Hmm …

… Miscellaneous Musings : When the Middle East became a Cold War battlefield.

The following is from my review of Paul Johnson’ biography of Eisenhower:

There was, in fact, only one American military intervention abroad during Eisenhower's eight years in office: the July 1958 landing of troops in Lebanon at the request of that country's president. There was no fighting, there were no casualties, and the troops were withdrawn in November. The success of the operation was no accident. Eisenhower, Johnson points out, "was an experienced and successful general who knew what troops could, and could not, do." He drily notes that "the contrast between Ike's movement into Lebanon and John F. Kennedy's abortive Bay of Pigs misadventure … could not have been more marked."

Last year, a survey of historians ranked Ike as our fifth best president.