Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Federal Highway Act

Charles U. Zug

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780700635993, 9780700636006
• eBook ISBN: 9780700636013
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

President Dwight D. Eisenhower is remembered by many as the originator of the American Interstate Highway System. He is also praised for restraining executive overreach, restoring the separation of powers, and presiding over an era of governmental equanimity and goodwill.

In Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Federal Highway Act, Charles Zug contests all these assumptions. Through archival research, Zug shows that Eisenhower’s attempt to lead highway expansion during 1952–1955 ended in dismal failure. Far from championing the separation of powers, Eisenhower sought to marginalize Congress from the legislative process by secretly writing a transformative highway bill within the confines of his White House. And once it was announced, Eisenhower’s highway plan was almost universally panned: Ike’s own comptroller general deemed the plan’s funding mechanism “illegal” before a bipartisan majority laughed it out of the Senate in the spring of 1955. The highway bill that did eventually pass Congress in 1956, and that went on to launch the modern interstate system, was written by congressional Democrats and emphatically rejected Eisenhower’s basic approach to highway reform.

Drawing on executive politics, American political development, and leadership studies, Zug uses the Federal Highway Act to argue for a foundational reassessment of Eisenhower’s legacy as highway founder, president, and political leader.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Presidential Decisions
• Chapter 1. Background and Context, 1787–1952
• Chapter 2. Presidential Initiative: Eisenhower’s Initial Forays into Highway Expansion, 1952–1954
• Chapter 3. The Clay Committee and the Development of Eisenhower’s Highway Program, 1954–1955
• Chapter 4. Congress Resurgent: The Defeat of the Eisenhower Highway Bill in 1955
• Chapter 5. The Final Push and Congressional Victory
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliographic Essay
• Index
• About the Author
• Back Cover