David and Julie Eisenhower’s book about the last years of his grandfather Dwight D. Eisenhower, Going Home To Glory, continues to receive highly positive reviews. The most recent is in this morning’s Washington Times, by Aram Bakshian Jr., speechwriter to three Presidents. It begins:
As a young presidential speechwriter in the Nixon White House, I soon learned that underneath a rigidly enforced surface discipline, the place teemed with conflicts and contradictions, both personal and political. There was one thing, however, that everybody seemed to agree on: Julie Nixon Eisenhower was a good egg. In both the glory days of the 1972 landslide and the long-drawn-out death agony of Watergate, Richard Nixon’s junior daughter was an inspiration to us all, a model of courage, kindness and dedication.
The same qualities were apparent in her husband, David, the only man in American history to be the grandson of one president and the son-in-law of another, a double burden of unsought celebrity status that both he and his wife bore with fortitude and unflinching good spirit.
Happily married for more than four decades now, they are a comforting reminder that – despite so many unedifying examples to the contrary – the children of the great and powerful don’t have to end up spoiled, embittered or emotionally crippled. In fact, if they are bright enough and strong enough, they may see, understand and share things that the rest of us can profit from.
This is very much the case in David Eisenhower’s latest book on his grandfather, “Going Home to Glory,” a thoughtful, clear-sighted view of the last years of a great American hero, and of the wider impact he had on both his country and his family. Additional input from Julie, mainly concerning the sometimes uneasy but genuine relationship between her father and her grandfather-in-law, add another angle of insight to the story.
During the next few weeks, David Eisenhower will discuss his book in a number of cities (see this link); Julie Eisenhower will join him at several of these appearances.