William Beatty Pickett (born March 12, 1940) is an American historian and professor emeritus atRose-Hulman Institute of Technology inTerre Haute, Indiana. He is known as an authority on PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower and Indiana SenatorHomer E. Capehart, and is the author of several well-regarded books on U.S. history includingDwight David Eisenhower and American Power^[2] andEisenhower Decides To Run: Presidential Politics and Cold War Strategy.^[3][4][5]

Pickett was born inCrawfordsville, Indiana. He earned his bachelor's degree atCarleton College inNorthfield, Minnesota in 1962, and both a master's degree (in 1968) and doctorate (in 1974) atIndiana University Bloomington.^[6] He served as a lieutenant in theUnited States Naval Reserve from 1962 to 1966.^[7]

After postgraduate work at Indiana University in the late 1960s, Pickett was a professor of history at Rose-Hulman for 35 years. He was aFulbright Scholar atNanzan University inNagoya, Japan in 1989–90, lecturing on American history,^[8] and taught American history on U.S. military bases in Korea as a visiting professor for the University of Maryland.^[9] He was an educational consultant to the American University ofKyrgyzstan (now calledAmerican University of Central Asia) in 2002.^[10] In 1992–93, he served as president of the Indiana Association of Historians.^[11] In 2006, he co-founded the Web History Center, a hub for archiving and preserving early Internet history, with branches in Indiana at Rose-Hulman and at California'sComputer History Museum.^[12][13] Two of his lectures about Eisenhower were featured onC-SPAN'sBook TV series in 2000^[14] and 2002.^[15] Since 2016, he has been a member of the historical advisory panel for theEisenhower Memorial inWashington, D.C.^[16] Pickett retired from teaching in 2007 but continues to write.

Over the course of his career, Pickett produced a number of books, journal articles, reviews, and oral histories.Pickett wrote his doctoral thesis on Indiana Sen. Homer Capehart, and his 1990 bookHomer E. Capehart: A Senator's Life was the first scholarly biography of the politician.^[17]Homer E. Capehart won an Award of Merit from the Ohio Museums Association in 1990.^[18]Pickett's work on Eisenhower included two full-length books. Reviewer Lawrence S. Conner called 1995'sDwight David Eisenhower and American Power a "concise and readable" work that helped to revise previous historians' "harsh assessments of Eisenhower."^[19] Writing in Presidential Studies Quarterly, Herbert Parmet called the book a "gracefully written," more contemporary view of Eisenhower as a politician who "understood and moved with the rhythms of history."^[20] Pickett's 2000 bookEisenhower Decides to Run was one of the first scholarly looks at the 1952 presidential campaign,^[21] and focused particularly on Eisenhower's political reputation.^[22] Writing forMichigan State University'sH-Net forum, Steven Wagner called the book "required reading for Eisenhower specialists" that helped to overturn the older consensus that Eisenhower was only a passive player in his own political career, and made the case that long-simmering political ambitions led to his consciously seeking the presidency in order to block the ambitions of Ohio SenatorRobert A. Taft.^[23] Reviewer Thomas R. Maddux wrote that Pickett's book challenged the "standard view advanced byStephen Ambrose and others" that Eisenhower was a reluctant candidate, positing instead that Eisenhower was cautious after witnessing the controversial political rise of his military rivalDouglas MacArthur, and was a more skilled behind-the-scenes leader than generally acknowledged.^[24]

Pickett also conducted several collections of oral interviews on Capehart^[25] and the histories of Terre Haute and surroundingVigo County^[26] and Rose-Hulman.^[27]

External videos
Pickett discussesEisenhower Decides to Run at the Eisenhower Presidential Library, October 26, 2000,C-SPAN
Pickett speaks on the topic "Eisenhower as a Historical Figure" at Gettysburg College, October 26, 2002,C-SPAN

• Pickett, William B. (2000).Eisenhower Decides To Run: Presidential Politics and Cold War Strategy. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.ISBN 1-56-663787-2.OCLC 43953970.
• Pickett, William B. (1999).To Be the Best: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 1974-1999. Louisville: Four Colour Imports.ISBN 0-91-441401-1.OCLC 42520799.
• Pickett, William B. (1995).Dwight David Eisenhower and American Power. Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson.ISBN 0-88-295918-2.OCLC 31206927.
• Pickett, William B. (1990).Homer E. Capehart: A Senator's Life, 1897-1979. Indianapolis:Indiana Historical Society.ISBN 0-87-195054-5.OCLC 22182601.
• Pickett, William B. (1984).Vigo County Interim Report: Indiana Historical Sites and Structures Inventory. Indianapolis: Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana.
• Pickett, William B., ed. (1977).Technology at the Turning Point. San Francisco: San Francisco Press.ISBN 0-91-130236-0.OCLC 5133913.

• Pickett, William B. (2007). "Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair: A Forty-six Year Retrospective". In Clifford, J. Garry; Wilson, Theodore A. (eds.).Presidents, Diplomats, and Other Mortals: Essays Honoring Robert H. Ferrell. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. pp. 137–153.ISBN 978-0-8262-1747-9.
• Pickett, William B. (2006). "Dwight D. Eisenhower: His Legacy in World Affairs". In Dean, Virgil W. (ed.).John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas History. Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas.ISBN 0-7006-1429-X.
• Pickett, William B. "New Look or Containment? George F. Kennan and the Making of Republican National Security Strategy" (September 2005).George F. Kennan Papers 1861-2014 (mostly 1950-2000), Box: Box 172, Folder 6. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University.
• Pickett, William B. (2004).George F. Kennan and the Origins of Eisenhower's New Look: An Oral History of Project Solarium(PDF). Princeton, New Jersey:Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies,Princeton University.OCLC 55497101. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2013-10-29.
• Pickett, William B. (September 2004). "The Firebombing of the Terre Haute Holocaust Museum: A Hoosier Community Responds to an Assault on Collective Memory".Indiana Magazine of History.100 (3):243–257.JSTOR 27792557.
• Pickett, William B. (2003). "General Andrew Jackson Goodpaster: Managing National Security". In Anderson, David L. (ed.).The Human Tradition in America Since 1945. Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books. pp. 25–46.ISBN 978-0842029438.
• Pickett, William B. (June 2002)."Liberal Education: Its Goals and Methods".Bulletin of the American University of Kyrgyzstan:5–7. RetrievedMay 25, 2018.
• Pickett, William B. (January 2000). "Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1890–1969)". In Chambers, John Whiteclay (ed.).The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.ISBN 9780195071986.
• Pickett, William B. (1999). "Homer Earl Capehart". In Garraty, John A.; Carnes, Mark C. (eds.).American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0700585.
• Pickett, William B. (Fall 1992). "The Historiography of American Foreign Policy". Organization of American Historians.OAH Magazine of History.7 (2). Oxford University Press:13–15.doi:10.1093/maghis/7.2.13.JSTOR 25162869.
• Pickett, William B. (1992). "Vietnam, 1964-1973: An American Dilemma".The Journal of Military History.56 (1): 113.doi:10.2307/1985713.JSTOR 1985713.
• Pickett, William B. (June 1985). "The Eisenhower Solarium Notes".The SHAFR Newsletter.16. Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations:1–10.

• Pickett, William B.Biography: Homer E. Capehart, 1969-1973. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Center for Documentary Research and Practice, Indiana University Center for History and Memory. ohrc015.
• Pickett, William B. (chairman).Vigo County Oral History Program (1980-81). Terre Haute, Indiana: Collections: Politics and Government, Vigo County Public Library. 820128A.
• Pickett, William B. (1997–1998)."Oral History Interviews".Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Archives & Special Collections.

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