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Ike's Bluff

President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World

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Ike's Bluff

By: Evan Thomas
Narrated by: Brian Troxell
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About this listen

 Evan Thomas's startling account of how the underrated Dwight Eisenhower saved the world from nuclear holocaust.

Upon assuming the presidency in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower set about to make good on his campaign promise to end the Korean War. Yet while Eisenhower was quickly viewed by many as a doddering lightweight, behind the bland smile and simple speech was a master tactician. To end the hostilities, Eisenhower would take a colossal risk by bluffing that he might use nuclear weapons against the Communist Chinese, while at the same time restraining his generals and advisors who favored the strikes. Ike's gamble was of such magnitude that there could be but two outcomes: thousands of lives saved, or millions of lives lost.

A tense, vivid and revisionist account of a president who was then, and still is today, underestimated, Ike's Bluff is history at its most provocative and thrilling. Americas Historical Politicians Politics & Activism Politics & Government Presidents & Heads of State United States World

Critic reviews

Terrific Praise for The War Lovers:

No biographer at work today has a surer feel for the human dimension of history than Evan Thomas...The War Lovers is as good as popular history gets."—Jon Meacham, author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
"In his absorbing narrative of men who found duty or fulfillment or personal meaning in a war for empire-and of other men, like William James, who feared that such a quest would rot the nation's soul-Thomas has illuminated, in a compulsively readable style, a critical moment in American history. This is a book that, with its style and panache, is hard to forget and hard to put down."—Ronald Steel, New York Times Book Review
"Thomas has delivered an innovative, frequently entertaining and valuable retelling of an episode that set the pattern for more than a century of foreign military adventurism. This timely book is a cautionary tale about how the psyche of powerful and ambitious leaders may matter more than fact-or even truth-when the question of war arises."—James McGrath Morris, The Washington Post
"Thomas takes some risks in his biography of Theodore Roosevelt and his cohorts, trying to get not just inside their actions, but inside their heads. The result is an intriguing examination of the pull that war has on men."—Steve Weinberg, Minneapolis Star Tribune
All stars
Most relevant
This is an interesting and informative history, a little on the gossipy side, but no worse for that.

It's the aural equivalent of a "page-turner" I found and held my interest throughout. The narrator is good and carries the book forward very well.

Recommended for those interested in the topic.

Very Good

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Excellent writing and very well read. But an awful lot about Ike's moods, golf and health. A bit more on national and international politics would have made this account more interesting and valuable as history. Still, recommended as an approachable and insightful recounting of this important American president.

Recommended

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