Featured 1973 Eisenhower Dollars - Dwight Eisenhower : Father of the American Century

Dwight Eisenhower : Father of the American Century​

Dwight Eisenhower was a child of the 20th Century and the Father of the American Century, which crystallized at the end of World War II. Born in Denison, Texas, on October 14th 1890, and raised in the agricultural hubs of Abilene, Kansas. His father labored in a creamery that was owned by his family, and the Eisenhower boys followed their father into the business as they tried to establish their futures. Eisenhower was swept up in the new trend of healthy living that focused on community sports and was a prominent athlete playing Football, well into his West Point career. His sporting life was slowed by a career altering knee injury in 1915, at the age of 25. His appointment to West Point assured a quality education, free of charge, and his career promotion in the rising US military. Born into a world of horse and buggies, and the Iron Horse rail, he ushered in and promoted the coming space age, and laid out the US Highway system, promoting the development of modern life. We all live in the shadow of the accomplishment of Dwight Eisenhower, and his life. After his death, it would be appropriate that his portrait would adorn the last of the cartwheel circulating US dollars in 1971.

It is hard to know why exactly he chose a military career. Its not like he came from a military family and in the 1900’s, the US Military was not a prime career choice. But in coming decades would put him in the cross hairs of world history. Graduating West Point in 1915 at the age of 25 and entering the US Army as a 2nd lieutenant and being stationed to Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio. There he met a 19 year old women born to a wealthy family in the meat packing business, Maime Doud. After being formally introduced, they married within 9 months on July1, 1916, and remained married until Dwight’s death in 1916.

With the start of World War I, Eisenhower was assigned the tank training center at Gettysburg, Pa. This was the state of the art military technology at the time. In 1916, Tanks had yet been employed or proven in warfare. But by the end of WWI, this would change, and Eisenhower was on the cusp of this evolution in military mobility and transportation. His formative experience in Tank warfare would color his entire career. It was only in 1907 that the US Army brought its first truck. By 1916, Eisenhower was training Tank crews for real war in Europe over WWI. By WWII, the entire theater of war was colored by tanks and airplanes, in addition to the movements of railroads for troop deployment. At the end of WWI, Eisenhower participated the 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convey from Washington DC to San Francisco. His experience here would shape his understanding of national transport and the need for military use of paved roads.

Between the wars, Eisenhower experiences would show a maturity of focus and a political adeptness that server him for the rest of his career. In 1921, oddly enough, he graduates from Infantry Tank School and is assigned to the 301st Tank Battalion. Prior to that he rose in rank to Captain, despite previously having a command position in Gettysburg. He moved on to Panama where to was influenced and trained by General Fox Conner. Conner, himself from a southern family with military history in the Civil War for the Confederacy, had spent considerable time as a commender for artillery battalions in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn before moving on to the Army Staff College and pre-war assignments in France and along the Mexican boarder. When WWI broke out, Conner was assigned the Inspectors General office in Washington, and was eventually, through the war, was assigned by General Pershing to Chief of Staff of operations.

Conner mentored Eisenhower. He was convinced that war in Europe was inevitable and that coalition command would be needed with allied forces. Conner had give deep thought to both international alliances during war, national prerogatives and ambitions, and the proper role of the military is a Democracy. This was a somewhat uniquely American and 20th Century response of the military. The US Military believed it to be doctrine that its very existence was in support of Democracy.
From Conner, Marshall and Eisenhower learned much about leadership and the conduct of war. Conner had three principles of war for a democracy that he imparted to Eisenhower and Marshall. They were:

• Never fight unless you have to.
• Never fight alone.
• And never fight for long.

All things being equal, these principles are pretty straightforward and strategically sound. We have heard variants of them in the decades since, captured perhaps most recently in the Powell Doctrine.
( Reflections on Leadership - ROBERT GATES – Archive.org )

Conner got Eisenhower into advanced officers training school (United States Army Command and General Staff College), and Eisenhower excelled in the finishing school for officers finishing 1st in his class, despite not having the advantages of an infantry background. This put Eisenhower on the road to the upper levels of military and civilian leadership. From this point on he worked for a series of Generals including Pershing, Moseley and MacArthur. He was assigned to the “Buffalo Soldiers” regiment, the 24th Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, which was seen as a slight. Eisenhower’s forward thinking about Tank warfare lead him into opposition and resistance in the officer corps. He even faced court martial for issues having to do with housing money allocations but was saved by Conner. Eisenhower not only disliked the assignment to the segregated regiment, but he rightfully ended them and integrated the armed forces in time. What is interesting is that Eisenhower coaches football for several of these assignments, including at Camp Meade. Md in 1924, and again when he was in Fort Benning assigned to the Buffalo regiment.

In 1928 he graduated the US War College. His association with Moseley and MacArthur brought Eisenhower to the upper echelons of political power of the defense establishment just prior to World War II. In 1929 he worked as a planner for the Office of Assistant Secretary of War to prepare plans for the mobilization of American industry and manpower in case of future war. In 1933 he graduated the War Industrial School. This solidified his expertise on Industry, business and the Military, both understanding the politics and the power of the American Industrial engine when applied to war.

By 1935, Ike was getting his feet wet on the international circuit. He was assigned to be a military advisor the the budding Filipino government as it moved towards independence. Along with MacArthur, from 1935 to 1939. The task strained relations with MacArthur, and crystallized his thinking about working in real politics while trying to maintain and promote his ideals of the role of the American Military as a force for Democracy and a representative of the American people. All of this would prove invaluable both during WWII and in the subsequent cold war. Through the early phases of WWII in Europe, prior to the US entry, he got vital command experience in Fort Lewis Washington, and later in made Chief of Staff of the expanded 3rd Army which won mock war games against the 2nd Army which was a training army. His double victories in these war games brought him notoriety within the Army and was promoted to brigadier general. After Perl Harbor, he was tapped by Washington and moved to Washington DC to plan the war under Marshall. In 1942 he was given the assignment of Assistant Chief of Staff in charge of War Plans. He is transferred to London and given the role of Commander of the European Theater of Operations and plans the military theater in North Africa, and later planned D-Day. By 1944 Eisenhower was Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, and oversaw nearly all of the European theater, and the post-war rebuilding of Europe.

As important as Ike’s contribution to the victory in World War II, the heroism of the war overshadowed the even larger contribution Eisenhower made to win the peace. Eisenhower was the single most important political player in the transformation, post war, of the West into a modern industrial society that promoted technology in a transformational way that promoted global prosperity and eventually laid the foundation for the defeat of the Communist block by relatively peaceful means. Eisenhower took everything he learned in his transformation of the US military from the stirrings of tank warfare into the threshold of the Jet age, and applied it to our broader national economy.

His efforts with regard to transportation and the US Highway system, in particular, outlined his accomplishments and his transformative impact on the world at large.

Eisenhower involved himself with automotive transport early in the commercialization of gasoline alley. He participated win the transcontinental convey of 1910’s called the “Transcontinental Motor Convoy”. The misery of this convinced him that improvement was needed, not just for the civilian economy, but also for military purposes. His experience with the delicacy of railroad networks solidified his thinking on the matter. By 1939, the Worlds Fair in New York City presented a “World of Tomorrow”. One of its largest focuses, on the eve of WWII, was the predictions for a massive road network (which presented a proposal that included inter-operating automobiles to prevent accidents: A current goal of artificial intelligence and self drive cars). Eisenhower's experience and expertise at massive war time movement and organization of the new mobile army, on a global and continental scale, played out in the Eisenhower White House. Upon entering office, Eisenhower focused on a three leg mobility revolution which produced the US Highway system, the Space Program, and the planning and dominance of the Jets age with modern airports.

On June 29th, 1956, Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act which his promoted, and planned, and implemented. It reshaped the very core of American life and made possible to great suburban expansion across the country. It also caused a collapse of the inner-city cores, facilitated the great regional migration of US blacks from the south to the north, altered the shipping routes and economies of every major city and opened up the vast expansion of the US West, especially California.

Prior to the signing of the bill, the implementation and planning was placed in the hands of an old Eisenhower associate from the war, Lt. Gen. Lucius Clay. The Clay commission of 1954 developed the “Grand Plan” which was presented to Congress and which would obligate the federal government to 50 billion dollars of spending over 10 years to build is planned highway system. A huge selling point of the program was the expectation by voters of the likelihood of a nuclear exchange with the USSR and the need for citywide evacuations in such an event. It is hard for us to image today, but in 1954, people where dead serious in their belief that eventually the US would be attached my nuclear warheads from the USSR. Time and experience had taught the American public to be pessimistic about the ability to restrain dictatorships from military aggression, and nothing in their current events proved to them otherwise after suffering from a vicious Korean War, and watching genocide and political repressions through out Eastern Europe. As the massive genocides that accompanied Nazism, Stalinism, and Maoism (not to mention the atrocities of the Imperial Japanese Empire) became clearer, there was little hope by the public of avoiding nuclear war. Highways was a necessity to mobilize regions and cities in the event of such catastrophes. As a result, Eisenhower’s military was embedded directly into the planning and the design of US Highways, including specifying materials and proving over 17 million miles of test driving on test roads in preparation for the highway system.

One October 4th, 1957, the success of Sputnik jolted the American public, although it was expected and calmly discussed by Eisenhower military councils. It was hardly thought of as a threat, but it motivated the public to address the coming space age, and the development of both civilian and military ICBMs. The US response was the development of President's Science Advisory Committee, which planned and forged the US Space Race, which had, until this point, already been under way by the military. It was this infrastructure of innovation and design that was inherited by John F Kennedy for the moon shot. As such, Eisenhower was the true father of the US Space program. And this presents itself with the release of the 1971 Eisenhower Dollar that features an image of the earth as seen from the moon on its reverse. The dollar is a true relic of history. It is a testament to the complex mindset of the American public that emerged from the pessimism of the 1950’s to embrace the space program as a sign of universal suffrage for all of humanity, despite the fact that the success of the Apollo program was largely innovated by scientists who were former Nazi military researchers, and card carrying members of the Nazi party. This point was made quite humorously by Bob Newhart in his skit published on the audio recording, “Behind The Buttoned Down Mind: Rocket Scientist” where he plays the character Doctor Warver Von Warner, who is asked bluntly if participation in the German missile program a matter of conviction or political expediency on his part. The line brings laughter from the crowd, to give you an idea of the nations thinking at this moment.
Eisenhower died on March 28th, 1969. By 1971, the government was ready with its new coin design, the Eisenhower Dollar. In 1973, the need for circulating US cartwheel dollars was saturated. The mint decided to only create clad dollars in mint sets without any circulatory release. Finding quality dollars for this date is relatively difficult. I purchased about 20 mint sets on ebay and broke out the dollars. I posted them all here before, and I put them in acetone baths and sent them to ANACS for grading. The grading came back, and most of them graded MS65, and a few MS 67. One was given conservation treatment by ANACS and graded MS 67. I am presenting this example here for you perusal.

 

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The complete set of Anacs graded Ike Coins can be veiwed here
http://images.mrbrklyn.com/coins/1973_mint_sets/

 

Very nice, I have a love of Ike's myself.. my favorite and probably the hardest one I had to come by...
1971 s (silver) SPL/FPL (straight pegleg/fading pegleg) Mine is early stage FPL. I will also post my 1971s pr69 with normal leg for comparison

 

It is interesting to note that Eisenhower’s reputation as president has been consistently going up since he left office. When he finished his second term in 1961, he was rated in the middle of the pack. In recent times his leadership in guiding the nation through the Cold War, a strong economy, the Interstate Highway System, Civil Rights and the early space race has enhanced his reputation. The most recent poll of historians rates him as #5.

I can remember when I was college professors made cracks like, “A taxi carrying the President pull up to the White House and nobody got out.” John F. Kennedy accused him of presiding over a “missile gap” during the 1960 presidential campaign only to find there was none when he took office.

 

Agreed. I think history will treat him kindly. As a successful two-term president and a great WW2 leader, he's as deserving as anyone in my lifetime of having his likeness on a coin. It's just a shame that it was such an ill-conceived and short-lived coin.

 

If you saw yesterday's news (7/2/21) you might have seen that noted historians and political thinkers elevated Eisenhower into the top five best presidents our country has ever had. The list was essentially the same for the top two, Lincoln and Washington.

I was just a 9th grade kid who skipped school that day to see Ike and his motorcade driving down the Champs Élysées.

 

http://www.mrbrklyn.com/vids/World Of Tomorrow - 1939 World-s Fair Futurama.mp4

The World of Tomorrow

 

My father served under Ike
The 9th Armored Division received a Unit Citation from him for the capture of the Remagen Bridge across the Rhine. He was 3rd across. Would have been 1st but he carried a 30 cal. machine gun and ran it for the first 2 hours. Lost 2 ammo carriers. Ike said they saved a half million casualties, 50,000 dead, as opposed to a forced crossing

 

Oh this is a coin forum

 

I like Ike!!

 

No way is it a 67 with the obv. hit...ANACS a grade high on this one.

 

Great post cplradar, thank you! Happy and safe 4th to everyone...

 

https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/ana-grading-for-uncirculated-state-coins-4041821

A coin graded MS-67 has original luster and normal strike for date and mint. May have three or four very small contact marks and one more noticeable but not detracting mark. On comparable coins, one or two small single hairlines may show, or one or two minor scuff marks or flaws may be present. Eye appeal is above average. If copper, the coin has luster and original color.

• Contact Marks: 3 or 4 minuscule. 1 or 2 may be in prime focal areas.
• Hairlines: None visible without magnification.
• Luster: Above average. Nearly full original.
• Eye Appeal: Exceptional.
• Also Known As: Mint State 67, MS67, Choice Gem Uncirculated, Superb Gem Uncirculated, Superb Gem Brilliant Uncirculated, CH GEM BU, CH GEM UNC, Superb

 

I was just 6 years old and my father was in the U.S. Army in 1953. As young as I was, I still remembered IKE's first victory for the U.S. Presidency. We lived in Landstuhl, Germany from 1953 to 1957. I remember that my father was impressed by the Autobahn. The only time the German police would stop you was if you drove too slow or recklessly. During the time my father was stationed in West Germany, we were fortunate enough to travel all over the "free" countries. My father took a lot of pictures that was made into slides then into a CD. I was going to show you a picture of me and my father on to of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (now known as the Bell Tower of Pisa) as well as the Eifel Tower. I think I was 8 when those pictures were made. However, I can't find the CD now. We got back to the states in 1957. My father was transferred to Fort Ord in California. I remember that the roads were horrible and there were explosions. At 9, it was frightening and hot as our 1957 Studebaker wagon had no air conditioner nor a radio. There were signs as we drove that stated the new highway system was dedicated to Eisenhower with a circle of 5 tars. My history of Germany would be as long as the first entry. However, we did get back to Germany in 1965 and it was a lot more fun then.
I have read books about 2 presidents. My first was about Eisenhower and the second was Washington. Both were great books. If you have children, they should read the biographies about those two men. My next will be Lincoln.
Thanks for your entry about my favorite president.

 

Type - Eisenhower died in 1969... it will not allow for an edit.

 

The obv. hit is not a minor one. Cross it to NGC or PCGS for the real grade.

 

I would never do that, and have no more faith in their grading than ANACs. You are entitled and encouraged to have an opinion based on your experience, but the certainty of your statement comes off to me as being overwrought. I've seen HUNDREDS of grading errors in NGC and PCGS and I have other issues with their business practices. I am comfortable with ANACS and my own ability to determine grades.