Kasey Pipes

Author Event:  Kasey Pipes
Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality
November 14, 2007

Kasey Pipes (left) with host Lawrence Taylor

On November 14, 2007, The Eisenhower Institute welcomed Kasey Pipes, author of the recently-released book, Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality. The event was hosted by Eisenhower Institute board member and former U.S. Ambassador Lawrence P. Taylor.  

Ike's Final Battle was published just in time for the 50th anniversary of Little Rock, an event that Pipes says "changed the nation." The book chronicles Eisenhower's internal struggle to determine his position on civil rights issues. It was a struggle that began in the 1940s when he commanded the Allied troops in Europe during World War II, and ending with the events in Little Rock in 1957.

A special guest for the evening was former Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman, Jr., shown here with Pipes.

According to Pipes, his book began as a case study of Little Rock, but quickly became a character study of Ike. "I tried to focus on the man like a novelist would," Pipes told attendees. "I tried very hard to show this great man struggling with this great issue."

Syndicated columnist George F. Will says of Ike's Final Battle: "The nation liked Ike because it saw so much of itself in him. Like the nation when it was forced to face its racial dilemma, Eisenhower also had to face the tension between his unanalyzed assumptions and the better angels of his nature. How he struggled to do so is a fascinating story, sensitively told by Kasey S. Pipes. This mind-opening book shows that Eisenhower's coming-to-terms with the coming civil rights revolution was, like the man himself, more complex and admirable than has hitherto been appreciated."

Susan Eisenhower with Pipes.

Senator Robert J. Dole added: "Beginning with the Battle of the Bulge, Dwight Eisenhower breached the rules limiting opportunities for black servicemen to serve. As President, he fought an internal battle, educating himself even as he educated his countrymen on their moral obligations. At Little Rock he upheld simple decency in the face of mob rule. Simultaneously he pressed for enactment of the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. None of this was easy, and little about Ike was as simple as it appeared on the surface. Kasey S. Pipes takes us further beneath that surface than anyone has to date. His portrait of an incrementalist caught up in a social and legal revolution is groundbreaking, and almost painfully intimate. It is also a hugely important contribution to our understanding of Eisenhower, America in the Fifties, and ourselves."

Pipes says he decided to write the book because "I thought there was a unique story that had never really been told before. Here was the greatest American of his time. Why not showcase him facing the greatest American dilemma of all time? Why not use the civil rights revolution as a window into his soul? Did he do the right thing? How did he view African-Americans? Was he slow to act? If so, why?"

Pipes is president of The Pipes Company, a corporate consultant firm.  Before forming his own company, he was a speech writer for President George W. Bush and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He also was the chief author of the 2004 Republican National platform.

Following the presentation, Pipes answered questions from the crowd and signed copies of his book.  Click here to see an C-SPAN interview with Pipes about this book.