Review of Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Mandate for Change"

Date Published: November 7, 2025
​Date Modified: November 8, 2025

"The White House Years: Mandate for Change" was the second of four books that Dwight D. Eisenhower published: "Crusade in Europe," "The White House Years, Mandate for Change," "The White House Years: Waging Peace," and "At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends." In “The White House Years: Mandate for Change,” Dwight D. Eisenhower writes about the first of his two-terms—the first four years from 1953 to 1956. His second term is covered in his third book: "The White House Years: Waging Peace."
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"Mandate for Change" was released in the United States in late 1963 while running serially in some newspapers.

A review of his first book, "Crusade in Europe," can be found on this website [here].

Peter E. Greulich, November 7, 2025

A Review of “The White House Years: Mandate for Change” by Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Reviews of the Day: 1963
• Selected Insights from “Mandate for Change” by Eisenhower
• This Author’s Thoughts on “Mandate for Change” by Eisenhower 

Reviews of the Day: 1963

• Overall “Consensus” on Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Mandate for Change”

On November 07, 1963, the Stockton California Record published a review of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s book: “The White House Years: Mandate for Change.” In the review entitled “Ike’s New Book Tells Events of First Term but Lacks Color,” Merriman Smith wrote the following:

“The early critical consensus on “Mandate for Change” appeared to be that while the former President has painstakingly described the great and momentous events of his first four years in the White House, he just as carefully omitted all the colorful details.

“The meat is there, but the juice is gone.

“Perhaps this is the mark of the man. … His book is notable for stately, formal rhetoric which for all its perhaps commendable dignity, does not capture the gutty, fist-pounding expressiveness of which Eisenhower was and still is capable.”

“Ike’s New Book Lacks Color,” Merriman Smith
The Stockton California Record, 1963

A high-quality, color image of the front dust cover of "Mandate for Change.”​

• The Most Valuable Quality Found in Eisenhower’s “Mandate for Change”

On November 10, 1963, The Minneapolis Sunday Tribune published a review and some interesting thoughts concerning Dwight D. Eisenhower’s book: “The White House Years: Mandate for Change.” In the article entitled “Ike’s Story of First Term Is Too Snagged in Detail,” Richard Steele, staff writer for The Minneapolis Tribune, wrote—in part,  the following:

“Through ‘Mandate for Change’ there runs an under-current of the Eisenhower ‘middle of the road’ philosophy, and perhaps in the long run this is the most valuable quality of the book. … The casual reader as well as the probing historian will find some aspects of great worth in this not-entirely-great addition to the ever-growing shelf of memoir literature.
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“The book is at its strongest when Eisenhower tells of the individuals with whom he worked. … Equally illuminating are those chapters which discuss the pressures put on Eisenhower to run in 1952. … At the same time, the book veers off too frequently into melodrama and the ‘holier-than-thou’ tones which bedevil so many memoirs. …

​"Unforgiveable is the often shallow discussion of foreign problems from 1953 to 1956 and the amazingly naïve fashion with which Eisenhower discusses their ‘settlement.’ ”

“Ike’s Story Too Snagged in Detail,” Richard Steele
The Minneapolis Tribune, 1963

• Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Candor Comes Across in “Mandate for Change”

On November 10, 1963, The Springfield Sunday Republican published a review of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s book: “The White House Years: Mandate for Change.” In the review entitled “Eisenhower Presents Meticulous Account in ‘Mandate for Change,’ Foster L. Spencer wrote—in part,  the following:

“Of all the memoirs of the Eisenhower years which have been published recently, … none can match the former President’s own account insofar as historical importance and revelation are concerned. …

“It is a revealing volume, if only because General Eisenhower is as frank in detailing failures as he is in the telling of successes. … ‘Mandate for Change’ has warmth and intimacy, and little humorous events are put down as comic relief from the sober drama of a President’s official life. … ‘Mandate for Change’ is a remarkable memoir, which has great contemporary and lasting historical significance.”

“Eisenhower Presents Meticulous Account,” Foster L. Spencer
The Springfield Sunday Republican, 1963

• One Very Critical View of Eisenhower’s “Mandate for Change”

On November 24, 1963, The Boston Globe, published a review of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s book: “The White House Years: Mandate for Change.” This review, published by an individual who had taught at Harvard, Amherst, Smith, and New York University, was very critical. Alfred Kazin wrote the following—in part, within his review entitled “What Eisenhower Says Now Can’t Rewrite Record:”

“There are no surprises in the Eisenhower memoirs.

“One reads these memoirs with the realization that on some basic issues the President of the United States knew even less of what was happening than did the columnists. … If these memoirs don’t bring in much news, they certainly are an attempt to justify a disastrous administration, to put Dwight D. Eisenhower back on his pedestal again. …

​"In this book we see the great man reminiscing to a few friends in the consciously correct style suitable to a book that is meant to put everything straight, to explain away a disastrous record. …
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“In his image of himself—for this book, Dwight D. Eisenhower is always relaxed, idealistic, genuine, and fatherly. …

​"How can one fault a Personage like this? How dare one review him?”

“Eisenhower Can’t Rewrite Record,” Alfred Kazin
The Boston Sunday Globe, 1963

A high-quality, color image of the front cover of the 1963 book: “The White House Years: Mandate for Change” by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

• A Positive Balancing Perspective on Eisenhower’s “Mandate for Change”

On December 1, 1963, The Hartford Courant, published a review of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s book: “The White House Years: Mandate for Change.” William J. Clew provided the following information—in part, in his review entitled “Revealing History:”

“If there is a fault here, it is Mr. Eisenhower’s understandable reluctance to go all out against his old antagonists. Charitably, he has softened his comments about such foes as Harry Truman. Understandable, but not the kind of thing people look for in a vital, passionate account of our history, which after all, is made up to a great extent of the violent disagreement between men and head-on personal clashes.
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“Mr. Eisenhower has obviously decided to let future historians dwell on this phase of his presidential career. … The former president is a dignified man and although capable of being hot tempered, … his book is noteworthy for its rather stately prose.”​

“Revealing History,” William J. Clew
The Hartford Courant, 1963

Selected Insights from “Mandate for Change” by Eisenhower

• Eisenhower Lays Out the Cost of an Military Industrial Complex

Dwight D. Eisenhower did not frame the concept of a “military industrial complex” in this book but his understanding of the cost of peace was certainly expressed by him in the following:

“This world in arms is not spending money alone. The world is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children.

“The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this:

• “It is one modern brick school in more than thirty cities.
• “It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of sixty thousand population.
• “It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
• “It is some fifty miles of concrete highway.
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“We pay for a single fighter plane with a half-million bushels of wheat.

“We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people.”

“Mandate for Change,” Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Eisenhower Deplored Table-Pounding, Name-Calling, Truculence and Arrogance

“Clearly, there are different methods that a man—or a nation, can use in attempting to influence others. I keep on my desk a piece of black wood given to me by Gabriel Hauge and inscribed with a Latin motto attributed to Claudio Aquaviva: Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. Translated it means: Gentle in manner, strong in deed.

“I have always deplored and deprecated table-pounding and name-calling; such methods, I have long believed, are normally self-defeating defense mechanisms. On the world scene, practiced by governments, such manners are tragically stupid and ultimately worthless.
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“To be effective in the nation’s rightful role as a leader of the Free World, our people and their government should always, in my view, display a spirit of firmness without truculence, conciliation without appeasement, and confidence without arrogance. …

Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill.

“Only a leadership based on honesty of purpose, on calmness and inexhaustible patience in conference, and on a refusal to be diverted from basic principles could, in the long run, be influential in all its dealings with others—allies and potential enemies.”

“Mandate for Change,” Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Eisenhower on the Executive’s Support for Civil Rights in the United States

1952 Electoral Map

“A matter which needed Executive impetus in the early months of 1953 was civil rights.

“My philosophy on this subject had often been stated. I believe that political or economic power to enforce segregation based on race, color, or creed is morally wrong and should by all practicable and reasonable means be abolished as soon as possible. My feelings could well be summed up by one sentence: ‘There must be no second-class citizens in this country.’ …
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“I believe with all my heart that our vigilant guarding of these rights is a sacred obligation binding upon every citizen. To be true to one’s own freedom is, in essence, to honor and respect the freedom of all others.”

“Mandate for Change,” Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Eisenhower on the United States–Canadian Political and Economic Relationships

“Today the Canadian-American border, bare of military installations, is one of the strongest international boundaries in the world, for it is defended only by friendship.”​

“Mandate for Change,” Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Eisenhower’s Respect for the “White House” Dignity, History and Meaning

“The American system places all this responsibility and authority [of the chief of state combined with the head of government] in the hands of the President, and the White House has for us the significance of Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street combined. Consequently we accord to the words “White House” a respect that amounts almost to veneration. …

“Architecturally, such structures as Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle in England, the Elysee Palace in Paris, Rome’s Quirinal Palace, and the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi make the White House appear, by comparison, a simple and modest cottage. But I am quite sure that no American would like to see the White House revised materially in its general lines and appearance, or replaced by the most magnificent structure ever devised by the hand of man. …

“We liked the White House and all it stood for.

“First occupied by John Adams, it conveyed to us much of the dignity, the simple greatness of America. Because of this feeling, we never felt that we had any right to make major changes in the structure itself or in its principal furnishings.”

“Mandate for Change,” Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Eisenhower’s Definition of the United States of America: “Don’t Join the Book Burners”

“Don’t join the book burners.

“Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that the faults ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go into your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.
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“We have got to fight it with something better, not try to conceal the thinking of our own people. They are part of America. And even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they are accessible to others, is unquestioned, or it isn’t America.”

Dartmouth College, Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 14, 1953

• What Defined an Eisenhower Conservative?

​An Eisenhower Conservative:

• “Wants to conserve the system of free markets and private initiative as the best means yet devised to plan and organize the production that people want. They are not much taken with the idea that government price fixing, wage control, rationing, production planning, and materials allocation can do the job better than the free market system—except, of course, in time of war.

• “Wants to preserve our tradition of incentive and reward. Theirs is a deep conviction that in the economic race every man should have an equal place at the starting line; but they also know that it has never been part of the American tradition to assure every man the right of crossing the finishing line at the same instant.
  
  
• “Rejects the doctrine that our economy must always run a temperature—inflation, to stay healthy. They see inflation as an instrument which destroys American’s holdings in savings bonds, savings deposits, life-insurance policies, and pension rights.​

A high-quality, black-and-white portrait of a standing President Dwight D. Eisenhower in suit and tie.

• ​“Seeks to conserve the market mechanism when the government must act to avert a depression or inflation. It affirms that whenever the government intervenes in the economy, its goal must always be for the maximum economic freedom of the individual … even in times when needed to address human poverty and suffering with such practices as unemployment insurance and social security to reduce the human costs of such economic freedom.
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• “Seeks a sound federal budget policy that helps keep our economy growing and stable.
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• “Seeks to conserve and strengthen economic ties among free nations.”

Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, Dr. Gabriel Hauge, 1955

​This Author’s Thoughts on “Mandate for Change” by Eisenhower 

This is the second work that I have read of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, our 34th President of the United States. His first publication, Crusade in Europe, is reviewed on this website: [here].

I highly recommend both of these works to the politically curious, the student of World War II, the general historian, and to those who would like to read further about the individuals who inhabited the corner office of the United States of America. Dwight D. Eisenhower in both works comes across as displaying a spirit of firmness without belligerence, conciliation without appeasement, and confidence without arrogance.

His humility, openness, and always striving for the “middle way” in conversations, interactions with others, and public operations of the federal government comes across on almost every page. In this pursuit, he was always trying to avoid the extremists on the “left and right.” This belief is highlighted in the first chapter of this book but actually comes across in both works as one of his “ways of life.”

I am glad I read this work of Eisenhower, recommend it to others and think it is as relevant today as it was in 1963 when it was first published.

Cheers,
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- Peter E.

A high-quality, color portrait of President Dwight D. Eisenhower sitting in a chair holding his glasses.

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