Book Read Free

The Age of Eisenhower

Page 80

by William I Hitchcock


  29. Los Angeles Times, December 7, 1957; New York Times, December 7, 1957.

  30. “Monthly Report on Progress of ICBM and IRBM Programs,” Department of Defense, December 31, 1957, Digital National Security Archive, Nuclear History I, 1955–68. For a statement on the value of failure in missile research, see memorandum for President Eisenhower from James Killian, December 28, 1957, Papers as President, Administration Series, box 23, DDEL.

  31. “Chronology of Significant Events in the U.S. Intermediate and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Programs,” November 8, 1957, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952–61, Special Assistant Series, Subject Subseries, box 7, DDEL. For summary of the air force and army missile programs, Converse, Rearming for the Cold War, 490–506, 592–634. For figures on aircraft, see Schwartz, Atomic Audit, 113, and on the missile deployments, 126–39.

  32. DDE, Waging Peace, 230.

  33. Dulles remarks in Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1957; coverage of NATO summit, New York Times, December 16, 1957; Gaddis, We Now Know, 240–41.

  34. New York Times, January 1 and 8, 1958; Wall Street Journal, January 2, 3, and 6, 1958; Los Angeles Times, January 3 and 6, 1958; Washington Post, January 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 1958.

  35. Washington Post, January 10, 1958.

  36. Annual message to Congress, January 9, 1958, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 2–15.

  37. Hughes, The Ordeal of Power, 259; Washington Post, January 10 and 11, 1958; Los Angeles Times, January 10, 1958; Wall Street Journal, January 10, 1958; New York Times, January 12, 1958.

  38. DDE, Waging Peace, 256; Mieczkowski, Eisenhower’s Sputnik Moment, 127–29; New York Times, February 1, 1958.

  39. Killian, Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower, 219, 239, 241. See also Skolnikoff, Science, Technology, and American Foreign Policy, 227–31; York, Race to Oblivion, 113–16. See Eisenhower’s personal note to Killian, July 16, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 43, DDEL: “I shall never cease to be grateful for the patience with which you initiated me into the rudiments of this new science.”

  40. Conversation with the president, October 15, 1957, FRUS 1955–57, 19:607–10.

  41. Urban, More Than Science and Sputnik.

  42. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 157–76.

  43. “Annual Budget Message to Congress,” January 13, 1958, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 17–74; Department of Defense Directive 5105.15, February 7, 1958, which created ARPA (semanticvoid.com/docs/darpa_directive.pdf); Defense Act of 1958, Public Law 85-599 www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-72/pdf/STATUTE-72-Pg514.pdf; Duchin, “ ‘The Most Spectacular Legislative Battle of that Year’ ”; Divine, The Sputnik Challenge, 128–43.

  44. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, 227.

  45. Memorandum of conversation, Killian, Land, Goodpaster, and Eisenhower, February 10, 1958, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Intelligence Matters, box 14, DDEL; ARPA, “Military Reconnaissance Satellite Program,” progress report ending March 31, 1958, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952–61, NSC Series, Briefing Notes Subseries, box 13, DDEL.

  46. Ruffner, Corona, 24. Valuable documents on the planning, design, and testing, as well as the cover plan for the Corona satellite program, are available at DDO. Corona was discussed and approved at the NSC meeting of July 31, 1958. See the briefing notes by General Goodpaster, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3izRsX and the NSC minutes, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3izSRX.

  47. NSC 5814, “Preliminary U.S. Policy on Outer Space,” August 18, 1958, White House Office, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs: Records, 1952–61, NSC Series, Policy Papers Subseries, box 25, DDEL.

  48. Joseph Alsop, “The Gap,” Washington Post, July 30, 1958; “Untruths on Defense,” Washington Post, August 1, 1958. Historians have not confirmed the source of Alsop’s information, but it is likely either Senator Symington, who had access to classified briefings from Allen Dulles, or persons within the air force who were eager to see an expanded missile production program.

  49. Joseph Alsop, “Calculations on the First Blow,” Washington Post, August 3, 1958.

  50. Joseph Alsop, “Eisenhower, 1958,” Washington Post, August 8, 1958. See also his equally nasty and personal assessment of the failings of Charles Wilson, “Letter to Engine Charlie,” Washington Post, August 4, 1958.

  51. New York Times, May 30 and July 25, 1958.

  52. “Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy, in the Senate, August 14, 1958,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/United-States-Senate-Military-Power_19580814.aspx.

  53. Joseph Alsop, “An Authentic Voice of America,” Washington Post, August 17, 1958; James Reston, “Honors for Kennedy,” New York Times, August 18, 1958.

  54. Letters to Charlie Wilson, August 4, 1958, and to Bill Robinson, August 4, 1958, PDDE, 19:1043–45; press conferences, August 20 and August 27, 1958, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 621–31, 639–50. On Alsop, the missile gap, and the whispering campaign against him, see Herken, The Georgetown Set, 241–45.

  55. Guided Missile Intelligence Committee, “First Operational Availability Date for Soviet ICBM,” May 15, 1958; “Soviet ICBM Test,” May 27, 1958; National Intelligence Estimate 11-5-58, August 19, 1958, all in CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room; editorial note on the NSC briefing by Allen Dulles, August 27, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 3:135–36.

  56. “Memorandum for Chairman, Guided Missile Intelligence Committee,” October 9, 1958, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1958-10-09.pdf; Quotation from “Re-examination of Soviet ICBM Production,” October 24, 1958, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000969848.pdf; “Status of Soviet ICBM Program,” November 10, 1958, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1958-11-10.pdf; “Report of the Ad Hoc Panel on Status of Soviet ICBM Program,” November 14, 1958, www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP61S00750A000500040042-5.pdf, all available in CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room.

  57. Memorandum of conference, July 14, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 11:211–15.

  58. “Statement by the President,” July 15, 1958, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 553–56; Little, American Orientalism, 135.

  59. Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1958; Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism, 205–36.

  60. Chen, Mao’s China and the Cold War, 175–204.

  61. “JCS Views on the Taiwan Straits Issue,” September 2, 1958, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3jpoM5; Joint Chiefs of Staff report, “U.S. and Allied Capabilities for Limited Military Operations to 1 July 1961,” June 17, 1958, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3jq6e8; memorandum of conversation, John Foster Dulles and Chiefs of Staff, September 2, 1958, and Eisenhower-Dulles conversation, September 4, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 19:115–22, 130–31. On the Matador missiles in Taiwan, see “Deployment of MATADOR Tactical Missile Unit Taiwan,” March 20, 1957, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3jvZQ1.

  62. Memorandum of conversation, John Foster Dulles and Policy Planning Staff director Gerard Smith, September 2, 1958, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3jqWXX; Dulles letter to Harold Macmillan, September 12, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 19:175–77. See also Dulles conversation with Sherman Adams, September 5, 1958, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3jt7y2.

  63. Meeting at the White House, August 29, 1958, and Eisenhower discussion with McElroy, September 11, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 19:96–99, 161.

  64. Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture, 225–67. See also a classified RAND study of the crisis prepared in 1966 by M. H. Halperin, “The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis: A Documented History,” DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3okPK5.

  65. Walter Lippmann columns in Washington Post, September 2, 9, 11, 18, and 30, 1958. For the flavor of the Joseph Alsop columns, see Washington Post, September 12, 1958.
/>   66. New York Times, September 11 and 13, 1958; Los Angeles Times, September 14, 1958; Washington Post, September 16 and 26, 1958.

  67. Letter to Paul Hoffman, June 23, 1958, PDDE, 19:957; Adams obituary, New York Times, October 28, 1986.

  68. Letter to Elizabeth Hazlett, November 3, 1958, PDDE, 19:1187. For the Swede Hazlett story, Papers as President, Ann Whitman Diary Series, December 12, 1958, box 10, DDEL.

  69. Nixon, RN, 200.

  70. Letter to Harold Macmillan, November 11, 1958, PDDE, 19:1193.

  CHAPTER 16: CONTENDING WITH KHRUSHCHEV

  Epigraph: Eisenhower in conversation with Harold Macmillan on March 20, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 8:521.

  1. For his golf scores and bets, see one-page memo, “The President’s Scores, November 20 to December 2, 1958,” Papers as President, Ann Whitman Diary Series, box 10, DDEL.

  2. Press conference, November 5, 1958, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 827–38.

  3. New York Times, February 21 and August 11, 1958.

  4. For a brief summary of the state of play of these talks, see memorandum of conference with Eisenhower, Killian, Goodpaster, August 4, 1958, and Eisenhower’s conversation with Christian Herter, February 17, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 3:617–18, 707–8. Data on tests, U.S. Department of Energy, “U.S. Nuclear Tests, 1945–1992,” (December 2000) nnsa.energy.gov/sites/default/files/nnsa/inlinefiles/doe_nv_2000e.pdf. For an excellent summary with documents, see William Burr and Hector L. Montford, eds., “The Making of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, 1958–1963,” August 8, 2003, National Security Archive, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB94/.

  5. Letter to Hughes, November 20, 1958, PDDE, 19:1210–11.

  6. Letter to Dulles, December 12, 1958, PDDE, 19:1249, note 2; Hughes, The Ordeal of Power, 276–82.

  7. Jim Hagerty memorandum to Eisenhower, December 9, 1958, Papers as President, Name Series, box 26, DDEL.

  8. John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 212.

  9. The essential account of the East German-Soviet relationship in this period is Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall. The Soviet note is in Department of State, Bulletin, January 19, 1959, 81–89.

  10. This analysis of Khrushchev relies upon the work of William Taubman’s magnificent biography, Khrushchev; the brilliantly researched study by Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War; and the excellent article by Vojtech Mastny, “Soviet Foreign Policy, 1953–1962,” in Leffler and Westad, The Cambridge History of the Cold War, 1:312–33.

  11. Conversation with Dulles, November 18, 1958; conversation with Christian Herter, November 22, 1958; conversation with Dulles, November 30, 1958; Conference with the president, December 11, 1958, all in FRUS, 1958–60, 8:84–85, 113–14, 142–43, 174.

  12. Hubert Humphrey, “My Marathon Talk with Russia’s Boss,” Life, January 12, 1959, 80–86, 91. Humphrey’s conversation reported in telegram from Ambassador Thompson to State Department, December 3, 1958, FRUS, 1958–60, 8:148–52.

  13. Conference with the president, December 11, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 8:172–77; see John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 216. For the more hawkish views of the military, see General Nathan Twining’s recommendations, memorandum of conversation, November 21 and December 13, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 8:99–103, 193–96. “We must ignore the fear of general war,” he said. “It is coming anyway. Therefore, we should force the issue.” For the final strategy, see the discussions of January 29, 1959, and the summary prepared by Dulles, FRUS 1958–60, 8:299–306; DDE, Waging Peace, 340–42.

  14. Aldous, Macmillan, Eisenhower, and the Cold War, 53–57; Macmillan’s own account of the trip is in Riding the Storm, 592–634.

  15. Aldous, Macmillan, Eisenhower, and the Cold War, 62–66.

  16. Memorandum of conference, March 6, 1959; memorandum for the record, March 14, 1959; Memorandum of conference, March 17, 1959; memorandum of conversation, March 19, 1959, all in FRUS 1958–60, 8:428–37, 486–87, 492–95, 507–9.

  17. Macmillan-Eisenhower talks, 3:00–4:40 p.m., March 20, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 8:516–18.

  18. Macmillan-Eisenhower talks, 6:30–7:30 p.m., March 20, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 8:520–21.

  19. Macmillan-Eisenhower talks, March 21, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 8:522–23.

  20. Note by Ann Whitman, February 13 and 14, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman Diary Series, box 10, DDEL.

  21. DDE, Waging Peace, 357–60; Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, 480–86; memoranda on these events by Joseph Greene, Dulles’s special assistant, dated April 11 and 13, Dulles Papers, Special Assistant’s Chronological Series, box 14, DDEL.

  22. Nixon wrote at length about his Caracas and his Russia trips in Six Crises, 183–291.

  23. PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1959, 330; Nixon-Dulles conversation, April 4, 1959, Dulles Papers, Special Assistant’s Chronological Series, box 14, DDEL.

  24. Memorandum of conference, June 19, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 42, DDEL; Eisenhower-Herter telephone conversation, July 8, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 10: pt. 1, 307–8; Eisenhower-Herter discussion, July 9, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 8:971–73.

  25. Robert Murphy meeting with Kozlov, July 12, 1959, and message text from Eisenhower to Khrushchev, FRUS 1958–60, 10: pt. 1, 316–19. Khrushchev’s reply, July 21, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 10: pt. 1, 324–25; Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, 319–20.

  26. Staff notes, July 21, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 43, DDEL.

  27. Nixon’s reports to Eisenhower of July 26, July 28 (two telegrams), and July 31, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, Administration Series, box 28, DDEL.

  28. Nixon, Six Crises, 245, 250, 252, 254, 257, 258, 265, 271; Talbot, Khrushchev Remembers, 458.

  29. James Reston, New York Times, August 1 and 2, 1959; Walter Lippmann, Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1959; polls in Washington Post, August 5 and September 18, 1959.

  30. Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, August 4, 1959; poll in Los Angeles Times, September 16, 1959; James Reston, New York Times, August 13, 1959; Ann Whitman note, August 7–15, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman Papers, Ann Whitman Diary Series, box 11, DDEL.

  31. Meeting with Eisenhower and Nixon, August 5, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 43, DDEL; Thompson telegram, August 8, 1959, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary: Records, 1952–61, International Trips and Meetings Series, box 8, DDEL. The briefing books prepared for the visit echoed Thompson’s advice. Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, International Series, box 52, DDEL.

  32. Memo of conversation, August 24, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 43, DDEL.

  33. John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 240–42; DDE, Waging Peace, 416–18.

  34. Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 747–50.

  35. Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 749; John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 248 and for the Shakespeare reference, 252.

  36. DDE, Waging Peace, 426.

  37. Memo of conversation, September 14, 1959, and report on Lunik II, September 14, 1959, in Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 44, DDEL; Washington Post, September 15, 1959. Nixon’s speech covered in Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post, September 15, 1959.

  38. Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, 326–30; Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs, 3:100.

  39. Buchanan, Red Carpet at the White House, 19–20; Los Angeles Times, New York Times, September 16, 1959.

  40. “Gifts Mr. Khrushchev brought to the President,” September 23, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, International Series, box 52, DDEL.

  41. Summaries on the Eisenhower-Khrushchev talks, September 15, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 10:392–402, 409–10.

  42. Buchanan, Red Carpet at the White House, 26–29; New York Times, September 17, 1959.

  43. Buchanan, Red Carpet at the White House, 31
–34; New York Times, September 18 and 19, 1959; Washington Post, September 20, 1959.

  44. Lodge, The Storm Has Many Eyes, 163–68; Buchanan, Red Carpet at the White House, 36–41; Khrushchev, Memoirs, 111–12; Gosden comment, September 21, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, International Series, box 52, DDEL. Lodge wrote reports on each day’s events for the president and the State Department. See especially a summary of the Los Angeles fiasco, “Talking Paper for Report to the President,” September 25, 1959. All the reports are in Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 44, DDEL.

  45. Buchanan, Red Carpet at the White House, 42–50; Lodge, The Storm Has Many Eyes, 169–76.

  46. DDE conversation with Lodge, September 25, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 10:454–59.

  47. Details on menus and films as well as all the logistics are in Edward Beach and Evan Aurand [naval aide] Papers, box 17, DDEL. Khrushchev, Memoirs, 166–67.

  48. Khrushchev, Memoirs, 169; DDE, Waging Peace, 446–47.

  49. Washington Post, September 28, 1959; New York Times and Washington Post, September 29, 1959.

  50. Taubman, Khrushchev, 439–41.

  51. Russell Baker, New York Times, October 8, 1959; see also Arthur Krock, New York Times, September 27, 1959.

  52. Joseph Alsop, Washington Post, September 30, 1959. The Alsop column made Ike “unusually angry,” noted Whitman (Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 45, DDEL).

  CHAPTER 17: SECRET WARS IN THE THIRD WORLD

  Epigraph: Memorandum of conversation, March 17, 1960, FRUS 1958–60, 6:861–63.

  1. Washington Post and New York Times, November 4, 1959; earlier debate about funding the new CIA headquarters in New York Times, December 12, 1955, and Washington Post, May 11, 1957. Dulles typed out his remarks ahead of time and sent them to the president. Dulles letter to Eisenhower, October 29, 1959, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, Administration Series, box 13, DDEL.

 

‹ Prev