New TV Series - Eisenhower's Secret War
Click to learn about Eisenhower's Secret War

Hosted by:
Evan Thomas
Journalist and author

Evan Thomas

Produced by:
George A. Colburn
Political historian, writer
and producer

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COMMENTS BY EISENHOWER SCHOLARS:

Dr. Michael Birkner,
Benjamin Franklin Professor of Liberal Arts, Gettysburg College

Long under-appreciated, Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency has in the past generation gained broad respect from the scholarly community.  Now, George Colburn's documentary, "Eisenhower's Secret War," has provided us with an Eisenhower who was not only necessary for his times, but relevant to ours. It is a fresh and powerful story about America’s 34th president, capturing Dwight Eisenhower as you have not seen him before.

 

Dr. H.W. Brands,
Dickson, Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of
History and Government, University of Texas

"Eisenhower's Secret War" is a labor of love, a labor of scholarship, a first-rate work of investigative history. George Colburn knows more about Ike than anyone, and now his viewers will too.

 

Evan Thomas,
Distinguished Journalist and Author of Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World

In his new documentary, George Colburn has put together an astonishing array of his interviews with men and women who knew Ike, shaping them into a fast-paced and revealing story about an enigmatic leader of the "Free World" in the early years of the Cold War. Eisenhower was not the genial, grandfatherly golfer of popular myth. Rather, he was a subtle and sometimes brutal operator, and Colburn's film shows how and why.

 

Dr. Daun van Ee,
Editor, The Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers

"Eisenhower's Secret War" goes behind the perceptions to reveal the true story of how one of America's greatest presidents kept the peace while thwarting communist expansion in unimaginably perilous times. Filmmaker George Colburn, a master craftsman and Eisenhower scholar, has created a documentary masterpiece, at once factually accurate and entertaining. The firsthand interviews and historical assessments he provides will come to be regarded as a lasting legacy and a model for those who exercise national and world leadership.

 

R. Cargill Hall, Chief Historian, Emeritus,
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)

"Eisenhower’s Secret War" explodes the widely-held belief that our 34th President acted as a national "caretaker," one who spent much of his time playing golf in Augusta, Georgia. Perhaps most significant, it reveals that Eisenhower authorized and, with a few trusted advisors, saw executed a technical revolution in overhead intelligence collection. Within a span of eight years they opened the Soviet Union and Communist China, indeed the entire world, to American scrutiny. That revolution ensured that the Cold War stayed "cold." No subsequent president has contributed as much to our national security.

 

Dr. David A. Nichols,
Author of Eisenhower 1956: The President's Year of Crisis – Suez and the Brink of War

For decades, historians inaccurately portrayed Dwight D. Eisenhower as an old, bumbling, do-nothing president. But on television, George Colburn was a pioneer in producing historically accurate programs about the Eisenhower presidency. His documentaries over the past 20 years are a rich mixture of solid scholarship and media savvy. The recently released program in Colburn’s ongoing series – "Eisenhower's Secret War" -- provides a compelling portrait of a president who shrewdly waged peace in the uncharted waters of the early Cold War. While it merits scholarly respect, this new documentary is also accessible and fast-paced – a splendidly useful tool for teaching twenty-first century students.

 

 

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

January 10, 1946