Southeast prof says Eisenhower memorial in Washington 'long overdue'

Pam Parry, professor of mass media at Southeast Missouri State University, calls Thursday’s planned dedication of a long-delayed $150 million permanent tribute to President Dwight D. Eisenhower near Washington, D.C.’s National Air and Space Museum “wonderful.”

Congress authorized the memorial in 1999 but construction has been put off for more than two decades due to design disputes between the architect and family members of the 34th president.

Parry wrote a 2014 book, “Eisenhower: The Public Relations President,” and is working on a second — due out in 2021 — about Eisenhower’s advocacy and promotion of women to government jobs.

Parry declined an invitation to attend this week’s dedication but said she will watch a livestream.

“I didn’t feel I could go as a university instructor and risk exposure to the coronavirus,” said Parry, echoing a concern of Southeast administrators about travel to and from campus during the pandemic.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower addresses the U.S. troops before the D-Day invasion in June 1944.Photo courtesy of the National Archives

Ike’s a hero

“I tell kids Eisenhower was the original Batman, a heroic figure,” said Parry, who began teaching at Southeast in 2017.

“(Eisenhower) fought real evil and he won,” said Parry, in a reference to Eisenhower’s service as supreme allied commander during World War II, including his crucial decision authorizing the successful D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.

“(Eisenhower) held the Allies together and literally helped defeat Hitler,” Parry said, noting he preferred to be called “general” rather than “president” even after leaving the Oval Office.

“Eisenhower liked to be compared to George Washington,” said Parry, noting America’s first president, like Eisenhower, was a general before becoming commander-in-chief.

Deserves more credit

At the time of Eisenhower’s 1953 accession to the White House, he was the oldest president ever elected and his age and cautious nature led some Americans to get the wrong idea about him, Parry said.

“Some saw him as a grandfatherly guy who played too much golf,” she said.

“That (assessment) could not be further from the truth,” she said, adding her view Eisenhower brought “unprecedented peace and prosperity” to the U.S. during the 1950s.

A popular chief executive committed to peace

Parry said Eisenhower was “complicated,” noting a man known for securing Allied victory in World War II warned in 1961 about what he termed “the military-industrial complex.”

“He was obsessed with peace,” said Parry, opining that in a time in which statues — such as Cape Girardeau’s Confederate States of America memorial — are being taken down, Eisenhower’s life shines like a beacon.

Eisenhower, she noted, desegregated the nation’s capital, building on the work of his predecessor, Missouri’s Harry Truman, who ordered desegregation of the military.

“(Eisenhower’s) secret sauce was this: He was a genuinely good person who cared about people,” Parry said, saying Eisenhower testified before Congress in 1948 advocating for women to be permitted to serve in permanent military service.

“Eisenhower was popular when he was elected and when he left office,” said Parry, adding she has made a dozen trips to do research at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, since 2009.

“The more you study Ike, the more you see that while he was not perfect, he was a decent man.

“We should erect memorials to people like this,” Parry said.