Ike and Mccarthy : Dwight Eisenhower's Secret Campaign Against Joseph Mccarthy

In January 1954 Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate. By the end of that year he had been censured by his colleagues and his power was shattered. Ike and McCarthy is the dramatic account of President Dwight Eisenhower's secret role in McCarthy's destruction, a seminal story in American political history. By 1954, Ike had been in office for a year, and he was criticized for not confronting McCarthy. The president believed that challenging McCarthy directly would only strengthen the senator's reputation. But when McCarthy launched an investigation into communists in the army, Eisenhower, who had spent most of his life in the army, knew he would not be exempt from McCarthy's attacks. Drawing on thousands of McCarthy-related documents in the Eisenhower Presidential Library archives that Ike ordered a subordinate to collect, as well as other declassified documents, David Nichols tells the riveting and little-known story of a classic Washington power struggle. Book jacket.