ON JANUARY 12, 1953, at the Hotel Commodore in New York, Eisenhower presided over the first preinaugural Cabinet meeting in American history. As the waiters were clearing the table, Eisenhower read a draft of his Inaugural Address. He had been working on it for some weeks and was, according to Hughes, who was helping him write it, “humbled, awed, a little troubled” by the thought of giving such an address. For his part, Eisenhower complained in his diary that “my assistant [Hughes] has been no help—he is more enamored with words than with ideas. I don’t care much about the words if I can convey the ideas accurately.” In his diary, Eisenhower also set down his objectives. He wanted to warn the free world that “the American well can run dry, but I don’t want to discourage any.” He did not want to give the Soviets “the idea they have us on the run.” He wanted to tell the American people that “internationally, we are entering a new phase, but I don’t want to be using the inaugural address to castigate and indict the administrations of the past twenty years.” Summing up, Eisenhower sighed, “It’s a job.”1
When Eisenhower finished reading his current draft at the Commodore, there was general applause. Frowning, Eisenhower looked up and remarked, “I read it far more for your blue pencils than I did for your applause.” He urged them “to tear it to pieces.” Wilson, who had led the banter at lunch and who was already recognizable as the most outspoken, self-confident, bluntest, and ill-informed member of the Cabinet, gave his judgment: “I think I am in favor of flying the flag pretty high.” “I am, too,” Eisenhower replied. “I would get out and shout it out loud, but you have also got to bring basic principles down to our living, because here is this thing going out to probably one of the greatest audiences that has ever heard a speech.”
Then Eisenhower turned to one of his most basic principles of leadership—that it was necessary to give everyone involved the feeling that he or she was making a genuine contribution. He wanted to convey the message that the preacher, the teacher, the mother, the workman, “can help to produce something more to allay this starvation and distress in the world.” He hoped to find some way to stress the theme of productivity, the idea that if everyone in America would do just a bit more at his or her job, productivity would rise and then America could do more to fight the Communist menace.
The talk then turned to practical arrangements for Inauguration Day. Eisenhower was worried about the people participating in the parade. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “I know more about this parade business than most people. You put all those people there all day long, standing in the cold, and finally they march past the reviewing stand when darkness has hit us, . . . and you have made some enemies.” He wished they could start the parade earlier in the day, but was resigned to the impossibility of it, since the swearing-in ceremony could not take place until noon. After that, there was a lunch before the parade. Eisenhower promised that he and Mamie would bolt their lunches in fifteen minutes.
After a prolonged discussion of what type of hats to wear—Eisenhower insisted on Homburgs rather than the traditional silk hats—Eisenhower explained his ideas of how the Cabinet should function. He wanted his Cabinet to be a policy body. Every member of the Cabinet should feel free to discuss not only the problems of his or her own department, but of the nation as a whole. Then he gave his standard pitch for teamwork, one that he had given at AFHQ, at SHAEF, in the War Department, at Columbia, and at SHAPE: “I hope that before we have gone very long each one of you will consider the rest of you here your very best friends in the world . . . That is the perfect way.”
They returned to a discussion of the Inaugural Address. Humphrey referred back to the productivity theme, saying that he agreed that the common people had to be made to understand that they could do more. Eisenhower said that reliance on the common people was axiomatic: “As a matter of fact, they are the only ones who can generate the power to do it. No matter how clever or brilliant a group like this is, it is dependent on them.” Nixon said that was right, that was just it. Throughout the meeting, indeed, Nixon limited his remarks to heartily endorsing whatever Eisenhower said.
Humphrey thought that there was perhaps too much emphasis on foreign aid. Eisenhower responded, “Unless we can put things in the hands of people who are starving to death we can never lick Communism. My whole picture of China is claws reaching at you because you looked like you had five cents.” Lodge thought that Eisenhower’s reference to Moscow as the center of world revolution ought to be dropped, because so many people around the world “would like to have a revolution.” Eisenhower agreed to make the change. “In Mexico today,” Eisenhower added, “they still talk about the revolution like the second coming of the Lord. While it hasn’t worked too well, nevertheless it is better than what they had.” Wilson popped up. “We had a little revolution in our country, a peaceful one,” he declared. Astonished, Eisenhower looked at him and asked, “Little?”
Harold Stassen, whom Eisenhower had selected as his Mutual Security Director (i.e., the man in charge of the foreign-aid program), said that the sentence on science “tended to give the scientists a rough time.” Eisenhower replied, “I said they gave us as our final gift the power to kill ourselves. That is what they have done, too. Just listen to the stories of the hydrogen bomb. [The first had been exploded the weekend before Eisenhower’s election; its destructive power was 150 times greater than the atomic bomb.] And it doesn’t do any good to run. Some day we will get those boys up to tell us some of the facts of those things. They are terrifying.”
Stassen said he wished there could be a bit more on faith in the speech. “I don’t want to deliver a sermon,” Eisenhower rejoined. “It is not my place. But I firmly believe that our government . . . is deeply embedded in a religious faith.” Indeed, after an adult lifetime of never attending church, Eisenhower had joined the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, and indicated that he intended to attend services there on the morning of the inauguration and regularly on Sundays thereafter. He felt it important for the President to set an example. He did not think the denomination important. Theology was a subject about which he knew nothing and cared nothing; he never discussed his idea of God with anyone; he did talk, sincerely and earnestly, about the need for a spiritual force in American life, but the specific form that the religious content should take did not concern him.
The only serious disagreement at the Commodore meeting came when they discussed foreign trade. Eisenhower said that “I have a very deep conviction that there is no instrument in the hands of diplomacy that is quite as powerful as trade,” and indicated that he intended to open extensive trade relations with the Iron Curtain countries. Wilson was unhappy. “I am a little old-fashioned,” he said. “I don’t like to sell firearms to the Indians.” Eisenhower replied that attempts to stop all trade with the Communist states were “absurd.” He added, “You can’t follow blind prejudice on determining trade routes.” Looking directly at Wilson, Eisenhower said, “Remember this: you are trying to set up out of Moscow what you might call a series of centrifugal forces. The last thing you can do is to force all these [satellites] to depend on Moscow for the rest of their lives. How are you going to keep them interested in you? If you trade with them, Charlie, you have got something pulling their interest your way.”
Wilson protested again. “I am a pretty good compromiser when I understand the facts,” he claimed, “but I think I am going to be on the tough side on this one.” “Charlie,” Eisenhower replied, “I am talking common sense. I am not saying are you tough or are you soft. I am saying how can we most damage the Kremlin.” Wilson, unconvinced, replied, “I think we need to look it over. I am not for going on just to make a little money for somebody.”
With that, the meeting ended. Eisenhower had managed to pry some helpful criticism from his Cabinet, and had learned that Wilson was going to be something of a problem. For the rest, he was satisfied with the results.2 At a second meeting, the following day, the members of the Cabinet discussed eliminating wage and price controls (the Weeks committee had reported that the interests of a dynamic economy demanded the prompt lifting of the controls). Lodge and Stassen said they feared the inflationary impact of such action; Humphrey supported the Weeks committee enthusiastically. Eisenhower listened and remained noncommittal. The group then bemoaned the impossibility of lowering taxes or balancing the budget in the near future.
Turning to appointments, Eisenhower said sternly that he wanted everyone to understand that personal friendship with the President was not to be regarded as qualification for office. To the contrary, he added, anyone who advanced a claim of friendship was to be denied consideration for any post.3
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During the campaign, Eisenhower had asked the people to rally behind him in a “crusade.” He was a man who used words in a precise manner, and a crusade has to be directed against the enemies of Christianity. Neither Eisenhower, nor many of his fellow Republicans, really believed that the Democrats fit that description. But now the Democrats were defeated, and Eisenhower could use the crusade imagery and theme with a clear conscience, for now the enemy was Communist Russia, which certainly was the enemy of Christianity. In the week immediately preceding his inauguration, Eisenhower’s mind turned increasingly to crusades against the irreconcilable enemy.
That he had concluded that the Russians were irreconcilable there can be no doubt. On his last evening at Morningside Heights, in his final speech as the president of Columbia, he told an audience of faculty and staff that “this is not just a casual argument against slightly different philosophies. This is a war of light against darkness, freedom against slavery, Godliness against atheism.”4
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On January 18 Eisenhower, his wife, son, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, and aides traveled by train to Washington, where the party settled into the Statler Hotel. There his brothers and closest friends met him for a joyous reunion with the family and gang. Even as they celebrated, however, there was business to be done.
In the afternoon, Bill Robinson took Eisenhower aside to discuss the confirmation of Charles Wilson as Secretary of Defense. Wilson and his wife owned some fifty thousand shares of General Motors stock; in addition, a bonus plan entitled him to more stock and salary over the next four years. As General Motors did a huge business with the DOD, this was an obvious conflict of interest, and thus illegal. On January 15, Wilson had attended confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Before going into the hearing room, Wilson had told reporters, “I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to be pretty pleased and surprised at how easily those boys can be handled.” But the boys trapped him time and again, until finally Wilson blurted out that he could not conceive of a conflict of interest between his position as stockholder of GM and his responsibilities as Secretary of Defense, because “for years I thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa.” That seemed a simple enough proposition, but it avoided the question of law—which absolutely required Wilson to sell his stock, which he was refusing to do because of the capital-gains tax involved—and the “vice versa” allowed reporters to reverse the statement, making Wilson sound like the original Daddy Warbucks.
Now Robinson told Eisenhower that Wilson had to sell or go. For nearly half an hour he cited moral, political, and practical reasons. Eisenhower played devil’s advocate, saying that if Wilson were forced to sell “it would be very difficult to get competent businessmen into the government.” He added that Wilson had already made enough of a sacrifice in giving up his $600,000 salary at GM to take a post that paid $22,000. It seemed to Robinson “that General Ike really didn’t have his heart in it.” Milton Eisenhower joined the conversation, which went on for a full two hours. It continued into dinner, “with Mamie urging Ike not to eat so rapidly. He finished his dinner in about ten minutes.”5
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The following morning, Inauguration Day, January 20, 1953, the Eisenhower family, accompanied by 36 relatives and some 140 members of the incoming Administration, attended services at the National Presbyterian Church. When they returned to the Statler, Eisenhower said to Mamie, “You always have a kind of special sense of propriety in such matters. Do you think it would be appropriate for me to include a prayer in my Inauguration Address?” Mamie was enthusiastic about the idea, whereupon Eisenhower took ten minutes to write a prayer.6
Then it was time to drive to the White House to pick up Harry and Bess Truman. Since the brief meeting in November, Eisenhower had sent only one communication to the President, a telegram of January 15. Eisenhower said in it that he had read in the papers that Truman intended to take the train to Independence, Missouri, immediately after the swearing-in ceremony, and “it occurs to me that it may be much more convenient for you and your family to make the trip in the Independence rather than in the Pullman.” If Truman wanted the airplane, Eisenhower said he would “be more than glad to express my desire to the Air Force that they make the plane available to you.”7 Truman did not reply (and on January 20, after the ceremonies, he and Bess took the train home).
When the Eisenhower car arrived at the portico of the White House, the President-elect showed his animosity toward the President by refusing an invitation to come inside for a cup of coffee; instead, Eisenhower waited in the car for Truman to appear. They rode together to the Capitol in a frosty atmosphere. According to Truman, Eisenhower broke the silence by remarking, “I did not attend your Inauguration in 1948 out of consideration for you, because if I had been present I would have drawn attention away from you.” Truman snapped back, “Ike I didn’t ask you to come—or you’d been here.”8 Eisenhower denied that any such exchange took place. He did recall asking Truman who had ordered John back from Korea for the inauguration. According to Eisenhower, Truman simply replied, “I did.” According to Truman, what he said was, “The President of the United States ordered your son to attend your Inauguration. The President thought it was right and proper for your son to witness the swearing-in of his father to the Presidency.”9
Three days after the ride to the Capitol, Eisenhower sent Truman a letter “to express my appreciation for the very many courtesies you extended to me and mine during the final stages of your Administration . . . I especially want to thank you for your thoughtfulness in ordering my son home from Korea . . . , and even more especially for not allowing either him or me to know that you had done so.”10 That was his last communication with Truman, just as January 20 was the last time they were together, until after Eisenhower himself had left the Presidency.
• •
Eisenhower and Truman walked through the Rotunda to the east front of the Capitol, where a platform had been erected for the ceremonies. The crowd was huge—the largest for an inaugural in American history—and festive. The Republicans were there to celebrate with unabashed joy; as movie actor and future Republican senator George Murphy put it, “It is all just so wonderful, it’s like walking into bright sunshine after being in darkness for a long time.”11 And indeed, the sun had broken through the clouds—Eisenhower luck, everyone agreed—to turn it into a pleasant, if chilly, day. Eisenhower wore a dark-blue double-breasted overcoat and had a white scarf around his neck. At 12:32 P.M., Chief Justice Fred Vinson administered the oath of office.
As Eisenhower turned to deliver his Inaugural Address, his grim, determined expression gave way to that famous grin, and he shot his hands over his head in the old V-for-Victory sign. After the cheering stopped, he read the prayer he had composed that morning, asking Almighty God to “make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng, and their fellow citizens everywhere.” Not forgetting the Democrats, he added, “May cooperation be permitted and be the mutual aim of those who, under the concepts of our Constitution, hold to differing political faiths; so that all may work for the good of our beloved country and Thy glory. Amen.”
Then he began his Inaugural Address. “The world and we have passed the midway point of a century of challenge,” he said. The challenges that had to be faced now, he insisted, were those of the dangers of war and aggressive Communism. In a speech devoted exclusively to foreign policy, he promised that his Administration would “neither compromise, nor tire, nor ever cease” to seek an honorable worldwide peace. But people had to realize that “forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history.” The urgency of seeking peace in such a climate of hostility was all the greater because “science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet.”
Fortunately, America had allies in the worldwide struggle. Faith united all free men, he said, and in reference to foreign aid and trade, he insisted that there was no safety in economic solitude. America needed markets, and access to raw materials. He made a firm commitment to the United Nations. He managed to work in the productivity theme that had bothered him so, although in a less than satisfactory manner: “Moral stamina means more energy and more productivity, on the farm and in the factory.”12
Taken all together, the speech was hardly what the Old Guard wanted to hear from the first Republican elected to the Presidency since 1928. There was no denunciation of the New Deal, nor of Yalta, no promise to cut taxes or balance the budget. Instead, Eisenhower had summoned the American people to yet another crusade; in so doing, he sounded far more like Truman announcing the containment policy than he did like Taft or indeed any other Republican. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, the new Democratic minority leader, called it “a very good statement of Democratic programs of the last twenty years.”13
But for the moment, it hardly mattered. Taft praised the speech, and the Republicans prepared to celebrate. The parade took forever, just as Eisenhower had known it would: “Not until nearly seven o’clock,” he complained, “did the last two elephants go by.”14 Then he and Mamie drove to the White House, and as she took his arm, they walked together into their new home.
That evening, the Eisenhowers attended two inaugural balls (the crowds were so large that one hall could not hold them all). At one of the balls, Eisenhower took Wilson aside and told him he would have to sell his stock in GM.15 Finally, at 1 A.M., the Eisenhowers—accompanied by John, Barbara, and the grandchildren—drove home and went to bed. In the morning, he would begin to do his duty as President of the United States.