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Dwight Eisenhower: The Inspiration (A)

What kind of leader shapes a young soldier’s idea of courage, duty, and sacrifice—and then stays with him for a lifetime?

In this powerful second chapter of our Bob Dole series, we turn to the man who became Dole’s lifelong hero: Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Long before Bob Dole entered politics, he was a wounded young officer watching the world being remade by war. And at the center of that war stood Eisenhower—the Supreme Allied Commander who carried the weight of history on his shoulders as he ordered the D-Day invasion that would determine the fate of Europe and the free world.

In this episode, we explore why Eisenhower became Dole’s model of leadership and character, beginning with a sweeping look at D-Day, the Allied victory, and the burden Eisenhower carried in sending thousands of young men into battle. We trace Eisenhower’s rise from soldier to president, his extraordinary list of accomplishments, and his complex partnership with Richard Nixon, a relationship that would shape American politics for decades.

We also examine Bob Dole’s deeply personal connection to Eisenhower’s legacy, including his leadership in the long effort to build the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C.—now a permanent tribute to the man who inspired him.

And as Eisenhower led the greatest military operation in history, Bob Dole was fighting his own war. We follow Dole into Operation Grapeshot, his arrival in Italy, and the brutal reality that would soon change his life forever.

The episode closes with Eisenhower’s own haunting reflections on the true price of war—words that echo through Bob Dole’s story and the lives of all who served.

This is the first of two episodes exploring Dwight Eisenhower’s towering career and the enduring influence he had on Bob Dole—soldier, senator, and statesman.

A story of leadership under fire.
A story of heroism, humility, and history.
And the story of the man who inspired Bob Dole to believe that service was worth the cost.

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February 2026 on the Wallace Podcast Network — One Month. Three Podcasts. A Shared Journey Through History.

This February, all three shows across the Wallace Podcast Network come together for a powerful month of storytelling that connects world history with hometown legacy.

On Grand Strand Politics, we revisit our acclaimed January 2024 special series, “Robert Hirsch: Our Mayor.” This special rebroadcast honors Mayor Robert Hirsch — a World War II pilot who flew soldiers over enemy lines before returning home to help guide Myrtle Beach through a defining era of growth and change. It’s a story of courage in war and leadership in peace, right here on the Grand Strand.

And there’s even more exciting news tied to this story — a brand-new book about Mayor Hirsch’s remarkable life, The Blonde Bombshell by Colonel Daniel Hunter Wilson, is available now on Amazon. The book dives deeper into the wartime heroism and civic leadership that made Hirsch such an unforgettable figure in local history.

Meanwhile, Randal Wallace Presents: “Bob Dole – The Life That Brought Him There” and The Richard Nixon Experience will simulcast episodes exploring two of the most consequential political relationships of the 20th century:
the partnership between Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon… and later, the bond between Nixon and Bob Dole.

Across these episodes, listeners will travel from the battlefields of World War II to the shifting political landscape of the late 1960s and early 1970s — discovering how shared wartime experiences shaped a generation of American leadership, both on the national stage and in communities like Myrtle Beach.

It’s a month of intertwined stories — of service, sacrifice, ambition, and legacy — told across three distinct shows with one shared historical thread.

We invite you to tune in all February long to all three podcasts across the Wallace Podcast Network for a unique, connected listening experience that brings history to life from the global stage to the local shoreline.

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In this episode of Great American Authors, we take an unforgettable look at two astonishing works born from the tumultuous aftermath of Nixon-era Washington — The Canfield Decision by Spiro T. Agnew and The Company by John Ehrlichman.

Today, The Canfield Decision enjoys a surprisingly warm reception online, with roughly 87% of readers awarding it three to five stars on Goodreads and similar platforms. But that wasn’t always the case. Upon its release, critics and much of the media savaged the book, dismissing it as thinly veiled political wish-fulfillment from a disgraced Vice President. We unpack the striking discrepancy between that early panning and the thoughtful, often affectionate audience it’s gained in recent years — readers who find nuance, ambition, or just plain fun in a novel penned by a man few expected to ever write fiction.

We place the book in the context of Agnew’s political fall from grace. Once the second-in-command in the nation, Agnew’s public resignation and subsequent legal troubles left him a pariah. Remarkably, The Canfield Decision became his first major step back onto the national stage — a work that speaks volumes about ambition, image, and reinvention. What did Agnew hope to say with this book? And why do modern readers connect with it in ways early reviewers didn’t anticipate?

From there, we pivot to another Nixon-era insider turned novelist: John Ehrlichman, author of The Company. A former aide to Richard Nixon and one of the central figures of Watergate, Ehrlichman wrote a sprawling fictional chronicle of power, corruption, and betrayal in America’s secretive intelligence community. Unlike Agnew’s quietly redemptive tone, Ehrlichman’s The Companybristles with bitterness toward the very system he once served — especially toward Nixon himself.

We explore the reviews then and now for The Company, and how Ehrlichman’s own disillusionment shaped a narrative that many readers and critics call prophetic, sprawling, and ethically complex. As we compare and contrast these two presidential novels, we also ask: what happens when real political trauma is transmuted into fiction? What does each author reveal about themselves — and about American power — in the act of storytelling?

Join us for a deep, insightful, and sometimes surprising conversation about politics, prose, reputation, and the curious afterlives of The Canfield Decision and The Company — two books that defy expectations and challenge how we think about presidential literature.

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We stumbled on this interview while researching materials for a tribute to former Vice President Dick Cheney. We had not been aware that this interview existed if we had known it we would have used it during our original broadcast.

The interview is hard hitting, Barbara Walters pulls no punches through out. It is very much worth listening to and Agnew holds his own pretty well,

Enjoy this special edition.

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In this episode we look back at the other man who alongside, Bob Dole and Pete Wilson, spoke at both funerals for Pat and Richard Nixon. The Reverend Billy Graham was a giant figure in the second half of the 20th Century. His influence on the spiritual lives of people around the globe is rivaled only by the various Pope's who served during his lifetime.

He was a major figure in the American Civil Rights movement, and he was an advisor to every President from Harry Truman to Barak Obama. He played an enormous role in 1968 in the election of Richard Nixon to the Presidency. This was learned in a recent blockbuster book by Dr. Luke Nichter who became the first author and historian to gain access to the VIP Notebooks that Billy Graham kept for over 70 years as his ministry grew and he became more and more involved in advising the major public figures of the era.

In this episode we will hear from him, as we also say goodby to President and Mrs. Nixon, listening in on both eulogies, and we will examine the role Billy Graham played, through the Billy Graham Evangelical Association videos, in the the civil rights movement and with the various Presidents. Plus we will hear a segment of an interview with Historian Luke Nichter about the role Graham played in politics especially during the crucial year of 1968.

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In this episode we cover the deaths of both Former First Lady Pat Nixon and former President Richard Nixon who both passed away within 10 months of one another in 1993 and 1994.

As anyone who has been listening to our podcast on a long term basis knows, the life and career of Richard Nixon is a central focus of our show. We even have a sister podcast titled "The Richard Nixon Experience" that is a second avenue to listening to the many episodes we have produced on the President and his life.

This episode adds some additional materials we have not used before mixed in with some of the material from our Nixon series that ran a couple of years ago. We have the newly released video of President Clinton meeting President Nixon for the first time in 1992. We also feature for the first time the eulogy given for Mrs. Nixon by Bob Dole, and several portions of oral histories about President and Mrs. Nixon from the Bob Dole oral history project, with Dole, George McGovern, and Sheila Burke, Bob Dole's Senate Chief of Staff.

We think this is an excellent addition to materials we have already produced on Nixon. It should add to the already growing materials that have been brought to the forefront of Nixon scholarship in recent years. It seems a growing appreciation has been happening for the Presidency of Richard Nixon, and we here at this podcast are proud to have played a small, and very early role, in that new appreciation for the 37th President and his many accomplishments.

As we have said and written repeatedly we believe he deserves to be ranked among the 4 Greatest American Presidents, and it appears our podcast tag line is truly now at hand. The Renaissance of Richard Nixon is finally happening at last.