Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  What upset Ike was, first, the fact of the leak itself—all Presidents dislike leaks. Second, Dulles’ claims to have predicted Suez and Hungary simply were not true. But the ultimate insult to Ike was Dulles’ hint that the President was too lazy to do his homework. Throughout his presidency, Ike smarted under the criticism that he took too many vacations, that he did not work hard enough, that he neglected his duties for a golf game or a fishing expedition, and most of all that he refused to read any report that was more than one page long.

  In an April 1958 article on Hungary, Harper’s Magazine repeated Dulles’ charges that Ike would have known what was going to happen if he had only read the CIA reports. Eisenhower, according to Harper’s, “showed great annoyance at this, announcing that the reports were too ponderous to read and asking that henceforth the CIA append maps, with red arrows pointing to strategic points, and headline summaries to its daily intelligence digest.”6

  Nightclub comedians, late-night TV comics, and the Democratic Party all had great fun with Ike’s red arrows and headline summaries. The truth was, however, that the CIA reports were too ponderous for anyone to read. It can be argued that the President is the busiest man in the world, operating on the tightest schedule, carrying the most responsibilities, and having the least amount of time for serious reading, or indeed reading of any kind. He wants his intelligence summaries to be brief, straightforward, accurate.

  But the world is much too complex and the CIA’S task much too difficult to meet those requirements. The honest intelligence officer knows that he can never be completely sure. He is trying to predict the actions of men and organizations that are resourceful, have every reason to hide their intentions, and have vast experience in doing so. And, obviously, many of the world’s great events are unpredictable, taking everyone by surprise. Inevitably, the CIA wants to cover itself, to qualify its predictions, to introduce nuances into its reports, to say that “such and so might happen if this takes place, but then on the other hand …” etc.

  A long, ponderous report, filled with qualifications, is an honest report. It is also of little use to the President. In predicting Communist reactions to possible American initiatives, however, the CIA was often quite exact, and most helpful, especially in giving Ike a reason not to do something he did not want to do anyway.

  Vietnam makes a good case study of this development. From 1953 to 1961 the CIA filed voluminous reports on the prospects in Vietnam. Called “National Intelligence Estimates,” they were issued at regular intervals. The estimates were submitted to the President and the NSC by Allen Dulles, who was careful to note on the cover page that “the following intelligence organizations participated in the preparation of this estimate: The CIA and the intelligence organizations of the Departments of State, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Joint Staff.” Some of the estimates were over thirty pages long, none less than ten.

  The first estimate Ike saw on Vietnam was published on June 4, 1953. It was interesting but, for the President, of little use. The report said that the military situation might or might not get better. Who could tell if new French generals would help or not? The Chinese might or might not invade. There was one good, solid, straightforward prediction: “If present trends in the Indochinese situation continue through mid-1954, the French political and military position may subsequently deteriorate very rapidly.”7 But then, that was hardly a secret.

  On June 15, 1954, the agency dealt with one of the most explosive problems the NSC ever handed it—to estimate Communist reactions to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States in Vietnam. The request came about because various members of the Eisenhower administration, led by Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Nathan Twining, and including all the JCS (except for Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway), as well as the Secretary of Defense, and the Vice President, had urged the President to use atomic bombs. Twining said that the use of two or three “nukes” on the Vietminh around Dien Bien Phu would “clean those Commies out of there and the band could play the Marseillaise and the French would come marching out in fine shape.”8

  Ike said that he would not use atomic weapons for the second time in less than a decade against Asians, partly because it would put the United States in the worst possible light in Asia and throughout the Third World, mainly because he hated what he called “those terrible things.”9

  Nothing could have budged Ike from that position, but he was thankful for CIA support. The CIA warned flatly that “the Chinese would take whatever military action they thought required to prevent destruction of the Viet Minh, including when and if necessary open use of Chinese Communist forces in Indochina.” The agency pointed out that “U.S. use of nuclear weapons in Indochina would hasten the ultimate Chinese decision whether or not to intervene.”10

  Dien Bien Phu fell to the Vietminh. In Geneva, in July of 1954, France, Ho Chi Minh, and the great powers (except for the United States) signed the Geneva Accords. The parties agreed to a truce and to a temporary partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel. Neither the French in the south (who soon handed over the government to Diem) nor Ho Chi Minh’s Communists in the north could join a military alliance or allow foreign military forces or equipment onto their territory. There would be elections within two years to unify the country.

  The United States did not sign the accords, nor did any representative of a South Vietnamese government. Bedell Smith was in Geneva as an observer, not a participant in the conference. He issued a letter stating that his government “took note of” the accords and promising that the United States would support free elections and would not use force to upset the agreements.

  This was a major embarrassment to the Republicans, who had come to power pledged to a policy of “liberation,” and who now had to watch as yet another Asian country, North Vietnam, fell to the Communists. Desperate to save something from the debacle, in late July, General Twining, Admiral Radford, Secretary Dulles, and others worked out an invasion scheme that would have landed American troops at Haiphong, followed by a march to Hanoi.

  Again General Ridgway opposed. On the basis of Army intelligence estimates, he argued that the adventure would require at least six divisions, even if the Chinese did not intervene. Eisenhower’s defense policy was to reduce the Army, not expand it. The President refused to act.11

  Secretary Dulles then moved on the diplomatic front. Ike was a great believer in alliances, and in September of 1954 he encouraged Dulles to sign up allies in Asia. Dulles persuaded Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Thailand, Pakistan, and the Philippines to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). It was a defensive alliance in which the parties agreed to act together to meet an aggressor. Protection for Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam, the independent nations that had come into being when the French withdrew from Indochina, was covered in a separate protocol.

  Bringing South Vietnam into SEATO was a de facto violation of the Geneva Accords. The United States had already decided, in any event, that those accords would have to be ignored, especially the section that called for free nationwide elections. The CIA had reported in August that “if the scheduled national elections are held in July, 1956, and if the Viet Minh does not prejudice its political prospects, the Viet Minh will almost certainly win.”12

  Ike was more precise in his memoirs. He stated, “I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held … possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai.”13

  Ike’s statement, so frequently quoted by doves in the second half of the 1960s, had a major qualifier to it. Bao Dai was then living in France. He had no interest in his native land, and all the CIA reports indicated that his popularity was nonexistent among his subjects. In addition, Ike often pointed out, when confronted with this statement, that North Vietnam had nearly twice the population of South Vietnam, and he assumed
that Ho Chi Minh would get 100 percent of the vote in his half of the country.14

  Nevertheless, the stark fact remained that Ho Chi Minh had more popularity than any non-Communist leader. Under the circumstances, no one in the U. S. Government could have been expected to support free elections. So the decision was made to find an alternative to Ho, meanwhile avoiding elections. Ngo Dinh Diem became the favored alternative, and with the help of Colonel Lansdale and the CIA, he managed to win the power struggle, eliminating his opponents in the Vietnamese military and Bao Dai.

  The CIA, on September 15, 1954, judged Diem a good prospect for American support, indeed “the only figure on the political scene behind whom genuine nationalist support can be mobilized.” Although he was “confronted with the usual problems of inefficiency, disunity, and corruption in Vietnamese politics,” he was honest and energetic. Diem, the CIA felt, had “considerable unorganized popular support, particularly among Catholic elements of South Vietnam.” It predicted he would survive the present crisis but said that his ability to create a government that could last depended on “early and convincing” outside support.15

  Eisenhower then made his decision to back Diem. On October 1, 1954, he wrote a letter of support to him, a letter often cited later by Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon as proof that it was Ike who got us into Vietnam.

  “We have been exploring ways and means … to make a greater contribution to the welfare and stability of the Government of Viet-Nam,” Ike began. He was therefore instructing the American ambassador in Saigon to confer with Diem to see “how an intelligent program of American aid given directly to your Government can serve to assist Viet-Nam in its present hour of trial, provided that your Government is prepared to give assurances as to the standards of performance it would be able to maintain in the event such aid were supplied.”

  The purpose of the offer, the President said, was to assist Diem “in developing and maintaining a strong, viable state, capable of resisting attempted subversion or aggression through military means.” There was a condition to the aid. “The Government of the United States expects that this aid will be met by performance on the part of the Government of Viet-Nam in undertaking needed reforms.” Such a government would be, the President hoped, “so responsive to the nationalist aspirations of its people, so enlightened in purpose and effective in performance, that it will be respected both at home and abroad and discourage any who might wish to impose a foreign ideology on your free people.”16

  The reforms never took place. The CIA reported that Diem’s regime was increasingly repressive. American aid nevertheless continued to support Diem’s government. One of the reasons was the lack of an alternative; another was the optimistic picture the CIA painted of South Vietnam. In Saigon, there was a high standard of living, political stability, economic progress—according to the CIA.

  In May 1957, Diem came to the United States for a triumphant welcome. He spent three days in Washington, where he conferred with Ike, Dulles, and other high officials. He addressed a joint session of Congress and met with such supporters as Cardinal Spellman, Senator John Kennedy, Justice William O. Douglas, and Mayor Robert Wagner of New York. Wagner hailed Diem as a man “to whom freedom is the very breath of life itself.” Ike loaned Diem his personal plane to fly to the West Coast. In the press, on television, at banquets, everywhere Diem was hailed as the miracle worker who provided living proof of what could be accomplished in the Third World without Communist regimentation.17

  CIA reports continued to echo that view. In its 1959 National Intelligence Estimate, the agency contrasted the two Vietnams. The north was “organized along strict Communist lines. The standard of living is low; life is grim and regimented; and the national effort is concentrated on building for the future.” In the south, meanwhile, “the standard of living is much higher and there is far more freedom and gaiety.” Security in the south was much improved; the number of Communist guerrillas was down from 10,000 to 2,000, “scattered along the Cambodian border and in the remote plateau region of the north.”

  The agency did admit that there were problems, although one had to go to the fine print of the bulky document to find them. One was that Diem concentrated on building his armed forces, not long-term economic development. Consequently, American aid dollars were used to buy consumer goods from Japan or the United States, which inhibited the development of local industry.

  Another problem was that “a façade of representative government is maintained, but the government is in fact essentially authoritarian.… No organized opposition, loyal or otherwise, is tolerated, and critics of the regime are often repressed.” The strongly centralized one-man rule provided stability at the expense of alienating the nation’s educated elite and inhibiting the growth of political institutions that had popular support.

  Overall, however, the CIA’S conclusion was that “Diem will almost certainly be President for many years,” and that with Diem there would be stability and continued prosperity in South Vietnam.18

  In briefing President-elect Kennedy on January 19, 1961, on Southeast Asia, Ike did not even mention Vietnam. It was not a “problem area.”

  Nearly two decades later, by which time the United States had sent 4.25 million of her young men to Vietnam, and then brought them home, and lost the war, General Goodpaster placed part of the blame for Ike’s shortsightedness on Vietnam at the feet of the intelligence agencies. Goodpaster characterized our information on Vietnam as “inadequate, poor, terrible.”19

  That judgment seems unfair if it is directed solely toward the CIA. America’s policy toward Vietnam was made in the White House and the State Department, not in CIA headquarters. The chief feature of the CIA reporting was that it could usually be read either way. Ike could have supported Diem on the basis of the intelligence he received, or he could have adopted an anti-Diem policy on the basis of those same reports. The choice was his. All the CIA did was to supply him with information. That was all it was supposed to do.

  On the question, who got us into Vietnam? the Eisenhowers could be as quick to point the finger of blame as Ike’s successors. In an interview in 1979, Milton Eisenhower said, “One of the hardest things I had to do with Lyndon Johnson was that he kept saying, as the criticism of the Vietnam war mounted, ‘I’m only carrying out the policy of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy.’

  “And on one occasion I said, ‘President Johnson, you’re making a terrible mistake. President Eisenhower was bitterly opposed to any participation in the Vietnam war. He was importuned by the Air Force and everybody else, and he declined time and again.’

  “And Johnson looked at me, and took me by surprise. He said, ‘Well, then why is it that now that we’re in there he’s never spoken a word of opposition?’

  “I said, ‘Well, there are two things to be said about that. Before we get into a fight it’s quite a different matter. And furthermore, now that we’re in it and you are making all the statements that you are, if President Eisenhower differed with you, it would be the greatest comfort to the enemy that you can imagine, and it would prolong the war.’

  “He said, ‘My God, I never thought of such a thing. I’ll never say that again.’

  “I said, ‘You just remember that Truman gave monetary help, Eisenhower put in a few men as advisers, but Kennedy put the first men in to start shooting, and you’re the one that expanded the war. So don’t blame it on anybody else.’ He took it like a man.”20

  Ike, too, could be critical of his successors, although as Milton pointed out he never uttered a word against the President in public on the subject of the war. But in 1968, immediately after LBJ made his startling announcement that he was not going to run for reelection and simultaneously announced that he was stopping the bombing north of the DMZ, Ike wrote in the privacy of his diary:

  “April 1, 1968. Last evening President Johnson went on the television on a national hookup. He talked a great deal about the war and made these points: 1. He defended earnestly the reas
ons for America being in the war. 2. He said America would persevere until the limited objectives he outlined should be realized and that those objectives did not include conquering North Viet Nam, using such methods that would convince Hanoi that we would not be defeated and therefore to induce them, sooner or later, to come to the bargaining table. He reiterated the Administration’s determination to achieve these limited objectives and thereafter to assist that corner of Asia.

  “Next he said that he had ordered a cessation of bombing of North Viet Nam in the hope that this would lead to satisfactory peace. This abrupt change in policy, without any quid pro quo from Hanoi, will, of course, further bewilder the United States. It appears to be not only contrary to the President’s announced determination in the matter, but a partial capitulation, at least, to the ‘peace at any price’ people in our own country.

  “The final and most puzzling feature of his talk was his declaration that he would not seek and would not accept the nomination of his Party for the Presidency of the United States. The inclusion of this statement seems to be almost a contradiction to his plea for a more unified America in attaining our limited objectives in Viet Nam. His speech is virtually an effort to surrender to another the Presidential responsibilities in the conflict. The conclusion seems inescapable that though he is convinced of the worthiness of our purposes in Southeast Asia, he, himself, is unwilling to remain, personally, in the fight.

  “To me it seems obvious that the President is at war with himself and while trying vigorously to defend the actions and decisions he has made in the past, and urging the nation to pursue these purposes regardless of cost, he wants to be excused from the burden of the office to which he was elected.”21