It was a warm day in 1941 or 1942, and Wes Jackson, who was 5 or 6, climbed into the family's Lafayette sedan with assorted cousins. They drove from their farm near Topeka over to Abilene, Kans., for a family reunion at his great- aunt Ida Eisenhower's white frame house on Fourth Street, south of the tracks. Her son Dwight was either in Washington or Europe, even then on the edge of his great fame.
Wes dutifully greeted the elders present, wandered over the few acres and through the barn out back, then lounged under an old hackberry tree. At noon dinner he loaded up his plate with fried chicken and mashed potatoes and took a seat with a cousin on the back porch. Wes cleaned his plate. His cousin did not. Aunt Ida came inspecting. She spied the wasted food, stopped and delivered a stern dose of family doctrine: "Waste not, want not." Right then another remarkable career may have been started through the mixture of Eisenhower family values and the ethic of that prairie society. Jackson, now one of the nation's most renowned and innovative agriculture researchers, founded the Land Institute in Salina, Kans., in search of perennial prairie grain crops that will halt the wasting of the planet.
He is as much a philosopher as a geneticist, and he has thought a great deal about his first cousin once removed, Dwight David Eisenhower. Jackson believes the bedrock of Ike's achievements and his growing stature in history came from the white frame house in Abilene and the harmony the town required and imposed for a rewarding life. Many strata of worldly experience were laid down over Ike's character during his 50 years of public service. But the final high silhouette of his life followed the outlines shaped in the streets of Abilene.
The tributes for Ike's 100th birthday last week focused on his career as "the most successful general of the greatest war ever fought," to use biographer Stephen Ambrose's words. Ambrose goes further, suggesting that Ike is destined to be ranked "with Wilson and the Roosevelts as one of the four truly great Presidents of the 20th century." He is the most famous American soldier of all time. He commanded 4.5 million men in combat, more than any other man in history.
Victory explains his military stature. Peace and prosperity define his presidential ranking. Yet those achievements fall short of the sum of Dwight Eisenhower. That other part of him is found in the nature of the man.
Had Ike been around for last week's celebrations, he most probably would have gone back to Kansas and talked about growing up in Abilene. He had been granted, he once said, "the great and priceless privilege of being raised in a small town." After the war he returned to Abilene 19 times, insisted that he be buried there. He had really never let go.
On the night before the Normandy invasion, moving among the men of the 101st Airborne who were loading up for their drop, he met a man from Dodge City. "Go get 'em, Kansas," he said with a thumbs-up. When the great battles were done and Ike stood in London's Guildhall, talking about the successful struggle for freedom, he was back home again. "The valley of the Thames draws closer to the farms of Kansas," he declared.