FOLLOWING the disappointments and frustrations of 1958, Eisenhower rallied, took command, and led his people with all the instincts of the good steward. Soon columnists were talking about a “new” Eisenhower, a man who asserted himself more powerfully than he had ever done before.
The “new” Eisenhower was noticeably friendlier toward the Soviets, more willing to see issues from their point of view, more willing to take some risks to achieve a first step toward a test ban, more willing to consider a summit meeting, than he had ever been before. Some observers attributed this development to the absence of Foster Dulles, but that was only partly true at best. A number of factors had come together by February 1959, when Dulles took his leave of absence, that were pushing Eisenhower toward a summit and some form of accommodation with the Soviets.
First of all, after November 4, 1958, he had his last election behind him. The next one belonged to Nixon. This put Nixon in the awkward position of having to be simultaneously a loyal member of the Administration, a supplicant, and his own man. It put Eisenhower in the worrisome position of realizing that in two years he would have to hand over the Presidency to Nixon—or, worse, to the Democrats. Were the opposition to take charge, Eisenhower anticipated an orgy of spending on defense and on social programs with a tax cut—a prospect he regarded with horror.
Nor could he regard a Nixon succession with optimism. After six years of standoffish relationship, Eisenhower remained ambiguous about Nixon. He did not doubt the man’s loyalty, or honesty, or even ability, but he did worry about Nixon’s ambition. On June 11, Whitman recorded in her diary that Eisenhower had breakfast with Nixon. The Vice-President asked the President if he would take some of Nixon’s friends—all rich men, potential contributors—for a weekend on a Navy yacht and play some golf with them at Quantico. Eisenhower, who prided himself on not mixing politics and his social life (although of course he did), flatly refused. Later, the President told Whitman, “It is terrible when people get politically ambitious.”1
Another problem in their relationship was that Nixon wanted to do more, be more visible, shoulder more responsibilities, but Eisenhower would not let him. What really made a close relationship impossible, however, was the nature of their concerns. Nixon’s position forced him to concentrate all his attention and energies on the 1960 election; Eisenhower’s position forced him to concentrate all his attention and energies on what he could accomplish in his last two years. The irony was that Nixon had to make his decisions on a short-term basis of the election, while Eisenhower’s short time remaining led him to make his decisions on the basis of long-term considerations. Nixon’s goal was votes. Eisenhower’s goals were peace, a test ban, disarmament, reconciliation.
• •
On November 10, 1958, Khrushchev had announced his intention of signing at an early date a peace treaty with East Germany. According to Khrushchev, that action would have the effect of terminating Allied rights in West Berlin. According to Eisenhower, it would do nothing of the sort, as the Allied right to be in Berlin rested on the wartime agreements at Yalta and had nothing to do with the East Germans, whose regime the Allies did not recognize.
Khrushchev set a deadline, May 27, 1959. If the Allies did not agree to negotiations for the withdrawal of their troops from Berlin by that date, he would sign the treaty with the East Germans and then the Allies would have to shoot their way through to West Berlin, as they had no treaty with East Germany.
Eisenhower was sure Khrushchev was bluffing, that he would back down if the Allies remained firm. Khrushchev wanted a summit to discuss Berlin. Eisenhower did not. To stall, Ike insisted that there be a meeting of the Foreign Ministers, and that some progress be made on various divisive issues, before the summit.
But while Ike downplayed the event, the country as a whole grossly exaggerated the dangers that threatened. The Democrats, led by Senators Symington and Kennedy, joined the JCS to demand greatly increased spending on new weapons and an expansion of the armed forces. By no means was the pressure to increase military spending limited to Symington or the JCS. There was a general impression around the country, one that was assiduously spread by the huge Pentagon propaganda machine, the arms industry, the Democrats, and columnists, that Eisenhower was underreacting to the Berlin crisis.
The national mood, at least as it was being expressed in the halls of Congress and in the media, was impatient. People wanted to get moving again, to take the offensive in the Cold War, to stop reacting and start acting. Many were eager to shoot the way through to Berlin and teach the Soviets a lesson.
Eisenhower, however, thought much of this aggressiveness was artificially created, by the same forces that created an artificial demand for more missiles, bombers, and other weapons. “I’m getting awfully sick of the lobbies by the munitions,” he told the Republican leaders. After looking at the advertisements Boeing and Douglas had published, Eisenhower said, “You begin to see this thing isn’t wholly the defense of the country, but only more money for some who are already fat cats.” Eisenhower also thought, “This seems to be a hysteria that is largely political.”2
But whether artificially created or not, the popular impression that more had to be done ran very deep. As Eisenhower had feared would happen, people had become afraid, and in their fright their instinctive response was to strengthen their military. Although they trusted Ike, they were confused by his policies. He talked about being firm in Berlin, but simultaneously announced a cut of fifty thousand men from the armed services.
As Khrushchev’s May 27 deadline approached, a war-scare fever began to sweep the country, one reminiscent of those over the Far East in 1954 and 1955, only even more serious because this one pitted the United States directly against the Soviet Union, and the arsenals had quadrupled or more since 1954.
More than any other individual, the man who held the Berlin crisis in check was Dwight Eisenhower. His was an absolutely bravo performance, a combination of master diplomat, statesman, and politician at his best. He gave Khrushchev the room to retreat, he mollified his allies, he kept the JCS and the other hawks in check, he kept the risks at a minimum level, he satisfied the public that his response was appropriate, and he kept the Democrats from throwing billions of dollars to the DOD. His most basic strategy was to simply deny that there was a crisis. His most basic tool was patience, as he carefully explained, over and over, fundamental truths about the nuclear age.
Along the way, he seemed to be almost alone. Dulles was in the hospital, his deputy Christian Herter was feeling his way into his responsibilities, McElroy was on the side of the JCS, and Eisenhower was generally on his own. Even the White House press corps, normally so friendly, turned on him, asking hostile and even insulting questions. May Craig was the worst. She opened by instructing the President on the Constitution, then asked, “Where technically do you get the right to thwart the will of Congress, for instance in cutting the Army and the Marine Corps . . . or for not spending the money which they give you for missiles, submarine missiles, or whatever they be?” Other reporters also expressed their concern about the reduction in the size of the Army.
“What would you do with more ground forces in Europe?” Eisenhower replied rhetorically. “Does anyone here have an idea? Would you start a ground war?” Speaking with great emphasis and deep emotion, he proclaimed: “We are certainly not going to fight a ground war in Europe. What good would it do to send a few more thousands or even a few divisions of troops to Europe?” Chalmers Roberts wanted to know if Eisenhower thought the American public was “sufficiently aware of the possibility of war in this situation?” Indeed, Eisenhower replied, he thought it was too aware. “What I decry is: let’s not make everything such an hysterical sort of a proposition that we go a little bit off half-cocked.”
Then it was back to those fifty thousand troops—what if Congress forced him to take them? “Where will I put them?” Eisenhower asked in his turn. “Well, just some place where it’s nice to keep them out of the way, because I don’t know what else to do with them.”
Edward Folliard asked Eisenhower to comment on the widespread assumption that the Administration “puts a balanced budget ahead of national security.” Suppose, Folliard said, there were more money in the budget—would Eisenhower then spend more on the military? Eisenhower replied, “I would say that I would not spend [such] money on the armed forces of the United States . . .”
Eisenhower’s responses left the reporters frustrated. Peter Lisagor asked the last question, and he spoke for the others when he expressed his puzzlement. Lisagor quoted the President’s previous remark about “nuclear war doesn’t free anyone,” noted that he had ruled out the possibility of a ground war in Central Europe, and wondered if there was “an in-between response that we could make.” The question gave Eisenhower an opportunity to use the news conference not only to calm the American people, but to send a message to the Soviets. “I didn’t say that nuclear war is a complete impossibility,” he replied to Lisagor’s question. “I said it couldn’t as I see it free anything. Destruction is not a good police force. You don’t throw hand grenades around streets to police the streets so that people won’t be molested by thugs.” But you just might use them if the Soviets blockaded Berlin.3
One of Eisenhower’s major tasks was to calm people down. In March, on three separate occasions—to the JCS, to the Republican leaders, and to the Democratic leaders—he made the same point. As recorded by John Eisenhower at the JCS meeting, “The President then stressed the necessity to avoid overreacting. In so doing we give the Soviets ammunition. The President stressed the view that Khrushchev desires only to upset the United States. He expressed once again his view that we must address this problem in terms, not of six months, but of forty years.” The Soviets would always attempt to keep America off balance, Eisenhower said. First, Berlin. Then Iraq. Next Iran. Wherever they could stir up trouble, they would, and “they would like us to go frantic every time they stir up difficulties in these areas.”4
The reason, as Eisenhower explained to the Republican and Democratic leaders, was that—as he claimed anyone who had ever read Lenin knew—“the Communist objective is to make us spend ourselves into bankruptcy.” It was wrong to dramatize Berlin, he declared. “This is a continuous crisis . . . that the United States has to live with certainly as long as we are going to be here.” He dismissed liberation of Eastern Europe as an illusion, then explained what America’s most realistic hope was: “The President went into our long-term policy of holding the line until the Soviets manage to educate their people. By doing so, they will sow the seeds of destruction of Communism as a virulent power. This will take a long time to settle.”5
It was one of the oddities of the Cold War that each side expected the other to collapse as a result of its internal contradictions. Eisenhower believed deeply that in the end freedom would prevail, but he also recognized—indeed counted on—Khrushchev’s equally firm belief that Communism would win. Thus he told his Cabinet on March 13, “There is good reason to believe that the Russians do not want war,” because they felt they were winning already. This gave Eisenhower an opportunity to follow a policy of both conciliation and firmness.
The firmness came first. From the beginning, Eisenhower stressed that the United States was not going to abandon the people of West Berlin. He was ready to face the possible consequences of that stand. As he told the Cabinet, “The United States has to stand firm even should the situation come down to the last and ultimate decision, although neither I nor the State Department believe it will ever be allowed to go to that terrible climax. You should not think of this as the beginning of the end, but don’t think it is possible to end tension by walking away from it.”6 In innumerable ways, the President conveyed that message to Khrushchev.
Then came the conciliation. It came hard, because at times even Eisenhower’s patience ran out and he allowed himself to fantasize a bit about how he might stick it to those impossible Russians. He had no thought of bombing them into the Stone Age, but he did call Herter to ask for a “little study” of what the effects would be of breaking diplomatic relations with the Russians. Eisenhower enjoyed the thought immensely. “Throw out all the Russians in this country,” he exclaimed. “Stop all trade . . . who would be hurt? There may be some other things. If we broke relations we could throw the Russians out of the U.N. and deny them visas.” Herter interrupted the President’s fantasy before he got too carried away by reminding him that “we have a freedom of access agreement in the U.N.”7
Conciliation, not confrontation, was what Eisenhower wanted anyway, whatever his dreams. He let Khrushchev know that although he was standing firm, he was willing to negotiate Berlin’s status. He made new concessions on a test ban, and tried in other ways to reach out to Khrushchev. But his most important act was the declaration of willingness to negotiate, and the hints that he would be willing to attend a summit. The act of negotiation would, in itself, be an agreement to Khrushchev’s position that the situation in Berlin was abnormal. But then of course it was—Eisenhower was only admitting the truth—and Eisenhower was ready to discuss a free-city status, so long as the discussions also included reunification of Germany.
The President’s proposed solution for this greatest of the outstanding problems left over from World War II, the division of Germany, was to hold nationwide free elections. The Soviets insisted on reunification through merger at the top. Adenauer’s position was that reunification was his principal goal, and that no recognition of any sort of the East German regime was possible, but most observers, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, disbelieved him. Khrushchev once told Eisenhower categorically “that Adenauer’s support of unification was nothing but a show.” Herter told Eisenhower exactly the same thing. On April 4, over the telephone, Herter reported that Bonn was opposed to talking about free elections at any Foreign Ministers’ or summit meeting, although Adenauer was not saying so publicly. “Herter said it was obvious that what Adenauer and the Christian Democrats were scared of was that in a reunified free election the opposition Socialist Party in West Germany would form a coalition with certain East German parties and throw the Christian Democrats out of office.” Eisenhower’s reply, at least for those who believe in democracy, was perfect: “The President said if they get a true free unification, then they have to take their chances on politics.”8
Conciliation included not only declaring a willingness to talk about Germany, but also some concessions on a test ban. Accordingly, on April 13, the day the Geneva negotiations resumed, Eisenhower wrote Khrushchev, announcing that the United States no longer insisted on a comprehensive test ban, but would be willing to move “in phases, beginning with a prohibition of nuclear weapons’ tests in the atmosphere.” This would require only a simplified control system.9 Khrushchev, although he denounced a partial test ban as “misleading,” nevertheless indicated a willingness to talk, and the negotiations went on.
• •
On a daily basis, Eisenhower was calling Dulles in the hospital to keep him informed of the test-ban progress, a cause to which Dulles had committed himself so strongly. In one of their last conversations, Eisenhower expressed his desire to halt the “terrific” arms race by at least stopping tests in the atmosphere. “In the long run,” Eisenhower concluded, “there is nothing but war—if we give up all hope of a peaceful solution.” 10
On May 24, the end came for John Foster Dulles. Eisenhower’s sense of loss and grief was personal and painful. Dulles had served him faithfully and tirelessly for six years. He had frequently disagreed with the President, especially in the early years over policy in the Far East, but he had always acceded to the President’s judgment and carried out Eisenhower’s policies with skill and enthusiasm. They were never personal friends in any social sense; Dulles did not play bridge or golf, or spend weekends with Eisenhower at Gettysburg or Augusta. But they had deep personal respect for each other, and they enjoyed working together, because they shared common assumptions about the nature of the Soviet threat and on the need to stand firm to meet it. In Eisenhower’s judgment, Dulles was one of the greatest of Secretaries of State. That he could not convince others of that judgment was not for lack of trying.
Dulles’ death brought the Foreign Ministers to Washington for the funeral, which ironically was held on May 27—the original “deadline” date Khrushchev had set for Berlin. Before the funeral, Eisenhower asked the Foreign Ministers to the White House for lunch. The President explained to a protesting State Department aide that “what he had in mind was simply to ask them in and tell them that it is, in his judgment, ridiculous that the world is divided into segments facing each other in unending hostility. He felt that decent men should be able to find some way to make progress toward a better state of things.”11
Almost unnoticed in the publicity and hoopla surrounding the Foreign Ministers’ meeting was the fundamental outcome of the Berlin crisis of 1959—that Eisenhower had gotten through it without increasing the defense budget, without war, and without backing down. The situation in Berlin was unchanged.
• •
With only a year and a half to go in office, Ike’s mind turned increasingly to retirement and death. He told Slater he could not decide how he wanted to arrange his retirement—whether to take the President’s pension of $25,000 per year, with $50,000 in allowances, or go back to the Army as a five-star general, which would entitle him free of charge to the services of Colonel Schulz and Sergeants Dry and Moaney. He said he had gotten so accustomed to having those three around, “it will be hard to get along without them.”
Together with the gang, Ike and Mamie talked about their eventual burial spot. They considered Arlington, West Point, and Abilene. Ike liked the idea of Abilene, where a private foundation had already raised the money to build an Eisenhower Museum and was arranging financing for an Eisenhower Library. The gang urged him to choose Gettysburg, on the grounds that it was closer to the major population centers and was already a major tourist site.12
In June 1959, Ike had one of the greatest pleasures any grandfather can have—the grandchildren came to live with him. Not at the White House, but the next best thing, as Barbara and the children moved in at Gettysburg, while John took a room on the third floor of the White House. John went up to Gettysburg on weekends, his parents joining him whenever they could.
Eisenhower was beginning to lose a bit of enthusiasm and stamina. In April, he told Slater, “You know, one way I realize I’m not as young as I once was, is that I’m perfectly willing to have a big conference at ten in the morning—I even look forward to it—but the same situation faced at four in the afternoon finds me unhappy about the prospect.” 13
His mind stayed young. In late June, dictating a letter to Whitman, he used the sentence, “I doubt whether a man of my age changes his habits of thinking and of speech.” Then he told her to cross out that sentence, and explained that “he had conscientiously tried to change his habits of speech. That since a child he had always thought faster than he could talk, which accounted for the fact that his tongue would ‘run away with him’ and he might not finish sentences, etc. Since his ‘difficulty’ of the last couple of years, he said he tried very hard to think before he would speak—to outsiders.”14
• •
With the Foreign Ministers’ meeting stalled and in recess, and with the test-ban talks, also based in Geneva, and also stalled and in recess, if Eisenhower wanted to use the last year and a half of his term to advance the cause of peace, he was going to have to talk directly to Khrushchev. That was exactly what Khrushchev wanted; indeed he had dropped any number of hints that he would like to visit the United States and then invite Eisenhower to Moscow.
Eisenhower was intrigued by the idea. American domestic politics were at a virtual standstill, as the politicians were gearing up for the 1960 election and the only significant issue between Eisenhower and Congress was the budget. Further, technology was making travel so much easier, faster, and more comfortable. In 1959, Air Force One replaced the Columbine as the President’s airplane. The new craft dwarfed the old one, had a much greater range and more room inside, and could fly around the world if the President desired. Travel, just for its own sake, had always been one of Eisenhower’s chief delights. There were many places he wanted to see—most especially India—and he had been compiling a mental list of the sites he intended to visit after retirement. But how much nicer to visit them while he was still President, and could use Air Force One, and—best of all—could use his prestige and position to further the cause of peace, to which he had committed himself and his Administration.
On July 10, Eisenhower told Herter, Dillon, and Goodpaster that if there was some progress at the Geneva Foreign Ministers’ meeting (due to resume in three days), he would ask Khrushchev to visit the United States after he had made an appearance before the U.N. Then in October, he said, he would visit Moscow, afterward flying on to India.
Eisenhower explained that he thought talking to Khrushchev might do some good. He added that a talk with Khrushchev “would be useful for one thing. If Khrushchev were to threaten war or use of force, he would immediately call his bluff and ask him to agree on a day to start.”15
By July 22, Khrushchev had responded; he would be delighted to come, for a ten-day visit, and there was much he wanted to see. The announcement brought howls of protest from various Cold Warriors. William Buckley, for example, wanted to fill the Hudson River with red dye so that when Khrushchev entered New York Harbor, it would be on a figurative “river of blood.” Reporters too were hostile. At an August 12 news conference, held in Gettysburg, Eisenhower was asked what it was in the United States that he wanted Khrushchev to see. Whitman called Eisenhower’s reply a “love song to America.”
“I would like for him, among other things, to see this,” Eisenhower responded. “The evidence that the fine, small or modest homes that Americans live in are not the exception as he seemed to think the sample we sent over to Moscow was.” He wanted Khrushchev to see Levittown, a town “universally and exclusively inhabited by its workmen . . . I would like to see him have to fly along in my chopper and just make a circuit of the District, to see the uncountable homes that have been built all around, modest but decent, fine, comfortable homes.” Further, “I would like to see him go in the little town where I was born and pick up the evidence . . . and let them tell him the story of how hard I worked until I was twenty-one. I can show him the evidence that I did, and I would like him to see it.” Most of all, Eisenhower emphasized, “I want him to see a happy people. I want him to see a free people, doing exactly as they choose, within the limits that they must not transgress the rights of others.”16
Eisenhower did not tell the reporters, but he did say privately, that he had something else he wanted Khrushchev to see—his opportunity. As Goodpaster recorded it, “The President thought he personally might make an appeal to Khrushchev in terms of his place in history, point out that if he wants to gain such a place through making a change to improve the international climate, the President is confident that something can be worked out.” Eisenhower intended to stress that while he had only eighteen months to go, Khrushchev would be in command for many years to come. He felt he had to make such an appeal, he said, if only “to satisfy his own conscience.”17
De Gaulle and Adenauer were predictably and understandably worried, Macmillan only slightly less so. The thought of Eisenhower and Khrushchev making deals together alarmed them. In order to reassure them, and to try out Air Force One and to indulge in some nostalgia, Eisenhower decided to visit the three Western capitals before Khrushchev’s September 15 arrival in America.
At 3:20 A.M., August 26, Ike climbed aboard Air Force One for the first time. Mamie had gotten up to come see him off (she had been tempted to go along, but there was too much flying involved for her taste), and he showed her the accommodations, which dazzled him but bored her. The flight itself, his first ever in a jet, Ike found an “exhilarating experience.” As the big jet went into its “silent, effortless acceleration and its rapid rate of climb,” whatever doubts Ike had about the wisdom of spending most of the remainder of his term on world travels vanished. He was hooked.18
In Bonn, Adenauer promised that Germany would do more rearming. Eisenhower said he hoped so, and added that he looked forward to the day that the German contingent in NATO was sufficiently large the Americans could reduce their ground forces in Europe. Adenauer, much alarmed, asked Eisenhower to not even mention the possibility.
In London, Eisenhower talked with Macmillan. Their only disagreement was over the test-ban negotiations. Macmillan was willing to accept something short of a verifiable inspection system in order to get a comprehensive test ban, while Eisenhower favored a ban on atmospheric testing only.
In Paris, in his talks with de Gaulle, Eisenhower said he just could not support the French in Algeria. De Gaulle tried to revive the idea of a tripartite worldwide arrangement, to no avail. Eisenhower tried to revive the idea of the European Defense Community, or all-European army. The President reminded de Gaulle that in early 1952, he “swore, prayed, almost wept for the EDC. It was initialed, but after the French Parliament was through with it, there was nothing left.” Would de Gaulle like to examine it again?
“Non,” replied de Gaulle, as he loftily declared that “an Army can have no morale unless it is defending its own country.” Eisenhower blanched, then reminded de Gaulle that “in the Second World War, when a lot of us were fighting on foreign soil, it seemed we had good morale.”19
The war was much on his mind. Nothing new had come out of the discussions; nevertheless the trip gave Eisenhower a great boost, because it brought back so many good memories and because of the evidence it provided of Eisenhower’s extraordinary popularity in Western Europe. On the twenty-mile drive from the airport to the American Embassy in Bonn, the roads were jammed with cheering crowds; it was a moving experience for Eisenhower, to be cheered by the people he had only so recently conquered. Eisenhower told Adenauer it was “astonishing”; the Chancellor agreed.
In Paris, the people quite outdid themselves. From the airport to the city, the crowds were huge. De Gaulle and Eisenhower rode in a convertible, waving to the wildly enthusiastic throngs. “How many?” Eisenhower asked de Gaulle. “At least a million,” de Gaulle told him. “I did not expect half as many,” said Eisenhower, deeply moved.
London was the best, although Eisenhower had feared the worst. He had been warned to expect a cool reception, as the British had by no means forgiven him for Suez. In addition, Macmillan had given the trip minimum publicity, as the talks were informal and because Eisenhower had given tentative agreement to making another, formal visit at Christmastime.
But as the motorcade drove from the airport to the city, through a gathering dusk, the people of Britain turned out to honor the man who had such a special place in their hearts. They turned out by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, by the hundreds of thousands. As the crowds grew denser, Macmillan kept repeating, “I never would have believed it, I never would have believed it.” As they got to Grosvenor Square, Eisenhower’s wartime headquarters, Macmillan told him, “The state visit in December is off. Anything after this would be anticlimax.”20
Eisenhower hosted a dinner for his wartime comrades. He paid a visit to the royal family. He spent a weekend at Chequers (ah, the memories). He took a few days’ vacation at Culzean Castle, given to him for his lifetime by the people of Scotland. The gang flew over to play bridge.
London provided the appropriate setting for the climax of the trip. Eisenhower appeared with Macmillan on television, talking extemporaneously. Eisenhower, discussing the need for greater cultural exchange, showed again that the British always brought out the best in him. Turning to Macmillan, he said with great earnestness, “I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”21
That was the spirit of his trip, the spirit in which he had, however grudgingly, agreed to a Khrushchev visit, the spirit in which he intended to work in the time remaining to him.
• •
On September 7, Eisenhower returned to the States. A week later, Khrushchev arrived for two days of talks, formal dinners, and a helicopter ride over Washington. Khrushchev gave Eisenhower a gift, a model of a projectile called Lunik II, which had just made a trip to the moon. Eisenhower thought it a bit on the blatant side, but then thought to himself “quite possibly the man [is] completely sincere.” In his opening statement at the talks, Khrushchev made the most basic point, one that everyone said they recognized but that no one was willing to act on as a basis of policy. We do not want war, said Khrushchev, and we believe that you know that. Eisenhower said he did, that there was no future in mutual suicide. After that, they really had nothing more to discuss, as on all the outstanding issues—the status of Berlin, of Formosa, Soviet (and American) meddling in the Middle East, disarmament—each man had taken a position from which he would not back down.22
Primarily, Eisenhower wanted to appeal to Khrushchev’s sense of history, in order to get some progress somewhere, most likely on testing. As he told the Republican leaders, he wanted to make “one great personal effort, before leaving office, to soften up the Soviet leader even a little bit. Except for the Austrian peace treaty, we haven’t made a chip in the granite in seven years.”23 He did get a chance to make the point to Khrushchev privately; Khrushchev took it graciously, but said that there would have to be movement toward compromise by both sides. The following morning, he took off for a tour of the country. Eisenhower assigned Cabot Lodge to accompany him. Khrushchev’s tour was a media event of the first magnitude. He made great copy and the world press was there to take down his rages, his delights, his off-the-cuff comments, his threats, his blandishments, and to satisfy his desire for headlines.
A highlight came on September 18, when Khrushchev spoke to the U.N. He was proud of his speech—back in Washington, he had tapped his pocket and told Eisenhower, “Here is my speech and no one is going to see it.” Thus Eisenhower was completely unprepared for Khrushchev’s bombshell, which was nothing less than a call for a total abolition of all weapons, nuclear and conventional, over the next four years, without any provision for inspection or supervision. If the West was not ready for so radical a cure, he was willing to pursue the stalled test-ban issue, which he said was “acute and eminently ripe for solution.”24
On September 25, Khrushchev returned to Washington. He and Eisenhower took a helicopter to Camp David for two days of talks. Now it was Khrushchev’s turn to try to impress Eisenhower. He grew quite expansive in discussing the military and security posture of the Soviet Union (all through the trip, he had been kidding Lodge about how easily the KGB broke the most secret American communications, and hinted that the KGB had a mole highly placed in the CIA). He said the Russians were building more powerful nuclear submarines than the Americans. Khrushchev claimed that the U.S.S.R. had all the bombs it wanted and would soon have all the missiles it needed; he bragged that the number was a “lot.” He said he had decided that small tactical atomic weapons were too expensive. So was atomic power for civilian purposes; Khrushchev said the Russians had stopped work on their nuclear power plants and were relying instead on gas, oil, and coal. But, as Eisenhower later told Twining, “Khrushchev gave great emphasis to the tremendous costs of defense, returning to this subject time after time. He repeatedly emphasized the importance of disarmament.”25
They had a long talk about World War II. Khrushchev assured Eisenhower, “Your old friend Zhukov is all right. Don’t worry about him. He’s down in the Ukraine fishing—and like all generals he is probably writing his memoirs.” Then Khrushchev began talking about the subject Eisenhower had hoped he would, American homes and automobiles, and Eisenhower was more disappointed than ever, because Khrushchev said he was not impressed. In fact, he was shocked at all the waste. Those vast numbers of cars, he said, represented only a waste of time, money, and effort. Well, said Eisenhower, he must have found the road system impressive. No, replied Khrushchev, because in his country there was little need for such roads because the Soviet people lived close together, did not care for automobiles, and seldom moved. The American people, he observed, “do not seem to like the place where they live and always want to be on the move going someplace else.” And all those houses, Khrushchev continued, cost more to build, more to heat, more for upkeep and surrounding grounds than the multiple family housing in the Soviet Union.26
The only positive note to emerge was Khrushchev’s willingness to remove any hint of a deadline or an ultimatum from the Berlin question. On that basis, the two leaders made a tentative agreement to meet at the summit, in Paris, in May. After the summit, Eisenhower and his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren would pay a visit to Russia.
• •
Throughout 1960, as throughout his two terms, Eisenhower devoted much of his time, effort, and prestige to holding down spending. He had some success, more than any of his successors. In the recession year of 1958 the government had run a $12 billion deficit, but in 1959, revenues were up by nearly $10 billion, and as the economy recovered, spending for antirecession measures was curtailed. In fiscal 1959, Eisenhower cut federal spending by almost $4 billion. The result was a $1 billion surplus, and a projected $4 billion surplus in 1960.
As always, defense was the most difficult place to hold down spending. The generals and the admirals were determined to stick to the cutting edge of the technological revolution, while they simultaneously wanted the largest nuclear arsenal, the best delivery system, the world’s most powerful Navy and conventional Air Force, and a large, mobile standing Army. They, and their many supporters, could be most eloquent in stating their position.
At a June 23 meeting with the top officials in DOD and PSAC, for example, Eisenhower was told that there was unanimous agreement on the pressing need to go forward with the project for a nuclear-powered aircraft. But Eisenhower could not be bamboozled. He asked some probing questions, which revealed that the major reason his military advisers wanted to do it was because they thought it was possible to do it. “The President commented that the next thing he knows someone would be proposing to take the liner Queen Elizabeth and put wings a mile wide on it and install enough power plant to make it fly. Dr. York begged him not to let the idea get around, or someone would want to try.”27
It was not that the President was opposed to new ideas, or that he was incapable of changing his mind. Two years earlier, at the time of Sputnik, he had insisted that the bomber was still much the best delivery system; since then, advances in rocketry had been such as to convince him otherwise. What bothered him most, however, was that the Air Force insisted on having both, indeed wanted to fund a new bomber, the B-70, while increasing ICBM construction. Eisenhower said he was “very skeptical” about the need for any new bombers. “If the missiles are effective, there will be no need for these bombers.” He said he wished the Air Force officers would make up their minds, and added (he must have had a grin on his face), “I am beginning to think that the Air Force is not concerned over true economy in defense.”
McElroy said that DOD wanted to put money into the B-70 because it represented the state of the art, and would provide spinoff benefits in civilian air transport. Eisenhower said sharply that he could not see us putting military money into a project to develop a civilian transport. He is “allergic” to such an idea. But all the PSAC members jumped in to urge funding for the B-70. And Twining said the Air Force planned to send the B-70 over Russia “to search out and knock out mobile ICBMs on railroads.” Eisenhower snorted. “If they think that,” he said, “they are crazy!” He explained, “We are not going to be searching out mobile bases for ICBMs, we are going to be hitting the big industrial and control complexes.”28
When Eisenhower met with the JCS, they too pressed him for the B-70. The Air Force Chief of Staff, General Thomas D. White, argued that all the Air Force wanted was research and development money, and reminded Eisenhower of the “premium we gain from having different systems for attack.” Eisenhower replied that in “ten years the missile capacity of both countries will be such as to be able to destroy each other many times over.” He thought that “we are going overboard in different ways to do the same thing.” White replied that “this is the last aircraft under development in the world” and almost begged Eisenhower to leave it in the program. But Eisenhower “reviewed past examples of weapons that had outlived their era and said he thought we were talking about bows and arrows at a time of gunpowder when we spoke of bombers in the missile age.” He refused to support the B-70.29
Another military expense Eisenhower wanted to reduce was in the American contribution to NATO. In mid-November, he told the people in DOD that he wanted to pull back some air and ground units from Europe. Eisenhower said that the United States had six divisions in Europe, “which we never intended to keep there permanently.” The only reason he could see to maintaining them was that “the NATO allies are almost psychopathic whenever anyone suggests removing them.” He also wondered why the United States should maintain the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, which was a British and French responsibility and where the U.S. Navy would only be bottled up in time of war. Eisenhower said this was an area in which he had always been in sharp disagreement with Dulles, who “had practically a phobia against raising the question of reduction of these forces.” Eisenhower’s response was that by pulling out Americans, the United States could force the Europeans to do more in their own defense.30