Eisenhower: The White House Years
Page 50
9 as one reviewer put it: Saturday Review of Literature, from jacket copy.
10 hundreds of thousands of dollars: Ewald, Eisenhower the President, p. 57.
11 at least a month of bed rest: See, for instance, Lasby, Eisenhower’s Heart Attack, p. 47.
12 “Don’t think about it”: DDE, oral history interview with Adams, pp. 30–31.
13 “Father would have liked this”: McCallum, Six Roads from Abilene, p. 123.
14 shiny blue vehicle: Dec. 30, 1948, letter, Robert Schulz, aide to Eisenhower, to A. J. Aherns (and accompanying news coverage), AH-AK folder, box 1, Principal File, Pre-presidential Papers, DDEPL.
15 even though it would have cost less: DDE, At Ease, p. 360.
16 Churchill supplied an example: John Eisenhower, interview with author, Oct. 7, 2010.
17 “weird and wonderful to behold”: DDE, At Ease, p. 340.
18 would form the basis of NATO: Even before drafting him for that assignment, Truman tried to lure Eisenhower to public life another way. In Aug. 1949, he asked George Allen, a mutual friend, to relay to Eisenhower the message that Truman could insure him Democratic support for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Eisenhower replied that he “would not consider it” (special note for Aug. 29, 1949, Eisenhower [Personal] 1949 folder, box 1, Robinson Papers).
19 “an unassailable position”: Clay to DDE, April 13, 1951, Lucius D. Clay (6) folder, box 24, Principal File, Pre-presidential Papers, DDEPL.
20 B for Brownell: Clay to DDE, May 18, 1951, Clay (6) folder, box 24, Principal File, Pre-presidential Papers.
21 being unable to follow it: DDE to Clay, Sept. 27, 1951, Clay (5) folder, box 24, Principal File, Pre-presidential Papers.
22 thousands chanted and sang: New York Times, Feb. 9, 1952. Others have estimated the crowd as much larger, in the neighborhood of thirty-three thousand. That seems unlikely, given the Garden’s capacity in those years.
23 where he practiced his fly casting: Slater, The Ike I Knew, p. 13.
24 “the symbol of that longing and hope”: DDE to Swede, Feb. 12, 1952, Swede Hazlett 1952, Jan.-May folder, Name Series, box 17, Whitman File.
25 “I’ve not been so upset”: DDE, Feb. 12, 1952, entry, in Diaries, p. 214.
26 tears ran down his cheeks: Cochran, oral history interview, p. 25.
27 to seek their party’s nomination: Feb. 22 letter, Drafting Eisenhower as a Candidate, box 4, Adams Papers.
28 “They want you to come home”: Ibid.
29 “My attitude”: DDE, Mandate for Change, p. 21.
30 “the first big test”: Time, Feb. 11, 1952.
31 bigger impression on him: DDE, interview with Relman “Pat” Morin, Jan. 3, 1967, p. 20, box 53, 1967 Principal File, Post-presidential Papers, DDEPL.
32 “Ike” scrawled across them: Adams, oral history interview, p. 15.
33 “assure you of a warm welcome”: Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 355.
34 “That definitely and specifically includes”: DDE, Crusade in Europe, p. 444. See also DDE, interview with Morin, Jan. 3, 1967, p. 16.
35 whether they could carry the electorate: Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 97.
36 “would not lead the charge”: Ibid., p. 99.
37 “an important turning point”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 4: FROM CANDIDATE TO PRESIDENT
1 “America must be spiritually”: DDE, Mandate for Change, p. 33.
2 “I think I have no quarrel”: Lodge to DDE, May 16, 1952, and DDE to Lodge, May 20, 1952, Henry Cabot Lodge folder, box 72, Principal File, Pre-presidential Papers, DDEPL.
3 “the almost evangelical loyalty”: Bain and Parris, Convention Decisions and Voting Records, p. 279.
4 distant corners of the hall: Warren, Memoirs, p. 218.
5 was denied entrance, too: Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 115.
6 “stolen” delegates and party secrecy: New York Times, July 3, 1952.
7 “I’m going to roar out”: Ibid.
8 they found space: Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 108.
9 “We conclude this series”: New York Times, July 3, 1952.
10 divided up the balance: New York Times, July 6, 1952.
11 hardly conveyed confidence: New York Times, July 5, 1952.
12 collected $1 from an aide: New York Times, July 7, 1952.
13 “I go everyplace I can with him”: Ibid.
14 “a stirring oration”: Ibid.
15 “It looks like my candidate”: New York Times, July 10, 1952.
16 many of them fighting tears: Hagerty, oral history interview, p. 40.
17 the next eight years: Ibid., p. 3.
18 “He expressed surprise”: Brownell, Advising Ike, p. 120.
19 California senator Richard Nixon: Brownell and Eisenhower recalled this exchange slightly differently. In Ike’s memory, he had carried this list with him for some time, though only Brownell knew who was on it. Brownell remembered that Ike wrote out the list over a dinner during the convention when Brownell asked him for names. Since Eisenhower acknowledged some failings of memory during that period, I have relied more heavily on Brownell’s version of events.
20 “we have a traitor”: Undated memorandum titled “Republican National Convention, July 1952, Chicago, Ill.,” Political Parties, Republican Party folder, box 3, HI. The memo is signed by the author, but access to it is conditioned on protecting the name, so I have omitted it here.
21 “There comes a time”: Mazo, Richard Nixon, p. 88.
22 happy to have him on the ticket: Brownell to Sherman Adams, Dec. 23, 1958, A (1) folder, box 66, Brownell Papers.
23 “Nixon fills all the requirements”: Mazo, Richard Nixon, p. 89.
24 “Its potential for good or evil”: Full text at http://www.rockymountainnews
.com/news/1952/jul/26/transcript
-adlai-stevensons-acceptance-speech-1952/.
25 “impressed by his speaking style”: DDE, Mandate for Change, p. 50.
26 “He’s too accomplished”: Ibid.
27 the teleprompter was scrapped: Sherman Adams, unpublished MS, pp. 122–25, Adams Papers.
28 “Thirty-five pages”: Hagerty, oral history interview, p. 44.
29 they would be “entirely briefed”: Truman to DDE, telegram, Aug. 12, 1952, Harry Truman folder (1), box 33, Name Series, Whitman File.
30 “It is my duty”: DDE to Truman, Aug. 14, 1952, Truman folder (1), box 33, Name Series, Whitman File.
31 “I am extremely sorry”: Truman to DDE, Aug. 16, 1952, Truman folder (1), box 33, Name Series, Whitman File.
32 some by Smith himself: John L. Helgerson, Getting to Know the President: CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates, 1952–1992 (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1996).
33 “In the certainty that the whole affair”: DDE to Nixon, draft, Sept. 19, 1952, box 1, Cutler Papers.
34 until Nixon could explain himself: Sherman Adams to Brownell, Feb. 12, 1959, and Brownell reply, Feb. 25, 1959, A (1) folder, box 66, Brownell Papers.
35 well short of an endorsement: “Notes on Campaign Speeches, 1952,” undated memo, 1952 Campaign folder, Whitman File.
36 “But there comes a time”: Nixon memorandum of telephone conversation, Sept. 20, 1952, Fund File, Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace.
37 “If the impression got around”: Ibid.
38 “I want to tell you my side of the case”: Full text of the speech at http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/nixon-checkers.htm.
39 Nixon laid down that challenge: Ewald, Eisenhower the President, p. 55.
40 “If you don’t unqualifiedly endorse”: Edgar to DDE, cable, Sept. 25, 1952, Edgar Eisenhower 1953 (3) folder, box 11, Name Series, Whitman File.
41 “This apparently settles the Nixon fund affair”: “Notes on Campaign Speeches, 1952.”
42 that dated to Lincoln: Adams, unpublished MS, p. 109.
43 “bungled us perilously close”: “Notes on Campaign Speeches, 1952.”
44 �
��us forward in the broad middle way”: Ibid.
45 “here in my hand”: Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy, beginning at p. 5. Full text also at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456.
46 “certified to the Secretary”: Ibid.
47 “the most weird and traitorous”: Ibid., pp. 190–92.
48 “part of a conspiracy on a scale”: McCarthy address to the U.S. Senate, June 14, 1951, Congressional Record, 82nd Cong., 1st sess., vol. 97, pt. 5, in Major Speeches, p. 305.
49 McCarthy glowered afterward: Adams, unpublished MS, p. 139.
50 focused on other topics: Here is the entire passage, as scheduled to be delivered: “George Marshall is one of the patriots of this country, and anyone who has lived with him, has worked with him as I have, knows that he is a man of real selflessness—a man who has suffered with ill health. Maybe he has made mistakes. I do not know about that, but from the time I met him on December 14, 1942, until the war was over, if he was not a perfect example of patriotism and a loyal servant of the United States, I never saw one. If I could say any more, I would say it, but I have no patience with anyone who can find in his record of service for this country anything to criticize.”
51 “high-minded and zealous”: Adams, unpublished MS, p. 20a.
52 “Take it out”: Ibid., p. 140.
53 attacks on Marshall were overstated: DDE to Stassen, Oct. 5, 1952, Harold Stassen folder, box 35, Whitman File.
54 “sick at heart”: Adams, unpublished MS, p. 140. Marshall himself shrugged off the incident, at least in discussing it with others. “Eisenhower was forced into a compromise, that’s all it was,” he confided to his goddaughter. “There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail” (Rose Page Wilson, General Marshall Remembered, p. 371; quoted in Cray, General of the Army, p. 728).
55 “as bad a moment”: Hauge, oral history interview, p. 17.
56 “terrible mistake”: John Eisenhower, interview with author, Oct. 7, 2010.
57 Marshall’s name does not appear: “Notes on Campaign Speeches, 1952.”
58 “straight isolationist line”: New York Times, Oct. 23, 1952.
59 “I shall go to Korea”: New York Times, Oct. 25, 1952.
60 “If you win”: Hazlett to DDE, Nov. 3, 1952, Swede Hazlett (June–Dec. 1952) folder, box 17, Whitman File.
61 Brownell accepted that evening: Brownell, Advising Ike, pp. 132–33.
62 any previous Republican candidate: “The 1952 Elections: A Statistical Analysis,” 138 A Elections and Voting (1) folder, box 698, Official File, White House Central Files, DDEPL.
63 Mamie wept: Slater, The Ike I Knew, p. 27.
CHAPTER 5: CHANGING AMERICA’S COURSE
1 under the cover of darkness: Hagerty letter to Marge Hagerty, Nov. 29, 1952, p. 3, Korea Trip 1952–53 (5), box 11, Hagerty Papers.
2 “if you still desire to go to Korea”: Truman to DDE, cable, Nov. 5, 1952, Harry S. Truman, Aug. 1, 1952–Jan. 1, 1953 (1) folder, box 33, Name Series, Whitman File.
3 ended their relationship: DDE to Truman, cable, Nov. 5, 1952, Truman Aug. 1, 1952–Jan. 1, 1953 (1) folder, box 33, Name Series, Whitman File. See also John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, p. 158.
4 “Secrecy of movement”: Lovett to DDE, Nov. 11, 1952, Robert A. Lovett folder, box 25, Administration Series, Whitman File.
5 thirteen hundred escorted him along the way: Stars and Stripes, Dec. 6, 1952, p. 15.
6 boarded his plane: Hagerty letter to Marge, Nov. 29, 1952, p. 5, Korea Trip 1952–53 (4), box 11, Hagerty Papers.
7 opportunity to unite their country: Halberstam, Coldest Winter, p. 50.
8 perimeter in Asia as excluding South Korea: Jian, China’s Road, p. 119.
9 “if you get kicked in the teeth”: Halberstam, Coldest Winter, p. 50.
10 claiming the center and east coast: “The Korean War,” in American Military History, p. 547.
11 “All Korea,” he warned, “is lost”: John Allison, Ambassador from the Prairie (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), p. 137.
12 several moments of silence: Notes of June 26, 1950, meeting of Truman, Acheson, and congressional leaders, George M. Elsey Papers, HSTL.
13 daunting seawalls: “Korean War,” p. 556.
14 “Few people”: Halberstam, Coldest Winter, p. 311.
15 “no stopping MacArthur now”: Weintraub, MacArthur’s War, p. 163 (also quoted in Halberstam, Coldest Winter, p. 331).
16 “If Korea were completely occupied”: This cable is included in Mao Zedong’s Manuscripts Since the Founding of the People’s Republic. It is unclear whether Stalin received it. An alternative cable included in Russian files from the period suggests that China was reluctant to commit its forces as of that day. The difference may be explained by divisions within the Chinese leadership at that point. For a discussion of this issue, see Shen Zhihua, “The Discrepancy Between the Russian and Chinese Versions of Mao’s 2 October 1950 Message to Stalin on Chinese Entry into the Korean War: A Chinese Scholar’s Reply,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin (Winter 1996–97), p. 237.
17 MacArthur disregarded the threat: Weintraub, MacArthur’s War, p. 207.
18 were stashed for the Chinese: Ibid., p. 209.
19 MacArthur’s headquarters ignored the warning: Ibid., p. 210.
20 “Anything MacArthur wanted”: Ibid., p. 211.
21 “are not coming in”: Ridgway, Korean War, p. 254.
22 “MacArthur seemed at the time”: Ibid., p. 153.
23 “I am going to maintain silence”: DDE to Clay, April 16, 1951, Lucius D. Clay (7) folder, box 24, Principal File, Pre-presidential Papers, DDEPL.
24 by December 31 of that year: April 23, 1951, memo for the Executive Secretary, National Security Council, NSC 114–2 (1) folder, box 8, Disaster File, White House Office, NSC Staff Papers, 1948–61, DDEPL.
25 raised the American flag: Stars and Stripes, Dec. 6, 1952, p. 16.
26 so as to avoid attention: New York Times, Dec. 6, 1952.
27 traveled fast in the cold air: Ibid.
28 “Police action, hell”: Stars and Stripes, Dec. 6, 1952, p. 16.
29 “He’s the man to do it”: Don Whitehead, “The Great Deception,” p. 12, The Korea Trip (1), box 11, Hagerty Papers.
30 “before being captured”: Op-Ed, New York Times, Sept. 27, 2008. John Eisenhower also describes this understanding in his memoir, Strictly Personal.
31 “It would probably become necessary”: Memorandum on Ending the Korean War, Dec. 15, 1952, Douglas MacArthur folder, box 25, Administration Series, Whitman File.
32 “a piece of demagoguery”: Dec. 11, 1952, news conference, APP.
33 “dog and pony act”: Adams, oral history interview, p. 16.
34 “To the best of my recollection”: Ibid., p. 127.
35 “Dull, Duller, Dulles”: Hughes, Ordeal of Power, p. 251.
36 “the brisk nodding of the head”: Ibid., p. 51.
37 “He is not particularly persuasive”: DDE, entry for May 14, 1953, in Diaries, p. 237.
38 “because for years I thought”: SecDef Histories, www.defenselink.mil/specials/
secdef_histories/bios/wilson.htm.
39 “Mr. Wilson is prone”: DDE, entry for May 14, 1953, in Diaries, p. 237.
40 “I see you part your hair”: Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades, p. 183.
41 decades as its president: See M. A. Hanna Company official history. Obtained by author from company headquarters, Cleveland, Ohio.
42 “If you’re going to live”: Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades, p. 183.
43 “When George speaks”: Saginaw Hall of Fame entry for Humphrey.
44 “a sound business type”: DDE, entry for May 14, 1953, in Diaries, p. 237.
45 Brownell did not forget: Time, May 30, 1957.
46 “It would be natural to suppose”: DDE, entry for May 14, 1953, in Diaries, p. 239.
47 before heading to the office: Time, May 7, 1956.
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br /> 48 “give us men with a mandate”: Ibid.
49 take her to the hospital: Biographical sketch of Hobby, Fondren Library, Rice University, at http://library.rice.edu/collections/WRC/digital-archive-information/online-exhilbits/oveta-culp-hobby-and-the-women-s-army-corps-exhibit/oveta-culp-hobby-biographical-sketch.
50 turn out the lights: See Hagerty, oral history interview, for his background and tenure.
51 after a short time in the White House: DDE, Mandate for Change, p. 119.
52 Ike’s trip to Korea: John L. Helgerson, Getting to Know the President: CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates, 1952–1992 (Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1996).
53 “And I thought”: Ibid.
54 longest two weeks in history: Scripps-Howard wire story, July 6, 1956.
55 Whitman opted to drive: Whitman letter to “Marie,” undated but marked “6/58,” Eisenhower Library Documents (1), box 2, Personal Papers of Whitman.
56 “Your companionship”: Robinson to DDE, Jan. 21, 1953, Eisenhower (Personal) 1953 folder, box 2, Robinson Papers.
57 “This ability to segregate”: Slater, The Ike I Knew, p. 39.
58 “read it not for praise”: DDE, Mandate for Change, p. 99.
59 “no help”: DDE, entry for January 16, 1953, in Diaries, p. 225.
60 felt it demeaned the ceremony: Neal, Harry and Ike, p. 285.
61 the balance of the ride: DDE, Mandate for Change, p. 101.
62 “The faith we hold”: DDE, Inaugural Address, APP. Video of the speech is widely available on the Internet.
63 had ever done at an inauguration: Holt, Mamie Doud Eisenhower, p. 59.
64 holing up there for two days: Jan. 1953, Presidential Appointment Books, DDEPL.
65 “I guess the old gal”: DDE to Edgar, Feb. 7, 1953, Edgar Eisenhower 1953 (3) folder, box 11, Name Series, Whitman File.
66 seamstress to convert it: Holt, Mamie Doud Eisenhower, p. 63.
67 “reach over and pat Ike”: Susan Eisenhower, Mrs. Ike, p. 276.
68 middle-class affectations: Ibid., p. 281.
69 surrounded by photographs and papers: Slater, The Ike I Knew, p. 32.
70 concentration and memory: Ibid., p. 57.
71 “dressing for my husband”: Susan Eisenhower, Mrs. Ike, p. 294.