President’s Club
Dwight D. Eisenhower with Historian Peter Vermilyea
Monday, June 29 from 3:15 – 4:15 PM
In-Person & on Zoom:
Registration required to attend In-Person.
June Selection:
We will be exploring Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World by Evan Thomas.
“[Thomas’s] detailed, engaging pictures of Eisenhower’s personality bring him vividly to life. Most important, by the end of the book Thomas has made his case that Dwight Eisenhower’s greatest victories were the wars he did not fight.” – New York Times Book Review
Evan Thomas’s startling account of how the underrated Dwight Eisenhower saved the world from nuclear holocaust.
Upon assuming the presidency in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower set about to make good on his campaign promise to end the Korean War. Yet while Eisenhower was quickly viewed by many as a doddering lightweight, behind the bland smile and simple speech was a master tactician. To end the hostilities, Eisenhower would take a colossal risk by bluffing that he might use nuclear weapons against the Communist Chinese, while at the same time restraining his generals and advisors who favored the strikes. Ike’s gamble was of such magnitude that there could be but two outcomes: thousands of lives saved, or millions of lives lost.
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Oliver Wolcott Library
160 South Street
Litchfield, CT 06759
2026-06-29
