U.S. #1402
8¢ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Coil Stamp
Issue Date: May 10, 1971
City: Washington, DC
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Rotary Press
Perforations: 10 vertical
Color: Deep claret
As General of the Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower led the Allied forces to a victory in Europe during World War II. A popular figure with the American people, he was elected as our 34th President. This stamp was also issued with a 6¢ denomination in dark blue gray.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)
34th United States President
Dwight David Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. When Dwight was just a baby, his family moved to Abilene, Kansas. In 1911, two years after graduating from Abilene High School, Dwight was admitted to West Point. He graduated in 1915 and was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, in Texas.
During “war games” in 1941, Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower commanded his forces to victory over General George Patton’s “enemy force.” This earned him the rank of brigadier general. In 1942, Eisenhower was promoted to major general, and within months became commanding general of U.S. forces in the European Theater of Operations. Over the previous two years, Eisenhower had advanced past 350 senior officers. By February 1943, Eisenhower was a four-star general.
When the decision was made to launch the largest seaborne invasion in military history, General Eisenhower was chosen as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. On June 6, 1944, a multi-national force, commanded by Eisenhower, crossed the English Channel onto the beach in Normandy, France. By that evening, Allied forces controlled the beach.
Following the invasion, in December 1944, Eisenhower was promoted to five-star general, or General of the Army. In November of the following year, he became Army Chief of Staff.
Eisenhower successfully ran for the Presidency in 1952, under a ticket of “Modern Republicanism.” Eisenhower emphasized lower government spending and increased efficiency. Among the domestic proposals of his first term were the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and an interstate highway system, broadening of the Social Security System, and raising the minimum wage to $1 per hour.
President Eisenhower traveled to Korea to negotiate an end to the war. He ordered the CIA to take action against Communist governments around the world. Eisenhower proposed a program called Atoms For Peace, in which nations would donate atomic power to the United Nations. This program developed into the International Atomic Energy Agency.
President Eisenhower’s second term was even more eventful. In September, 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus defied a court order to integrate schools in Little Rock. President Eisenhower sent in the National Guard and the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the order. Also in 1957, the Soviet Union became the first nation in space when it launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite.
In 1951, the 22nd Amendment came into effect, limiting Presidents to two terms. Unable to run for re-election in 1960, the President supported Vice President Richard Nixon. Following Nixon’s defeat, Eisenhower retired to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Eisenhower died of heart failure on March 28, 1969.
Birth of Frances E. Willis
US #4076b – from the 2006 American Diplomats issue
American diplomat Frances E. Willis was born on May 20, 1899, in Metropolis, Illinois. She was a pioneer in her field – the first woman to become a career foreign service officer, the first US ambassador to Switzerland, and the first female career ambassador, among other notable firsts.
Willis attended Stanford University, earning a degree in history in 1920. In 1923, she became the first person to receive a Ph.D. in political science at Stanford. Willis went on to teach history at Goucher College for a year before transferring to Vassar College where she was an assistant professor of political science from 1924 to 1927.
US #4076b – Mystic First Day Cover
In 1927, Willis, realized she “didn’t want to just teach political science, [she] wanted to be a part of it.” Therefore, she left her teaching position and became the third woman in US history to enter the Foreign Service. As she later recalled, “the more I taught, the more I realized how little I actually knew about Government. I decided to find out firsthand what it was like.”
US #4076b – Fleetwood First Day Cover
Willis’s first post was as a consular officer in Valparaiso, Chile. Over the next few years, she served in Santiago, Stockholm, Brussels, and Luxembourg. Willis was serving in Brussels when the Nazis invaded Belgium. At the time, Ambassador Clare Booth Luce and her husband were visiting the ambassador in Brussels. Willis proceeded to drive them through the German lines to Paris so they could evacuate back to the US.
US #4076b – Classic First Day Cover
Willis spent most of World War II as first secretary and consul of the US embassy in Madrid. She was then sent to the US State Department to serve as an assistant to the secretary and assistant head of the division of European affairs. She then went to London in 1947 as first secretary of the embassy. In 1951, she went to Finland where she served as counselor of legation and deputy chief of mission. She was the first woman to serve in this position.
US #2532 – Willis was America’s first ambassador to Switzerland.
In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made Willis the first US ambassador to Switzerland. Prior to that, the highest-ranking American diplomat to Switzerland was a minister. Willis is also considered the first woman to become an ambassador by climbing the career ladder. Other women had been ambassadors before her, but they were usual appointed for political reasons, as opposed to their professional qualifications. In 1955, she was the only woman to attend the Big Four Summit Conference in Geneva. That same year she was also the first appointed career minister.
US #1402 – Eisenhower appointed Willis to two of her three ambassador posts.
Eisenhower named Willis ambassador to Norway from 1957 to 1961. John F. Kennedy made her ambassador to Sri Lanka (known as Ceylon at the time) from 1961 until her retirement in 1964. In 1962, she became the first woman to achieve the rank of career ambassador. After retirement, Willis served as a delegate to the 20th UN General Assembly’s Third Commission on Human Rights and Social Development. She was also head of the US delegation to the 15th session of the Kennedy Round of Tariffs in Geneva and chairman of the University of Redlands Johnston College Board of Overseers and Long Range Planning Committee. Willis died in California on July 23, 1983.
Willis earned several awards during her lifetime, including Woman of the Year from the Los Angeles Times and the Eminent Achievement Award from the American Woman’s Association. Additionally, in 1973 the Foreign Service Association gave her the Foreign Service Cup for her “outstanding contribution to the conduct of foreign relations of the United States.”