Eisenhower's Farewell Address: Resources

This is the website for Ike's official museum and library, which is housed in his childhood home. After reading this Learning Guide, you could probably win the Eisenhower trivia contest, but you'd have to defeat the incumbent six-year-old champ.

This is the White House's brief official profile on Ike. It's mostly what you'd expect from an official bio, which is to say it's not as much fun as a Shmoop bio. But then again, we'd be worried if the White House started sounding like us…

The Miller Center is an affiliate of the University of Virginia and studies Presidential and political history. You can listen to some tapes (scratchy pre-digital ones) that Ike secretly recorded in the Oval office. Maybe that's where Nixon got the idea…

A hard-to-find documentary produced by PBS, which we hear is really good.

A dramatization of the months leading up to Operation Overlord, starring Tom Selleck. Seriously?

Ike was always pretty direct about his views, but seemingly more so on this occasion. What's he worried about now? Welfare payments that encourage laziness; draft deferments; wasting money on large standing armies (no surprise there); crime; the interminable Vietnam War; the Russians and Red China, race relations.

A PDF of an article from "Yank" magazine about Eisenhower's new assignment in Europe. Reading old-timey articles can always be something of a trip, but articles like this one somehow convey the different tone life had back then.

Susan Eisenhower, 50 Years Later, We're Still Ignoring Ike's Warning. According to Ms. Eisenhower, a foreign policy and political expert, we shoulda listed to Grandpa.

Bert the Turtle shows American children what to do if there's a nuclear attack. The fact that these cartoons were shown to grade-school kids clues you in to how fearful people were about a possible nuclear attack. As we now know, ducking and covering under a wooden desk is a foolproof method that will completely protect you against any nuclear explosion. Well, at least it will keep you away fro the windows.

A good quality video of Ike's televised speech. Notice how unpolished he seems? That's because he wasn't a television personality. He was an old dude who got things done without cheesing it up for the TV all the time. Imagine that.

Eisenhower gives an in-depth interview to Walter Cronkite while tracing the decision-making process of D-Day. Warning: it gets emotional at times.

A brief address Ike made for troops departing for the invasion of northern France. Super epic and inspirational.

A speech Ike gave in 1953 to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, which was obviously intended for Soviet ears.

Ike bucking up the troops on the eve on the Normandy invasion.

Ike's official portrait from the last years of his Presidency.

A map depicting Ike's landslide victory in the 1952 Presidential election.

A picture of Ike when he was the very model of a modern major general.