Bret Baier - Three Days in January (Book Review)

I read this book with some misgiving since it's about Republican Dwight Eisenhower and it's written by someone from Fox News, but I take a chance since perhaps there is something to be learned at this moment in reading about the transition from Ike to JFK and Eisenhower's farewell message.

Saint Ike!  This book makes his sound like a saint.

The author makes much of the strained relations between Truman and Eisenhower making HST the bad guy.

The author does say Ike made a mistake by removing a paragraph in that famous Wisconsin speech praising George Marshall for the benefit of the infamous Joseph McCarthy.

The author makes HST seem like a small man.  I do not like this.

I can't imagine Eisenhower coming anywhere near Trump.

At least the author does lightly criticize Eisenhower with regard to McCarthy while also defending him.  P. 100

This book written by a Republican ultimately becomes a polemic praising Eisenhower while dissing Democrats.  Even though the Bay of Pigs planning began under the Eisenhower administration, JFK deserves all the blame and the author never mentions JFK's public acceptance of the blame.  (Wonder what Trump would have said)  Faint praise for how JFK handled the Cuban missile crisis.  (Who put those missiles in Turkey?)  No mention of the Eisenhower recession at the end of his second term.  No mention of the feeling of lethargy in the country at the end of his time.  The U-2 incident is downplayed.  The author never misses a chance to diss Truman and JFK.  No mention of Kennedy's test ban treaty with the Soviets.  He makes Kennedy seem like a war-monger going into office.

As I read this book I realize that maybe Ike was the right man for his times: the 50's.  Though I am certainly NOT a Republican, I can respect the man and some of what he did as President.  The 50's were his time.  Eisenhower would not have worked well in the 60's.  We would never have had the '64 Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Medicare under Eisenhower.

By the end of this book I am tired of the Republican author slamming JFK and Truman.  It is all unnecessary.  He doesn't need to down Democrats to build up Eisenhower.

The book ends with Trump's election as if Trump might learn something from Ike.  Are you kidding me?  Eisenhower would disavow Trump.  He would rip Trump to shreds.  He would be petrified at Trump's election list the rest of us only more so since he would better understand the threat that this man poses to the world having been there in the office.

The only good thing is that the book is light and breezy.  Eisenhower deserves light and breezy.  Eisenhower to JFK.  Now Obama to Trump.  Oh, how far the country has fallen.