Dwight D. Eisenhower's public image was that of a wide-grinning Daddy Warbucks who preferred the golf course over the cabinet room. He was perceived as a military bureaucrat who never held a combat command. A Republican sandwiched between two Democratic administrations, he lacked the political vigor of his predecessor Harry S. Truman and the star quality of his successor JFK. Yet behind the placid image he was a sly fox who ran the most efficient espionage establishment in the world. His goal was to keep the Free World free. To do so, he fostered the growth of the CIA, overthrew governments, flew spy flights, and hatched assassination plots. At the top of the intelligence pyramid, Ike shouldered some of the greatest coups in espionage history, as well as some of its most ignominious failures. Among Ike's successes: The "Man Who Never Was" strategem, the ULTRA-guided ambush of the German counterattack at Mortain, which opened the Allies' way to the Rhine, the 1954 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman's government of Guatemala, Operation AJAX, which toppled Iran's Mossadegh, and the U-2 flights over Russia. But Ike can be credited likewise for miscalculations: the failure to predict the German attack during the Battle of the Bulge, the Francis Gary Powers fiasco, and the tragic and irresponsible encouragement of freedom fighters in Hungary, Indonesia, and Cuba.

Includes index.

Churchill introduces Ike to the ULTRA secret -- Preparing the TORCH -- Lighting the TORCH -- Who murdered the admiral? -- Ike and ULTRA in Africa, Sicily, and Italy -- The secret side of OVERLORD -- D-day and the French resistance -- The Battle of Mortain : ULTRA's greatest triumph -- Ike, Strong, Monty, and the bridge too far -- Ike's intelligence failure at the Bulge -- Eisenhower between SHAEF and the presidency -- The birth and early years of the CIA, 1945-53 -- President Eisenhower and the communist menace -- Iran : the preparation -- Iran : the act -- Guatemala -- Hungary, Vietnam, and Indonesia -- The national intelligence estimates -- The U-2 and Ike's defense policy -- Francis Gary Powers and the summit that never was -- Ike and the CIA's assassination plots -- Ike and the Bay of Pigs -- Ike and his spies.