THE FIFTIES were a decade in which Americans, including their President, lived on the high edge of tension. Every decade of the nuclear age has been full of tension, obviously, but the fifties felt it most. America’s leaders had had Pearl Harbor burned into their souls, and Americans of the fifties, already superconscious of the danger of surprise attack, were the first to have to live with long-range bombers, and to know that ICBMs were being built, and Polaris submarines. Most frightening of all, the weapons these delivery systems carried were H-bombs, big enough, in Strauss’ words, “to take out a city. Any city.”
Eisenhower wanted to lessen, if he could not eliminate, the financial cost and the fear that were the price of the Pearl Harbor mentality. But he could not bring himself to respond to Russian, or any other, calls for nuclear disarmament. To him, security for America required building more bombs, because that was the only area in which America had a lead on the Soviet military machine. But building more bombs only increased the cost and raised the tension.
Eisenhower searched for a way out of his dilemma. In 1955 he came up with an idea. It was one of his boldest. He decided to propose that the Soviets and the Americans open their airspace to each other, and provide each other with airfields from which to operate continuous reconnaissance missions. That simple step might solve the dilemma. Eisenhower maintained that the United States could never launch a first strike, both because of American morality and because of the open nature of American society, which precluded secret mobilization. Thus the United States had nothing to lose and much to gain by opening its airspace to the Russians. If American pilots had the same rights over the Soviet Union, it would be impossible for the Russians to launch an undetected nuclear Pearl Harbor, or to otherwise secretly increase their military might.
Eisenhower had used air reconnaissance extensively during the war, and was well aware of advances in cameras and photo interpretation techniques that had taken place since 1945. He had already tried various ways of flying over the Soviet Union, without success but without abandoning the project. Lockheed’s U-2 was coming along nicely, he was told, and would soon—-perhaps within a year—be operational. Then would come satellites, which Eisenhower was told were only two or three years away. They too would be able to carry cameras and beam pictures back to earth. Technology was going to open the skies to spy cameras in any case; whether the Russians agreed or not, the United States was soon going to be taking high-altitude photographs of the Soviet Union. By offering unlimited inspection, Eisenhower was trying to use inevitable technological advances to reduce, rather than raise, tensions.
Two weeks were taken up with preparations for the Geneva Summit. There were many practical arrangements that had to be made for the American delegation. Ike was delighted that Mamie had agreed to fly over with him, only her second flight across the Atlantic; adding to his pleasure was the fact that John, who had just completed the course at the Command and General Staff School and who thus had a one-month furlough, would also be along.
Eisenhower flew to Geneva full of curiosity about the new Russian leaders. He had met Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov in Moscow in the summer of 1945, and he had always felt a special tie with Zhukov, who had fallen into such disfavor with Stalin that Eisenhower had at one time thought him dead. He was anxious to see Zhukov again, find out what had happened, explore the possibility of re-establishing the working partnership the two of them had created in Germany after the war, and find out if Zhukov, as Defense Minister, had become a real leader in the post-Stalin government, or was only window dressing.
Eisenhower had not met either Bulganin, chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party. He had seen CIA studies on them, as well as estimates of who was really in charge, but none of it was conclusive. Eisenhower could hardly believe that four strong-willed Russian Communists were genuinely sharing power, so he set as one of his objectives at Geneva discovering who the real boss was. To that end, he set John to work. Eisenhower recalled that John had been a big hit with Zhukov during the 1945 trip to Moscow, and asked John to stick by Marshal Zhukov’s side throughout the conference. Zhukov just might, Eisenhower said, drop something around John that he might otherwise withhold.
Eisenhower’s natural curiosity was reinforced by his practical need to know. If Zhukov, for example, was really in charge of defense policy, Eisenhower felt certain he could get a positive response to his inspection proposal. During the opening rounds of cocktail parties, Eisenhower devoted himself exclusively to the Russians, much to the dismay of Eden and Dulles.
At one party, Eisenhower, John, and Zhukov were together in the garden and Zhukov remarked that his daughter was getting married that day but that he had passed up the ceremony to see his “old friend.” Eisenhower turned to an aide and had some presents brought out, including a portable radio. Zhukov, visibly embarrassed, said softly that “there are things [in Russia] that are not as they seem.” To both Eisenhowers, Zhukov seemed only a shell of himself, a broken man, almost pathetic. Father and son recalled the “cocky little rooster” they had known at the end of the war; now Zhukov spoke “in a low monotone . . . as if he was repeating a lesson that had been drilled into him. . . . He was devoid of animation, and he never smiled or joked, as he used to do.” The President noted a feeling of “sadness” and thereafter dismissed Zhukov from his mind. Whoever was in charge, it certainly was not Zhukov.1
At dinner that evening, Eisenhower sat with Khrushchev, Bulganin, and Molotov. He appealed to their reason. “It is essential,” Eisenhower declared in a loud voice, “that we find some way of controlling the threat of the thermonuclear bomb. You know we both have enough weapons to wipe out the entire northern hemisphere from fall-out alone. No spot would escape the fall-out from an exchange of nuclear stockpiles.” The Russians nodded their vigorous agreement.2
Eisenhower did a masterful job of stage-managing his inspection proposal. On July 18, in his opening statement, he took an extremely tough line, one that indeed seemed intransigent and certainly was not a part of the “spirit of Geneva” he had been promoting. Eisenhower said the first issue the conference should discuss was “the problem of unifying Germany and forming an all-German government based on free elections. Beyond that, we insist a united Germany is entitled as its choice, to exercise its inherent right of collective self-defense.” In other words, the reunified Germany would be a full partner in NATO. Next, Eisenhower wanted to discuss East Europe and the failure to implement the Yalta promises. Then there was “the problem of international Communism.” Stirring up revolutions around the world was something the United States “cannot ignore.” Eisenhower knew that the chances of getting a Soviet response on any of these demands were zero.
Over the next two days, the discussions were generally acrimonious and never profitable. The Russians concentrated on denouncing Eisenhower’s position on Germany. Then, on July 21, at the Palais des Nations, speaking from some note cards, Eisenhower said, “I have been searching my heart and mind for something that I could say here that could convince everyone of the great sincerity of the United States in approaching this problem of disarmament.” Turning to look directly at the Soviet delegation, he said he wanted to speak principally to them. He thereupon proposed “to give to each other a complete blueprint of our military establishments, from beginning to end, from one end of our countries to the other.” Next, “to provide within our countries facilities for aerial photography to the other country.” The Americans would make airfields and other facilities available to the Russians, and allow them to fly wherever they wished. The Russians would provide identical facilities for the United States.
When Eisenhower finished, there was a tremendous clap of thunder, and all the lights went out. When he recovered from his surprise, Eisenhower laughed and said, “Well, I expected to make a hit but not that much of one.” More than twenty years later Vernon Walters, Eisenhower’s translator, said that “to this day, I am told, the Russians are still trying to figure out how we did it.”3
The French and British expressed their hearty approval of the idea. Bulganin spoke last. The proposal, he said, seemed to have real merit. The Soviet delegation would give it complete and sympathetic study at once. But when the session ended, Khrushchev walked beside Eisenhower on the way to cocktails. Although he was smiling, he said, “I don’t agree with the chairman.” Eisenhower could hear “no smile in his voice.” Eisenhower realized immediately that Khrushchev was the man in charge. “From that moment,” he recalled, “I wasted no more time probing Mr. Bulganin.” Instead, he stayed after Khrushchev, arguing the merits of what was being called Open Skies. Khrushchev said the idea was nothing more than a bald espionage plot against the Soviet Union.4
Why Khrushchev reacted so adversely is a puzzle. Eisenhower made the offer sincerely, and he emphasized that it would be “only a beginning.” The President could not see what the Russians had to lose. Overflights, the Russians surely knew, were inevitable within two or three years anyway. How Open Skies would have worked out, no one knows, although the difficulties were surely huge; imagine, for example, the problems involved in having a Soviet air base in the middle of the Great Plains, or in New England, not to mention those of the exchange of military blueprints. But no one knows because Open Skies never was tried. Khrushchev had killed it within minutes of its birth.
Disappointed though he was by Khrushchev’s quick rejection, which Eisenhower correctly decided was authoritative, Eisenhower nevertheless continued to build the spirit of Geneva. The next day, July 22, he made his presentation on the need for more trade between the U.S.S.R. and the United States, as well as a “free and friendly exchange of ideas and of people.” And his parting words, at the last session of July 23, were: “In this final hour of our assembly, it is my judgment that the prospects of a lasting peace with justice, well-being, and broader freedom, are brighter. The dangers of the overwhelming tragedy of modern war are less.” He was specific about what he had learned and accomplished: “I came to Geneva because I believe mankind longs for freedom from war and rumors of war. I came here because of my lasting faith in the decent instincts and good sense of the people who populate this world of ours. I shall return home tonight with these convictions unshaken . . .”5
That final statement, coupled with Eisenhower’s proposals, was what made Geneva a dramatic moment in the Cold War. For the five years before Geneva, there were war scares on an almost monthly basis, with major wars going on in Korea and Indochina. For the five years after Geneva, war scares were relatively rare, except at Suez in 1956, and no major wars were fought. The leaders of the two sides had met and agreed among themselves that they were indeed two scorpions in a bottle. Bulganin’s parting words to Eisenhower were “Things are going to be better; they are going to come out right.”6
As Dulles had warned would be the case, nothing had been settled at Geneva. But as Eisenhower had determined would be the case, Geneva produced an intangible but real spirit that was felt and appreciated around the world. The year following Geneva was the calmest of the first two decades of the Cold War.
• •
In late August, Ike and Mamie flew to Denver for their summer vacation. The fishing was the best Eisenhower could remember. He enjoyed cooking the trout for his gang and the press corps. The weather for golf at Cherry Hills, Eisenhower’s favorite course, was perfect. Lowry Air Force Base in Denver provided him with a complete communications hookup, and an office where he could work a couple of hours a day.
Eisenhower used his vacation to do some thinking and talking about the 1956 presidential election. His friends told him that they would feel he was letting them down if he retired. He resented their pressure, and insisted that he had given them no reason to think he would run again so he could not be guilty of letting them down. He told Milton that he wanted to “retain as long as possible a position of flexibility,” but barring some unforeseen crisis, he would not run again.7
He had his health to think about. He was not at all sure he could or should take the mental pounding for another four years. He had another worry. Churchill had not been at Geneva. Eisenhower had found it strange to be at an international meeting without him, but he also knew from his own dealings with Churchill before the old man finally retired that Churchill had held on to power far too long. What worried Eisenhower was, as he told Swede, “Normally the last person to recognize that a man’s mental faculties are fading is the victim himself.” Eisenhower said, “I have seen many a man ‘hang on too long’ under the definite impression that he had a great duty to perform and that no one else could adequately fill his particular position.” Eisenhower feared that this might happen to him, because “the more important and demanding the position, the greater the danger in this regard.”8
• •
Ike spent September 19 to 23 at Aksel Nielsen’s ranch at Fraser, Colorado. On the morning of the twenty-third, he was up at 5 A.M. to cook breakfast for George Allen, Nielsen, and two guests. He skipped the wheat cakes and made only bacon and eggs. At 6:45 they left Fraser and drove to Denver. Eisenhower went to his office at Lowry; Ann Whitman later wrote in her diary that “I have never seen him look or act better.” He was in a good mood, went through his work cheerfully, read a letter from Milton and handed it to Whitman, saying, “See what a wonderful brother I have.”9
About 11 A.M. he and Allen drove out to Cherry Hills and began to play. Twice Ike had to return to the clubhouse for phone calls from Dulles, only to be told that there was difficulty on the lines. He had a hamburger with slices of Bermuda onion for lunch and returned to the course. Again he was called to the clubhouse to talk to Dulles, there to be told that it was a mistake. He was scoring badly, his stomach was upset, his temper flaring. Giving up on golf, he and Allen drove to Mamie’s mother’s home, where they were spending the evening. Ike and Allen shot some billiards before dinner, declining a cocktail. At 10 P.M., Eisenhower went to bed.
About 1:30 A.M. Ike woke with a severe chest pain. “It hurt like hell,” he later confessed, but he did not want to alarm Mamie. Nevertheless his stirring about woke her. She asked if he wanted anything. Thinking of his indigestion the previous afternoon, Ike asked for some milk of magnesia. From the tone of his voice, she knew there was something seriously wrong. Mamie called Dr. Snyder, who arrived at the bedside about 2 A.M. Noting that the patient was suffering with pain in the chest area, Snyder broke a pearl of amyl nitrite and gave it to Ike to sniff while he prepared a hypodermic of one grain of papaverine and immediately thereafter one-fourth grain of morphine sulphate. He then told Mamie to get back into bed with her husband and keep him warm. Forty-five minutes later, Snyder gave Eisenhower another one-fourth grain of morphine to control the symptoms.10
Ike slept until noon. When he woke, he was still groggy, had not shaken off the effects of the morphine, did not know what had happened to him. But his first thoughts were of his responsibilities. He told Snyder to tell Whitman to call Brownell “for an opinion as to how he could delegate authority.” Snyder insisted on taking an electrocardiogram first; it located the site of the lesion in the anterior wall of the heart. Eisenhower had suffered a coronary thrombosis. Snyder decided to transfer him to a hospital immediately. As the stairs were too narrow for a stretcher, and as Snyder thought it better for both physical and morale factors for the President to walk, Ike walked, heavily supported, to the car for the drive to Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Denver. Before leaving his bedroom, and once again in the car with Snyder, Ike asked about his wallet, about which he was terribly concerned. He asked Mamie several times about it. She assured him she had brought it along.11
In the hospital, Ike was put into an oxygen tent. Snyder continued his medication, discontinuing morphine after the second day. John flew down from Fort Belvoir. Arriving at Fitzsimons, he conferred with Mamie, who was being tough, strong, and confident. Then he went to see his father. “You know,” Ike said after their greeting, “these are things that always happen to other people; you never think of them happening to you.” Then he asked John to hand him his wallet. He explained that he had won a bet from George Allen and wanted to give the money to Barbara. John withdrew to let his father rest; Hagerty told him in the corridor that the heart attack was moderate, “not severe but not slight either.”12
By the end of the second day, Ike was resting comfortably, feeling well, beginning to talk about getting back to work. Mamie was living on the eighth floor of the hospital with him, doing her best to cope with the shock and find some therapy for herself (she lost ten pounds during the first two weeks) to keep her busy. She decided to answer, by hand, each of the thousands of letters and cards that were coming in from all over the country. John confessed, “I thought she was out of her mind,” but he later saw the wisdom of her finding something for herself to do. And she actually completed the task.13
The President’s heart attack inevitably put a great strain on the relations among the members of the Administration. In the first couple of weeks of Eisenhower’s recuperation, no one knew whether or not he would be able to resume his place as President at any time, much less in the near future. There was a general and widespread assumption that whatever else it meant, the heart attack precluded a second term. Thus any jockeying for power in September 1955 was over not just the next year but the next five years.
Nixon was in the most difficult position. Almost anything he did would be wrong. If he shrank from seizing power, he would look uncertain and unprepared; if he attempted to seize power, he would look ruthless and uncaring. But he managed to find a narrow middle ground, helped in no small part by Eisenhower’s early insistence that Cabinet and NSC meetings go forward as scheduled, with Nixon in the chair. On September 29, Nixon met with the NSC, the next day with the Cabinet. He issued a press release which emphasized that “the subjects on the agenda for these meetings were of a normal routine nature.” He also called in photographers to observe the harmony among Eisenhower’s “family” and to record how the teamwork was so effective that the government was functioning “as usual.” 14
Despite the appearance of unity in the Administration, an intense behind-the-scenes struggle for power was going on. Dulles, not Nixon, was the leading figure at the meetings, and Dulles insisted on sending Sherman Adams to Denver to be at the President’s side to handle all liaison activities. Nixon questioned this arrangement, indicating that he thought Adams ought to stay in Washington while he, Nixon, went to Denver. But Dulles prevailed. Dulles also stressed that there would be no further delegation of powers by the President.
The best reporters in Washington could hardly miss the real story. James Reston had already reported, on September 26, that the Eisenhower Republicans were anxious to keep control in the hands of Sherman Adams and away from Nixon, because they were not going to hand over the party to Nixon, and with it the 1956 nomination. Dulles, Humphrey, Adams, Hagerty, and the others felt that Nixon would allow the right wing to dominate the party, and that he would lose to Stevenson (a Gallup Poll in October showed Nixon losing to Stevenson while Warren came out ahead in a race with Stevenson). Richard Rovere observed, in The New Yorker, that Adams “regards himself as the President’s appointed caretaker and is doing everything he can to cut Mr. Nixon down to size.” Nixon, meanwhile, received a telegram from Styles Bridges, which advised, “You are the constitutional second-in-command and you ought to assume the leadership. Don’t let the White House clique take command.”15
As the power struggle progressed, Eisenhower was having a smooth convalescence. His color, his appetite, his energy, and his general demeanor all improved rapidly. He rather enjoyed his enforced rest. His doctors decided to keep newspapers from him, but after the first few days allowed Whitman and Hagerty to bring him news and answer questions.
The timing of the heart attack was fortunate in the extreme; if it had come at any time during the series of war scares of 1954 and 1955, when Eisenhower’s firm hand was crucial to keeping the peace, there is no way of knowing what might have happened. But the world scene was quiet in the fall of 1955, thanks in large part to the spirit of Geneva, and during the crisis over the President’s illness the Russians stayed discreetly silent and in the background. Had it come later, when the 1956 campaign was already under way, Eisenhower would not have had time to recuperate or think through his options, and Nixon would have had the nomination by default. Eisenhower was also lucky in that the attack came when Congress was not in session, so there were no bills for him to sign or veto. If there ever was a time when the United States in the Cold War could get by without a functioning President for a few weeks, it was the fall of 1955.
• •
Eisenhower wanted to see some of his own gang. He asked especially for Slater. On November 3, Slater flew to Denver. When he arrived at Fitzsimons the following day, he found Ike in Mamie’s room helping her balance her checkbook. Ike wanted to talk about his retirement. They conversed at length about Angus cattle, about Eisenhower’s plans for the Gettysburg farm. Ike said he wanted to plow as much money as he could into the farm now, while he was in a high tax bracket. He was concerned about improving the soil at Gettysburg.
On October 25, Eisenhower went for his first walk since entering the hospital. On November 11, he and Mamie flew to Washington, where a crowd of five thousand greeted him at the airport. Eisenhower walked to the microphone and said a few words, then drove up to Gettysburg.
Gettysburg was the ideal place for his recovery. The house was large and comfortable. The major feature was a glassed-in porch, where the Eisenhowers spent most of their time. It had large sliding glass doors that opened onto a terrace; beyond the terrace there was a putting green, farther out a pasture. The doctors said Ike could practice his putting so long as he did not overdo it. The Slaters came for a visit; Mamie took them for a tour of the house. Slater noted that it was beautifully done, “but what makes it really charming is Mamie’s enthusiasm over the whole place and her own pride and delight in having created her first home of their own.”
Ike had Slater join him in a golf cart for a tour of the farm. When they got to the pasture where the Angus cattle were grazing, Ike grinned impishly, pulled out a cattle horn, blew it, and laughed delightedly when—to Slater’s surprise—the cattle came running.
Like millions of other Americans, Slater was intensely curious about Eisenhower’s political plans. He assumed that Mamie wanted no part of a second term, especially so since her home was now complete, and after her husband’s heart attack. Mamie never said that directly to him, however. Slater himself, like the rest of the gang, wanted Eisenhower to retire and thought he deserved it. But Slater also noted that “he’s been too active to sit at home on the farm and wait for people to come to him.”16
Mamie was one of the first to sense this truth. Dr. Snyder had told her, while Ike was still in Fitzsimons, that her husband’s life expectancy might be improved if he ran for a second term rather than withdraw to a life of inactivity. She knew Snyder was right, that inactivity would be fatal for Ike. John was with her when Snyder gave her his view; as the three of them talked, Mamie volunteered another reason for a second term. “I just can’t believe that Ike’s work is finished,” she declared.17
Neither could he. In mid-December, Eisenhower had a series of talks with Hagerty about politics and 1956. Eisenhower said that he was concerned about the welfare of the country, particularly in the foreign field. Hagerty recorded in his diary, “He was appalled by the lack of qualified candidates on the Democratic side and particularly pointed to Stevenson, Harriman, and Kefauver as men who did not have the competency to run the Office of President.” Harriman, currently the governor of New York, was in Eisenhower’s view “a complete nincompoop. He’s nothing but a Park Avenue Truman.” 18
During his conversations with Hagerty, Eisenhower threw out ideas. At one meeting Adams was also present. “You know, boys,” Eisenhower said, “Tom Dewey has matured over the last few years and he might not be a bad presidential candidate. He certainly has the ability and if I’m not going to be in the picture, he also represents my way of thinking.” The remark left Adams and Hagerty speechless. The following day, Eisenhower brought up Dewey’s name again. This time Hagerty said that if Eisenhower tried to foist Dewey off on the Republican Party once more, the right wing would revolt and nominate Knowland. “I guess you’re right,” Eisenhower sighed, dismissing Dewey from his mind.19
Eisenhower asked about Nixon’s chances. Hagerty, who from early October on had insisted that Eisenhower would have to run again, said he thought “Nixon is a very excellent vice-presidential candidate,” but not ready for the top spot. On December 14, Hagerty showed Eisenhower a David Lawrence column in the Herald Tribune. Lawrence speculated that if the doctors told Eisenhower he was physically capable of continuing in office, Eisenhower would say, “I had no desire to come to public office in the first place . . . But if the people want me to serve, I shall obey their wish and serve if elected.” Eisenhower read it through, laughed, and exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be goddamned.” Turning to Hagerty, Eisenhower said, “Jim . . . that’s almost exactly the words that are forming in my own mind should I make up my mind to run again.”20
By Christmas 1955, Eisenhower felt fully recovered. He found that he could conduct Cabinet and NSC meetings without undue difficulty, meet with his advisers on a regular basis in the Oval Office, and perform his other duties, all without fatigue or weariness. He was ready to resume a full daily work schedule and was convinced that his recovery from his heart attack would be complete. But that did not mean he would necessarily run again. He was still keeping his options open, although he remained distressed by the failure to locate anyone in the Republican Party who could successfully replace him. John, Barbara, and the grandchildren came to the White House for the holidays; on Christmas Day, as the family was driving to church, Ike turned to John and said, “I told the boys four years ago that they ought to get someone who’d want to run again for a second term.”21
The day after Christmas, Eisenhower called Nixon into his office for a private chat. A number of Eisenhower’s aides, led by Adams, had been urging him, if he decided to run again, to dump Nixon. They provided Eisenhower with the results of current polls, which indicated that Nixon would cost Eisenhower three or four points in a race with Stevenson. Eisenhower cited the figures to Nixon, then said that in his opinion Nixon could strengthen himself for 1960 by accepting a Cabinet post, where he could get some experience in administration. Eisenhower offered Nixon any post he wanted, except that of Secretary of State or Attorney General, but urged him to replace Charlie Wilson at Defense.
Nixon smelled the very obvious rat. He knew—and he at least suspected that Eisenhower knew—that the press would interpret such a move as a demotion, so serious a demotion as to probably ruin Nixon’s chance to ever be President. Nixon told Eisenhower that putting someone else on the ticket in 1956 would “upset the many Republicans who still considered me [your] principal link with party orthodoxy.” Nixon then asked Eisenhower, directly, whether the President believed that the Republicans would be better off with someone else as the vice-presidential candidate.22
Eisenhower did not answer. He would not order Nixon off the ticket. Still, he wished Nixon would leave voluntarily, and suggested again that Nixon could pick up some badly needed experience as Secretary of Defense. The conversation ended on that inconclusive note.
• •
At the beginning of the new year, Ike flew to Key West for a week in the sun. Slater, Bill Robinson, George Allen, and Al Gruenther joined him there. Ike’s friends agreed that there had been a “great change . . . in his apparent health, his enthusiasm, and completely relaxed attitude . . .” They played bridge almost nonstop, with “a great deal of banter and kidding and laughing.” When Ike reneged, he was the butt of the jokes for the remainder of the evening. Slater said he feared they were overdoing the bridge, that they were taxing Eisenhower’s strength. Allen replied that he had “never seen the President in such good spirits,” and told Slater that their bridge games were as nothing compared to the poker games he used to play with Truman in the White House; Truman’s games sometimes began early in the morning and would “go on and on until late at night,” often with “dire results” for Truman.
Inevitably in an election year, much of the talk around the bridge table was political. The burning question was, of course, whether or not Ike would run again. The members of the gang agreed among themselves that he would. Allen had it straight from Mamie—who was in Gettysburg—that she wanted him to stay in office. Slater too thought Ike would stand for re-election, because he had done such a good job of organizing his office that “things seem to move with clocklike precision.”23
But a number of factors made the decision in 1956 more difficult for Eisenhower than 1952 had been. He was sixty-five years old, had suffered a heart attack, had persistent stomach problems, was not sleeping well, and claimed that he resented the idea that one man was indispensable. He also claimed he had grown immune to the argument that he had a “duty” to serve. Surely neither the nation nor the Republican Party had any right to ask more of him.
As with every recovering heart-attack patient, death was very much on his mind. “As I embark on the last of life’s adventures,” he wrote by hand on a sheet of White House stationery in early February, “my final thoughts will be for those I’ve loved, family, friends and country.”24 Under the circumstances, would it be fair and right for him to run again? What if he died or were incapacitated between the convention and the election, or after the election? Such questions added not only to his personal anxiety but also to his concern about what would happen to his party and his country. His choice of a running mate in 1956 would be far more critical than it had been in 1952, not so much in terms of voter appeal, but in the possibility that the running mate might have to become the candidate, or succeed Eisenhower upon his death. That was why Eisenhower had tried to persuade (and continued to try to persuade) Nixon to take a Cabinet post.
Eisenhower’s feelings about Nixon were ambiguous. In their three years together, they had not developed an intimate relationship. Eisenhower appreciated Nixon for his obvious qualities—he was extremely hardworking, highly intelligent, loyal, devoted to Eisenhower and the Republican Party, an effective campaigner who could take the low road, allowing Eisenhower to stay on the high road. On January 25, in a press-conference briefing, Eisenhower told Hagerty that “it would be difficult to find a better Vice-President.” As compared to Knowland and most other prominent Republicans, Eisenhower much preferred Nixon, who had, in the President’s view, learned a great deal since 1952. But, Eisenhower added, “people think of him [Nixon] as an immature boy.” Eisenhower did not say that he agreed with that judgment, but did indicate that he thought Nixon should leave the Vice-Presidency, where he might become “atrophied,” to assume a post in the Cabinet.25
In a conversation with Dulles, Eisenhower was more direct. He said “he was not sure” it was a good idea for Nixon to stay on the ticket. Using the approach that he had fixed in his mind as the best way to ease Nixon out, he claimed that another term as Vice-President would ruin Nixon politically (a judgment neither Nixon nor anyone else accepted, not only because a “dump Nixon” move would be sure to damage his career, but for the more obvious, if crass, reason that as Vice-President, Nixon had only a recent heart-attack victim between himself and the White House). Eisenhower nevertheless seriously told Dulles that Nixon ought to become Secretary of Commerce. Dulles doubted that Nixon would take it, and suggested that Nixon succeed him as Secretary of State. Eisenhower laughed and said Dulles was not going to get out of his job that easily, then added that “he doubted in any event that Nixon had the qualifications to be Secretary of State.”26
In a January 25 press conference, Eisenhower was asked if, in the event he decided to seek re-election, he wanted Nixon for a running mate. Eisenhower replied that “my admiration, respect, and deep affection for Mr. Nixon . . . are well known.” Then he said, in a statement that was the direct opposite of the truth, that “I have never talked to him under any circumstances as to what his future is to be or what he wants it to be, and until I confer with him I wouldn’t have anything to say.”27 That fell far short of an endorsement and left Nixon in agony, but it allowed Eisenhower to keep his options open.
Eisenhower’s sense of himself as the nation’s steward, meanwhile, which had come on him so strongly after the heart attack, had grown in the months of recuperation. It was at this time that Eisenhower put his greatest efforts into such programs as the Soil Bank and the Interstate Highway System. As another example, he made more diary entries in January 1956 than in any other month of his Presidency, or indeed during the war. Most of the entries were concerned with long-range problems. One was about a report he had read on the damage that could be anticipated in the United States in the event of an all-out nuclear war. There were a number of scenarios, but even at best, the country would suffer 65 percent casualties. To Eisenhower, this was “appalling.” Even if the United States were “victorious,” “it would literally be a business of digging ourselves out of ashes, starting again.”28
Nuclear war had to be avoided at all costs. But so did surrender. Eisenhower looked around him and could see no one whom he could trust to take his place. He could not trust Nixon or Knowland to act deliberately in a crisis; he could not trust Warren to act soon enough. That was one reason why he never told Nixon—as FDR had told two of his Vice-Presidents, Garner and Wallace—that the time had come for them to part. There was no one else around he liked or trusted any more than he did Nixon, except Warren, but Warren could not be asked to leave the Court to be a Vice-President.
So Eisenhower was stymied, both by the actual situation and by his own perception of himself and his contemporaries. In finding shortcomings in every possible successor, Eisenhower was coming to see himself as indispensable. He never said so directly, in fact denied it vehemently every time his supporters told him he was the “only man” who could keep the peace. He never wrote it in his diary. But nevertheless, he had come to think of himself as indispensable.
His associates reinforced the belief. At every opportunity, they told him it was so. Nixon did so, of course, at some length. So did Hagerty and all the aides. So did the Secretary of State, who met with the President over cocktails two days before Eisenhower announced his decision. In his memo on the conversation, Dulles wrote, “I expressed my feeling that the state of the world was such as to require the President to serve.” Dulles believed that America’s standing in the world had never been higher, that Eisenhower was the most trusted leader around the world and the greatest force for peace. Eisenhower wrote in his diary, “I suspect that Foster’s estimate concerning my own position is substantially correct.”29
Eisenhower’s mind was made up. He would run again if the doctors gave him a go-ahead. On February 12, he went to Walter Reed for a series of tests; two days later the doctors declared, “Medically the chances are that the President should be able to carry on an active life satisfactorily for another five to ten years.”30 After the tests, Eisenhower went down to Humphrey’s plantation in Georgia for some quail shooting. On February 25 he returned to Washington. Four days later he announced his decision at a press conference. He would be a candidate for re-election.
Eisenhower’s announcement was tantamount to his nomination. Thus he immediately had to face the question every nominee faces: Who would be his running mate? Eisenhower refused to answer, “in spite of my tremendous admiration for Mr. Nixon.” The President said “it is traditional . . . to wait and see who the Republican Convention nominates” before announcing the vice-presidential candidate. That was too coy to satisfy the reporters. Charles von Fremd of CBS asked for clarification: “Would you like to have Nixon?” Eisenhower replied, “I will say nothing more about it. I have said that my admiration and my respect for Vice-President Nixon is unbounded. He has been for me a loyal and dedicated associate, and a successful one. I am very fond of him, but I am going to say no more about it.”31
What to do about Nixon? Ike continued to urge Nixon to pick a Cabinet post for himself (but not State or Justice), to insist on something that seemed ridiculous to every other observer, that Nixon would thereby strengthen himself for 1960. In Eisenhower’s press conferences that spring of 1956, Nixon was the number-one topic. The more Eisenhower tried to praise him, it somehow seemed, the more tongue-tied he got; the more he tried to endorse Nixon’s leadership qualities, the more doubtful he sounded. Thus on March 7, in response to a question as to whether he would “dump Nixon” or not, he began indignantly: “If anyone ever has the effontery to come in and urge me to dump somebody that I respect as I do Vice-President Nixon, there will be more commotion around my office than you have noticed yet.” Then he said he “had not presumed to tell the Vice-President what he should do with his own future.” He added that he had told Nixon that “I believe he should be one of the comers in the Republican Party. He is young, vigorous, healthy, and certainly deeply informed on the processes of our government. And so far as I know, he is deeply dedicated to the same principles of government that I am.”
Well, then, if Nixon wanted to stay on the ticket, would Eisenhower be content? Eisenhower snapped back, “I am not going to be pushed into corners here . . . I do say this: I have no criticism of Vice-President Nixon to make, either as a man, an associate, or as my running mate on the ticket.”32 What Eisenhower did not tell the press, but did say to Nixon, was that Nixon would be better off running one of the big departments, but “if you calculate that I won’t last five years, of course that is different.” It was cruel, really, of Eisenhower to put it bluntly—what on earth could Nixon answer? The Vice-President contented himself with mumbling that “anything the President wanted him to do, he would do.”33
Two weeks later, at a press-conference briefing, Eisenhower told Hagerty, “The idea of trying to promote a fight between me and Dick Nixon is like trying to promote a fight between me and my brother. I am happy to have him in government.” That sounded like an endorsement, but Eisenhower immediately added, “That still doesn’t make him Vice-President. He has serious problems. He has his own way to make.” Eisenhower said he did not know what Nixon was going to do, “but there is nothing to be gained politically by ditching him.” Ambiguous as always about Nixon, Eisenhower then said he did not want to give Nixon the inside track to the nomination in 1960. “I want a bevy of young fellows to be available four years from now.”34
Despite the lack of intimacy between the two men, despite Eisenhower’s frequently expressed private doubts about Nixon’s ability either to run the government or to win votes, despite Hagerty’s warning to Eisenhower that “not one person was for Nixon for Vice-President for a second term,” Eisenhower would not act decisively to get rid of Nixon. Despite Eisenhower’s undoubted admiration for many of Nixon’s talents, despite Eisenhower’s frequently expressed public satisfaction with Nixon’s actions as Vice-President, despite Nixon’s popularity with the Old Guard, which was insisting that he stay on the ticket, Eisenhower refused to endorse Nixon. Instead, he remained indecisive.
• •
Ever since the Brown decision was announced, and even before, Eisenhower had gone to great lengths to divorce himself from the problem of race relations, and especially integration of the schools. Integration, he said over and over, was the responsibility of the courts. The judges should exercise the leadership. There was no executive responsibility. He would not involve himself or his Administration.
In early January, in his State of the Union address, Eisenhower called for a bipartisan commission to investigate the racial situation and make recommendations for appropriate legislation. He hoped that such a commission would act as a buffer to keep the race issue out of partisan politics and reduce tension. Brownell, meanwhile, was eager to sponsor a new civil-rights bill (none had been passed since Reconstruction, eighty-five years earlier). Eisenhower told Brownell to get to work on it.
On January 25, at a news conference, Eisenhower was asked how he felt about race relations. He began his answer by asserting “these things aren’t simple.” He reiterated, “My devotion to the decisions of the Supreme Court, particularly when they are unanimous, I hope is complete.” He said, “I believe in the equality of opportunity for every citizen of the United States,” but immediately repeated, “It isn’t quite as simple as that.” Eisenhower emphasized that “we want the schools now,” and reminded the reporters that the Supreme Court itself had said that desegregation should be “implemented gradually.” The President said he had to recognize “the deep ruts of prejudice and emotionalism that have been built up over the years in this problem.” He wanted moderation on the race issue.35
Moderation was hard to find. To the black community, words like “moderate” and “gradual” had come to mean “never,” which was exactly what the majority of the white South wanted—never. Racial violence, always endemic in the South, increased, almost always by the whites against the blacks.
But Eisenhower and his aides felt that the black community was guilty of pushing too hard, too fast, and of ingratitude. In February 1956, Eisenhower expressed his disappointment at the results of a study of black voting in the 1954 congressional elections. Eisenhower felt that after all he and the Republicans had done for Negroes—the desegregation of military base facilities and of Washington, D.C.—the percentage of Negroes voting Republican should have gone up. But it had not.
The South’s counterattack against Brown by 1956 was being launched with vigor and imagination. In February, four southern state legislatures passed interposition resolutions that claimed the Supreme Court decision in Brown had no force or effect in their states. Eisenhower was asked at a February 29 news conference about his reaction to the doctrine of interposition. Eisenhower ducked: “Now, this is what I say: there are adequate legal means of determining all of these factors.” He would leave interposition to the courts. He expected that “we are going to make progress,” but emphasized that “the Supreme Court itself said it does not expect revolutionary action suddenly executed. We will make progress, and I am not going to attempt to tell them how it is going to be done.”36
On March 1, Eisenhower showed again his capacity for caution on the race issue. A federal judge ordered the University of Alabama to enroll Autherine Lucy; university officials then expelled her on the astonishing grounds that in her suit against the university, she had lied when she said that her race was the reason she had earlier been denied admittance. This seemed a clear-cut case of defiance of federal court orders, something Eisenhower had sworn many times he was pledged to and determined to enforce. But he remained aloof, strengthening the view in the South that the Eisenhower Administration would never intervene to enforce integration.
In early March, the South’s counterattack escalated from the state to the federal level, as 101 southern members of the House and Senate signed a “manifesto” in which they committed themselves to try to overturn the Brown decision. On March 14, Eisenhower was asked to comment. He managed to see the thing from the South’s point of view. “Let us remember this one thing,” he said, “and it is very important: the people who have this deep emotional reaction on the other side were not acting over these past three generations in defiance of law. They were acting in compliance with the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court [in the Plessy case].” Brown had “completely reversed” Plessy, Eisenhower pointed out, “and it is going to take time for them to adjust their thinking and their progress to that.”
How much time? “I am not even going to talk about that; I don’t know anything about the length of time it will take.” Eisenhower criticized “extremists” on both sides, and offered this advice: “If ever there was a time when we must be patient without being complacent, when we must be understanding of other people’s deep emotions as well as our own, this is it.”
As to the manifesto, Eisenhower was quick to point out that the signers “say they are going to use every legal means,” that they did not intend to act outside the law, that “no one in any responsible position anywhere has talked nullification,” which Eisenhower admitted would put the country in “a very bad spot” if it happened.37
Eisenhower hoped that would be the end of his involvement, but when 101 congressmen formally declare they intend to change a Supreme Court decision, the President cannot escape that easily. At his next news conference, Eisenhower was asked how he, the Chief Executive, felt about defiance of Supreme Court orders. Eisenhower asserted that no one had used the words “defy the Supreme Court” and again spoke of the difficulty southerners had readjusting from Plessy to Brown. Then he said, “These people [white southerners] have, of course, their free choice as to what they want to do.” He could hardly have meant it the way it sounded, but he was getting irritated by the whole issue and wanted to be done with it. His conclusion was less than resounding: “As far as I am concerned, I am for moderation, but I am for progress; that is exactly what I am for it in this.”38
Martin Luther King, Jr., was leading a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, protesting segregated seating on the city buses. Black citizens were shot, their homes and churches were bombed, but the city police were arresting the boycotters. Eisenhower told his Cabinet that he was “much impressed with the moderation of the Negroes in Alabama,” and that he thought the South had made “two big mistakes,” one in not admitting Miss Lucy and the other in opposing the reasonable demands of the Montgomery black community. But when Robert Spivack asked Eisenhower to comment publicly, at a press conference, on King’s Montgomery crusade, Eisenhower backed away. “Well, you are asking me, I think, to be more of a lawyer than I certainly am. But, as I understand it, there is a state law about boycotts, and it is under that kind of thing that these people are being brought to trial.” He could see no reason for federal involvement.39
A common white southern assertion at this time was that integration was a Communist plot. Eisenhower was hardly so naive as to believe that, but he did fear that the Communists would take advantage of the racial unrest. On March 9, J. Edgar Hoover presented to Eisenhower and his Cabinet a twenty-four-page briefing on the explosive situation in the South. Hoover damned the extremists on both sides, the NAACP and the White Citizens Councils. He said blacks were so terrified that they would refuse to testify as to the violence they had seen or suffered, or even talk to FBI agents. But Hoover emphasized that his greater concern was with the efforts of the Communists to infiltrate the civil-rights movement and use it to add to social unrest. For his part, Eisenhower feared that the Communists were trying to “drive a wedge between the Administration and its friends in the South in that election year . . .”
After Hoover made his presentation, Brownell outlined the civil-rights bill he was proposing. It called for a bipartisan commission, created by Congress, with the power to subpoena and to investigate alleged civil-rights violations; for a new Assistant Attorney General in charge of civil rights in the Justice Department; for new laws enforcing voting rights; and for strengthening existing civil-rights statutes to protect privileges and immunities of citizens. Eisenhower was enthusiastic about the proposals and told Brownell to go ahead with them. But Humphrey objected to Brownell’s bill, which he charged went too far and too rapidly toward desegregation. Humphrey insisted that progress had to be evolutionary. He also gave a warning. “We’ve talked about the Deep South,” he said, “but your worst problems can come in Detroit, Chicago, et al. All they need to run wild is a little expectation of backing.” Wilson agreed that there were real dangers in Detroit. He pontificated: “A social evolution takes time. You can’t speed it up.”
“I’m at sea on all this,” Eisenhower confessed. “I want to put something forward that I can show as an advance.” But he was fearful. “Not enough people know how deep this emotion is in the South. Unless you’ve lived there you can’t know . . . We could have another civil war on our hands.” More probably, pressure from the North might lead the South to abandon public education altogether. The whites would then have their own church-related schools, Eisenhower said, while the blacks would have no education at all. He used the word “dilemma.” “I must enforce the law,” but he did not know how to do it. “They come in and say I should force the university to accept Miss Lucy,” he complained. He could not do it, because education was a local matter. His hands were tied.40
Eisenhower’s moderate, middle-of-the-road stance with regard to race relations was, of course, consistent with his general approach to all his problems. He often asserted that a person who stood at either extreme on a political or social question was always wrong. And in his memoirs, he made the best possible case he could for his position of refusing to act even while violence flared all across the South. He said he was committed to the cause of civil rights, but “I did not agree with those who believed that legislation alone could institute instant morality, [or] who believed that coercion could cure all civil rights problems . . .”41
Whenever Eisenhower stated his position on extremists always being wrong, he would add, “except on a moral issue.” He did not see the desegregation crisis as a moral issue, but rather as one of practical politics, in which every point of view (meaning that of the white southerners) had to be considered and responded to. His critics charged that he was guilty of moral equivocation; his supporters replied that he was carefully and safely guiding the country through dangerous times.
What he had not done was provide leadership, either moral or political. What he wanted—for the problem to go away—he could not have. Around this time, Goodpaster warned him that problems that were put off could grow into unmanageable problems. But the President would not attack this one. He was trapped by his own prejudices, a prisoner of his own limited view.
• •
The Democrats nevertheless were hard pressed to find an issue to use against Eisenhower in the presidential campaign. In February, Senator Symington of Missouri tried an issue that did not quite catch on in 1956, but which came to be a major one in 1960. It was the missile gap.
The American ballistic-missile program got started shortly after World War II, but in the cost-cutting days of the Truman Administration only a few millions of dollars had been appropriated for it (less than $7 million for ICBMs, for example). Nor did Eisenhower put any emphasis on it during his first year in office. But in 1954, following the Castle series of tests in the Pacific, the AEC reported to Eisenhower that nuclear weapons could be so drastically reduced in size that a missile could be designed and built powerful enough to carry the bombs. (Previous atomic warheads weighed nine thousand pounds.) Eisenhower then ordered research and development on missiles speeded up; in 1955 he put a half billion dollars into it, and asked for $1.2 billion in 1956. One reason for doubling the budget in 1956 was another recommendation from the scientists, that the U.S. develop an IRBM with a range of fifteen hundred miles.
Eisenhower agreed, but he also divided the programs and then split them again. The Air Force had two separate projects for ICBMs, Atlas and Titan; the Army (Jupiter) and the Navy (Thor) had IRBM responsibility. Within the Administration, there was some grumbling about this division of responsibility, and Eisenhower worried about the inherent waste involved because of duplication, but the President nevertheless decided that competition and the full use of all existing resources would speed development. In addition, in connection with the International Geophysical Year (which would begin in July 1957), in 1955 Eisenhower had created yet another program, Project Vanguard, designed to put an earth satellite in orbit.
With all the money involved, at a time when Eisenhower was continuing to reduce appropriations for conventional forces, the President told his Cabinet that he expected “to be called on to justify this money.” But to his surprise, “I find out that newcomers are saying why aren’t you doing more.”42 The newcomer he had in mind was Senator Symington, who at the beginning of February 1956 charged that the United States lagged seriously behind the Soviet Union in the production and development of guided missiles. At a press conference on February 8, Eisenhower was asked to comment.
“Now, I just want to ask you one thing,” Eisenhower said to the reporters, “and if there is anyone here that has got the answer to this one, you will relieve me mightily by communicating it to me here or in private: Can you picture a war that would be waged with atomic missiles . . . ? It would just be complete, indiscriminate devastation, not [war] in any recognizable sense, because war is a contest, and you finally get to a point [with missiles] where you are talking merely about race suicide, and nothing else.”43
Under those circumstances, he was damned if he was going to speed up spending on ICBMs.