Presidential Biographies | Eisenhower Administrations - The Eisenhower Administration Legacy

The Eisenhower Administration Legacy

Eisenhower, aged 70, was the oldest president in U.S. history when he left office in the winter of 1961, handing over to John F. Kennedy, who, at the age of 43, was the youngest. Kennedy's inaccurate allegation that Eisenhower had permitted a missile gap to develop annoyed the retiring president. The new president's inaugural address included a section about passing the torch to a new generation of Americans born in the twentieth century. Kennedy supporters loved it, but Eisenhower (born in 1890), found it hurtful and rather pointed, as though he were a relic of bygone ages. And although he had never been close to his own vice president, Richard Nixon, the Republicans' 1960 candidate and loser in one of the century's closest election races, Eisenhower regretted that his party had not retained the White House.

Observers at the time and historians since 1960 have disagreed about the strengths...