EISENHOWER SPENT September 19 to 23 at Aksel Nielsen’s ranch at Fraser, Colorado. On the morning of the twenty-third, he was up at 5 A.M. to cook breakfast for George Allen, Nielsen, and two guests. He skipped the wheat cakes and made only bacon and eggs. At 6:45 they left Fraser and drove to Denver. Eisenhower went to his office at Lowry; Ann Whitman later wrote in her diary that “I have never seen him look or act better.” He was in a good mood, went through his work cheerfully, read a letter from Milton and handed it to Whitman, saying, “See what a wonderful brother I have.” About 11 A.M. he and Allen drove out to Cherry Hills and began to play. Twice Eisenhower had to return to the clubhouse for phone calls from Dulles, only to be told that there was difficulty on the lines. He had a hamburger with slices of Bermuda onion for lunch and returned to the course. Again he was called to the clubhouse to talk to Dulles, there to be told that it was a mistake. He was scoring badly, his stomach was upset, his temper flaring. Giving up on golf, he and Allen drove to Mamie’s mother’s home, where they were spending the evening. Eisenhower and Allen shot some billiards before dinner, declining a cocktail. At 10 P.M., Eisenhower went to bed.1
About 1:30 A.M. Eisenhower woke with a severe chest pain. “It hurt like hell,” he later confessed, but he did not want to alarm Mamie.2 Nevertheless his stirring about woke her. She asked if he wanted anything. Thinking of his indigestion the previous afternoon, Eisenhower asked for some milk of magnesia. From the tone of his voice, she knew there was something seriously wrong. Mamie called Dr. Snyder, who arrived at the bedside about 2 A.M. Noting that the patient was suffering with pain in the chest area, Snyder broke a pearl of amyl nitrite and gave it to Eisenhower to sniff while he prepared a hypodermic of one grain of papaverine and immediately thereafter one-fourth grain of morphine sulphate. He then told Mamie to get back into bed with her husband and keep him warm. Forty-five minutes later, Snyder gave Eisenhower another one-fourth grain of morphine to control the symptoms.3
Eisenhower slept until noon. When he woke, he was still groggy, had not shaken off the effects of the morphine, did not know what had happened to him. But his first thoughts were of his responsibilities. He told Snyder to tell Whitman to call Brownell “for an opinion as to how he could delegate authority.”4 Snyder insisted on taking an electrocardiogram first; it located the site of the lesion in the anterior wall of the heart. Eisenhower had suffered a coronary thrombosis. Snyder decided to transfer him to a hospital immediately. As the stairs were too narrow for a stretcher, and as Snyder thought it better for both physical and morale factors for the President to walk, Eisenhower walked, heavily supported, to the car for the drive to Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Denver. Before leaving his bedroom, and once again in the car with Snyder, Eisenhower asked about his wallet, about which he was terribly concerned. He asked Mamie several times about it. She assured him she had brought it along.5
In the hospital, Eisenhower was put into an oxygen tent. Snyder continued his medication, discontinuing morphine after the second day. John flew down from Fort Belvoir. Arriving at Fitzsimons, he conferred with Mamie, who was being tough, strong, and confident. Then he went to see his father. “You know,” Eisenhower said after their greeting, “these are things that always happen to other people; you never think of them happening to you.” Then he asked John to hand him his wallet. He explained that he had won a bet from George Allen and wanted to give the money to Barbara. John withdrew to let his father rest; Hagerty told him in the corridor that the heart attack was moderate, “not severe but not slight either.”6
Whitman, meanwhile, had called all the gang. The members were worried about Snyder, wondered if he was up to the challenge, exchanged among themselves their fears about leaving Eisenhower in the hands of Army doctors. They agreed to force Snyder to accept some outside civilian help. Bill Robinson took the lead, arranging for the famous heart specialist Dr. Paul Dudley White of Boston to come to Fitzsimons.7 Robinson was upset two days later when White announced that he had examined all the medical evidence and was satisfied that the treatment had been appropriate and that the patient was making satisfactory progress, then flew back to Boston.
By the end of the second day, Eisenhower was resting comfortably, feeling well, beginning to talk about getting back to work. Mamie was living on the eighth floor of the hospital with him, doing her best to cope with the shock and find some therapy for herself (she lost ten pounds during the first two weeks) to keep her busy. She decided to answer, by hand, each of the thousands of letters and cards that were coming in from all over the country. John confessed, “I thought she was out of her mind,” but he later saw the wisdom of her finding something for herself to do. And she actually completed the task.8
Eisenhower, meanwhile, was already making decisions. Not until the second day did Snyder tell him he had had a heart attack. Eisenhower then went into conference with Hagerty and Snyder. Hagerty wanted to know how much information about the illness the President wanted given to the public. Eisenhower’s mind went back to 1919. In that year President Wilson had had a stroke. He had been kept in bed in the White House; the public had not been informed of his condition. Eisenhower thought that the public had a right to know the status of the President’s health, so he told Hagerty, “Tell the truth, the whole truth; don’t try to conceal anything.”
Eisenhower also recalled that in 1920 Mrs. Wilson had been furious when Secretary of State Lansing called Cabinet meetings without President Wilson’s knowledge, and persuaded her husband to fire Lansing. To make certain there was no repetition, Eisenhower had Hagerty send a message to the effect that all regular meetings of the NSC and the Cabinet would be held, under the chairmanship of the Vice-President.9
• •
The President’s heart attack inevitably put a great strain on the relations among the members of the Administration. In the first couple of weeks of Eisenhower’s recuperation, no one knew whether or not he would be able to resume his place as President at any time, much less in the near future. There was a general and widespread assumption that whatever else it meant, the heart attack precluded a second term. Thus any jockeying for power in September 1955 was over not just the next year but the next five years.
Nixon was in the most difficult position. Almost anything he did would be wrong. If he shrank from seizing power, he would look uncertain and unprepared; if he attempted to seize power, he would look ruthless and uncaring. But he managed to find a narrow middle ground, helped in no small part by Eisenhower’s early insistence that Cabinet and NSC meetings go forward as scheduled, with Nixon in the chair. On September 29, Nixon met with the NSC, the next day with the Cabinet. He issued a press release which emphasized that “the subjects on the agenda for these meetings were of a normal routine nature.” He also called in photographers to observe the harmony among Eisenhower’s “family” and to record how the teamwork was so effective that the government was functioning “as usual.”10
Despite the appearance of unity in the Administration, an intense behind-the-scenes struggle for power was going on. Dulles, not Nixon, was the leading figure at the meetings, and Dulles insisted on sending Sherman Adams to Denver to be at the President’s side to handle all liaison activities. Nixon questioned this arrangement, indicating that he thought Adams ought to stay in Washington while he, Nixon, went to Denver. But Dulles prevailed. Dulles also stressed that there would be no further delegation of powers by the President.11
The best reporters in Washington, however, could hardly miss the real story. James Reston had already reported, on September 26, that the Eisenhower Republicans were anxious to keep control in the hands of Sherman Adams and away from Nixon, because they were not going to hand over the party to Nixon, and with it the 1956 nomination.12 Dulles, Humphrey, Adams, Hagerty, and the others felt that Nixon would allow the right wing to dominate the party, and that he would lose to Stevenson (a Gallup Poll in October showed Nixon losing to Stevenson while Warren came out ahead in a race with Stevenson). Richard Rovere observed, in The New Yorker, that Adams “regards himself as the President’s appointed caretaker and is doing everything he can to cut Mr. Nixon down to size.” Nixon, meanwhile, received a telegram from Styles Bridges, which advised, “You are the constitutional second-in-command and you ought to assume the leadership. Don’t let the White House clique take command.”13
• •
As the power struggle progressed, Eisenhower was having a smooth convalescence. His color, his appetite, his energy, and his general demeanor all improved rapidly. He rather enjoyed his enforced rest. His doctors decided to keep the newspapers from him, but after the first few days allowed Whitman and Hagerty to bring him news and answer questions. The timing of the heart attack was fortunate in the extreme; if it had come at any time during the series of war scares of 1954 and 1955, when Eisenhower’s firm hand was crucial to keeping the peace, there is no way of knowing what might have happened. (Eisenhower agreed with Hagerty’s analysis that if Knowland had been President, the U.S. would have gone to war many times in the last two years.14) But the world scene was quiet in the fall of 1955, thanks in large part to the spirit of Geneva, and during the crisis over the President’s illness the Russians stayed discreetly silent and in the background. Had it come later, when the 1956 campaign was already under way, Eisenhower would not have had time to recuperate or think through his options, and Nixon would have had the nomination by default. Eisenhower was also lucky in that the attack came when Congress was not in session, so there were no bills for him to sign or veto. If there ever was a time when the United States in the Cold War could get by without a functioning President for a few weeks, it was the fall of 1955.
So Eisenhower was free to rest and recuperate, and—like most patients—get involved in the daily routine of the hospital. He got to know the nurses. As they assisted at his electrocardiograms, or administered his medication, or brought in his meals, he would chat with them. Typically, he wanted to know where they were from, something about their families, and about their jobs. They were only too anxious to talk about the jobs. He discovered that they had many legitimate complaints, so when he was able, he wrote their ultimate boss, Army Chief of Staff Maxwell Taylor (who had recently replaced Ridgway; Eisenhower had also gotten rid of Carney in the Navy). Eisenhower told Taylor that he was shocked by the working conditions of the Army Nurse Corps. In a four page, single-spaced letter, the President was quite specific about the nurses’ situation. Their quarters were substandard. Promotions were slow, slower than in any other branch of the Army. The Army Nurse Corps had only one colonel, when it deserved at least three. The nurses were moved around every year, overseas every other year. They were required to retire at fifty-five, even if they were only a year or two short of their required twenty years. Eisenhower told Taylor that such a policy “assumes that every woman of fifty-five is decrepit, something which I don’t for a moment believe.” Eisenhower told Taylor to correct all these conditions, and in general to give the nurses “the feeling that they are needed, respected, and appreciated.” Taylor did as told; soon the ANC had a general and three colonels, and other improvements were made.15
Eisenhower’s concern for the nurses was a good sign. So was his request for an easel, paint, and canvas. So was his willingness to joke with the doctors. One morning, about five days after the attack, four of them came into his room and earnestly advised him to avoid tobacco. Eisenhower listened “politely and attentively.” All of the doctors were smoking. Eisenhower grinned at them and remarked that he had not used tobacco for more than six years, and asked why he should be in bed with a heart attack while they were up and working, apparently suffering no ill effects from their cigarettes.16
On September 30, following the Cabinet meeting, Adams flew to Denver. The next day, Eisenhower conferred with him. Eisenhower directed that the normal routine of government should continue, but that when decisions had to be made, the NSC and the Cabinet should make recommendations, then bring the matter to Denver for Eisenhower’s personal consideration. Eisenhower also ordered that the “proper channel” for submitting such matters was through Persons in the White House, to Adams in Denver, and then to the President. On October 8, two weeks after the attack, Eisenhower called Nixon to Denver. Eisenhower told Nixon how much he appreciated all that he had done, and asked him to arrange, through Adams, for the members of the Cabinet to fly to Denver, one at a time, for consultation.17 He also handed Nixon a letter. The Foreign Ministers were about to meet in Geneva to follow up on the summit meeting. Eisenhower wanted to make certain that everyone understood Dulles spoke for him. Therefore, in his letter to Nixon, he told the Vice-President that Dulles had “my complete confidence.” He also warned Nixon against making any anti-Communist attacks while the meetings were going on. Returning to Dulles, Eisenhower told Nixon, “He must be the one who both at the conference table and before the world speaks for me with authority for our country.”18 For Nixon, all the pointed references to Dulles’ authority must have been painful in the extreme, but he suppressed whatever emotion he felt and did as he was told.
On October 11, Dulles himself flew to Denver. The doctors warned him not to talk to Eisenhower as if he were a helpless invalid; Eisenhower himself cut short expressions of good cheer and told Dulles to get down to work.19 Dulles nevertheless began by congratulating Eisenhower on his magnificent achievement in building a team that was “so harmonious, so imbued with principles . . . that we were able to carry on the business of government effectively without serious interruption.” He cited Wilson as an example of an incapacitated President who had failed to build such a team, so that when Wilson was stricken, “the situation fell into disarray.” Eisenhower thanked him for the compliment, saying how pleased he was that matters were going so well, because he had long been an opponent of “one-man” government.
Then they got down to details. Dulles handed Eisenhower a draft of a reply to a recent letter from Bulganin on the subject of Open Skies. After praising the draft, which was general and noncommittal, Eisenhower pointed out that Dulles had failed to repeat something that Eisenhower had told Bulganin in Geneva, namely that the United States would also be willing to accept the Russian proposal for on-site inspection teams within each country. Dulles had the letter rewritten and Eisenhower signed it that afternoon. Next Dulles expressed his alarm over a recent Soviet arms deal with Egypt, and showed Eisenhower another draft of a separate letter to Bulganin, telling Bulganin that the United States was disturbed by the implications of the deal. Eisenhower approved and signed it. (His signature was still shaky, but legible.) Dulles said that at the coming Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Geneva, he intended to continue to insist on Germany’s right to unity, Germany’s right to arm itself, and Germany’s right to enter NATO. Eisenhower agreed that that was the right line to take. On disarmament itself, Dulles said the subject was so complex he wanted to take it up later with the President. They then agreed on trying to establish commercial air flights between the U.S.S.R. and the United States. Dulles assured the President that he intended to meet with congressional leaders before departing for Geneva.
After discussing some ambassadorial appointments, the two men talked about the political future within the U.S. Eisenhower said he “had tried very hard to introduce new and solid principles and his great concern was lest his illness should interfere with this effort before there was full understanding and acceptance of these principles by the American people.” Descending from the level of principle to practical politics, Eisenhower then expressed the hope that “a successor to him should be found within the inner circle of his Administration,” a successor who could hold together the team that he, Eisenhower, had built and of which he was “so very proud.” Eisenhower thought that such a man should be relatively young, preferably in his forties. But he was not sure “that he could see around him a person who had the desired youth and vigor, and who at the same time was respected by the country as having maturity of judgment.” Like Eisenhower, Dulles never mentioned Nixon directly in his reply. He did say he thought that “maturity of judgment” was “almost too much to expect of any one in his forties.” In any event, Dulles said, “it was much too early to be worrying about these matters now.”
The conference lasted twenty-five minutes. Throughout, Dulles noted, Eisenhower “seemed cheerful and alert and to be enjoying renewed contact with matters in which he was so interested.” On the memorandum he wrote about the conversation, Dulles scribbled by hand, “One copy to Gov. Adams—no other distribution. JFD.” In short, no copy to Nixon.20
The following day, October 12, Milton Eisenhower paid a visit. Like many heart-attack victims, Eisenhower found that his thoughts were turning from the immediate future, the kind of issues he had discussed with Dulles, to the long-range future. In Eisenhower’s case, he was concerned about soil and water conservation, and with his stewardship of the public lands and waterways. There “are things that must be done,” he told Milton, such as flood control, drainage, enrichment of the soil, and so on. He knew that programs of this type would cost a great deal of money and take a long time, so he wanted to get started in the summer of 1956 so as to insure “a soil in our country that was permanent and lasting and could be turned over to coming generations as an enriched soil rather than a depleted soil.”21
Eisenhower did not consider this a subject suited only to idle hospital-room conversation. When Benson came to see him, on October 29, Eisenhower returned again and again to it. He told Benson, “We are as much trustees of the soil and water for future generations as we are trustees of the liberties we are trying to pass on.” He said he was thinking of a half-billion-dollar program, which he wanted to call a Soil Bank. The basic idea was an old one that had been a central feature of the New Deal’s agricultural policy, to take marginal land out of production by paying the farmers to leave it idle. That would not only save and build the soil, but would also reduce surplus in basic commodities, thereby raising prices and bringing the farmers out of depression. With regard to the current surplus, Eisenhower wanted Benson to do what he could to get congressional legislation that would allow the United States to sell wheat to the Russians. Eisenhower pointed out that “some day the world was going to be out of exhaustible resources.” Currently, however, the Russians had metals for sale. Eisenhower said that so far as he was concerned, “there was no indestructible metal in the world he would not trade perishable items for.”22 Later, Eisenhower told Adams that he wanted to have the government begin acquiring the marginal land, especially in the Great Plains, that had been homesteaded in the nineteenth century. That land should be taken out of wheat, Eisenhower said, and returned to grass or forest. Adams protested that the Old Guard would be strongly against any such purchases by the government. Eisenhower said he knew that was so, but pointed out that “when you do buy up such marginal land, you protect yourself against improper use of such land.” He added that the government had to “protect the soil of America just as we want to protect our freedom of speech, right to worship, etc. We must pass on a heritage of rich land for the Americans we hope will be here five hundred years hence.”23
Having the government buy back land it had given away three-quarters of a century ago was an idea Eisenhower could not sell, even to his own Cabinet. Benson was opposed to adding to the public lands. Humphrey, later, expressed his strong disapproval. The Secretary of the Treasury thought it was “just giving away money.” But Benson was willing to get behind the Soil Bank, and arranged with Eisenhower to make it one of the Administration’s major legislative goals for 1956.24
• •
When Wilson came for his visit, the President was sharp with him. Wilson reported that the JCS said they were “bleeding,” that Eisenhower’s demand that the armed services be cut to 2.8 million would leave America virtually defenseless. Eisenhower said he wanted reductions, that Wilson should get on it, that the President could not be expected to decide where each little cut could be made. Eisenhower told Wilson to “get tough.”25
In his six weeks in the hospital, Eisenhower saw sixty-six official visitors. The work was clearly good for him, even dealing with Wilson. He felt fine. He was an obedient patient, never overtaxing himself. He brought most conferences around to long-range goals, not long range from a politician’s perspective (four years) but long range from the perspective of a steward. He would not discuss, and his visitors dared not bring up, his immediate plans about 1956. Eisenhower would not waste his time thinking about something he could not control. His fate was controlled by the doctors, and until they told him what his chances for a full recovery were, he could not make a decision. On October 26, he told Whitman that in mid-February the doctors would “take all sorts of tests—and can then predict to a certainty how much of my previous activity I can renew. For myself,” he mused, “I don’t care, I have had a pretty good life.”26
When he did turn his mind from his stewardship role, he enjoyed thinking about his own retirement. After his meetings with the various Cabinet officers, Eisenhower wanted to see some of his own gang. He asked especially for Slater. On November 3, Slater flew to Denver. When he arrived at Fitzsimons the following day, he found Eisenhower in Mamie’s room helping her balance her checkbook. The President showed him a portrait he was doing from a photograph of his grandson, David. Eisenhower wanted to talk about his retirement. They conversed at length about Angus cattle, about Eisenhower’s plans for the Gettysburg farm. Eisenhower said he wanted to plow as much money as he could into the farm now, while he was in a high tax bracket. He was concerned about improving the soil at Gettysburg, so he was irritated with Art Nevins, who ran the farm for him. Nevins had grown “government subsidized wheat” rather than getting a new pasture started.27
On October 25, Eisenhower went for his first walk since entering the hospital. By November 5, the doctors were ready to release him, but said that he would have to be taken to and from the airplane in a wheelchair. When he asked how long it would be before he could walk to and from the plane, they said another week. In that case, Eisenhower said, he would stay in the hospital until he could make his first public appearance on his feet. On November 11, he and Mamie flew to Washington, where a crowd of five thousand greeted him at the airport. Eisenhower walked to the microphone and said a few words (“The doctors have given me at least a parole if not a pardon, and I expect to be back at my accustomed duties, although they say I must ease my way into them and not bulldoze my way into them.”).28 The next day, a Saturday, Eisenhower had a conference with Hagerty and Adams to fix a schedule. On Monday, the Eisenhowers would drive to Gettysburg, where the house was ready for occupancy and where Eisenhower intended to finish his recuperation. The President said that on November 21 he wanted to meet with the NSC, and on November 22 with the Cabinet, in both cases at Camp David. He expected to spend only one hour at each meeting, and said he did not want a briefing beforehand because he already knew the material pretty well, and he felt he could maintain his interest better when he was not completely familiar with the subjects. The doctors had insisted that Eisenhower take a rest each midday; Hagerty said he could move a couch into the Oval Office, but Eisenhower wanted to avoid the appearance of an invalid and told him to use the secretarial office next door for the couch. Eisenhower remembered to tell Hagerty to stay after Taylor about improving conditions in the Army Nurse Corps.29
Eisenhower had been offered the use of a vacation home in Florida, and had been sorely tempted to accept. But, as he explained to Cliff Roberts, “the insurmountable difficulty comes from Mamie’s aversion to the coastal areas. Since naturally any vacation would be completely unsatisfactory unless she could go along, I simply had to say No.” Instead, he decided to stay at Gettysburg until a few days before Christmas, then spend Christmas in the White House.30
Gettysburg was the ideal place for his recovery. The house was large and comfortable. The major feature was a glassed-in porch, where the Eisenhowers spent most of their time. It had large sliding glass doors that opened onto a terrace; beyond the terrace there was a putting green, farther out a pasture. The doctors said Eisenhower could practice his putting so long as he did not overdo it. The Slaters came for a visit; Mamie took them for a tour of the house. Slater noted that it was beautifully done, “but what makes it really charming is Mamie’s enthusiasm over the whole place and her own pride and delight in having created her first home of their own.” Eisenhower had Slater join him in a golf cart for a tour of the farm. When they got to the pasture where the Angus cattle were grazing, the President grinned impishly, pulled out a cattle horn, blew it, and laughed delightedly when—to Slater’s surprise—the cattle came running. The men went down to the barn, where they watched the birth of a Brown Swiss calf. The barn was painted a shade of light gray-green. Eisenhower explained to Slater that he had mixed the color himself, because the old red color of the barn stood out too much.31
In January 1956, at a news conference, Eisenhower was asked if he missed “the bustle of the Presidency” while he was at Gettysburg. Eisenhower admitted that “anybody who has been busy, when he doesn’t have immediately something at hand, has a little bit of a strange feeling.” Nevertheless, he was hardly “bored to death,” because “there are so many things that I have to do.” He said he had “piled up stacks of books I never had a chance to read.” He had his painting. “I like the actual roaming around on a farm. I love animals. I like to go out and see them. I have got a thousand things to do in this world, so I don’t think I would be bored, no matter what it was.”32
Like millions of other Americans, Slater was intensely curious about Eisenhower’s political plans. He assumed that Mamie wanted no part of a second term, especially so since her home was now complete and after her husband’s heart attack. Mamie never said that directly to him, however, and although Slater himself, like the rest of the gang, wanted Eisenhower to retire and thought he deserved it, Slater also noted that “he’s been too active to sit at home on the farm and wait for people to come to him.”33
Mamie was one of the first to sense this truth. Dr. Snyder had told her, while Eisenhower was still in Fitzsimons, that her husband’s life expectancy might be improved if he ran for a second term rather than withdraw to a life of inactivity. She knew Snyder was right, that inactivity would be fatal for Eisenhower. John was with her when Snyder gave her his view; as the three of them talked, Mamie volunteered another reason for a second term. “I just can’t believe that Ike’s work is finished,” she declared.34
Neither could he. In mid-December, Eisenhower had a series of talks with Hagerty about politics and 1956. Eisenhower said that he was concerned about the welfare of the country, particularly in the foreign field. Hagerty recorded in his diary, “He was appalled by the lack of qualified candidates on the Democratic side and particularly pointed to Stevenson, Harriman, and Kefauver as men who did not have the competency to run the Office of President.” Harriman, currently the governor of New York, was in Eisenhower’s view “a complete nincompoop. He’s nothing but a Park Avenue Truman.”35
During his conversations with Hagerty, Eisenhower threw out ideas. At one meeting Adams was also present. “You know, boys,” Eisenhower said, “Tom Dewey has matured over the last few years and he might not be a bad presidential candidate. He certainly has the ability and if I’m not going to be in the picture, he also represents my way of thinking.” The remark left Adams and Hagerty speechless. The following day, Eisenhower brought up Dewey again. This time Hagerty said that if Eisenhower tried to foist Dewey off on the Republican Party again, the right wing would revolt and nominate Knowland. “I guess you’re right,” Eisenhower sighed, dismissing Dewey from his mind.36
Eisenhower asked about Nixon’s chances. Hagerty, who from early October on had insisted that Eisenhower would have to run again, said he thought “Nixon is a very excellent vice-presidential candidate,” but not ready for the top spot. On December 14, Hagerty showed Eisenhower a David Lawrence column in the Herald Tribune. Lawrence speculated that if the doctors told Eisenhower he was physically capable of continuing in office, Eisenhower would say, “I had no desire to come to public office in the first place . . . But if the people want me to serve, I shall obey their wish and serve if elected.” Eisenhower read it through, laughed, and exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be goddamned.” Turning to Hagerty, Eisenhower said, “Jim, . . . that’s almost exactly the words that are forming in my own mind should I make up my mind to run again.” Then he speculated on other possible Republican candidates. What about George Humphrey, Eisenhower asked, with Milton on the ticket as Vice-President? “George is one of the ablest men I know,” Eisenhower declared, and Milton would add the Eisenhower name to the ticket. Hagerty doubted that Humphrey could get the nomination. Eisenhower groaned and remarked, “You know, I just hate to turn this country back into the hands of people like Stevenson, Harriman, and Kefauver.”
Hagerty warned that if Eisenhower did not run, Knowland would get the nomination. “I can’t see Knowland from nothing,” Eisenhower snapped. “Who else have we got?” Hagerty mentioned Earl Warren. “Not a chance,” Eisenhower replied, because Warren was happy where he was, and he was doing a good job. Eisenhower explained that “Earl is one of those fellows who needs time to make decisions and his present spot is the best spot in the world for him. . . . He has a lifelong job and I think he means it when he says he will not enter political life again.”
It was Hagerty’s turn to ask who else was available. Eisenhower said he thought he knew four Republicans who were “mentally qualified for the Presidency.” They were Humphrey, Brownell, Adams, and Bob Anderson. The problem was that none of them could get the nomination. Hagerty asked about finding someone in the Senate. “Actually,” Eisenhower replied, “I can’t see anyone in the Senate who impresses me at all on both sides of the aisle.”
Finding a Republican candidate other than Eisenhower who could win the nomination, get elected, and adequately discharge the duties of the Presidency was proving difficult if not impossible. “Let me try you on something else,” Eisenhower said to Hagerty as he began pacing the room. “I think my brother would do anything I wanted him to. I think he would run for President, if I wanted him to.” Eisenhower thought he could get the Pennsylvania delegation to go to the convention committed to Milton as a favorite son. Hagerty was as sure as Eisenhower that Milton could do the job, but he warned the President that the American people would resent any attempt to build a family dynasty. Hagerty then repeated that in his opinion the only ticket that could win for the Republicans was Eisenhower-Nixon.37
• •
Even as Eisenhower’s thoughts were becoming absorbed with his own immediate political future, he continued to worry about long-range problems. On December 5, he wrote a thoughtful letter to Dulles on “the continuing struggle between the Communistic and the free worlds.” He said the Soviets had abandoned the Stalinist tactic of using force to achieve their objectives, because the buildup of the U.S. nuclear arsenal had deterred Stalin’s successors from continuing that method. Instead, they were turning to economic competition. “Now we have always boasted that the productivity of free men in a free society would overwhelmingly excel the productivity of regimented labor,” Eisenhower said. “So at first glance, it would appear that we are being challenged in the area of our greatest strength.” But because the Soviets were on the offensive, even in economics, they could be selective in deciding where and when to use their money.
To counter the Soviet economic threat, Eisenhower told Dulles he wanted to start creating “economic associations, somewhat as we have done in the military area. . . . What would be even more effective, however, would be the opportunity to plan together over the long term.” Now was the time to move, when America was prosperous, producing two or three times what the Russians could achieve. “If we, at such a time, cannot organize to protect and advance our own interests and those of our friends in the world, then I must say it becomes time to begin thinking of ‘despairing of the Republic.’ ” Eisenhower said that early in the new year he wanted to get together for informal talks with Dulles, Adams, and Humphrey on the subject.38
At his Cabinet meeting at Camp David, Eisenhower made the Soil Bank and his idea of buying back the homesteads on the Great Plains and returning them to grass the only topics of discussion. At the NSC meeting, he concentrated on the next generation of weapons, the ICBMs. All three services were working on various ballistic-missile projects; Eisenhower said he approved of this approach, but only “with some qualms” because he feared inter service rivalry would lead to duplication and thus delay development. Eisenhower followed up with a memo for Wilson, in which he told the Secretary of Defense “I want to be amply clear that nothing in the way of rival requirements is to delay the earliest development of an effective ballistic missile with significant range.” He said, therefore, that he was making an addition to the NSC’s Record of Action of the Camp David meeting. He wanted the record to indicate that the NSC “noted the President’s statement that the political and psychological impact upon the world of the early development of an effective ballistic missile with a range in the 1,000–1,700-mile range would be so great that early development of such a missile would be of critical importance to the national security interests of the United States.” Further, Eisenhower ordered that the record indicate that “the President directed that the IRBM and ICBM programs should both be research and development programs of the highest priority above all others.” Interservice squabbles should be avoided “so far as practicable,” and if a conflict should develop, “then the matter will be promptly referred to the President.”39
A week before Christmas, the Eisenhowers drove down to the White House. Eisenhower chaired a series of NSC and Cabinet meetings. One of his major concerns was opening trade with the Communist world. He was especially interested in selling surplus agricultural commodities. Radford told him that the JCS were opposed to any relaxation of controls on trade with the ChiComs. Eisenhower replied that “he was not afraid of Communist China—not in this decade, at least.” Commerce Secretary Weeks said he agreed with Radford. Eisenhower told Weeks that “the history of the world down to this time proved that if you try to dam up international trade, the dam ultimately bursts and the flood overwhelms you. Our trouble is that our domestic political situation compels us to adopt an absolutely rigid policy respecting our trade with Communist China and the Soviet Union.”40
After the meeting, Eisenhower talked privately with Dulles. The Secretary of State said he had “come to the conclusion that our whole international security structure was in jeopardy.” The basic defense of the West was nuclear deterrence, Dulles said, but “that striking power was apt to be immobilized by moral repugnance. If this happened, the whole structure could readily collapse.” Dulles said he had “come to feel that atomic power was too vast a power to be left for military use of any one country, but that its use should be internationalized for security purposes.” Dulles was therefore ready to propose that if the Soviet Union would forgo the right to veto, then the United States could transfer responsibility for using the bomb to the U.N. Security Council “so as to universalize the capacity of atomic thermonuclear weapons to deter aggression.” Actually, this was no more than a return to the old Baruch proposal of 1946, and Eisenhower knew it was unacceptable to the Russians, who were so badly outvoted in the Security Council. Nevertheless, Eisenhower told Dulles that it was “an interesting idea” and promised that he would study it.41
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By Christmas 1955, Eisenhower felt fully recovered. He found that he could conduct Cabinet and NSC meetings without undue difficulty, meet with his advisers on a regular basis in the Oval Office, and perform his other duties, all without fatigue or weariness. He was ready to resume a full daily work schedule and was convinced that his recovery from his heart attack would be complete. But that did not mean he would necessarily run again. He was still keeping his options open, although he remained distressed by the failure to locate anyone in the Republican Party who could successfully replace him. John, Barbara, and the grandchildren came to the White House for the holidays; on Christmas Day, as the family was driving to church, Eisenhower turned to John and said, “I told the boys four years ago that they ought to get someone who’d want to run again for a second term.”42
The day after Christmas, Eisenhower called Nixon into his office for a private chat. A number of Eisenhower’s aides, led by Adams, had been urging him, if he decided to run again, to dump Nixon. They provided Eisenhower with the results of current polls, which indicated that Nixon would cost Eisenhower three or four points in a race with Stevenson. Eisenhower cited the figures to Nixon, then said that in his opinion Nixon could strengthen himself for 1960 by accepting a Cabinet post, where he could get some experience in administration. Eisenhower offered Nixon any post he wanted, except that of Secretary of State or Attorney General, but urged him to replace Charlie Wilson at Defense. Nixon smelled the very obvious rat. He knew—and he at least suspected that Eisenhower knew—that the press would interpret such a move as a demotion, so serious a demotion as to probably ruin Nixon’s chance to ever be President. Nixon told Eisenhower that putting someone else on the ticket in 1956 would “upset the many Republicans who still considered me [your] principal link with party orthodoxy.” Nixon then asked Eisenhower, directly, whether the President believed that the Republicans would be better off with someone else as the vice-presidential candidate. Eisenhower did not answer. He would not order Nixon off the ticket. Still, he wished Nixon would leave voluntarily, and suggested again that Nixon could pick up some badly needed experience as Secretary of Defense. The conversation ended on that inconclusive note.43
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Two days later, on December 28, Eisenhower read through and approved an NSC policy statement on the CIA. He then issued a directive for CIA covert activities. It was a sweeping, tough-minded document. It told the CIA to “create and exploit troublesome problems for International Communism, impair relations between the U.S.S.R. and Communist China and between them and their satellites, complicate control within the U.S.S.R., Communist China, and their satellites, and retard the growth of the military and economic potential of the Soviet bloc.” In addition, the CIA should seek to “discredit the prestige and ideology of International Communism, and reduce the strength of its parties.” It should also “counter any threat of a party or individuals directly or indirectly responsive to Communist control to achieve dominant power in a free-world country.” Finally, “to the extent practicable” in the Soviet Union, China, and their satellites, the CIA should “develop underground resistance and facilitate covert and guerrilla preparations.”44
The man who issued that directive did not have a weak heart. He was obviously tough enough mentally to stay on the job for four more years, and he felt strong enough physically to do so. That did not necessarily mean that he was going to do it, only that he felt capable. But he insisted on keeping his options open, and certainly was not going to make a final decision until after the doctors had run their series of tests in mid-February.