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Susan Eisenhower
Eisenhower Institute of Gettysburg College
President, Eisenhower Group, Inc.
Foreign Affairs Specialist, Author, Lecturer
Granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower

1984 by George Orwell

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As the granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Susan Eisenhower grew up with an intimate understanding of the "Cold War" between the United States and the Soviet Union. Perhaps that is why Orwell's novel had particular resonance.  But little did she know that by 1988 she would bear witness first hand to Orwell's predictions with the fall of the Soviet Union. 

"When I first read it, I didn't have any idea then I would be traveling to the Soviet Union," says Eisenhower, who has now made more than 85 visits to the former Republic. As the Soviet Union was unraveling in 1989, Eisenhower said she picked up the book again and was astonished by how accurately Orwell described what was happening.  "It is extraordinary that George Orwell predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union...just extraordinary," she says. 

Eisenhower has now spent more than 20 years working in foreign affairs and is best known for her work in Russia and the former Soviet Union.  She has testified before Senate committees regarding policies in that region; served on the National Academy of Science's Committee on International Security and Arms Control; worked on task forces to evaluate nuclear non-proliferation programs in Russia; and published her own best-selling book about the Soviet Union, Breaking Free: a memoir of love and revolution (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1995).

"I used this book as a motif for Breaking Free, which is about the collapse of the Soviet Union," explains Eisenhower, holding up her well-worn, note-stuffed edition of 1984.  "In every section I used a quote from Orwell's book."

Eisenhower says this book remains very relevant today.  "His themes of how government puts up a rhetorical façade that is disconnected from daily truth still resonate," she says. "Equally powerful are his revelations about human attraction and betrayal and the pressure people are put under in this type regime.  I saw this play out in the last days of the Soviet Union.  For some people, it was their finest hour; for others it showed who they really were...which wasn't always good."