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Ike Deals With a Cheater

You may have known someone – maybe even a close friend – who has cheated in school or in sports. You may have wondered what to do about it, so you might find it interesting to see how Dwight David Eisenhower handled a cheater. This happened long ago during World War I.

Tank Corps Training, Camp Colt, PA, 1918 (Courtesy Dwight D. Eisenhower Library)

Ike’s flexibility was legendary — but so was his iron will. His toughness came into play when he was an officer Camp Colt, Pennsylvania, during the war. The case involved an officer who cheated at cards. When the victims of his cheating discovered his trick, they promptly seized his marked cards and complained to Major Eisenhower.

Ike sent for the man and displayed the marked cards for him to see. The cheater probably had little or no idea that Major Eisenhower was an expert card player, so he tried to bluff his way through the questioning. When he refused to confess to his guilt, Ike pressured him. Years later, Ike recalled the scene. When push came to shove, Ike looked the man straight in the eye and said, “I can show you exactly where you have marked them. Would you like me to do it?” The guilty man stammered, Ike recalled, and then said “No.” Ike continued as follows: “Would you rather resign at once for the good of the service or would you like to be tried by court-martial?” The man agreed to resign from the Army.

A few days later, the father of the cheater appeared at Camp Colt with the United States Congressman from his district. The Congressman suggested to Ike that the man be reinstated in the Army and then transferred to another camp. Ike politely refused. Then the Congressman asked whether Ike would consider deleting the words “for the good of the service” from the guilty man’s written resignation. Ike refused. Then, Ike remembered, “the congressman got angry and said he thought I was acting arbitrarily for a Major.” Ike replied that he was simply “acting as an Army officer protecting my command.”

Eisenhower knew that a man who would cheat his fellow officers could never be trusted to lead soldiers into war. And that was that.

© Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, Washington, DC, 2004