Description
First edition of Man From Abilene by Kevin McCann. Octavo, 252pp. Gray cloth, title printed in blue and white on spine. Top edge green. Illustrated endpapers. Stated first edition on copyright page. In publishers first edition dust jacket, $2.50 on front flap, light toning to red print on spine, which is common with this title. Inscribed by author on front free endpaper to Virginia Lawton, with the following inscription: “To Virginia Lawton, one of those people who makes America the sort of place that makes the Man from Abilene love it. Kevin McCann.”
Comments: Kevin McCann met future President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1946, while he was serving as Army Chief of Staff at the Pentagon. He followed General Eisenhower to Columbia University, then to Paris when Eisenhower was appointed the Supreme Allied Commander. In Paris, McCann served as special assistant to the General, assisting in the preparation of his influential memoirs, Crusade in Europe. McCann was appointed President of Defiance College in 1951, but soon took a leave of absence to follow Eisenhower to the White House as a speech writer. When President Eisenhower retired to Gettysburg, PA, McCann and his wife moved to the Eisenhower farm to serve as Special Assistant to the former president, helping to write his memoirs.