WHEN WE LIKED IKE: Looking for Postwar America.

By Barbara P. Norfleet. Norton. 159 pp. $35

I find it difficult to accept the title’s past tense, for I continue to like Ike, who employed me at the White House Conference on Education in 1956. And the whole idea of looking for a postwar America confuses me a little—after all, postwar America still surrounds us. I do appreciate, however, the many photographs of my Aunt Liz (or did I just make her up?) assembled by Norfleet, a photo archivist at Harvard University. There are beautiful young women in these pages, and sometimes what seems to be my whole family tree. The book is a good extension of Edward Steichen’s The Family Of Man (1955).

And yet I wish that Norfleet somehow could show postwar America’s impact on those of us who returned after a seemingly endless time away. Military service had given us a kind of selfcontrol and dignity. The wartime agonies seemed to melt away, leaving us, in our own opinion at least, stronger than ever. The war changed the nation too, and we came back to a strange new world, which gave us a lot.

That world still seems alien. Some photos in When We Liked Ike provoke the eerie feeling of wandering among strangers. There are few smiles on display, though I am glad to see that, as a sign proclaims, there will be no profane language at any time.

—Sloan Wilson