Eisenhower: The White House Years

by Jim Newton

  Once he secured the platform language he could accept, Eisenhower joined the celebration of his first term. He arrived at 6:53 p.m. on August 21 and bounded from the plane, “his face ruddy with returned strength and alight with expectation,” as Time magazine put it. Ike exuded ease and health. Explaining why he decided to come to the convention earlier than expected, he said: “I suddenly discovered this was too interesting a place to stay away from. I just read the names of too many friends in the paper, and I wanted to see them.” Thousands lined the route from the airport to his hotel; two thousand more awaited his arrival in Union Square, where bands played “We Love the Sunshine of His Smile.”

  San Francisco, thrilled to be the first California city to host a Republican convention, warmed to the event in bipartisan spirit—crowds milled in Union Square in front of the St. Francis Hotel and lined the streets. Eisenhower occupied the hotel’s seventh floor; Pete Jones took a room one floor above, while other members of the Gang stayed at the nearby Fairmont. The city, Time reported, “was like wine to Ike.” The president ordered that speakers maintain a high tone of inclusiveness, urging organizers to avoid personal attacks on the Democratic ticket and to avoid “excessive partisanship.” Only one speaker defied that directive. It came on the first day, when Arthur Langlie, governor of Washington and a favorite of Ike’s, argued that Democrats “are now addicted to the principle that loyalty to a political party comes ahead of devotion to our beloved country.” Eisenhower was sitting next to Sherman Adams at the time, and he turned crossly to his aide. “Whoever let him say that?” the president demanded.

  Even at this late date, Eisenhower announced himself willing to consider any challenge to Nixon’s place on the ticket. None came forward. Up at 6:00 the next morning, Eisenhower met with Stassen, and Stassen—“phlegmatically,” as the New York Times described It—gave up his crusade to replace the vice president. Eisenhower accepted Stassen’s statement and released it himself. The two were photographed smiling. Nixon pronounced himself “deeply appreciative.”

  Langlie’s sharp critique of the Democrats at the convention’s outset was soon forgotten. In general, the convention was devoted to praising its nominee, which Eisenhower could hardly help but enjoy. Charles Halleck, in his nomination speech, described Eisenhower as “the most widely beloved, the most universally respected, the most profoundly dedicated man of our times.” Politics, where hyperbole is the coin of the realm, encourages such grandiosity, but Halleck’s description was, in this case, refreshingly accurate. Ike ran in 1956 as a beloved incumbent as well as a revered general and champion of peace. Against such praise, squabbling over Nixon or the occasional indulgence of partisanship seemed small. Surrounded by friends and family, Ike good-naturedly allowed himself to be adored. For Nixon, as always, life was more complicated: his father fell gravely ill during the convention and died before Election Day.

  When it came time for him to address the convention, Ike did so with vigor. The speech was meticulous in Ike’s style: there was a careful listing of the five reasons why the Republican Party was the party of the future and an equally systematic enumeration of the “three imperatives of peace.” On the topic of social justice, Eisenhower was mildly defensive, claiming a record “not [of] words and promise, but [of] accomplishment.” He cited elimination of discrimination in the District of Columbia, the armed services, and government contractors as the administration’s great achievements; technically true, but none of those institutions had reached anything close to racial equality. The address included the requisite acclamation of the Republican Party and its principles—it was, after all, a national convention speech. But the most enduring passages echoed the grand oratory of his “The Chance for Peace” or “Atoms for Peace” addresses, those in which he wrestled with the dominant issue of his presidency: the balance between national security and the securing of an international peace. Before a loving convention and a deeply appreciative American people, Eisenhower once again reflected on the existential challenge of the Cold War, the paradox of armed strength and terrifying vulnerability.

  “No one is more aware than I that it is the young who fight the wars,” Eisenhower said. “It is not enough that their elders promise ‘Peace in our time’; it must be peace in their time too, and in their children’s time; indeed, my friends, there is only one real peace now, and that is peace for all time.”

  Under Eisenhower’s leadership—with Dulles in foreign affairs, Wilson in Defense, Humphrey guiding economic policy, Weeks anchoring Commerce—“our military strength has been constantly augmented,” but that buildup was neither headlong nor precipitous. It was, Eisenhower reminded his audience, done “soberly and intelligently,” aimed not at aggression or intimidation but as part of a conscientious devotion to collective security, one that rejected isolationism in favor of a coalition of nations in search of safety from a dangerous foe. “We live in a shrunken world, a world in which oceans are crossed in hours, a world in which a single-minded despotism menaces the scattered freedoms of scores of struggling independent nations.” Victory would not be won by military might alone, he emphasized. “There can be no enduring peace for any nation while other nations suffer privation, oppression, and a sense of injustice and despair. In our modern world, it is madness to suppose that there could be an island of tranquility and prosperity in a sea of wretchedness and frustration.”

  All of that underlined Eisenhower’s determination to create a world of alliances, to lead by aid and example, not merely to cow America’s enemies within their borders. Still, he knew, too, that nuclear weapons, so essential to his New Look for American security, formed their own, independent threat, that they recalibrated the moral considerations of war itself. Once a force for freedom and liberation, America’s military strength now carried the potential of human annihilation, as did its enemy’s. “With such weapons,” Eisenhower told the suddenly sobered audience, “war has become, not just tragic, but preposterous. With such weapons, there can be no victory for anyone. Plainly, the objective now must be to see that such a war does not occur at all.”

  Eisenhower’s phrasing was elegant and memorable: “not just tragic, but preposterous,” “a sea of wretchedness and frustration,” “a single-minded despotism” menacing “scattered freedoms.” But even more striking was the substance of his speech. Here was an American president able and willing to warn his people that they would not win a war for which he was asking them to arm. Only Eisenhower, the world’s most revered public statesman, could sound such an alarm and yet confidently carry the warm affection of his nation. “My friends,” he concluded, “in firm faith, and in the conviction that the Republican purposes and principles are ‘in league’ with this kind of future, the nomination that you have tendered me for the Presidency of the United States I now—humbly but confidently—accept.” Sinny Weeks was among those deeply moved. It was, he thought, the best speech Ike had given as president.

  His address over, the balloons released, the crowds energized, Ike then “was given a reward,” as Adams put it. He and the Gang headed for one of the president’s favorite courses, Cypress Point, in Pebble Beach, California, for a long weekend of golf and bridge.

  Ike promised a gentler campaign and delivered it. He knew Stevenson had no way to beat him, so he campaigned mostly from the White House, shunning the exhausting regimen of train travel that had marked the 1952 effort, instead favoring a strategy more heavily reliant on advertising than personal appearances. Stevenson lashed out now and again and occasionally drew a reply—Eisenhower was particularly dismissive of Stevenson’s proposal for a ban on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons—but the president largely ignored the campaign to unseat him. The New York Times, which backed Ike in 1952, did so even more enthusiastically in 1956. With Election Day approaching, Ike was the heavy favorite to win.

  That is not to say that he took victory for granted. In September, the Supreme Court justice Sherman Minton, a capable if undistinguished member of the Court,
announced his plans to retire on October 15, when the Court resumed its fall term. Eisenhower was mildly miffed—Minton had declared his support for Stevenson, and his announcement gave Ike little time to react—but the president had his third vacancy: Warren was his first appointment, and in 1955 he had replaced the eloquent Robert Jackson with an elegant, estimable conservative, John Marshall Harlan II, who would follow in his grandfather’s footsteps as one of history’s most distinguished justices.

  With the 1956 election so close, Eisenhower approached this nomination with political thoughts in mind. He had few areas of weakness, but among them was his relatively mediocre standing among Catholic Democrats. Discussing the appointment with Brownell, Eisenhower specifically suggested that the attorney general look for a conservative judge, preferably a Democrat and definitely a Catholic.

  Brownell delivered on a Catholic Democrat but either misjudged or misled Eisenhower on the appointee’s politics. William J. Brennan Jr. was the son of an immigrant labor organizer. He grew up in New Jersey and went on to graduate from Harvard Law School. He was charming, brilliant, and impish, a distinguished member of the New Jersey Supreme Court, highly recommended by that court’s chief justice. All of which inarguably qualified him for the Supreme Court. But Brennan was hardly a conservative. The Washington Post described him as a “moderate liberal,” and others noted his party affiliation and working-class upbringing. Still, Eisenhower liked him—most men did—and announced his appointment on September 29.

  Ike would come to regret Brennan’s appointment as the years passed, privately expressing disappointment in him as well as in Warren. In Warren’s case, Eisenhower could perhaps be forgiven for misgauging the California Republican’s true political convictions. He had less of an excuse with Brennan. Eisenhower misunderstood him, and that miscalculation had lasting consequences. Brennan took his seat on October 15, 1956; he was easily confirmed the following spring, with only Senator McCarthy voting no. Brennan did not leave the Court until July 1990.

  12

  On the Edge

  The trouble began, as it would so often, in the Middle East. Its origins in some ways resembled the Iran crisis that greeted Eisenhower when he first took office. Britain found itself in escalating conflict with a charismatic statesman in a struggle involving Communism, imperialism, and access to resources and shipping. In Iran, oil was the commodity, and Mossadegh was the adversary. This time, the battleground was Egypt, the issue was the Suez Canal, and the threat to Britain’s hegemony was Gamal Abdel Nasser.

  Stern, brave, literally and figuratively scarred by his struggle against British imperialism, Lieutenant Colonel Nasser was a galvanizing figure in the Middle East, a uniting leader who sought for decades to ally Arab nations in a struggle against foreign domination. Even Eisenhower was grudgingly impressed by Nasser, describing him as dynamic and personable, a tip of the cap to a fellow military man who puzzled Ike but interested him, too. The son of a postal inspector raised in southern Egypt, Nasser lost his mother as a young boy; she died giving birth to his brother. His father remarried, and Nasser went to live with relatives, eventually joining the rising student movement directed against the presence of British troops on Egyptian soil. Literate, articulate, and dashing—Nasser’s broad face and grin belied his ferocious will—he eventually landed a place in the Egyptian military academy (one of his classmates was Anwar Sadat). Driven to expel the British from his homeland, Nasser conferred with Italian leaders during World War II on a plan to overthrow his government and expel the British forces. The coup plans were dropped, but Nasser’s ambition burned.

  By the 1950s, he had orchestrated the fall of King Farouk and helped General Mohammed Naguib assume the mantle of Egyptian authority, though it was Nasser who commanded genuine power in the new government. An attempt on Nasser’s life in 1954 gave him the excuse to sentence Naguib to house arrest—as well as to authorize a brutal repression of rivals and dissenters. From that point on, Nasser ruled Egypt.

  His ouster of Naguib, however, left Nasser with bitter enemies inside Egypt, making his hold on power uncertain. To solidify his base, establish his leadership over the Arab world, and modernize his nation, Nasser proposed the construction of the Aswan High Dam in southern Egypt. The mammoth undertaking would, he believed, control flooding of the Nile, boost Egyptian agriculture, and raise his nation’s international stature. Eisenhower supported the plan and offered American assistance, reasoning that the project would aid Egypt, and that American backing would help win friends in the region, tightening the United States’ grasp on oil flowing from the Middle East.

  Eisenhower had another objective as well: to foil Soviet influence. The administration insisted that in return for its loans for the dam, Nasser refuse offers of Soviet assistance. That pushy attempt to force Nasser into the Western orbit offended the Egyptian leader, steeped as he was in anti-colonialism and determined as he was to strike a neutralist position akin to that of India’s Nehru. Rather than respond immediately, Nasser took the Eisenhower proposal under advisement, considering it for months while conspicuously cultivating his relationship with the Communist world. At the same time, Eisenhower faced domestic pressure, as supporters of Israel, critics of mutual aid, and growers of American cotton found common ground in questioning use of American money to subsidize an Egyptian dam that would expand the agricultural capacity of a nation whose products competed with American goods.

  Nasser did not help his own case. With America’s offer still on the table, he recognized China’s Communist government, purchased weapons from Czechoslovakia, and fortified his military presence along the border with Israel. By July, when he decided to accept American support for the dam, he had exhausted Washington’s patience, and the offer was effectively withdrawn. Nasser was furious. He publicly denounced the United States on July 24. Two days later, he seized the Suez Canal, announcing that Egypt would henceforth operate the canal and use revenue from it to help pay for the dam. He ordered canal employees to stay at work or face imprisonment.

  The Suez Canal Company was an international institution, but the government of Britain and French investors were its principal owners, and trade through the canal was vital to the economic and security interests of both nations. Consequently, Nasser’s action was guaranteed to infuriate leaders of both countries. Eisenhower tried to head off a confrontation that he believed would lead to profoundly uncertain consequences for the world. On July 31, he wrote to Anthony Eden and urged calm in the face of provocation. Eisenhower had received word through an intermediary that Eden was already considering a military response, and Ike pleaded with his counterpart, whom he addressed as “Anthony,” to refrain. Eisenhower recommended convening an international conference to exert pressure on Egypt to insure continued, efficient operation of the canal, and he grimly warned against precipitous resort to force. “For my part,” he wrote, “I cannot over-emphasize the strength of my conviction that some such method must be attempted before action such as you contemplate should be undertaken.” The American people, Eisenhower warned, would balk at military action to resolve the crisis, as would those of other nations. The Western alliance would be sorely tested: “I do not want to exaggerate, but I assure you that this could grow to such an intensity as to have the most far-reaching consequences.”

  Those were the prudent words of a wise military leader, but Eden ignored them. Although Britain, France, and other nations—though not Egypt—agreed to attend an August conference in London, Nasser rejected the conference’s recommendation for an international oversight board to supervise the workings of the canal. Dulles scrambled to negotiate a solution but succeeded mainly in alienating his allies. Angry nations now hurtled toward the confrontation that Eisenhower most feared. Israel called up troops; Britain and France became suspiciously quiet.

  Then, just as the Suez conflict came to a boil, another crisis erupted. This one flared from Khrushchev’s famous secret speech on the depravity of Stalin’s reign. Washington had been ca
utiously hopeful that a thaw in relations might follow and had hoped the measured Soviet response to Polish demands suggested progress. Still, American analysts saw no prospect for fundamental change in Moscow, merely for a gentler era of confrontation.

  In Hungary, nationalists had no way of knowing that the Eisenhower administration lacked any realistic plan to assist their struggle for liberation. They imagined that Khrushchev was providing an opening, that the events in Poland indicated that Moscow might now tolerate limited dissent, so long as it was within the broad ideological rubric of advancing Communism. Hungarians began to speak openly of a break with Moscow, increasingly unsettling Russia’s ambassador to Hungary, Yuri Andropov. As the Suez crisis escalated, Andropov warned his superiors in Moscow that the situation had “sharply deteriorated. Hostile elements, who see Hungary as one of the weakest links among the countries of the socialist camp, have stepped up their activities, and have spoken openly against the Hungarian Workers’ Party leadership.” Andropov correctly sized up the threat posed by the growing popularity of Imre Nagy, a son of peasants and a dedicated Communist who was determined to lead his country to a Marxism free from Soviet domination. Nagy had already been ousted as prime minister, but students and intellectuals saw him as their best hope. Andropov’s recommendation: persuade Nagy to issue a self-critical statement of his past party failings—his misunderstanding of collectivization or his unwillingness to cede ultimate authority to the Communist Party—and then reinstate him to the party and give him “some insignificant work.” If Nagy refused, Andropov’s chilling cable concluded, “it would be necessary to expose him in the eyes of Communists as a member of the opposition and as a dissenter.” Whatever “peaceful coexistence” or candor about Stalin meant to Moscow, it clearly did not include liberation of Hungary.