The years 1944-1960 saw the greatest expansion of the American economy we will ever know. They saw the end of Second World War, the dawn of the nuclear age, and the beginning of the Cold War. They were presided over by two Presidents, both from the heartland, whose presidential libraries and museums are three hours apart on I-70 in Kansas and Missouri.
Truman and Eisenhower shared similar values. They were decent men motivated less by wealth and influence than by the good of the nation. Their museums are testimonies to the men and their times, sixteen years of American luster which can be visited in just one day, if you get to Abilene, Kansas at 9am in the morning when the Eisenhower Museum opens.
The Eisenhower Museum
The best way to attack the 22 acre campus is to go to the visitor center first. There you will be presented with a 20 minute film on Ike and his times, priming you for the experience ahead. Next, visit the boyhood home, which is right next door, an astonishingly compact two story clapboard dwelling with all the original furnishings.
Here you will wonder how mother and father Eisenhower raised six boys all of whom went on to achieve signal success – not a black sheep among them – the greatest of whom was Dwight, their third son.
Over at the Eisenhower Museum, just beyond, you will get a sense of his achievements. The museum itself is something of a hodge-podge. Exhibits on wife Mamie’s gowns sit cheek and jowl with a presentation on the engineering feats of the D-Day landings.
There are some remarkable things, like a roomful of gifts from foreign dignitaries, including an ornately carved elephant tusk from Ngo Dinh Diem, received when the US was trying to prop up the unpopular dictator, some ho-hum things, like standard issue armaments, and some downright weird things, like a GE stove that Ike installed in the solarium of the White House to make chili.
The museum provides little in the way of chronology, hopping around from era to era, and starting out with an entirely unrelated exhibit on White House landscaping. Rather than providing a sense of the man and his times, the museum seems intent on lionizing the figure, for which little effort is necessary.
A Towering Figure
Eisenhower, by all accounts, was a decent man, firm in duty, strong in leadership, humble in manner. From our perspective, in an age where vicious mean-spirited attacks on the president are de rigeur, it’s hard to fathom a political leader who was respected and admired even by his adversaries. But Eisenhower was that.
The Eisenhower library, facing the museum from across the campus, houses 26 million pages of historical records for use by scholars and historians. A fitting conclusion to any visit to the Eisenhower Museum is a stop at the chapel where Dwight and Mamie are buried. Their tombs lie in a small rotunda beneath stained glass windows and surrounded by inscriptions reflective of the man’s character.
Two and a half hours are just right for a visit there, and then if you jump in the car and head off across 180 miles of mostly flat farmland, you can arrive in Independence, MO with two and a half hours to spare for the Truman Museum.
In a way Ike both preceded and followed Truman. Eisenhower was a towering figure at the end of World War II when Truman, in circumstances nearly Shakespearean in their convolutions, became vice-president to a dying FDR, and then, less than three months later, president of the United States.
A Humble Man from Missouri
Like Eisenhower, Truman was a decent man steeped in heartland values. Unlike Ike, he came to power in harrowing times. From the moment Truman stepped into the White House he was assailed with grim choices. Should he drop the A-bomb or approve a massive invasion of the Japanese homeland? Should he disband the military at the end of the war and risk sliding back into a depression or keep pumping money into men and arms, permitting the establishment of a powerful military-industrial complex? Should he confront the Soviets in Eastern Europe or maneuver for a stalemate that would set the groundwork for a cold war?
No matter what decisions the fledgling president made, they would be controversial, and to this day Truman remains a controversial figure. His library and museum do not skirt the issue but present a balanced view of the man, laying out the challenges and achievements of his career in clear, sequential order.
This is an elegantly designed, well-organized museum with engaging interactive displays incorporating audio, video, film clips, surveys, games, music and maps. As you make your way through the museum you cannot help but be struck by the many challenges facing this humble man from Independence.
The Truman Museum
Truman oversaw the Berlin airlift, the foundation of NATO, and the Marshall Plan. He signed the documents recognizing Israel. He confronted the spread of communism in Greece and Turkey and established the policy of containment. He ended racial segregation in the military and initiated the war in Korea. He stood aghast as China fell to the communists and weathered the backlash at home known as the Red Scare.
You will come away from the Truman Museum with a sense of an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances. With Eisenhower you come away with a sense of an extraordinary man.
The good news for Eisenhower was that most of the post World War II heavy lifting had already been done by Truman when he came to power in 1952. For the next eight years the United States enjoyed the greatest economic boom in its history, an American idyll the likes of which we will never see again. People loved it. And people loved Ike for being their president during it. Ike was always a fan favorite.
One of the final rooms at the Truman Museum speaks volumes about the two men and their place in the national psyche. It is wall papered with Life magazine covers, one for every month that Truman was in office. Ike appears on the cover four times. Truman does not appear once.
Paying Respects
The three hours that separate their homes would’ve been greater before the advent of the interstate, an Eisenhower era endowment, but today with a little advance planning you can almost squeeze in both museums in one day – almost. Two and a half hours was not quite enough to enjoy the Truman Museum. I could have used another half hour or so.
My final stop was at the grave sites of Harry and Bess Truman in the circular courtyard in the center of the complex. As I did at the Eisenhower Chapel, I paid my respects to the former president and thanked him for his wise and courageous service.
As they were closing the doors and shutting off the lights at the Truman Museum, I walked out with a renewed appreciation for how the nation and the world had benefited by these two humble men with their heartland values, and what a debt of gratitude we owe them for piloting us through such difficult and promising times.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum
200 SE 4th Street
Abilene, KS 67410
1-877-746-4453
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum
500 West US Highway 24
Independence, MO 64050
1-800-833-1335
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