Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  In Washington, Eisenhower responded favorably. At his press conference on April 2, the president was asked by Merriman Smith of United Press International to comment on the Chinese peace overtures. “We should take at face value every offer that is made to us, until it is proved not to be worthy of being so taken,” Eisenhower replied. The president said the quick exchange of sick and wounded prisoners “would be a clear indication that deeds, rather than words, are now coming into fashion.”60

  Eisenhower was in the driver’s seat. At a National Security Council meeting on April 9, 1953, John Foster Dulles argued that the Chinese offer to negotiate should be rejected. “It was now quite possible to secure a much more satisfactory settlement in Korea than a mere armistice at the thirty-eighth parallel,” said Dulles. Even if there was an armistice, Dulles believed that the United States would have to break it soon in order to achieve the unification of Korea.

  Eisenhower pulled Dulles up short. “It will be impossible to call off the armistice and go to war again,” he told the secretary. “The American people will never stand for such a move.”61 When Charles Wilson piped up to support Dulles, the president shut him down. He had already said he would regard the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners as a test of faith on the part of the Chinese, said Eisenhower. The issue was closed.62 On April 20, Operation LITTLE SWITCH, the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners, began. Within the week, plenary discussions between the U.S. and Communist negotiators resumed at Panmunjom.

  Eisenhower spent much of the first two weeks of April preparing his speech for the newspaper editors. “Every day or two, the president would find a few hours to review with me in detail our latest version,” Hughes recalled. “I lost count of these multiplying drafts after the number passed a dozen, but the basic structure never changed.”63 When the speech was finished, Eisenhower titled it “The Chance for Peace,” and it remains one of the most important speeches any president has delivered—an epic event that altered the currents of the Cold War. Dulles fought it to the very end. “I know how he feels,” Eisenhower told Hughes. “But sometimes Foster is just too worried about being accused of sounding like Truman and Acheson. I think he worries too much about it.”64

  The night before his speech was to be delivered, Eisenhower suffered a severe intestinal attack. He was in intense pain as he mounted the podium at the Statler. “I could concentrate on the text only by extreme effort,” Eisenhower recalled. “At times I became so dizzy I feared I would faint.”65 Gripping the lectern to steady himself, the president laid out a new direction of march. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,” said Eisenhower, “signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

  “Is there no other way the world may live?” he asked. The new Soviet leadership “has a precious opportunity … to help turn the tide of history. A world that begins to witness a rebirth of trust among nations can find its way to a peace that is neither partial nor punitive.… The first great step along this way must be the conclusion of an honorable armistice in Korea.”

  Eisenhower went on to propose a reduction in “the burden of armaments” now weighing upon the world. He suggested that the United States would be prepared to enter “into the most solemn agreements” limiting the size of military forces and restricting weapons production. Atomic energy should be placed under international control “to promote its use for peaceful purposes only and to insure the prohibition of atomic weapons.” Other weapons of mass destruction should be banned, with adequate safeguards provided by “a practical system of inspection under the United Nations.”

  “These proposals spring, without ulterior purpose or political passion, from our calm conviction that the hunger for peace is in the hearts of all people—those of Russia and of China no less than of our own country.”66

  The New York Times called the speech “magnificent and deeply moving.” The staunchly Democratic New York Post said it was “America’s voice at its best.”67 Richard Rovere, scarcely an admirer of the Eisenhower administration, called the speech “an immense triumph. It firmly established [Eisenhower’s] leadership in America and re-established America’s leadership in the world.”68

  The ideas for Eisenhower’s speech did not bubble up from the bureaucracy. They did not reflect a cabinet consensus—Dulles and Wilson were opposed; they did not derive from learned professorial research; nor did they represent the work product of policy think tanks. They were pure Eisenhower. Ike believed the country wanted peace, and he was determined to provide it. War was neither a board game nor a seminar exercise for armchair intellectuals. America’s two great military presidents—Grant and Eisenhower—both abhorred war. In 1869, Grant overruled Sherman and Sheridan and brought peace to the Great Plains; in 1953, Eisenhower dismissed the objections of Dulles and Wilson, to say nothing of those of Senator Taft and the congressional Republicans, and brought peace to Korea.

  The principal obstacle was no longer China and North Korea, but South Korean president Syngman Rhee, who continued to insist on marching to the Yalu. When a full prisoner exchange between the two sides was agreed to, Rhee ordered the gates of the South Korean stockades opened so that the Chinese and North Korean prisoners might escape. When it became fully apparent that the United Nations was going to agree to an armistice along the thirty-eighth parallel, Rhee threatened to withdraw the South Korean Army (ROK) from UN command. Eisenhower was unfazed. Having twice brought de Gaulle to heel under similar circumstances during the war in Europe, Ike understood the exercise. Cut off all Class 3 and Class 5 [fuel and ammunition] supplies for the ROK Army, Mark Clark was instructed. As his supplies dwindled, Rhee recognized he was holding a losing hand.

  “Unless you are prepared immediately and unequivocally to accept the authority of the UN Command to conduct the present hostilities and to bring them to a close, it will be necessary to effect another arrangement,” Eisenhower informed Rhee on June 18.69 That “arrangement” would be the total withdrawal of U.S. forces from Korea and the termination of all military and financial assistance.

  Rhee held out for another three weeks, hoping that Republican sentiment in Congress would force Eisenhower to relent, but to no avail. On July 12, the South Korean president issued a public statement promising to cooperate.70

  The armistice was signed at Panmunjom at 10:12 a.m. on July 27, 1953, bringing the Korean War to a close. American casualties totaled 142,091—33,629 killed, 103,284 wounded, and 5,178 missing. Not one American serviceman or woman would die in combat for the next eight years.

  It was Sunday, July 26, thirteen hours earlier in Washington, when Eisenhower received the news. He went downstairs to the broadcast room in the White House to tell the nation. “And so at long last the carnage of war is to cease and the negotiations at the conference table to begin. On this Sabbath evening each of us devoutly prays that all nations may come to see the wisdom of composing differences in this fashion before, rather than after, there is a resort to brutal and futile battle.”

  Eisenhower spoke for less than five minutes. He concluded with Lincoln’s famous remarks from his second inaugural: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on … to do all which may achieve and cherish a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”71

  When he finished, Eisenhower was asked by a photographer how he felt.

  “The war is over,” the president said with a smile. “I hope my son is going to come home soon.”72

  * * *

  a McCloy, a card-carrying Republican, came to Washington with Henry L. Stimson in 1940. Before that he had been managing partner of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore, one of New York’s most distinguished law firms, and had supervised the case of Schechter Poultry Co. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935), which overturned the New Deal’s National Industrial Recovery Act. Unlike Dulles, McCloy was affable, indefatigable, and
brilliant without pretense. He was easy to work with, and Eisenhower and Clay respected his judgment. (Personal disclosure: I interviewed Mr. McCloy in his office at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley, and McCloy, on February 19, 1971, for my biography of Clay, and found him to be the most engaging person I have ever interviewed. He was frank and well-informed, and charmed the socks off me.) For McCloy generally, see Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy: The Making of the American Establishment (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).

  b British prime minister Harold Macmillan, after negotiating with Dulles, noted in his diary that “his speech was slow, but it easily kept pace with his thought.” Harold Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1956–1959 321 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971).

  Dulles finished second in the Princeton Class of 1908, but was never invited to join an eating club. In later years, as a distinguished member of the New York bar, he was invited to join Cottage, a first-rank club, and did so as an alumni member. Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles 18–21 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973).

  c Clay’s reference is to Wilson’s refusal to sell his stock in General Motors and his testimony at his Senate confirmation hearing when asked about a possible conflict of interest. Wilson replied, “I cannot conceive of a conflict because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our country is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country. Our contribution to the welfare of the nation is considerable.” Wilson’s remarks were often replayed as “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” although he did not put it in that order.

  d As the senior senator from Ohio, senatorial courtesy would have suggested that Taft be consulted, or at least informed of the choice. Taft had favored Virginia senator Harry F. Byrd, a nominal Democrat, for secretary of the Treasury. Later Taft grumbled to friends that Eisenhower had appointed an Ohioan without even asking his opinion. James T. Patterson, Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft 584 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972).

  e “Ike and Lucius were very, very close,” said Leonard Hall, who succeeded Arthur Summerfield as chairman of the Republican National Committee. “They understood one another instinctively. Not only had they worked together for many years, but they spoke the same language. Not just Army lingo. They were on the same wavelength. There was an unspoken rapport between them. When Ike had a serious problem, he talked to Lucius. Ike gave him a free hand to pick his cabinet. He trusted Lucius’s judgment. And Lucius picked his confreres in the business world. He didn’t consult with the [Republican] National Committee. He and Brownell sent the names over to us after the selections had been made, but it was only a courtesy. They didn’t ask our advice; they told us these were the cabinet appointees.” Leonard Hall, interview by Jean Edward Smith, April 4, 1971, quoted in Smith, Lucius D. Clay 614.

  f The Republicans took office in January 1953 determined to root out waste and inefficiency in government. My mother was a longtime secretary in the office of the assistant attorney general (Civil Division) in the Department of Justice. Warren Burger, the new Republican assistant attorney general, sought every way possible to save money. The office had a stationery closet with an electric lightbulb that went off when the door closed. According to my mother, Burger was not convinced the light went off. “Mrs. Smith,” he said, “I’m going to stand in the closet and I want you to close the door.” To Burger’s satisfaction, the light went off. I should add that my mother, as a loyal government employee, did not relate this story until after Chief Justice Burger’s death.

  g There have been three exceptions to the rule. In 1801, John Adams left Washington at dawn to avoid seeing Thomas Jefferson sworn in. His son John Quincy Adams refused to attend Andrew Jackson’s inaugural in 1829, and Andrew Johnson avoided Ulysses Grant’s in 1869.

  h On the ride up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, Eisenhower had asked the president who ordered John back from Korea. “I did,” Truman replied. The mood remained chilly, and nothing further was said. McCullough, Truman 921.

  i My surmise is that Eisenhower may also have discovered that President Truman had destroyed his correspondence with General Marshall and was writing to express his appreciation. It would have been typical of Ike not to address so delicate an issue directly, but to thank Truman obliquely.

  j “The cold fact is that on important matters we are seldom called upon for advice,” wrote Harold Ickes, FDR’s long-serving secretary of the interior. “We never discuss exhaustively any policy of government or question of political strategy. The President makes all of his own decisions and so far as the Cabinet is concerned, without taking counsel with a group of advisers. 1 The Secret Diaries of Harold L. Ickes 308 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953).

  k The job title was changed from national security assistant to national security adviser under President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson employed Harvard dean McGeorge Bundy in that capacity; Nixon went to Harvard for Henry Kissinger; and Carter turned to Columbia for Zbigniew Brzezinski. The pattern continued through George W. Bush, who went to Stanford for Condoleezza Rice. President Obama initially chose Marine Corps general James L. Jones, the first nonacademic to hold the post since the Eisenhower years.

  l Louisburg Square (New York: Macmillan, 1917) and The Speckled Bird (New York: Macmillan, 1923).

  m When Stalin died on March 5, 1953, the official U.S. response was stiff and formal. “The Government of the United States tenders its official condolences to the Government of the U.S.S.R. on the death of Generalissimo Joseph Stalin, Prime Minister of the Soviet Union.” Eisenhower made no personal statement. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953 91 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1960). Cited subsequently as Public Papers.

  n Article 109 provides that “parties to the conflict are bound to send back to their own country … seriously wounded and seriously sick prisoners of war, after having cared for them until they are fit to travel.” The article also provides that the prisoners will not be repatriated against their will. International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (third Geneva convention), August 12, 1949.

  TWENTY-ONE

  First Off the Tee

  I just won’t get into a pissing contest with that skunk.

  —DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

  Dwight D. Eisenhower did not play more golf than any president in American history. Woodrow Wilson, on doctor’s orders, played every day—a total of almost sixteen hundred rounds during his eight years in the White House. Wilson was a terrible golfer. He once needed twenty-six strokes, including fifteen putts, to finish the par-4 second hole at the Washington Golf and Country Club. “My right eye is like a horse’s,” Wilson said. “I can see straight out with it, but not sideways. As a result, I cannot take a full swing because my nose gets in the way and cuts off my view of the ball.”1

  Ike was also not the best golfer to occupy the White House. That distinction goes to John F. Kennedy, who was obsessively secretive about his love for the game. But of the fourteen presidents since William Howard Taft who have played golf while in the White House,a Eisenhower was clearly the most dedicated. When Ike took office in 1953, 3.2 million Americans played the game on some five thousand golf courses around the nation.2 By 1961, the number of golfers had more than doubled, and there were not enough tee times to meet the surging demand. “Whatever remained to be done to remove the last traces of the average man’s carefully nurtured prejudice against a game originally linked with the wealthy and aloof was done by President Eisenhower,” wrote historian Herbert Warren Wind.3 Ike made golf accessible, motivating millions of men who were forty and over to try the game for the first time.4

  Golfing greats Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan with Ike and Clifford Roberts at the Augusta National. (illustration credit 21.1)

  Golf was as necessary to Eisenhower’s mental health as a good night’s sl
eep. “Without golf,” said Major General Howard Snyder, the president’s longtime personal physician, “he’d be like a caged lion, with all those tensions building up inside him. If this fellow couldn’t play golf, I’d have a nut case on my hands.”5

  Eisenhower played nearly 800 rounds of golf during his time as president, including 210 at the Augusta National. As soon as he awoke each morning, Ike reached for a pitching wedge and started swinging it to warm up his wrists and arms. He carried the club to the West Wing and rested it against a credenza in the Oval Office. Sometimes while dictating he took practice swings with an eight-iron. Most afternoons he would slip on his golf cleats, grab his putter, his wedge, and his eight-iron, and head out to the South Lawn. His cleat marks were still visible in the wooden floor in the Oval Office until Richard Nixon had the floor replaced in 1969. Eisenhower also had a custom-built putting green (funded by private donations) constructed just outside the French doors of his office. The green had two undersized holes and a small sand trap.6