Dwight Eisenhower

President Dwight Eisenhower is the 34th President of the United States, struggling with the morality of a deal he had made. He is a character in Double Feature portrayed by Neal McDonough.

Background[]

Dwight David Eisenhower, nicknamed "Ike", was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944.

Personality and Appearance[]

Ike is a fairly average-looking Caucasian man in his midlife with greying hair. He is almost always seen wearing glasses, and is always in a suit, which bears the Pin of American Presidency. As President of the United States, Ike is a very serious man with a heart for empathy, as seen with Amelia Earhart, however he is desperate on having his country be at the front in the world, as seen when he made a shammed deal with the extra terrestrials. He is a emotionally strong man with a seeming passion for golf and has a patriotic love for his country. Ike does not condone adultery, as seen when Mamie slept with "Val", and seems to be a brave & good negotiator.

Story[]

Eisenhower was playing golf in Palm Springs, when his advisor comes to him with troubling news of an airspace incursion near Edwards Air Force Base. He tries to cover his visit to the base as a dental emergency, but his wife Mamie Eisenhower sees through his story. The Army escorts him to the crash site: an extraterrestrial saucer leaking radiation. A body is found too, which Eisenhower believes is a child. Not far away, a woman covered in geometric scars on her back crouches naked near a scrub tree. The President rushes to her, draping her with his suitcoat, and she gives him her name: Amelia Earhart. On the base, she tells her tale of how her famous final flight went missing. Her instrumentation went berserk, everything was bright white, and that is all she remembers before arriving where she was found. She claims the scars on her back were from experiments. When he presses on who did this to her, she falters and asks where she is. When he begins to tell her, and of his identity, she becomes frantic with disbelief before she is sedated.

While they await confirmation of her identity from the FBI, the President's advisor reminds Eisenhower that Earhart went missing in 1937. Though she has not aged a day, her image is identical to the photo Mamie kept of Earhart in her office. The doctor also discloses that examinations show Earhart is two months pregnant. Eisenhower watches as the extraterrestrial corpse is autopsied, and the scientists find the shell of the body is hollow. A membranous mass leaps from the husk and latches onto the examiner's face. The other examiner tries to rip it off, and it ends up on his face shortly before both men's heads explode. In a panic, the President is escorted away from the observation area to a safe location but is stopped by Maria, whom Eisenhower tries to negotiate with. Instead, she tells him that it is he who will listen to them.

President Eisenhower is indecisive on whether to take the deal from the aliens. His advisors counsel him that the aliens could make a deal with Russia instead. Subject 1, still inhabiting Maria Wycoff, enters the meeting with gifts of stealth and fiber-optic technologies. Subject 1 insists that the alien homeworld is dying and they are desperate to find solutions. The experimentation is necessary to create hybrids that can thrive even in Earth's toxic and pathogenic environments. Refusing to agree with the demands, a military General rises from his seat and aims his pistol at Subject 1. With a flick of her wrist, his head explodes. Unable to further sustain control of the human body, Subject 1 exits the meeting by exploding Maria's head.

Eisenhower is having difficulty with the treaty trading the torture of Americans for technology. Subject 1, inhabiting Mamie, continues to threaten the well-being for the First Lady, which we later find out was just Mamie working together with the alines to manipulate the entire country.

Eisenhower hears screams trough the White House ventilation system, tracking them to the basement, where to find a concealed door in the service tunnels. A panel on the door activates on touch, then recognizes his handprint and the door opens to an elevator taking him 20 stories down. Valiant Thor says that the President's visit was not expected for several weeks yet. The android claims the tunnels in which experiments are being conducted were built years before, in preparation for nuclear "exchange," but the President was unaware of them. Several specimens of hybrid, in various ratio of human/alien aspects, are suspended in fluid in clear glass vessels in the lab. Valiant Thor explains that the extraterrestrials are convinced Eisenhower, and humanity by extension, would cancel the treaty if humans saw their true forms. Valiant Thor intimates that the extraterrestrials will take what they want by force rather than deal with the Russians. Hearing an unfamiliar moaning noise in the residence, Eisenhower finds Mamie astride Val, sexually engaged. The sight causes him to faint, clutching his chest. When he awakes, she is unapologetic, calling Thor both a machine and a visiting dignitary. She considers it revenge for an affair he had during the war. Dejected, the President walks away questioning if he even knows his wife anymore. A year later, a motorcade unloads Nixon, Eisenhower, and now President Lyndon B. Johnson at Area 51. Thor greets the men and introduces himself to the new President. The men are shown a warehouse full of pods holding preserved hybrids

In 1969, Eisenhower lays in a hospital bed. Mamie chides him for discussing something stressful against doctors' orders when he brings up the war and Nixon's election. Mamie despairs of the conversation when he tells her about the known existence of the extraterrestrial's reptilian adversaries. She is far more interested in her legacy of American celebrations of birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving. Her new project is Evacuation Day, though Eisenhower does not believe it will catch on widely. Valiant Thor drops in for a visit. He respectfully offers to preserve Eisenhower's life at Area 51, but the former President is intent on dying. He is well aware of Thor's continued relationship with Mamie, and says they deserve each other. He dies soon after, and Mamie declares that she would take Thor up on his immortality offer.

Quotes[]

Eisenhower upon discovering a deceased alien's body: "We can safely it's not the Russians, or the Chinese, or the Boy Scouts of America."
During the autopsy of the alien at an airforce facility: "Why? Why is it here?"
To Mamie, after she made a remark about his legacy: "Well, I'm leaving something behind. I wouldn't call it a legacy."
To Mamie after finding out that she had told Nixon about the aliens: "I trusted you, Mamie! I told you everything because I needed to hear from someone who isn't in the military, and you break that promise by going to Dick Nixon!?"
To Subject 1 while it's occupying Mamie: "You sons of bitches! I'll kill every damned one of you if you hurt my wife!"
To Nixon after asking Dwight if they're on speaking terms: "If we were, I'd tell you to go fuck yourself."

Notes[]

President Eisenhower is the only character portrayed by Neal McDonough.
Dwight has a strong dislike towards the U.S.S.R, which is an accuracy for the time, as the two country were rivals for years until 1969, when the Cold War had begun.
Dwight Eisenhower, Mamie Eisenhower, Kendall Carr, Troy Lord, Cal Cambon & Jamie Howard are the only six characters to appear in every episode of Death Valley.