IN LATE AUGUST 1954, Eisenhower went to Denver for the start of his vacation. On September 3, he got word from Washington that there was yet another Far East crisis, this one about halfway between Korea and Vietnam. The Chinese had begun shelling two tiny island groups, Quemoy and Matsu.
Some of the islands were less than two miles off the Chinese coast. Unlike Formosa and the nearby Pescadores, which had been held by the Japanese for some fifty years, Quemoy and Matsu had always been a part of China. When Chiang fled to Formosa in 1949, he retained his hold on the islands, garrisoned them heavily, and used them to observe the mainland, to stage raids against the mainland, and to disrupt Chinese coastal shipping. Eventually, Chiang hoped to use them as stepping-stones for his invasion of the mainland. The U.S. Seventh Fleet had orders, originated by Truman and continued by Eisenhower, to prevent a Chinese assault against Formosa. Whether Quemoy and Matsu were included in the defensive area was unclear. There were technical and political problems; the U.S. Navy could not get its ships between the islands and the mainland for lack of depth of water, and intervention threatened to put the United States squarely into the Chinese civil war at a time when none of America’s allies, except Chiang, was willing to risk World War III over two tiny offshore island groups. Nevertheless Chiang insisted that the fall of Quemoy and Matsu would only be a preliminary to the invasion of Formosa itself, and Eisenhower was told that Nationalist Chinese morale would fall precipitously if no attempt was made to defend them. The JCS informed Eisenhower that although the islands were not militarily necessary to the defense of Formosa, Chiang could not hold them without American assistance.1
On September 12, Dulles and the JCS flew to Denver for a conference on what Dulles called “this horrible business.” The Chinese were shelling the islands on a regular basis but had not yet invaded. Radford, backed by the Air Force and Navy Chiefs, recommended not only putting American forces on the islands, but also that the United States join Chiang in carrying out bombing raids against the mainland. This was the third time in less than six months that Radford had recommended aggressive action, to include atomic weapons, against China. Eisenhower again rejected the advice. As before, the President said that “if we attack China, we’re not going to impose limits on our military actions, as in Korea.” And, the President added, “If we get into a general war, the logical enemy will be Russia, not China, and we’ll have to strike there.”2
By late October, the Chinese appeared to be ready to launch their invasion. Despite Eisenhower’s dressing down in September, Radford and the JCS still assumed that when China attacked, the United States would strike hard at the Chinese mainland. Eisenhower told them to make no such assumption. He said he was distressed at their lack of understanding of the constitutional responsibilities of the President. The United States had no treaty with Chiang Kai-shek; the President could not plunge America into a war with China (and possibly Russia) without congressional approval, and especially not over the fate of such insignificant places as Quemoy and Matsu. He told the JCS that if the Chinese attacked Formosa, the Seventh Fleet should act defensively; simultaneously, he would call an immediate session of Congress. There would be no retaliation against the Chinese mainland, no invoking the doctrine of massive retaliation, “pending congressional consideration of the matter.”3
Through November, the threat intensified as the Chinese bombed other small islands held by Chiang’s forces and continued their buildup opposite Quemoy and Matsu. Then on November 23, the Chinese announced the verdict of a trial of thirteen American fliers who had been shot down over China during the Korean War. They received prison terms ranging from four years to life for espionage. Insofar as all but two of the fliers had been in uniform, and insofar as the Korean armistice agreements specified that all POWs would be returned, there was a predictable roar of protest in the United States. Senator Knowland spoke for millions of Americans when he demanded a total blockade of the Chinese coast.
The President refused to even consider it. He told a press conference, “The hard way is to have the courage to be patient.” He pointed out, “It is possible that a blockade is conceivable without war; I have never read of it historically.” (Although he had just done it, successfully, in Guatemala.) He was, therefore, going to turn the problem of the airmen over to the U.N. After all, the prisoners had been fighting under a U.N. flag when captured, so “how the U.N. can possibly disabuse itself of a feeling of responsibility in this matter and retain its self-respect, I wouldn’t know.” With regard to the cries by Knowland, McCarthy, and others about the “honor of America,” Eisenhower declared sternly, “So far as the honor of the United States is concerned, I merely hope that I shall not live long enough to find myself accused of being insensible to the honor of the United States and the safety of her men and soldiers.”4
But Eisenhower had to respond somehow. Early in December, he signed a mutual-defense treaty with the Nationalist Chinese. It declared that an armed attack on either party would be regarded as an act of war against the other. Chiang agreed not to attack the mainland unilaterally. Eisenhower insisted on restricting the treaty to Formosa and the Pescadores, deliberately leaving out Quemoy and Matsu. On December 20, Chiang’s Foreign Minister, Dr. George Yeh, came to Washington for a conference with Eisenhower and Dulles. Yeh said it “would be a good psychological warfare move” for the United States to announce that it would provide logistic support for Chinese forces on Quemoy and Matsu. But Eisenhower said he felt that “any actions against the islands could best be handled, case by case, each on its merits.” Eisenhower also told Yeh that it was a mistake to keep putting more and more men on “these small and exposed islands.” And he dashed any hopes Yeh may have had about the imposition of a blockade of the mainland.5
• •
Farther south along the Asian coast, there were other problems. Allen Dulles had slipped a CIA team, headed by Colonel Edward Lansdale, into Vietnam, with the objective of disrupting the Vietminh take-over in Hanoi through various acts of sabotage. None were very effective.6 Diem, meanwhile, was having difficulty in establishing himself in command in South Vietnam. On October 30 Eisenhower conferred with Foster Dulles on Vietnam. The Secretary of State had no objection to the CIA’s covert actions in North Vietnam, but he did want a “high-ranking” American official in Saigon, preferably an Army officer, who could help Diem build an army and a government. Eisenhower liked the idea and said that General J. Lawton Collins was the perfect man to implement it.7
Eisenhower decided to make Collins the ambassador to “Free Vietnam” (neither of the terms “Republic of Vietnam” nor “South Vietnam” was yet being used), thereby making public what had already been done in secret, the elevation of the southern half of Vietnam to the status of a sovereign state. Eisenhower gave Collins control over “all the agencies and resources” of the United States in Vietnam, and said the basic American policy was “to maintain and support a friendly and independent non-Communist government in Vietnam and to assist it in diminishing and ultimately eradicating Communist subversion and influence.” Collins’ principal task was to help Diem wage a military campaign against the Vietminh and to build an army.8
These were serious steps with potentially quite large consequences. Eisenhower knew that when Diem’s refusal to hold elections became known, Diem was going to face an insurrection. The President also knew he was putting the United States into the middle of a probable civil war in Southeast Asia. Eisenhower had provided the tools for the French to wage the war in the area; now that the French had quit, he shifted the aid to Diem and his adherents. The President, and Collins, had a model in mind. Before Collins’ departure for Saigon, they met (November 3) in the Oval Office. There they agreed that Collins should follow the pattern that had been so successful in Greece and Korea, building an indigenous army that could defend the country by itself, with American arms. Eisenhower had often complained that the French wanted American equipment but not American advice; Diem, he hoped, would be more cooperative, as the leaders in Greece and South Korea had been. To that end, the President agreed to “build up” the American military mission in Saigon, shift a $400 million aid package intended for the French to the South Vietnamese, and put the whole program under the command of a career soldier.9
• •
French rejection of EDC, so closely connected with their defeat in Vietnam, had to be dealt with. In September, Eisenhower sent Dulles to Paris to begin preparations for a NATO meeting, at which the United States would propose a restoration of West German sovereignty, the inclusion of Germany in NATO, and the creation of a German army. German rearmament, to Eisenhower, was the linchpin of his strategic design. A German army was crucial to his vision of what NATO could become, and NATO was, as always, his first concern. Other things being equal, he made his foreign-policy decisions on the basis of the question, Will this help or hurt NATO? When Knowland demanded a blockade of China, for example, Eisenhower’s first thought was of the havoc the demand would raise with the attempt to promote German rearmament. The French were always questionable, especially when Germany was the issue; Eisenhower had to have the French vote to bring Germany into NATO. Knowland was threatening to upset everything by making the French think that the Americans were irresponsible and bent on war. Damning Knowland, Eisenhower said the senator was playing into the hands of the Communists, who wanted to divide the NATO countries in order to stop German rearmament.10
Through September, Dulles met with the NATO representatives. On October 3, he brought home an agreement. By promising the French that there would be a twelve-division limit on the German army, that Germany would promise never to make atomic weapons, and that the ultimate command and control would belong to the SACEUR (presumably always an American), and by threatening that the United States would go it alone with Germany if France failed to sign the agreement, Dulles had managed to achieve nearly all Eisenhower’s goals. Eisenhower was absolutely delighted—what he got was even better than EDC. Dulles told him that Adenauer had emerged as the “real statesman” of Europe; Eisenhower agreed and said, “Of course he is one of the great men of our time.”11
The real credit belonged to Eisenhower, who had thought up the formula, but he was eager to give Dulles the credit. In a statement announcing the agreement, Eisenhower said Dulles had “accomplished one of the greatest diplomatic achievements of our time.”12 To Swede Hazlett, meanwhile, Eisenhower explained privately that “Dulles has never made a serious pronouncement, agreement, or proposal without complete and exhaustive consultation with me in advance and, of course, my approval.”13
Now Eisenhower had to wait, once again, for ratification by the French National Assembly. Various test votes in the Assembly were close, and generally discouraging. Eisenhower tried to lessen French fears by following a conciliatory line in Asia, by emphasizing that bringing Germany into NATO was the way to control her, and by de-emphasizing the American military presence in Europe. When the U.S. Army put out a publicity release on its sending Honest John atomic missiles to Europe, Eisenhower was furious. French students were already out on the streets, protesting that they did not want to be cannon fodder for a U.S.-U.S.S.R. war. Eisenhower told Goodpaster to find out who was responsible, and said he wanted such shipments kept a secret.14
(Goodpaster had come to the White House on October 10, 1954, with the title of Staff Secretary to the President. A West Point graduate with a Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton, Goodpaster had worked for Eisenhower at SHAPE. Eisenhower had unbounded admiration for Goodpaster, and when his first Staff Secretary, General Paul Carroll, died of a heart attack, Eisenhower told Gruenther he would have to give up Goodpaster, because the President needed him. Goodpaster stayed with Eisenhower to the end of the second term. He became, without question, Eisenhower’s closest adviser and confidant. Eisenhower had no secrets from Goodpaster, something that could be said of no other man, not even the Dulles brothers. Goodpaster was at the President’s side, literally, during all his working hours. To the biographer’s delight and profit, he kept notes on the meetings in the Oval Office; to Eisenhower’s delight and profit, he was always ready to offer advice or information. Goodpaster became to Eisenhower the President what Beetle Smith had been to Eisenhower the Supreme Commander, and like Smith, Goodpaster never let his boss down.)
In December, Dulles flew back to Paris to put more pressure on the Assembly. When he returned, his only piece of cheerful news was that he had managed to “smuggle back a few cases of wine” as Eisenhower had asked him to do. Otherwise, the prospects for ratification looked slim. Two days before Christmas, a test vote went 280 to 259 against German rearmament. “Damn those French!” Eisenhower exploded. “It’s their old game of diplomatic doodling to see how much they can get out for themselves and never mind the rest of the world.”15 But to Eisenhower’s intense relief, two days before the New Year the Assembly voted 287 to 260 for the agreements.
On April 1, 1955, the U.S. Senate ratified the protocols. Thus did Eisenhower, the man who had commanded the conquest and occupation of West Germany, come to set it free. In the process, Eisenhower joined West Germany solidly to the United States and NATO.
• •
The major concern of most politicians in America in the second half of 1954 was not Germany, nor Vietnam, nor China, but getting re-elected. Eisenhower was also concerned about the elections, if only because of the thin margins the Republicans held in both houses of Congress. He wanted his party to retain control of Congress, and despite his constant reiteration of his nonpartisanship, he exhorted his Cabinet members to do all they could to elect Republicans. In September, from the summer White House, he sent orders to Washington to “step up expenditures to stimulate industrial activity.” He ordered the Defense Department “to do the major portion of its buying now and not wait for the last half of the fiscal year. Do not hesitate to use any legal authority I have to get this going.”16
Hurry-up spending was not enough to satisfy the party leaders, who wanted the President to wage an active campaign. On October 7, after Eisenhower had been in Denver for six weeks, he heard from Tom Dewey, who told him that while he was on vacation “the Republican Party is going down the drain!”17 In a long and defensive reply, Eisenhower explained why he was not out on the campaign trail. First, he told Dewey, he did not think it proper. “I know that there was nothing that Mr. Truman did that so shocked my sense of the fitting and the appropriate as did his barnstorming activities while he was actually the President.” Second, the history of the thing was all against him. Wilson and FDR had tried to influence off-year elections, only to suffer big losses. Third, Eisenhower had his own health to think about. He said he was sixty-four years old, and “the Presidency is a job that would tax the intellectual and physical energies of a far younger man.” He said he needed time for “reflection and recuperation.” If he did not take the time, he would not be doing his duty to himself, his party, and the country.18 At his news conferences, Eisenhower took the same line—he was not going to participate actively in the congressional elections.
But then the polls began to show a dangerous shift to the Democrats, and Gabe Hauge warned Eisenhower that if the Republicans lost control of Congress, “the extreme right wing will try to recapture the leadership of the party.” That argument was convincing. The President thought the threat a serious one, and deplored it, because “if the right wing really recaptures the Republican Party, there simply isn’t going to be any Republican influence in this country within a matter of a few brief years. A new party will be inevitable.”19 Eisenhower therefore entered the campaign to prevent an Old Guard take-over. In the second half of October, he traveled more than ten thousand miles and made nearly forty speeches. He concentrated on the eastern half of the country, and stayed in states where moderate Republicans needed help. He sent Nixon to campaign in the Midwest and West, Old Guard strongholds. Eisenhower took the high road, emphasizing Republican accomplishments—peace in Korea, less federal spending, an almost balanced budget, and so on. Nixon hammered at the Democrats; Stevenson accused him of indulging in “McCarthyism in a white collar.” Eisenhower was nevertheless appreciative of Nixon’s efforts; late in October he sent the Vice-President a warm note expressing his gratitude and admiration for all Nixon had done.20
Despite Eisenhower’s efforts, the Republicans lost seventeen seats in the House and two in the Senate, which gave the Democrats control of both chambers of Congress. Most observers felt that only Eisenhower’s last-minute intervention had prevented an even bigger Democratic victory, and Eisenhower pointed out that Republican losses in the off-year election were much less than was customary for the party in power. Nevertheless, it was a bad defeat, and one that helped create a crisis in the Republican Party.
• •
Eisenhower blamed the right wing of the Republican Party for the losses; the Old Guard blamed the President, because he had failed to implement genuinely conservative policies. Edgar Eisenhower agreed with the Old Guard; he wrote Dwight that his policies were no better than Truman’s, and just as unconstitutional. In his reply, the President let out some of his anger at and scorn for the right wing: “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.” He said he realized there was a “splinter group that believes you can do these things,” but insisted that “their number is negligible and they are stupid.”21 He was, in fact, becoming contemptuous of most politicians, not just the Old Guard. When Merriman Smith asked him, in a private interview, if he thought of himself as a politician, Eisenhower replied that no, he did not, because he had not made politics his career. “But I can say this,” he quickly added, “and I think without egotism, in many, many ways I will make smarter political decisions than a lot of guys who are pros.”22
Senator McCarthy was one such pro. He was back in the headlines, and out in the front of the right-wing movement to take control of the Republican Party from Eisenhower. The latest McCarthy uproar had its origins on July 30, when Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont introduced a motion to censure McCarthy for behavior unbecoming to the Senate. A select bipartisan committee, chaired by Senator Arthur Watkins, Republican of Utah, considered the motion and recommended censuring McCarthy. On December 2, the roll-call vote revealed that the Senate, for the third time in its history, had censured one of its own, by a vote of 67 to 22. Eisenhower was pleased with the result. On December 4, he called Watkins to the White House to congratulate him. “I wanted to see you,” was Eisenhower’s opening remark: “You handled a tough job like a champion.”23
But there was also a major disappointment in the vote. The Republicans had split exactly down the middle, 22 to 22. Even worse, the only Republican leader who supported censure was Leverett Saltonstall; all the others—Dirksen, Bridges, Millikin, and Knowland—voted for McCarthy. Eisenhower tried to be optimistic; he told Cliff Roberts that “I don’t believe that so-called ‘rightest’ thinking in the Republican Party is as prevalent as this Senate ratio might indicate.” But he also hinted that he would welcome a split. If McCarthy and his supporters walked out, Eisenhower said he would try to attract Democrats and independents to a new, moderate Republican Party. Such a party, holding the middle, “would go so rapidly that within a few years it would dominate American politics.”24
On December 7, McCarthy attacked again. He said he was “breaking” with the President, because Eisenhower had congratulated Watkins and Flanders for the censure vote while holding up the work of the investigation of Communism, and at the same time urging patience and niceties toward the Chinese who were torturing American prisoners. McCarthy accused Eisenhower of “weakness and supineness” in ferreting out Communists, and said he wanted to “apologize” to the American people for supporting Eisenhower in 1952.
Eisenhower told Hagerty that he was “glad the break has come.” Becoming agitated, he bit the earpiece of his glasses, shoved them into his jacket, sprang out of his chair, and began pacing. He said he was sick and tired of the Old Guard. “If there is one thing that I am going to try to do during the next two years,” he went on—but Hagerty interrupted him. “Don’t you mean the next six years, Mr. President?” Eisenhower laughed and said right now he was speaking only of the next two years. “I have just one purpose, outside of the job of keeping this world at peace, and that is to build up a strong progressive Republican Party in this country.” Warming to his subject, he thundered, “If the right wing wants a fight, they’re going to get it. If they want to leave the Republican Party and form a third party, that’s their business, but before I end up, either this Republican Party will reflect progressivism or I won’t be with them anymore.
“And let me tell you one other thing. If they think they can nominate a right-wing Old Guard Republican for the Presidency, they’ve got another thought coming. I’ll go up and down this country, campaigning against them. I’ll fight them right down the line.”25
Stopping the right wing meant stopping the leaders of the Republican Party. To do that, Eisenhower needed to build up alternative leaders. Further, if he wanted to retire after 1956—always a tempting thought—he also needed to build up someone who could take his place. In the weeks after the election, as the right-wing revolt spread (pro-McCarthy clubs were springing up around the country, and McCarthy was charging that twenty years of treason had become twenty-one years of treason), Eisenhower in his correspondence and conversations with his friends and political associates tried to promote various candidates. His own favorites were Robert Anderson (currently Deputy Secretary of Defense) and Herbert Hoover, Jr., who had just replaced Smith as Under Secretary of State and who had, Eisenhower declared, “all the brains of his dad, and all the charm of his mother.” Nixon, Brownell, Halleck, and William Rogers were others whom Eisenhower thought could make good party leaders.26
But the truth was that none of those men, no matter how highly Eisenhower thought of them, was capable of saving the Republican Party from itself. Only Eisenhower could do that. Immediately after the elections, the chief concern of Clay, Bill Robinson, Lodge, and the others who had induced Eisenhower to run in 1952 was to once again use Eisenhower to prevent a right-wing take-over. On November 18, after conferring with his associates in New York, Clay flew to Washington to talk to Eisenhower. He came on his subject by a roundabout way. He told Eisenhower there was a feeling among his friends that Dr. Snyder, being seventy-three years old, was really not capable of providing the medical care and advice that the President ought to have. When Eisenhower asked the reason for the sudden concern, Clay said he was interested in Eisenhower’s health not just for the moment or for the next two years, but for the next six years. Eisenhower would have to stay in command, Clay argued, if there was to be any hope of modernizing and reforming the Republican Party. Eisenhower agreed that there was a job to be done; he branded the right wing as “the most ignorant people now living in the United States.” But he did not agree that he was the only man who could stop the Old Guard. When Clay said he wanted to use the name “Eisenhower Republicans,” the President protested strongly. He said if the effort to reform the party was focused on one man, “then it would follow that in the event of my disability or death, the whole effort would collapse.” Such an outcome would be “absurd,” because “the idea is far bigger than any one individual.”
Clay was not listening. He told Eisenhower, “I am ready to work for you at whatever sacrifice to myself because I believe in you. I am not ready to work for anybody else that you can name.” Eisenhower gave Clay all the arguments against his running again—his age; the need for younger men in high position in the party; the complexity of the job; the fact that he would be, because of the Twenty-second Amendment, a lame-duck President from the moment he was re-elected. Clay was unimpressed. He referred to Eisenhower’s “duty.” That was the key word. (As Eisenhower recorded in his diary entry on this conversation: “All that an individual has to say to me is ‘the good of the country’ . . . and I probably yield far too easily.”) The conversation ended with Eisenhower avoiding any promises, but leaving Clay free to work for reforming the party and re-electing Eisenhower.27
One part of reforming the Republican Party was bringing the southern strength into it. Eisenhower frequently expressed his great admiration for the southern Democrats, whom he found far more intelligent and responsible than the Old Guard. One such southern Democrat, Robert Anderson of Texas, was consistently Eisenhower’s personal choice as his successor. Eisenhower thumped for Anderson whenever he could. He told Hazlett that Anderson “is just about the ablest man that I know. He would make a splendid President.”
• •
That observation, plus the fact that Churchill had just had his eightieth birthday, set Eisenhower to write a disquisition to Hazlett on the subject of greatness. Eisenhower thought greatness depended on either achieving preeminence “in some broad field of human thought or endeavor” or on assuming “some position of great responsibility,” and then so discharging his duties “as to have left a marked and favorable imprint upon the future.” He said Plato was an example of the first type, George Washington of the second. Eisenhower insisted that one had to distinguish between a great man and a great specialist; for example, “Martin Luther was a great man; Napoleon was a great general.” The qualities a great man should have were “vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, . . . and profundity of character.” Under those definitions, Eisenhower said that Churchill “came nearest to fulfilling the requirements of greatness in any individual that I have met in my lifetime. I have known finer and greater characters, wiser philosophers, more understanding personalities”—but no greater man. From among the Americans he knew personally, Eisenhower said that “George Marshall possessed more of the qualities of greatness than has any other.” Henry Stimson was a close second. Of the pre-twentieth-century Americans, Eisenhower said he admired most Washington, Lincoln, and Lee. Among congressmen, “I think John Quincy Adams would head my list.”
When he finished the letter, Eisenhower read it over and was surprised at how few men he thought of as “great.” He put in a postscript for Hazlett, lest Hazlett think he was too pessimistic: “Long ago I learned to look for caliber or relative size in individuals rather than for perfection.” By that standard, he said, he was satisfied with his Cabinet.28
• •
In fact, Eisenhower was not so happy with his Secretary of Defense. For one thing, Wilson had shot off his mouth during the campaign about unemployed auto workers in Detroit. “I’ve always liked bird dogs better than kennel-fed dogs myself,” Wilson announced. “You know, one who’ll get out and hunt for food rather than sit on his fanny and yell.” It was an absurd comparison—bird dogs live in kennels and they do not hunt, kill, and eat the quail, but only point them out to the hunter—and the unnecessary insult of equating the unemployed with lazy dogs set off a storm that cost the Republicans votes. But the real reason for Eisenhower’s unhappiness with Wilson was the Secretary’s inability to control the Chiefs. In preparing his budget for the next fiscal year, Eisenhower had again made substantial cuts in the Army and Navy. The Army would drop from 1.4 million to 1 million, with a budget reduction from $12.9 billion to $8.8 billion; the Navy from 920,000 to 870,000, and from $11.2 to $9.7 billion. The Air Force got a slight increase, from $15.6 to $16.4 billion. All the Chiefs were unwilling to accept these figures. Ridgway was the most outspoken—he said he could not be responsible for the security of American troops in Europe, Korea, and elsewhere with so small an army—but the Navy and Air Force Chiefs also went before Congress to denounce the Eisenhower budget and demand more money.
In December, Eisenhower summoned Wilson and the Chiefs to the Oval Office. Goodpaster took notes. Eisenhower gave a brief outline of his military budget, acknowledged that each service could find shortcomings in it, insisted that he had to look at the whole picture, including the state of the economy, and then ordered them to get on the team. “The President stated this [budget] was his own judgment on the matter. As Commander in Chief he is entitled to the loyal support of his subordinates of the official position he has adopted, and he expects to have that support.” If the Chiefs wanted to complain, they should come to him privately, “but once the decision is made all must follow.”29
With the Democrats back in control of the Congress, Eisenhower’s worries about the economy increased. He feared they would want to spend and spend, tax and tax, citing the glittering goal of full employment as their objective. Two days after the election, Eisenhower complained to his Cabinet that “eight to twelve years are needed to wean people back away from the idea of war prosperity,” when everyone had a job. Humphrey pointed out that “we can’t have full employment without war.” Inflation and national bankruptcy, not unemployment (currently at 4.5 percent), were Eisenhower’s chief concern. “We cannot defend the nation in a way which will exhaust our economy,” he told the Cabinet. That meant, he added, “that instead of conventional forces, we must be prepared to use atomic weapons in all forms.” Russia, he said, “is not seeking a general war,” which meant there was no reason to panic. On the specific issue of manpower for the armed services, Eisenhower said, “I have directed a cutting back this year—and more next year—so as to allow us to concentrate on those things which can deter the Russians. This is a judgment of my own, made after long, long study.”30
A public split between the President and the JCS on defense spending was, of course, a big story for the reporters, who pestered Eisenhower with questions about the “New Look” at his news conferences. Eisenhower would carefully and patiently explain his position on deterrence. What about little wars? the press asked. Ridgway had said that with his tiny army, he could not fight one. Eisenhower did not disagree; he did say that “I just don’t believe you can buy one hundred percent security in every little corner of the world where someone else wants to start trouble. I think you have to go ahead, taking certain calculated risks.” To be ready to fight all the potential little wars, Eisenhower added, “You would have to have troops stationed in every place in the world where trouble might arise, in advance.”31
Eisenhower did, however, want nuclear weapons dispersed to potential trouble spots. On December 1, he met with Wilson and Strauss to make arrangements for “increased overseas deployment” of American bombs. There were some problems with the proposal, as Wilson pointed out, including the “possible impact upon the American public, our allies, and the Soviet Union, should the information as to their transfer become generally suspected or known.” A particular source of trouble, Wilson added, was the possibility that transferring the bombs from the United States to Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East “might be construed by our allies as an act of mobilization and by the Soviets as an indication or threat of impending attack.” But the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. With the bombs in place on the periphery of the Soviet Union, the United States could launch a retaliatory attack almost instantly. In addition to enhancing readiness, overseas deployment and dispersal would greatly decrease the vulnerability of America’s atomic stockpile to enemy attack. Eisenhower told Wilson and Strauss to go ahead with a program that would put 36 percent of the hydrogen bombs overseas, and 42 percent of the atomic bombs. He also instructed Strauss to have the AEC turn control of the bombs over to the DOD.32
Thus did Eisenhower set the nation’s post-Korea, post-Dien Bien Phu defense policy. The New Look put the emphasis on massive retaliation, on more bang for a buck, on cutting costs everywhere except for the Strategic Air Force and its ability to wage atomic war. The New Look meant big savings, and much grumbling. At times it seemed that except for Humphrey, Eisenhower was the only man in Washington who supported it. From 1955 onward, the Democrats would concentrate their criticisms of Eisenhower on his defense policy, charging that the President—and Humphrey—were allowing their Neanderthal fiscal views to endanger the security of the nation. Despite Eisenhower’s direct order, the JCS continued to supply his critics with countless facts and figures to prove that more money had to be spent on conventional forces.
So strongly, and so often, did the Chiefs—all of them—object to the New Look that Eisenhower was nearly driven to distraction. “Let us not forget that the armed services are to defend a ‘way of life,’ not merely land, property, or lives,” Eisenhower wrote Swede Hazlett. “So what I need to make the Chiefs realize is that they are men of sufficient stature, training, and intelligence to think of this balance—the balance between minimum requirements in the costly implements of war and the health of our economy.” A major problem was that although each Chief agreed that the sums allocated to the other services were entirely adequate, the amounts provided for his own service were entirely inadequate. Eisenhower told Hazlett that he could run a blue pencil through the Pentagon requests for more money because he knew the Pentagon game so well, “but some day there is going to be a man sitting in my present chair who has not been raised in the military services and who will have little understanding of where slashes in their estimates can be made with little or no damage.” Eisenhower then expressed his great fear: “If that should happen while we still have the state of tension that now exists in the world, I shudder to think of what could happen in this country.”33
• •
The more general complaint about Eisenhower’s New Look was linked to widespread dissatisfaction with the way he was waging the Cold War. Critics—including not only the opposition party but also the Old Guard, the JCS, the NSC, and often the Secretary of State—wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the conflict, as evidenced by the number of times in 1954 they urged the President to launch an atomic strike against China. But Eisenhower would have no part of nuclear war, unless the Russians actually marched across the Elbe River, and he wanted no more Koreas. He was, however, more than willing to wage an aggressive covert offensive, implemented by the CIA, against the Communists.
Immediately after Knowland issued his call for a blockade against China, Eisenhower called the senator into his office for a bit of straight talking. The President said that “in the conduct of foreign affairs, we do so many things that we can’t explain.” He had turned on his recorder; Ann Whitman made a transcript of the conversation. Eisenhower told Knowland, “There is a very great aggressiveness on our side that you have not known about and I guess that is on the theory of why put burdens on people that they don’t need to know about.” He said that he himself “knew so many things that I am almost afraid to speak to my wife.” Without providing details, Eisenhower assured Knowland that the Cold War was being waged aggressively, that the CIA was busy around the world, “very active, and there are a great many risky decisions on my part constantly . . . but I do try to spare other people some of the things I do.” But as for a blockade, or breaking diplomatic relations with the Russians (which Knowland had also demanded be done), “that is a step toward war; if you do that, then the next question is, are you ready to attack? Well, I am not ready to attack.”34
Not openly, anyway, but under Eisenhower’s direction, as he told Knowland, the CIA was carrying on assorted covert operations around the world. Because it was his chief instrument for waging the Cold War, and because it was so controversial, Eisenhower kept a close watch on the CIA. In late October, he spent an afternoon with General Doolittle and the other members of the committee he had created to investigate the Agency. Doolittle’s report on the spymaster was mixed. He thought Allen Dulles had as his principal strength “his unique knowledge of his subject; he has his whole heart in it.” His weakness was in organization and the relatively poor quality of men he had around him. Further, Doolittle felt that the relationship between the Secretary of State and the head of the CIA was “unfortunate.” Eisenhower interrupted Doolittle to say he thought the relationship was “beneficial.” Doolittle said that Allen Dulles was “too emotional” for his job, and that he thought Dulles’ “emotionalism was far worse than it appeared on the surface.” Eisenhower again interrupted, saying, “I have never seen him show the slightest disturbance.” Continuing to defend Dulles, Eisenhower pointed out that “here is one of the most peculiar types of operation any government can have, and it probably takes a strange kind of genius to run it.”35
At the end of the meeting, Doolittle handed Eisenhower the committee’s report. Its conclusion was chilling: “It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination . . . There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. . . . We must . . . learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us.”36 That was a concise summary of Eisenhower’s own views, and described accurately the methods he had already used in Iran, Guatemala, and North Vietnam.
The CIA’s other main function was the less glamorous one of collecting and interpreting intelligence. Like everyone else of his generation, Eisenhower had been deeply scared by the intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor; by the fifties, the advantage of surprise to an attacker who had atomic weapons was incalculably greater than it had been in the early forties. Eisenhower wanted information from within the Soviet Union; he especially wanted an early warning on any mobilization of planes or troops. But the CIA had been unable to set up any spy networks inside Russia. Early in 1954, Eisenhower set up a Surprise Attack Panel to advise him on what to do. The chairman was Dr. James R. Killian, president of MIT. A key member was Edwin H. Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera and winner of a Nobel Prize (1952). Land reported that new cameras were available that made high-level precision photography possible. The trick was to get the cameras over Russia. The Air Force had made several attempts, using redesigned bombers and unmanned balloons, but the results were disappointing. Meanwhile, Clarence (“Kelly”) Johnson, the top designer at Lockheed, had proposed a high-altitude single-engine reconnaissance aircraft that was really more a kite with an enormous wingspan, a single jet engine, and an ability to fly long distances above seventy thousand feet. Lockheed called the plane the U-2. Allen Dulles liked it; Killian liked it; Land liked it. On November 24, they went to see Eisenhower to ask authorization to build thirty U-2s at a cost of $35 million. The CIA and the Defense Department would split the bill. Foster Dulles, who was also present, indicated “that difficulties might arise out of these flights, but we can live through them.” Allen Dulles put Richard Bissell, who had directed Pbsuccess, in charge. At the conclusion of the meeting, Goodpaster noted, “The President directed those present to go ahead and get the equipment, but before initiating operations to come in for one last look at the plans.”37
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Immediately after the U-2 meeting, Eisenhower, his family, and his gang went to Augusta for Thanksgiving. Accompanying them was Field Marshal Montgomery, who had—Eisenhower complained—“invited himself.”38 At Thanksgiving dinner, the two old soldiers regaled the party with war stories. They got to talking about Gettysburg. Eisenhower gave a lecture on his favorite battle. When he got to Pickett’s charge, he said that Lee’s reply to Pickett’s suggestion that he attack the enemy—“Do it if you can”—was a most unusual one. As a commanding general himself, Eisenhower said, he would never give a subordinate so much leeway. Montgomery said he had good reason to know that was true. Later, Monty got started on all the things he did not know about America. He said he had never heard of Princeton, only Harvard and Yale. On the liner crossing the Atlantic, he recounted, he was introduced at the captain’s table to a man named Spencer Tracy. Monty had to ask Mr. Tracy what business he was in. After dinner, the men settled down to play bridge, all except Monty, who did not play cards and therefore had Mamie teach him to play Scrabble.39
The following morning, Montgomery asked Eisenhower about what it was like to be the President. “No man on earth knows what this job is all about,” Eisenhower replied. “It’s pound, pound, pound. Not only is your intellectual capacity taxed to the utmost, but your physical stamina.”40
The Eisenhowers returned to Augusta for Christmas and New Year’s. On this occasion there was an unusual tension in the air because Eisenhower had to wait out the French vote on German rearmament. He worried that he would have to return to Washington if the vote went badly. There was, therefore, great relief all around when on December 30 word arrived that the French Assembly had ratified the agreement.41
• •
Thus did Eisenhower’s second year in office end on a happy and successful note. French acceptance of his program for Germany had led to a stronger NATO, one of Eisenhower’s proudest achievements. There were many other victories to toast that New Year’s Eve. McCarthy had been censured. SEATO was functioning. Guatemala was secured. The budget was almost in balance. Defense spending was sharply down. Eisenhower’s popularity, according to the polls, was remarkably high—he had a 60 percent or higher approval rating. There had been setbacks, of course. The ones Eisenhower felt most strongly were the loss of North Vietnam, the failure to bring the Old Guard into the mainstream of moderate politics, and the election losses that turned control of the Congress over to the Democrats. There were also ongoing issues, fraught with danger, such as Quemoy and Matsu, the stability of South Vietnam, and of course all the domestic problems. But as Eisenhower looked back on 1953 and 1954, the deep sense of personal satisfaction he felt about his record was based upon, far and above all other considerations, his success in making and keeping peace.
Eisenhower had told Hagerty that his “one purpose” was “the job of keeping this world at peace.” At times it appeared that he was the only man who could do it. In mid-1953, most of his military, foreign policy, and domestic political advisers were opposed to accepting an armistice in place in Korea. But Eisenhower insisted on peace. Five times in 1954, virtually the entire NSC, JCS, and State Department recommended that he intervene in Asia, even using atomic bombs against China. First, in April, as the Dien Bien Phu situation grew critical. Second, in May, on the eve of the fall of Dien Bien Phu. Third, in late June, when the French said the Chinese Air Force was about to enter the Indochina conflict. Fourth, in September, when the Chinese began shelling Quemoy and Matsu. Fifth, in November, when the Chinese announced the prison terms for the American fliers.
Five times in one year the experts advised the President to launch an atomic strike against China. Five times he said no. He did so most dramatically in a news conference in late November, when he was asked about the possibilities of a preventive strike against the Chinese, in order to secure the release of the prisoners. Eisenhower took ten minutes to reply, in off-the-cuff remarks that were delivered with visible emotion. After giving a lengthy analysis of the prisoner problem, in which he tried to calm everyone down a bit, Eisenhower leaned forward and said he wanted “to talk a little bit personally.” He admitted that “a President experiences exactly the same resentments, the same anger, the same kind of sense of frustration almost, when things like this occur to other Americans, and his impulse is to lash out.” He said he knew that would be the “easy course” as well. The nation would be “united automatically.” It would close ranks behind the leader. The job would become a simple one—win the war. “There is a real fervor developed throughout the nation that you can feel everywhere you go. There is practically an exhilaration about the affair.” Eisenhower confessed that he was not immune to those feelings: “In the intellectual and spiritual contest of matching wits and getting along to see if you can win, there comes about something . . . an atmosphere is created . . . an attitude is created to which I am not totally unfamiliar.”
Five times in one year the experts had advised him to enjoy that experience once again. But Eisenhower had other memories too. He reminded the reporters of his own favorite line from Robert E. Lee: “It is well that war is so terrible; if it were not so, we would grow too fond of it.” He said he had personally experienced “the job of writing letters of condolence by the hundreds, by the thousands, to bereaved mothers and wives. That is a very sobering experience.” So he pleaded with the reporters, and through them to the people, to think things through before rushing off to act. Try to imagine the results, he said. “Don’t go to war in response to emotions of anger and resentment; do it prayerfully.”42
Five times in 1954 Eisenhower prayed over the question of war or peace. Each time, he made the decision to stay at peace.