Americans remember the those who recall the 1950s as a time of so- 1950s for many things, but cial stagnation, Cold War belligerence, high among them is the im- and hidden turbulence, Eisenhower has age of Dwight D. Eisen- seemed (like the decade itself) bland, inef- hower, the genial, smiling fectual, mediocre-a man, Arthur Schle- national hero whose reas- singer has written, "who did not always suring presence seemed to symbolize the understand and control what was going halcyon days of...