Description
First edition of The White House Years: Mandate for Change and Waging Peace by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, both volumes inscribed to his editor from Doubleday, Samuel Vaughan.
Octavo, [two volumes], xviii, [2], 650pp; xxiii, [1], 741pp. Blue cloth, titles printed on spines. First edition statement in both volumes. Illustrated endpapers, solid text block. In the publisher’s near fine dust jackets, retail price in both volumes, light wear to front hinge of Volume II, otherwise fine examples. Both volumes are signed by Eisenhower. Mandate for Change is inscribed on the half-title: “For: Samuel Vaughan – who “mothered” this book throughout its preparation – with the warm regard of his friend / Dwight D. Eisenhower / 1963.” Waging Peace is signed on an Eisenhower Gettysburg Farm bookplate: “Devotedly, Dwight D. Eisenhower.” A fine presentation set, with a great Eisenhower association.
Samuel S. Vaughan (1928-2012) was an editor at Doubleday in 1961, who at the age of 32, was assigned to help former President Dwight Eisenhower write his memoirs. The two-volume White House memoirs were an arduous four year task for the former president. With the assistance of his son, John Eisenhower, and Samuel Vaughan, Eisenhower managed to produce an “official government document, dry and comprehensive, but too often devoid of Eisenhower’s candid observations.” (Simon, Eisenhower vs. Warren, page 262). At the behest of Vaughan, he included his observations of McCarthyism and Brown v. Board of Education, definitive cultural moments during his administration. Vaughan also worked on the more personal reminiscences of Eisenhower, titled “At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends.”
