EARLY IN THE EVENING of June 15, as Eisenhower was leaving the Oval Office to go upstairs for a cocktail, an aide rushed up to tell him that “fifty-three of the major cities of the United States had either been destroyed or so badly damaged that the populations were fleeing; there were uncounted dead; there was great fallout over the country.” Eisenhower decided that he had “no recourse except to take charge instantly.” Congress was in disarray. So were the state and city governments. Eisenhower declared martial law all across the nation.1
The “disaster” was part of Operation Alert, the most public in a series of exercises Eisenhower had ordered conducted. Eisenhower and his Cabinet made an annual evacuation practice, run to a secret site in the Carolina mountains. There were elaborate exercises, and Eisenhower insisted on not being told in advance when they would come or what the scenario would be, so as to make them more realistic. He hoped to uncover problems. In the case of Alert, he did. At his next press conference, on July 6, Anthony Leviero of The New York Times asked him, “I wonder if you would discuss the application of [martial law] and where the governors and other civil authorities would fit into the picture?” Eisenhower said there was no precedent, but then the scenario presented an unprecedented problem. He put Brownell to work on solving the legal aspects of declaring national martial law.2 Casualty estimates ran up to 60 or even 100 million. Eisenhower recalled the “chaos” during the Battle of the Bulge, when for a few hours Paris went into a panic and citizens tried to flee the city. Studying the results of the exercise, he declared, “I’m not convinced but what it is better to take money now spent on land forces and use it to build roads from the big cities.”3
• •
As Alert symbolized, it was an age in which Americans, including their President, lived on the high edge of tension. Every decade of the nuclear age has been full of tension, obviously, but the fifties felt it most. America’s leaders in that decade, including Eisenhower, had had Pearl Harbor burned into their souls, in a way that younger men, the leaders in the later decades of the Cold War, had not. And the men of the fifties, already superconscious of the danger of surprise attack, were the first to have to live with long-range bombers, and to know that ICBMs were being built, and Polaris submarines. Most frightening of all, the weapons these delivery systems carried were H-bombs, big enough, in Strauss’s words, “to take out a city. Any city.”
Eisenhower wanted to lessen, if he could not eliminate, the financial cost and the fear that were the price of the Pearl Harbor mentality. But he could not bring himself to respond to Russian, or any other, calls for nuclear disarmament. To him, security for America required building more bombs, because that was the only area in which America had a lead on the Soviet military machine. But building more bombs only increased the cost and raised the tension. Eisenhower searched for a way out of his dilemma.
The Russians, caught in a similar dilemma, helped in the search. In their latest offer, the Russians had said that they would accept on-site inspection teams, based at crossroads and other key control points. Such teams, the Russians said, could adequately monitor the movement of military units and hardware, and thus guarantee a general disarmament. Eisenhower rejected that specific idea, because of the American experience in Korea. Such fixed on-site teams behind the armistice line in Korea found that the Chinese merely diverted their traffic around the control points. But Eisenhower did not reject the spirit of the offer.
At the July 6 news conference, James Reston asked the President whether it was possible to detect the manufacture of nuclear weapons (Reston was voicing a general American suspicion that the Soviets would agree to disarmament, then make new bombs in hidden factories). Eisenhower said that no, there was no way to detect either bombs in storage or the manufacture of new ones. Then he announced a major policy shift: “There are lots of ways in which this thing can be approached . . . For example, let us take the delivery schemes. We know that when you get to long-range bombing you need very large machines and very large fields from which they take off. Now, those can be detected, and there are other ways of approaching it.” Martin Agronsky caught some of the significance of what Eisenhower had said, and immediately asked about guided missiles. How could they be spotted, since they “just need a launching platform.” Eisenhower replied, “I don’t believe that you could take an extensive guided-missile program and conceal it from any decent or effective system of inspection.”4
None of the reporters asked Eisenhower what kind of an inspection system he had in mind. If one had, Eisenhower would have responded with vague and confusing generalities, but nevertheless he did have a specific idea. It was one of his boldest. Eisenhower had almost decided to propose that the Soviets and the Americans open their airspace to each other, and to provide each other with airfields from which to operate continuous reconnaissance missions. That simple step, Eisenhower was coming to believe, might solve the disarmament dilemma. Eisenhower maintained that the United States could never launch a first strike, both because of American morality and because of the open nature of American society, which precluded secret mobilization. Thus the United States had nothing to lose and much to gain by opening its airspace to the Russians. If American pilots had the same rights over the Soviet Union, it would be impossible for the Russians to launch an undetected nuclear Pearl Harbor, or to otherwise secretly increase their military might.
The origins of Eisenhower’s idea is in dispute. Both Stassen and Nelson Rockefeller, who in December 1954 had become a Special Assistant to the President (taking C. D. Jackson’s old spot), later claimed that the idea had come to them, independently but almost simultaneously.5 The latter at least was true, because they got the idea from Eisenhower. In fact, it was not an original idea anyway. Eisenhower had used air reconnaissance extensively during the war, and was well aware of advances in cameras and photo interpretation techniques that had taken place since 1945. He had already tried various ways of flying over the Soviet Union, without success but without abandoning the project. Lockheed’s U-2 was coming along nicely, he was told, and would soon—perhaps within a year—be operational. Then would come satellites, which Eisenhower was told were only two or three years away. They too would be able to carry cameras and beam pictures back to earth. Technology was going to open the skies to spy cameras in any case; whether the Russians agreed or not, the United States was soon going to be taking high-altitude photographs of the Soviet Union. By offering unlimited inspection, Eisenhower was trying to use inevitable technological advances to reduce, rather than raise, tensions.
In late May, Eisenhower sent Stassen and Rockefeller to Quantico, Virginia, with instructions to work with a staff on the details of an air inspection system. By June 10, they had the report ready; Eisenhower read it and gave his tentative approval. He said he was not yet sure he was going to propose it at Geneva, that he wanted to wait and see how things went there. But, as noted above, he gave a clear hint at his July 6 news conference that he was going to make the offer at Geneva.6
An hour after that news conference, Eisenhower called Dulles on the telephone. He told the Secretary he wanted the State Department to set up two study groups to further refine the plans that Stassen and Rockefeller had developed. “We open up ours,” Eisenhower said, “they do likewise for us.” Dulles said that was going to be his suggestion. Eisenhower told him to get going on it.7
Hanging up the phone, Eisenhower turned to Wilson, Strauss, Radford, and Goodpaster, who had gathered for a conference. He had called them in to discuss the other side of the dilemma, keeping ahead of the Russians. They talked about the “dispersal of special weapons overseas.” Radford expressed his concern with the program, saying, “We should not tie our hands by dispersing too many weapons in areas from which we could not use them freely in case of attack.” Eisenhower replied that he nevertheless wanted it done, because dispersal would “limit the effects of surprise attack.”
Then the discussion turned to the ICBM. Wilson showed Eisenhower some charts on DOD programs for building such missiles. Goodpaster noted, “The President indicated he did not see how it would be possible efficiently to expend more funds and effort on the programs.” Eisenhower ended the meeting by telling Wilson that he wanted to be kept up to date on the ICBM development.8
• •
The following two weeks were taken up with preparations for Geneva. There were many practical arrangements that had to be made for the American delegation. Eisenhower was delighted that Mamie had agreed to fly over with him, only her second flight across the Atlantic; adding to his pleasure was the fact that his son, John, who had just completed the course at the Command and General Staff School and who thus had a one-month furlough, would also be along. Consequently he was more than usually concerned with the details of travel and living arrangements. He was also a bit snappish. When one hassle bothered him, he complained to Ann Whitman, “If I had had a staff like this during the war we would have lost it.”9
Another irritating part of the preparation was preserving a link with the Old Guard. The Republican senators were opposed to Eisenhower’s going to meet with the Russians. Styles Bridges warned that all international conferences contained seeds of “appeasement, compromise, and weakness.” On July 12, Eisenhower convened a bipartisan session of congressional leaders. He assured them that Geneva would not be another Yalta. Many of the leaders were still backing the Bricker Amendment; Eisenhower therefore assured them that he would not enter into any binding executive agreements, but would submit any decision to the Senate.10
Eisenhower also needed to prepare the Secretary of State. Dulles was not at all convinced that going to the summit was a good idea. He could not see what good could come out of it, but he could foresee one certain danger. Before the meeting, Dulles warned Eisenhower to maintain “an austere countenance” when being photographed with Bulganin. He pointed out that any pictures taken of the two leaders smiling “would be distributed throughout the Soviet satellite countries,” signifying “that all hope of liberation was lost and that resistance to Communist rule was henceforth hopeless.” In a more general sense, Dulles feared that any summit meeting would give a distorted idea of the possibilities for peaceful coexistence, and therefore the free world would lower its guard.11 Eisenhower admitted that was a danger, but he was willing to take the risk, because of the high hopes he had for his inspection proposal.
At a formal briefing by the State Department on July 11, four days before Eisenhower would fly to Geneva, the President read over Dulles’ draft of an opening statement. Eisenhower began his comments by praising it in general, but then added “he would like to take the words ‘Communism’ and ‘Soviet’ out of it . . . to avoid ‘polarization of thought’ between Washington and the Kremlin.” Then Eisenhower commented on a draft Dulles had given him for his eve-of-departure statement on national TV and radio. Eisenhower said he did not want a written speech, that he had a thought he wished to develop and only wanted some key words on cards. Eisenhower explained what he had in mind to say to the American people. It was in large part a propaganda exercise. Eisenhower said that he was “greatly disturbed” by the success Russian propaganda had enjoyed in convincing millions around the world that Americans were “a militaristic and materialistic people.” The truth was, Eisenhower asserted, that “there is no more peaceful nation in the world, we are almost pacifistic.” He wanted, therefore, to “both dramatize the need for peace and give each American the feeling of participation.” He also wanted to prove to the world that Americans were deeply religious. He therefore proposed that he appeal to the American people—all 165 million of them—to go to church on Sunday to pray for peace.
Dulles immediately objected. He thought it would raise hopes too high, and that it would look like an “artificially stimulated demonstration.” Eisenhower said he was going to do it anyway.12
Meanwhile Stassen and Rockefeller, especially Rockefeller, were becoming pests. They were insisting on joining the delegation. So was Radford. Eisenhower was not sure he wanted them—this was the State Department’s show. Dulles was already having trouble with both Stassen and Rockefeller, Stassen because he wanted to be the one in sole charge of disarmament policy, independent of the State Department, and Rockefeller because he was supposed to be a man supplying ideas, not the head of a large, functioning staff. But Rockefeller had been building up just such a staff, to Dulles’ great irritation; Dulles showed Eisenhower a Rockefeller memorandum on his staff and the President “expressed his surprise at the size and complexity of the proposed staff.” Eisenhower decided to send Stassen, Rockefeller, and Radford to Paris, where they could be available to him if he wanted them, but out of his way in Geneva.13
At 8:15 P.M. on July 15, just an hour or less before he was scheduled to fly across the Atlantic, Eisenhower went on national TV and radio. In his speech, delivered without notes, he turned away from propaganda themes or denunciations of the Russians, did not make specific demands, and held forth no specific objectives. Instead he spoke of a purpose so high, so unobjectionable, and so vague that it was almost a sure thing that he would achieve it. Eisenhower said he hoped to “change the spirit” of Russian-American relations. He repeated the word “spirit” three times in his talk, growing quite carried away with himself: “I say to you, if we can change the spirit in which these conferences are conducted we will have taken the greatest step toward peace, toward future prosperity and tranquillity that has ever been taken in the history of mankind.” Dulles groaned at such overblown language, and groaned again when Eisenhower devoted the second half of his talk to encouraging every American to go to church Sunday to pray for peace.14
Eisenhower flew to Geneva full of curiosity about the new Russian leaders. He had met Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov in Moscow in the summer of 1945, and he had always felt a special tie with Zhukov, who had fallen into such disfavor with Stalin that Eisenhower had at one time thought him dead. He was anxious to see Zhukov again, find out what had happened, explore the possibility of reestablishing the working partnership the two of them had created in Germany after the war, and find out if Zhukov, as Defense Minister, had become a real leader in the post-Stalin government, or was only window dressing. Eisenhower had not met either Bulganin, chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party. He had seen CIA studies on them, as well as estimates of who was really in charge, but none of it was conclusive. Eisenhower could hardly believe that four strong-willed Russian Communists were genuinely sharing power, so he set as one of his objectives at Geneva discovering who the real boss was. To that end, he set John to work. Eisenhower recalled that John had been a big hit with Zhukov during the 1945 trip to Moscow, and asked John to stick by Marshal Zhukov’s side throughout the conference. Zhukov just might, Eisenhower said, drop something around John that he might otherwise withhold.15
Eisenhower’s natural curiosity was reinforced by his practical need to know. If Zhukov, for example, was really in charge of defense policy, Eisenhower felt certain he could get a positive response to his inspection proposal. During the opening rounds of cocktail parties, Eisenhower devoted himself exclusively to the Russians, much to the dismay of Eden and Dulles. At one party, Eisenhower, John, and Zhukov were together in the garden and Zhukov remarked that his daughter was getting married that day but that he had passed up the ceremony to see his “old friend.” Eisenhower turned to an aide and had some presents brought out, including a portable radio. Zhukov, visibly embarrassed, said softly that “there are things [in Russia] that are not as they seem.” To both Eisenhowers, Zhukov seemed only a shell of himself, a broken man, almost pathetic. Father and son recalled the “cocky little rooster” they had known at the end of the war; now Zhukov spoke “in a low monotone, . . . as if he was repeating a lesson that had been drilled into him . . . He was devoid of animation, and he never smiled or joked, as he used to do.” The President noted a feeling of “sadness” and thereafter dismissed Zhukov from his mind. Whoever was in charge, it certainly was not Zhukov.16
At dinner that evening, Eisenhower sat with Khrushchev, Bulganin, and Molotov. He appealed to their reason. “It is essential,” Eisenhower declared in a loud voice, “that we find some way of controlling the threat of the thermonuclear bomb. You know we both have enough weapons to wipe out the entire northern hemisphere from fall-out alone. No spot would escape the fall-out from an exchange of nuclear stockpiles.” The Russians nodded their vigorous agreement.17
Eisenhower did a masterful job of stage-managing his inspection proposal. On July 18, in his opening statement, he took an extremely tough line, one that indeed seemed intransigent and certainly was not a part of the “spirit of Geneva” he had been promoting. Eisenhower said the first issue the conference should discuss was “the problem of unifying Germany and forming an all-German government based on free elections.” Beyond that, “We insist a united Germany is entitled at its choice, to exercise its inherent right of collective self-defense.” In other words, the reunified Germany would be a full partner in NATO. Next, Eisenhower wanted to discuss East Europe and the failure to implement the Yalta promises. Then there was “the problem of international Communism.” Stirring up revolutions around the world was something the United States “cannot ignore.” Eisenhower knew that the chances of getting a Soviet response on any of these demands was zero.
Having established his most extreme position, Eisenhower then began listing items for the agenda that held some hope of fruitful discussion. One was the Atoms for Peace proposal, which was still alive (barely) and which Eisenhower still wanted the Russians to join. Another was the need for more cultural exchanges between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. “Finally,” Eisenhower concluded, “there is the overriding problem of armament.” He spoke of the fear both sides felt about a surprise attack. “Perhaps, therefore, we should consider whether the problem of limitation of armament may not best be approached by seeking—as a first step—dependable ways to supervise and inspect military establishments, so that there can be no frightful surprises.” Eisenhower called on the Russians to join him in exploring ways of achieving “effective mutual inspection,” which would be “the foundation for real disarmament.”18
The Soviets made no response to the inspection suggestions. Over the next two days, the discussions were generally acrimonious and never profitable. The Russians concentrated on denouncing Eisenhower’s position on Germany. Eisenhower asked Khrushchev why the Russians feared free elections in Germany. Because, Khrushchev replied, “The German people have not yet had time to be educated in the great advantage of Communism!” Eisenhower smugly noted that the West was willing to abide by the results of an all-German election (he did not note that the United States was unwilling to do so in Vietnam). The Russians pushed for a disarmed and neutral Germany, which Eisenhower flatly rejected. Bulganin told Eisenhower that the rearming of West Germany and her inclusion in NATO had made reunification impossible. He refused to allow Eisenhower to interfere in Soviet “internal affairs,” meaning he would not discuss the satellite countries. He did respond favorably to the idea of cultural exchanges and said Russia would later contribute to an Atoms for Peace pool. Bulganin also picked up on a suggestion Eden had made in his opening remarks, a demilitarized area along Central Europe. Bulganin said he was ready to propose that all foreign troops be taken out of Europe.19 Although Bulganin did most of the talking, he seemed to consult with his partners in a sincere way before speaking, and Eisenhower found it impossible to tell who was really in charge.
Each side did go to great lengths to assure the other that it was aware of how horrible a nuclear war would be. Eisenhower acknowledged that there could be no specific and immediate progress toward settling issues, but just the fact that they were talking together gave hope. After ten years of Cold War rhetoric, much of it greatly overblown, the leaders needed reassurance that they were indeed all reasonable men. In effect, and without ever saying so to each other, much less to the public, they agreed to a stalemate in Germany. By itself, that was a big step toward reducing tensions.
But Eisenhower wanted more than stalemate; he wanted to reduce costs as well as tensions. Serious disarmament was too much to hope for, but a freeze might be possible, and more important, his inspection proposal might extend the spirit of Geneva over to military problems. On the third day of the conference, Eisenhower called Stassen and Rockefeller to Geneva—they had been pleading with him by telegram to be allowed to come—and with them went over the proposal one last time.
On July 21, at the Palais des Nations, speaking from some note cards, Eisenhower finally made explicit what he had been hinting at for a month. After reviewing the difficulties of achieving agreement on disarmament, Eisenhower said, “I have been searching my heart and mind for something that I could say here that could convince everyone of the great sincerity of the United States in approaching this problem of disarmament.” Turning to look directly at the Soviet delegation, he said he wanted to speak principally to them. He thereupon proposed “to give to each other a complete blueprint of our military establishments, from beginning to end, from one end of our countries to the other.” Next, “to provide within our countries facilities for aerial photography to the other country.” The Americans would make airfields and other facilities available to the Russians, and allow them to fly wherever they wished. The Russians would provide identical facilities for the United States.20
When Eisenhower finished, there was a tremendous clap of thunder, and all the lights went out. When he recovered from his surprise, Eisenhower laughed and said, “Well, I expected to make a hit but not that much of one.” More than twenty years later Vernon Walters, Eisenhower’s translator, said that “to this day, I am told, the Russians are still trying to figure out how we did it.”21
The French and British expressed their hearty approval of the idea. Bulganin spoke last. The proposal, he said, seemed to have real merit. The Soviet delegation would give it complete and sympathetic study at once. But when the session ended, Khrushchev walked beside Eisenhower on the way to cocktails. Although he was smiling, he said, “I don’t agree with the chairman.” Eisenhower could hear “no smile in his voice.” Eisenhower realized immediately that Khrushchev was the man in charge. “From that moment,” he recalled, “I wasted no more time probing Mr. Bulganin.” Instead, he stayed after Khrushchev, arguing the merits of what was being called Open Skies. Khrushchev said the idea was nothing more than a bald espionage plot against the Soviet Union.22
Why Khrushchev reacted so adversely is a puzzle. Eisenhower made the offer sincerely, and he emphasized that it would be “only a beginning.” The President could not see what the Russians had to lose. Overflights, the Russians surely knew, were inevitable within two or three years anyway. How Open Skies would have worked out, no one knows, although the difficulties were surely huge; imagine, for example, the problems involved in having a Soviet air base in the middle of the Great Plains, or in New England, not to mention those of the exchange of military blueprints. But no one knows because Open Skies never was tried. Khrushchev had killed it within minutes of its birth.
Disappointed though he was by Khrushchev’s quick rejection, which Eisenhower correctly decided was authoritative, Eisenhower nevertheless continued to build the spirit of Geneva. The next day, July 22, he made his presentation on the need for more trade between the U.S.S.R. and the United States, as well as a “free and friendly exchange of ideas and of people.” And his parting words, at the last session of July 23, were: “In this final hour of our assembly, it is my judgment that the prospects of a lasting peace with justice, well-being, and broader freedom, are brighter. The dangers of the overwhelming tragedy of modern war are less.” He was specific about what he had learned and accomplished: “I came to Geneva because I believe mankind longs for freedom from war and rumors of war. I came here because of my lasting faith in the decent instincts and good sense of the people who populate this world of ours. I shall return home tonight with these convictions unshaken . . .”23
That final statement, coupled with Eisenhower’s proposals, was what made Geneva a dramatic moment in the Cold War. For the five years before Geneva, there were war scares on an almost monthly basis, with major wars going on in Korea and Indochina. For the five years after Geneva, war scares were relatively rare, except at Suez in 1956, and no major wars were fought. The leaders of the two sides had met and agreed among themselves that they were indeed two scorpions in a bottle. Bulganin’s parting words to Eisenhower were “Things are going to be better; they are going to come out right.”24
After his return to the United States, Eisenhower told congressional leaders about some of the things he had learned. Khrushchev, he said, was “the boss,” but both Khrushchev and Bulganin were “amateurs in diplomacy. In conference, they wait for some lead from Molotov, the old hand. Informally, at luncheons or cocktails, they ignore Molotov.” Warning the congressmen to “not let this out of this room,” he reported that Khrushchev and Bulganin “want to come visit America. They would come fast. They want to be more in the public eye.” Zhukov, he said, was just “window dressing. He’s in because they think he constitutes a bridge to us. That’s proof to me they want to be a little closer to the United States.”25
Eisenhower was surprised to learn that the Soviet leaders, although dictators, had internal problems. Time and again, he said, they told him, “We can’t go home with that statement or agreement.” He was almost done in by their argument that the Cominform was “very weak,” that they were not supporting international Communism, and that they cited as “proof” the “great weakness of the Communist Party in the U.S.A.” Eisenhower’s comment was “Such logic!”
On the positive side, Eisenhower reported that there “was no question but that they understand the scope of modern war.” He told them, “Let us remember this, the world’s winds go east and west, not north and south. If there is a war, both of us will be destroyed. Only the southern hemisphere would be left.” The Russians said yes, that was correct. They really did want a new start, he said, and so did he. Eisenhower reported that his own first reaction to Bulganin’s request for a visit to the United States was to say, “Good, come on over.” But Dulles “thought I had been impulsive enough,” so he only told Bulganin the United States would study the proposal.26
On July 25, a day after returning from Geneva, Eisenhower went on national TV and radio to report to the American people. In Geneva, he had spoken to the world. In Washington, he had to speak to the Old Guard. He declared, “I can assure you of one thing: There were no secret agreements made, either understood agreements or written ones. Everything is put before you on the record.” He assured his audience that he had “specifically brought up, more than once, American convictions . . . about the satellites of Eastern Europe and the activities of international Communism.” He admitted that there had been no progress on the German question. He briefly explained Open Skies—which had had a tremendous reception in the U.S.—but tended to downplay it, concentrating instead on the real achievements in the field of cultural exchange.
Having reassured his audience that Geneva was no Yalta, Eisenhower then turned to the real result of the conference. “Each side assured the other earnestly and often,” he said, “that it intended to pursue a new spirit of conciliation and cooperation in its contacts with the other.”27 As Dulles had warned would be the case, nothing had been settled at Geneva. But as Eisenhower had determined would be the case, Geneva produced an intangible but real spirit that was felt and appreciated around the world. The year following Geneva was the calmest of the first two decades of the Cold War.
• •
But Geneva had failed to slow, much less halt, the arms race. Two weeks after the conference, the Russians began a series of H-bomb tests. None were as large as Bravo, but they were between two and four megatons. What was worrisome to the Americans was the fact that the Russians had dropped their bombs from airplanes, rather than firing them from a tower as the Americans did. Further, the Pentagon feared that the Soviets had perfected nuclear warheads for future ballistic missiles. After completing their tests, the Russians began advocating a test ban, a cry that was taken up around the world as the fallout from the Russian explosions began to be measured. But with the Russians in the lead in H-bomb technology, Eisenhower would never agree to a test ban.28
Eisenhower also wanted to improve and expand the American delivery system. “The earliest development of ICBM capability is of vital importance to the security of the United States,” he told the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, Clinton Anderson. “The Soviets may well have begun top-priority work on this weapon shortly after World War II.” Eisenhower said that the ICBM had been neglected by the Truman Administration, but asserted that “excellent work has been done during the past two years.” He further assured Anderson that “we are moving forward on this project without tolerating any of the delays which may attend normal peacetime development or procurement programs.”29
And so the arms race went on, despite the spirit of Geneva.
• •
In late August, the Eisenhowers flew to Denver for their summer vacation. The fishing was the best Eisenhower could remember. He enjoyed cooking the trout for his gang and the press corps. The weather for golf at Cherry Hills, Eisenhower’s favorite course, was perfect. Lowry Air Force Base in Denver provided him with a complete communications hookup, and an office where he could work a couple of hours a day.
Eisenhower used his vacation to do some thinking and talking about the 1956 presidential election. His friends told him that they would feel he was letting them down if he retired. He resented their pressure, and insisted that he had given them no reason to think he would run again, so he could not be guilty of letting them down. He told Milton that he wanted to “retain as long as possible a position of flexibility,” but barring some unforeseen crisis, he would not run again.30
He had his health to think about. He was not at all sure he could or should take the mental pounding for another four years. He had another worry. Churchill had not been at Geneva. Eisenhower had found it strange to be at an international meeting without him, but he also knew from his own dealings with Churchill before the old man finally retired that Churchill had held on to power far too long. What worried Eisenhower was, as he told Swede, “Normally the last person to recognize that a man’s mental faculties are fading is the victim himself.” Eisenhower said, “I have seen many a man ‘hang on too long’ under the definite impression that he had a great duty to perform and that no one else could adequately fill his particular position.” Eisenhower feared that this might happen to him, because “the more important and demanding the position, the greater the danger in this regard.”31
On September 12, Eisenhower wrote Milton. “It never occurred to me that enthusiasm for the cause is necessarily an indication that I am visualizing myself, indefinitely, as the leader of the cause.” Then Eisenhower seemed to have a premonition. “I think that if I thought the end of my days would come even before I returned to Washington,” he said, “I would probably be even more emphatic and insistent in supporting the things in which I believe than I am under the mere normal uncertainties of life.”32