With democracy on the line, America needs to rediscover why we all liked Kansas’ Ike | Opinion

Like many Americans contemplating our possible political future with a wary eye, I feel nostalgia for another time.

After three decades representing the United States as a State Department foreign service officer, I retired this past September and decided to bookend my diplomatic career by driving from the Washington, D.C., area where I live to my home state of California, and then back again two months later. It would give me the opportunity to reflect on what had been and what was to come — in my own life and in the country I had formally represented for 30 years. I drove for four to five hours a day mostly on back roads and blue highways, which allowed for real forward progress and time to have a good look around.

On my return trip, I drove through the middle of the continent and stopped for a day in Abilene, Kansas — and not just because it lies at the geographic center of the country. It is also Dwight D. Eisenhower’s hometown, and the site of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home. I’d been thinking about the critical role of political leadership at pivotal moments in our history. About great American presidents too — particularly great Republican Party presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt who had rescued, restored or redirected our country to more promising paths.

And I knew enough to know that Eisenhower was among the most underappreciated of this select group. After visiting the excellent museum in Abilene and reading several biographies, including the superb “Eisenhower In War and Peace” by Jean Edward Smith, I came away convinced Ike had been one of our quiet best. And plunged into a deepening nostalgia for a time before I was born.

The product of a bygone era, Eisenhower struck me as precisely the kind of president we need at a moment like ours, in which the fate of democracy seems to hang in the balance. He was the quintessential adult in the room, calm under fire, decent and dignified in his dealings with friends and rivals, and deliberate in his decision-making. He worked easily and effectively across the aisle, and — a soldier-diplomat of the first order — with foreign counterparts, too. He knew when to assert his will and when to defer to others, particularly in managing egos larger than his own.

Eisenhower inspired deep loyalty from those who worked for him and reciprocated that loyalty, sometimes to a fault. Importantly, he knew that what he said and did mattered, and could have a life or death impact in the real world. Given the central role he had played in the great war that had recently concluded, he knew that reality better than most.

Eisenhower took more time to decide whether to run for a second term than one might suppose given his sky-high popularity with the American people across party and most other lines. He was concerned about his health following a heart attack, and being 65 seemed old at the time. Not least, he believed that the next generation of Republican leaders should be allowed their turn.

Eisenhower ultimately made his decision to run under strong pressure from supporters and polls showing that, as Smith puts it: “With Ike heading the ticket, the GOP would not only retain the White House, but stood a good chance of regaining the House and the Senate as well. With anyone other than Ike, the Republicans had no chance whatever.”

But most critical of all — and here the nostalgia kicks in — throughout his career and during his presidency Eisenhower remained imbued to the core with a sense of service for his country. In his political calculations and decisions, whether one disagrees or agrees in any particular instance, Eisenhower maintained the national interest as his absolute North Star, and was prepared to sacrifice his own interests to that higher end.

It is idle to attempt any comparison with today. Still, leaving aside the factors that got us to where we are, I find myself wondering, “What if?” What if Americans understood that we really are all on the same team, that whatever divides us pales in comparison with what ought to bring us together?

And (the nostalgia again) what if the result in November hinged on a truly honest response to one single request for clarification: Tell us not what your country can do for you. Tell us what you can do for your country.

Alexis Ludwig recently retired after three decades in the U.S. State Department’s foreign service, serving in Latin America, East Asia and Washington, D.C.