet. The blueness of his eyes was startling in his dead-white face.”11
In December, Eisenhower watched on closed-circuit television the wedding of David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon. David’s haircut by the standards of his contemporaries in the late sixties was extremely short and made him something of an object of ridicule, but his grandfather thought it much too long. Eisenhower offered his grandson $100 if he would get it cut before the wedding. David had it trimmed, but not short enough to satisfy his grandfather, who did not pay up.12
Christmas and New Year’s passed without any celebration by the Eisenhowers, because Mamie had come down with a severe respiratory ailment, which confined her to bed for more than a month. By February, Eisenhower was taking a terrific beating. The doctors informed him that he would have to undergo a major abdominal operation. Complications had arisen from his ileitis operation of twelve years earlier; scar tissue had wrapped itself around his intestine, causing a blockage. The doctors were worried that his heart could not survive the ordeal, but it did. John visited him shortly after the operation. “It’s an eerie feeling,” Eisenhower told his son, “to have them hit you with one thing and then another.” “Well,” John replied, “now that you’ve had that intestinal blockage taken out, you ought to start feeling better. Maybe now you can gain some weight.”
“God, I hope so,” Eisenhower sighed.
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On Monday, March 24, 1969, Eisenhower suffered a severe setback. His heart was failing. The doctors began giving him oxygen through tubes stuffed into his nose. He was aware that he was dying, and he wanted the end to come soon. He asked Billy Graham to come by; together they talked about spiritual matters. He still had the old impulse to give something to those who served him. John had just published a book on the Battle of the Bulge entitled The Bitter Woods, which had made the best-seller list. Eisenhower ordered a dozen copies and had John autograph them, so that he could give them to the doctors and nurses who had taken care of him. He gave John last-minute instructions: “Be good to Mamie.”
The evening of March 27, the electrocardiogram machine above his bed, which monitored his heartbeat, showed a slight improvement. When John came in to say good night, he told his father that the pattern of the cardiogram was a bit better. Eisenhower winced—he wanted his final release. John, in his turn, winced at the sight of his father; he wrote later that it “made me resolve to avoid ever being placed in a hospital where my life would be artificially prolonged.”
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All his life, Eisenhower had been a man of the most extraordinary energy. He had carried a burden of high command and decision making that was heavier, and lasted longer, than any other leader of the free world. Not even Roosevelt, not even Churchill, not even de Gaulle, had met the demands that Eisenhower had. For twenty years, on a daily basis, he had had to render judgments, make decisions, give orders at the highest level. The process had often left him exhausted. He had always bounced back after that miracle that is a soldier’s night’s sleep.
But he was tired now, more tired than he had ever been. No amount of sleep would help him bounce back. The ultimate weariness had descended.
He was a man born to command. On his deathbed, he was still in charge. On Friday morning, March 28, 1969, John, David, Mamie, the doctors, and a nurse gathered in his bedroom. Eisenhower looked at them. He barked out a command: “Lower the shades!” The light was hurting his eyes. The Venetian blinds were pulled; the room became nearly dark.
“Pull me up,” Eisenhower told John and one of the doctors. They propped up the pillows behind him and, one on each arm, raised him until they thought he was high enough. Eisenhower looked from side to side. “Two big men,” he growled. “Higher.” They pulled him higher.
Mamie grasped his hand. David and John stood stiffly at each corner of his bed. The electrocardiogram was fluttering.
Eisenhower looked at John. He said softly, “I want to go; God take me.” He was ready to go home, back to Abilene, back to the heart of America, from whence he came. His great heart stopped beating.