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Ike could not assure permanent peace, but he managed to avoid war during a perilous decade. No civilian has ever spoken more often or with greater conviction about the need to end war. In 1961, retiring to his 200-acre farm near Gettysburg, Pa.—the first home that he and Mamie ever owned—he raised cattle and tended the land. "I wanted to take a piece of ground like this that had been sort of worn out through improper use and try to restore it," he said a few years ago. "I just said that when I die I'm going to leave a piece of ground better than I found it."
It was a firm and decent goal—like the man who aspired to it.