ONE OF THE STRIKING ASPECTS of much of the writing about President Dwight David Eisenhower is the image it portrays of a weak, though personable, president-one who relied too much on his subordinates in making important decisions. Generally this is ascribed to his dislike of the politics of power, which a president must pursue, and to the organizational structure which he established in the White House to wall himself off from the turmoil. Specifically it is sail that he 'lacked a sense of mission" as President (Childs); on those issues that came to him he wanted "one page memorandums to which he could say yes or no" (Reedy); he was "aloof, serene in a sanctuary of his own" (Hughes); he had "little taste for politics-the struggle for power among vital interests" (Graebner); and his staff system became "in charge of Eisenhower's business" (Neustadt).' Another school of thought, which is by far in the minority, and not well documented, portrays Eisenhower as a skilled political practitioner. Richard Nixon hints at this when he says of Eisenhower, "He was a far more complex and devious man than most