by Jim Newton
Ike’s campaign strategy called for a sweep of the country. Over the objections of many advisers, he had vowed to campaign from coast to coast—reaching into areas such as the South, where Lucius Clay advised him to make an effort and where he felt an affinity with residents despite the region’s wariness of Republicans that dated to Lincoln. He traveled 51,376 miles in total, 20,871 of that by rail. By the Republican National Committee’s count, Eisenhower visited 232 towns in forty-five states. One day he was celebrating the dedication of an FM radio station; the next he was reassuring Westerners of his commitment to federal dam projects. He offered praise for postal workers, pledged to support Republican rejection of compulsory health care, and delivered strongly worded, if somewhat unfocused, criticism of the incumbent administration, which, he charged, had “bungled us perilously close to World War III.”
During September, though, his speeches took on flourishes of elegance. He began quoting from Ecclesiastes. “There is a time to keep and a time to cast away,” he said, first in Indianapolis on September 9, then more often and more prominently as he warmed to that remark. He spoke moderately to organized labor in New York City on September 17, refusing to overturn the Taft-Hartley Act, which set the terms of labor-management relations strongly in favor of management, but promising that he would consider amending it. He incisively addressed southern Democrats in Columbia, South Carolina, on the thirtieth: “My only appeal to you, my only appeal to America, is that of Governor Byrnes, to place loyalty to the country above loyalty to a political party.”
Just as Eisenhower was becoming more nuanced in handling political affairs, he also began to master political debate. When Truman suggested that Eisenhower had been naive about the threat of Soviet Communism during the Potsdam Conference, Ike sharply retorted that Truman’s mismanagement of foreign affairs was to blame for the Korean War, already by then responsible for 120,000 dead, wounded, or missing Americans. From early pledges of fidelity to a Republican platform he had done little to shape, he sketched a broader, more moderate template. He saw a limited role for the federal government in education and supported unemployment benefits, aid to widows, and help for children living in poverty. He belittled federal assistance that infantilized Americans—one favorite line of attack was to quote a federal manual that advised readers how to wash their dishes—but did not reject federal help for the needy or even some of the New Deal’s hallmark programs. Speaking in Memphis on October 15, Eisenhower allowed that the Tennessee Valley Authority had done much good for that part of the country. He even gingerly waded into the topic of civil rights, noting that Democratic lip service to racial equality was undermined by the party’s political factionalism; the hollowness of the Democrats’ commitment to that idea, he emphasized, was illustrated by the persistence of segregation in the District of Columbia after twenty years of Democratic rule of Washington.
Rather than depleting Eisenhower, the campaign seemed to energize him. On October 14, he gave four speeches in a single day, canvassing much of Texas and celebrating his birthday in his home state. He was, he insisted, leading not just a political effort but a “crusade” intended to restore dignity to Americans and strength to those opposing Communism. The use of the word “crusade” also nicely reminded voters of his war record by adopting the title of his memoir. He was, Eisenhower said at the outset and throughout, committed to leading “us forward in the broad middle way toward prosperity without war for ourselves and our children.”
The campaign’s increasing confidence and the candidate’s growing command of both country and idiom did not mean that the effort was without difficulties. Ike’s determination to run nationally created problems in the South, where the candidate felt personally at home but overwhelmingly Democratic audiences were wary. More complicated even than that was Eisenhower’s visit to Wisconsin in early October. There, the fall ballot included Senator Joseph McCarthy, Ike’s fellow Republican and an incipient figure in the nation’s politics and culture.
McCarthy’s campaign of fear and innuendo was in its second year, broadening its reach as he discovered the ease with which he could smear opponents. It had begun, infamously, with his Wheeling, West Virginia, address on February 9, 1950. In it, McCarthy had claimed to have “here in my hand a list of 205 … names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” Two days later, in a letter to Truman, McCarthy appeared to amend that to 57 Communists, but added that he knew “absolutely” of another 300 “certified to the Secretary for discharge because of Communism.”
Those charges were disconcertingly vague. But McCarthy could be specific, too. One of those he attacked was none other than Eisenhower’s mentor General George Marshall, who had gone on to serve as secretary of state and then secretary of defense in the Truman administration. Among his assignments in the postwar years had been a mission to China, where Marshall attempted to negotiate an end to that country’s civil war between the Communist forces commanded by Mao and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist army. That war ended in a failure of Marshall’s mission. The Nationalist Party was defeated, and Chiang fled to Taiwan. McCarthy blamed Marshall. As usual, he did not charge directly, but his attack on Marshall was neither subtle nor fair. Addressing the Senate on March 14, 1951, McCarthy coyly declined the invitation to judge whether Marshall was an actual Communist (“I am not going to try to delve into George Marshall’s mind”). He not only mischaracterized Marshall’s efforts in China but also described his work as “the most weird and traitorous double deal that I believe any of us has ever heard of.”
On June 14, 1951, McCarthy additionally alleged that Marshall had sent unprepared American troops to fight in North Africa during World War II—troops that Ike commanded—and that he had even collaborated with Stalin in the surrender of Eastern Europe and China. Even Marshall’s refusal to write a memoir was viewed with suspicion by McCarthy, who suggested that the general was hiding his actions. To McCarthy, Marshall was “part of a conspiracy on a scale so immense … a conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.”
Aside from Eisenhower’s debt to Marshall, he owed his former boss a defense as a matter of decency. At a stop in Green Bay, he appeared with McCarthy after warning the senator that he would publicly remind the crowd of their disagreements. McCarthy predicted Ike would be booed, but Eisenhower’s remarks were warmly received. McCarthy glowered afterward.
That night, Eisenhower was to deliver his major address of the day, a speech in Milwaukee. Unlike his earlier, oblique reference to occasional disagreements with McCarthy, his speech that night included a direct and specific mention of his support for Marshall. McCarthy and Wisconsin’s governor, Walter Kohler, learned of his intentions, and the governor lobbied hard for him to drop the paragraph (McCarthy wisely kept silent). Kohler argued not that Marshall was unworthy of defending but rather that the passage, as written, seemed inappropriate to the rest of the address, which was focused on other topics. As the train rumbled along, Kohler pressed his case with Sherman Adams. Gabriel Hauge, Eisenhower’s lead speechwriter and a man Adams described as a “high-minded and zealous stickler for principle,” objected. But Adams sided with Kohler. “Some adjustments,” he concluded, “had to be made for party harmony.” When Adams made that recommendation to Eisenhower, he brusquely concurred. “Take it out,” he growled.
Unbeknownst to Adams or Eisenhower, however, an early copy of the speech had already been released to reporters, who were all too eager to relay the news of such an open break between two leading Republicans. When Eisenhower delivered the address, attention riveted not on what he said but on what he deleted. Eisenhower’s move emboldened McCarthy and wounded Marshall and naturally raised questions about both his politics and his character: Was he closer to McCarthy than it appeared? Was he willing to cast aside a trusted colle
ague for the sake of political expediency? The New York Times headlined its editorial “An Unhappy Day,” capturing much of the press reaction. Eisenhower understood his error but responded to the torrent of criticism, much of it from friends, with a mixture of chagrin and defensiveness. After Harold Stassen weighed in, Ike conceded that he agreed “in principle … with the criticism you make on the revisions made in the Milwaukee talk.” He went on, however, to defend the omission by asserting that his staff recommended it, that elsewhere in the talk he implicitly criticized the methods of the Communist hunters, and that there was some evidence that McCarthy’s personal attacks on Marshall were overstated. That was disingenuous. Eisenhower knew he had let down a friend. No amount of hedging could undo the damage. “I am,” the New York Times publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, wrote to Eisenhower, “sick at heart.”
It was, Hauge reflected two decades later, “as bad a moment as he went through in the whole campaign.” John Eisenhower agreed. It was a “terrible mistake, the worst of my dad’s life in politics.” Ike’s staff, perhaps responding to Eisenhower’s disappointment, omitted any reference to the controversy in the file summary of the campaign’s major addresses. According to the file, the speech was devoted to “good government—more specifically, communism and freedom.” General George Marshall’s name does not appear.
Eisenhower’s performance was imperfect, as evidenced by the Slush Fund and Marshall controversies. But he was playing a strong hand, and Stevenson made that advantage even greater by so misplaying his. Through the crucial weeks of October, Stevenson chose to challenge Eisenhower on foreign policy and national security grounds. He accused Eisenhower of isolationism and of aiding Communism by his approach to international affairs. Bolstered by Truman, who emerged late in the campaign to lead the criticism of Eisenhower, the Democrats assailed the general for criticizing the war in Korea and for his skepticism about increases in defense spending. “All this,” said Truman in a nationally broadcast address on October 22, “is the straight isolationist line.”
Eisenhower was the nominee of a divided party. He had never held public office, never articulated a developed and coherent domestic policy. But the Democrats chose to confront him where he was strongest, in his command of international affairs. Predictably, the effort was a bust. Stevenson slid further behind in the polls, and Truman appeared more desperate.
Then, on Friday evening, October 24, Ike sealed the outcome. Speaking to an overflow crowd of some five thousand people at Detroit’s Masonic Auditorium, he promised to forgo politics in “this anxious autumn for America.” He vowed to deliver the “unvarnished truth” in examining America’s place in the world, and he accused the Truman administration of failing to deter or repel Communist aggression. Eisenhower reminded his listeners: “I know something of the totalitarian mind.” He then outlined his bill of particulars and insisted that the first task of the next president was to forgo all diversions and end the Korean War, saying: “That job requires a personal trip … Only in that way could I learn how best to serve the American people in the cause of peace.
“I shall go to Korea.”
Democrats called it grandstanding. Stevenson said he would go, too.
But the prospect of America’s supreme commander—the general who had accepted Germany’s surrender—now personally taking charge of the Korean War was electrifying. Stevenson ended the campaign as he began, with eloquence but without effective counter to the appeal of a general who transcended his party and enjoyed the admiration of the world.
Swede Hazlett dropped Ike a note on the eve of the election. “If you win,” he wrote, “I’ll be bursting with pride; if you lose, I’ll still be bursting with pride, tempered with a modicum of relief that you are to be spared a frightful four years of terrific responsibility.”
On Election Day, Ike spent the afternoon at Columbia—the university lent him his old quarters for the campaign. He worked on a painting and chatted with supporters. He asked Brownell to drop by and, looking ahead, offered him the position of chief of staff, a new post that would carry enormous weight in the Eisenhower White House. Brownell thanked him for his confidence but said he was still enjoying his legal work. “So you want to remain a lawyer,” Eisenhower replied. “Well, how about being attorney general?” After hastily reviewing his personal finances and huddling with his wife, Brownell accepted that evening.
As the returns poured in, the extent of Eisenhower’s triumph became apparent. Turnout was astonishing. Two out of three American adults voted in 1952, and fully 80 percent of those registered cast ballots. Eisenhower received 33.9 million votes, over 11 million more than any previous Republican candidate. He carried every state outside the South and a few border states and made inroads even there, winning Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia and leaving just the core of the Confederacy to vote for Stevenson, a bitter result for the Illinois liberal. Sparkman arguably carried more seats for Stevenson than Stevenson did for himself.
At 2:05 a.m., Dwight Eisenhower addressed two thousand supporters in the grand ballroom of the Commodore Hotel in New York. He was subdued, humbled by the weight of the office he was to assume. He emphasized the importance of national unity and promised an energetic pursuit of a new direction. Dwight Eisenhower was now president-elect of the United States. Back in her hotel room, Mamie wept.
5
Changing America’s Course
In the early hours of November 29, the streets of New York’s Upper West Side dark and cold, two men in overcoats stood in the alcove of 60 Morningside Drive, at the time America’s most closely watched private residence. A companion of theirs jumped from a waiting car and approached the police officer near the front door. He motioned for the officer to follow him, and when the policeman turned his back, Secret Service agent Ed Green and Dwight Eisenhower slipped out of the building and into the car. The door light had been removed, so they sped away under the cover of darkness. Ike’s fabled trip to Korea was under way.
Ever since Election Day, plans for the trip had been hatched and honed, notwithstanding the terse skepticism of President Truman, whose congratulatory cable to Eisenhower on the election results offered Ike the presidential plane for the trip “if you still desire to go to Korea.” Truman’s gratuitous suggestion that Ike’s pledge would be disregarded now that he had won the election was designed to irritate the president-elect, and it succeeded. Eisenhower responded coldly: “Any suitable transport plane that one of the services could make available will be satisfactory.” Privately, he fumed to his son that Truman was accusing him of political gamesmanship. It was, John said, the “clincher” that ended their relationship.
As for logistics, security was, of course, paramount. Given an assassination attempt on South Korea’s president, Syngman Rhee, months earlier, the prospect of Ike touring an area “crawling with Commies and other doubtful characters” made the military insist on elaborate precautions. Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett personally took charge of arrangements. “Secrecy of movement,” he insisted, “is of cardinal importance.” Ike’s entourage would only stop at military bases, and he was strongly urged not to allow a press plane to accompany him. Weather planes and naval vessels were dispatched to track his progress. As it approached the Far East, Eisenhower’s aircraft was shadowed by fighter planes; altogether, more than thirteen hundred escorted him along the way.
Ike could hardly disappear for almost a week without explanation, so the transition team announced that the president-elect was holding private meetings inside his residence. To dupe the press, two prominent officials, John Foster Dulles and Arthur Vandenberg, agreed to enter the house, stay a while, and then leave.
On that dark November morning, a handful of aides and cabinet members-in-waiting, a few lucky journalists, and the president-elect converged on Mitchel Field, which in 1952 was a rarely used airstrip on Long Island. Ike, in camel hair coat and brown hat, bounded from his car, shook hands with the waiting crew, and boarded his plane.
Awaiting Eisenhower nearly halfway around the world was a military and diplomatic morass that had sapped the energy of the American people and forced deep reconsideration of long-held principles of war, muddying strategic objectives and tactical pursuit of them. Was the enemy North Korea, China, or the Soviet Union? Was America’s goal to repel North Korean invasion, to unify Korea under democratic rule, or to topple Chinese Communism? Was surrender required or merely the end of hostilities? Most important, was it possible to fight a war without using everything in a nation’s arsenal to triumph? The United States, after all, was in sole possession of atomic bombs, yet it dispatched tens of thousands of American men, consigning many to their deaths, while withholding a weapon that could bring them home.
The Korean War had begun in treachery and was fought on grim terrain and wildly shifting fortunes. From the moment that Korea was divided in 1948, Kim Il Sung, Moscow’s puppet leader of North Korea, pursued one obsessive quest: to unify the country under his rule. The idea appealed to Mao but was greeted cautiously by Stalin, without whose approval North Korea could not act. Dogged and ideologically blinded, Kim claimed North Korea could win a quick victory over what he viewed as lethargic capitalists. In April 1950, he visited Moscow, accompanied by a South Korean Communist leader who promised Stalin that Koreans south of the parallel would welcome an invasion as the opportunity to unite their country. Stalin still hesitated, worried about the implications of forcing a war with America, but Kim and Mao argued that the United States would not risk global confrontation over such a remote conflict.
Their belief was reinforced by actions and statements of the Truman administration. In June 1949, Truman withdrew American troops from Korea, and the following January, Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivered a speech in Washington in which he defined the American defense perimeter in Asia as excluding South Korea. Enticed by the possibility of Communist expansion and convinced that he could keep the Soviet Union out of direct hostilities, Stalin granted permission but warned Kim that “if you get kicked in the teeth, I shall not lift a finger.” It was, for Stalin, a rare display of candor.
