In a preview of his forthcoming book on Dwight Eisenhower, Ike's Bluff, Evan Thomas pens an appreciation of the former president's greatest virtue – prudence:
In his second term in office, after the Soviets launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite, in October 1957, many Americans were near hysteria. Was a Soviet surprise missile attack next? Eisenhower's handling of the crisis shows a leader who refused to pander, who understood he was playing a long and dangerous game that required patience and a shrewd gambler's instinct.
Eisenhower came under immense pressure from Congress and within his own administration to build up U.S. forces. He resisted: he believed that too much military spending would hurt national security by running up a vast debt and harming the economy (Defense spending was over half of federal spending in those days, as opposed to less than one quarter today). He privately scorned "those boys" over at the Pentagon (his former military colleagues) who clamored for bigger weapons. He imitated Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas trying to whip up public fears by raising his arms heavenward and crying out, "How long? Lord, how long?" That November, the poet Robert Frost came to see Eisenhower in the Oval Office and gave him a book of poems inscribed, "The strong are saying nothing until they see." "I like this maxim perhaps best of all," Ike wrote in his memoirs.
The Dish 