John Eisenhower, the son of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, has passed away at the age of 91. In his career, Eisenhower spent time in the U.S. army, and then chronicled the history of the U.S. military throughout several books.
He was a historian, and author, coming off of his father’s legacy in the military, and his time during the presidency.
His family has not revealed the cause of death, but it was reported that he died on Saturday. He lived on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, in the Trappe, Maryland community.
John Eisenhower’s father, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a five-star general in the army, and later served as the president from 1953 until 1961. John was born John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower in Denver, Colorado on August 3rd, 1922.
He was the second child born to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mamie Eisenhower, although their first child had died the year before at the age of 3 from scarlet fever.
Speaking on his career in the military, and having it built into his system at a young age, John Eisenhower spoke in an interview in 1998 when saying “I was raised in a military manner, and it was a given that Army brats went to West Point, so I went to West Point in 1941. And being in the military has been my life.”
President today mourns passing of John Eisenhower – son of Pres. Eisenhower, and a military hero in his own right who served in WW2 & Korea
— West Wing Reports (@WestWingReport) December 22, 2013
John Eisenhower once told me that when people said he looked like his father, he wanted to say, "My Mother always told me I was legitimate."
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 22, 2013
John graduated from West Point on June 6th, 1944, on the same day that his father oversaw the Allied invasion of Europe. He served on his father’s White House staff during the later years of his presidency, before going on to help him write his memoirs, after his presidential term had finished.
John Eisenhower wrote General Ike: A Personal Reminiscence about his father in additional to several other books including The Bitter Woods: The Battle Of The Bulge and So Far From God: The U.S. War With Mexico, 1846-1878.
He is survived by his second wife, Joanne, and his four children: daughters Anne, Susan and Mary, and a son, David.
Here John Eisenhower [left, rear] & Mamie 1959 w descendants of TR, Taft, Cleveland, Coolidge, FDR, Wilson: #DDEPL pic.twitter.com/Tov9W0VCCv
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 22, 2013
Image via Wikimedia Commons