It used to be cool to sneer at Dwight D. Eisenhower's Presidency as a case of ''the bland leading the bland.'' Revisionist historians have tempered our image of the 50's somewhat but have not succeeded in appreciably altering that description of Eisenhower himself. Neither will Geoffrey Perret's new biography.

Perret's is the first full-scale treatment of Eisenhower's life since Stephen E. Ambrose's two-volume study, published in 1983. Perret skillfully draws on newly available sources to qualify the stories Eisenhower told in his memoirs. He also gives more attention to Eisenhower's personal life than did Ambrose. But this biography neither radically deconstructs Eisenhower's self-portrait nor varies significantly from Ambrose's account in its approach and conclusions.