Three Days in January: Young Readers' Edition: Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission

by Bret Baier, Catherine Whitney

Overview

In January 1961, three days before President Dwight D. Eisenhower passed the torch to John F. Kennedy, the president had one final mission.

In the young readers’ edition of his New York Times bestselling book, Fox News anchor Bret Baier examines the historic transition and Eisenhower’s last chance to lead the country he loved through his legendary farewell address and his personal appeals to Kennedy.

Baier paints a vivid picture of the contrasts between old and new at the beginning of a decisive decade in American history. Eisenhower and Kennedy were very different men. Eisenhower, at seventy, was an elder statesman, a five-star Army general during WWII, and one of the most popular Republican presidents of the past century. Kennedy, a forty-three-year-old Democrat, had captured the nation’s attention with his energy and youth, but was inexperienced.

Eisenhower believed he had hard-won knowledge to pass on to his successor, but he didn’t know if Kennedy would listen. It was Eisenhower’s final mission as president to leave the new president, and the country, with the lessons he had learned and guidance for a direction forward.

Meticulously researched, broad in scope, and full of timely insights—as well as historic photographs—this edition will enable young readers to experience a piece of “living history” and will inspire a deeper understanding of the pivotal moments that forged the next seventy-five years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062915344
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	12/23/2019
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	821,531
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Bret Baier is the chief political anchor for Fox News Channel and the anchor and executive editor of Special Report with Bret Baier, seen five days a week on Fox News Channel. Before assuming the anchor role, Bret served as Chief White House Correspondent for Fox News Channel between 2006 and 2009. Prior to being named Chief White House Correspondent for Fox News Channel, Bret served as National Security Correspondent based at the Pentagon, reporting on military and national security affairs, as well as on defense, military policy and the intelligence community from 2001 to 2006. He reported from Iraq twelve times and Afghanistan thirteen times. In his career Bret has traveled the world with various administration dignitaries and military officials, reporting from seventy-four countries. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission, and Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love. He lives with his family in Washington, DC.

ThreeDaysinMoscow.com

BretBaier.com

Catherine Whitney has written or collaborated on more than twenty-five books, including Framing a Life: A Family Memoir with Geraldine Ferraro and Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice with the late Judge Harold J. Rothwax.

Table of Contents

A Personal Message from Bret Baier ix

Introduction: The Final Mission 1

Part 1 The Setting

1 The First Visit 7

2 Becoming Ike 15

3 Ike in Command 30

4 A Nonpolitician Runs for President 41

5 Gentle But Strong 57

Part 2 The Speech

6 Good Evening, My Fellow Americans 73

7 Working Together 82

8 Dealing with the Soviet Union 90

9 Confronting the Nuclear Threat 107

10 The Military-Industrial Complex 118

Part 3 The Final Mission

11 Getting to Know President-Elect Kennedy 137

12 The Day Before 146

13 The Passage 158

14 A Spring Day at Camp David 169

Appendix: Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation 194

Acknowledgments 203

Glossary 207

Source Notes 208

Index 231