IT WAS A CURIOUS FACT, but true—the man who made the D-Day decision, and countless others since, the man who insisted upon keeping control of events in his own hands, in 1956 was unable to decide who his own running mate should be and left control of the decision in other people’s hands.
Had he wanted Nixon, all he needed to do was say one word at any time in the first half of 1956 and that would have been that. Had he wanted to dump Nixon, all he needed to do was say one word and he would have been rid of the Vice-President. But instead of saying the word on this momentous subject, fraught with significance for the post-Eisenhower Presidency, Eisenhower remained silent, thereby turning the decision over to others. His indecision can only be seen as an indication of his ambiguous and complex attitude toward Nixon.
The adjectives Eisenhower used to describe Nixon in his private diary are generally cold and indifferent; Nixon was “quick,” or “loyal,” or “dependable.” Eisenhower told Arthur Larson (the leading Republican intellectual, a law school dean who had joined the Administration as director of USIA) that Nixon “isn’t the sort of person you turn to when you want a new idea, but he has an uncanny ability to draw upon others’ ideas and bring out their essence in a cool-headed way.”1
Eisenhower’s most persistent complaints about Nixon were that he was too political and too immature. As to the first charge, it was as much Eisenhower’s fault as Nixon’s. Although obviously Nixon enjoyed blasting the Democrats, and although Eisenhower frequently told him to tone it down, it was nevertheless the case that Eisenhower used Nixon in both presidential campaigns, as well as in the off-year congressional elections, for the hard-hitting partisan speeches, which allowed the President to stay above the battle. As to the second charge, Eisenhower’s comments to Larson were typical of those he made to many others. When Nixon was forty-five years old, in 1958, Eisenhower told Larson, “You know, Dick has matured.” Six years later, in 1964, Eisenhower repeated, “You know, Dick has matured.” Three years after that, in 1967, Eisenhower reminded Larson, “You know, Dick has really matured.”2 But in the spring of 1956, when Eisenhower had to make the crucial decision about Nixon’s career, he told Emmet Hughes (who had taken a leave from Time-Life to write speeches for the campaign), “Well, the fact is, of course, I’ve watched Dick a, long time, and he just hasn’t grown. So I just haven’t honestly been able to believe that he is presidential timber.”3
Or so at least Hughes claimed Eisenhower said, and perhaps he did, but if so that leaves another problem. In 1956, Eisenhower was a sixty-five-year-old heart-attack victim. There was a good chance he would not live through a second term. Eisenhower loved his country and wanted the best for it. If he thought Nixon was not the best, much less unqualified to be President, Eisenhower was the one man in America who could push Nixon out of the Vice-Presidency, in order to get a man whom he trusted to serve as his potential successor. But he either could not find such a man, or, having found him, could not persuade him to take on the job of ousting Nixon.
Eisenhower’s personal choice was Robert Anderson. He said so in his diary frequently, in his private correspondence, and in his conversations with his closest friends. And he said so to Anderson himself. In early April 1956, after Anderson had returned from his abortive mission to the Middle East, Eisenhower invited him to the Oval Office. “I want to talk with you about your future,” Eisenhower began. “I’ve observed what you’ve done. We work well together. As President I have to spend all my time on international affairs; I’d like you, as Vice-President, to spend most of yours with the leaders of the party.” Anderson, who had already had a number of feelers from Eisenhower about his interest in the vice-presidential nomination, was hardly surprised, and was firm in his rejection. He pointed out that as a lifelong Democrat he would not be acceptable to the Republican Party, and in any case he had neither the ambition nor the drive to be President. Eisenhower accepted Anderson’s decision, but did not give up; in 1960 he again urged Anderson to try for the nomination, saying that “I’ll quit what I’m doing, Bob, I’ll raise money, I’ll make speeches. I’ll do anything to help. Just tell me I’m at liberty.” Still Anderson said no.4
Having failed to persuade Anderson, Eisenhower returned to his passive role in the selection of his running mate. He was detached and seemingly uninterested. When Eisenhower said at a March 7 press conference that he had told Nixon to “chart out his own course,” most observers took this to mean (in Nixon’s words) “varying degrees of indifference toward me, or even an attempt to put some distance between us.” Nixon, perplexed and irritated, drafted an announcement saying he would not be a candidate in 1956. He showed it to an aide, who informed the White House. Within hours Jerry Persons and Len Hall came to Nixon’s office to urge him to destroy the draft, because if he withdrew, “the Republican Party would be split in two.” Nixon said that it was impossible for the Vice-President to “chart out his own course.” If Eisenhower did not want him on the ticket, he was not going to fight for it. “I can only assume that if he puts it this way, this must be his way of saying he’d prefer someone else.” Hall said this was not at all the case and reassured Nixon that the ticket would be Ike and Dick.5
On April 9 Eisenhower met with Nixon. The President, to Nixon’s consternation, continued to urge him to take a Cabinet post, perhaps HEW or Commerce, in order to build his administrative experience. But, Eisenhower added, “I still insist you must make your decision as to what you want to do. If the answer is yes, I will be happy to have you on the ticket.” He urged Nixon to take his time. After Nixon left, Eisenhower called Hall into his office to tell him that “in some areas there were still great oppositions to Dick.” Hall, one of Nixon’s strongest supporters, demurred. Eisenhower said, “I personally like and admire Dick, and he could not have done better, [but] I think he is making a mistake by wanting the [VP] job.”6
On April 25, at a press conference, Eisenhower was asked if Nixon had yet charted his own course and reported back to the President. “Well,” Eisenhower replied, “he hasn’t reported back in the terms in which I used the expression . . . no.” The following morning, Nixon asked for an appointment with the President. That afternoon, in the Oval Office, Nixon told Eisenhower, “I would be honored to continue as Vice-President under you.” Eisenhower said he was pleased with Nixon’s decision. The President got Hagerty on the telephone. “Dick has just told me that he’ll stay on the ticket,” Eisenhower said. “Why don’t you take him out right now and let him tell the reporters himself. And,” he added, “you can tell them that I’m delighted by the news.”7
• •
That seemed simple and straightforward enough, but difficulties ensued. On June 7, Eisenhower was stricken with an ileitis attack. He had suffered serious stomach problems for years, but this time the pain was so severe that he was rushed to Walter Reed Hospital. A proper diagnosis was finally made (ileitis is a young man’s disease, which was why it had not been suspected previously). Eisenhower was informed that he would have to undergo an immediate, serious operation. He indicated his approval, and between 3 and 5 A.M. on June 8, a successful bypass operation was conducted. There was tremendous concern about subjecting a heart-attack victim to such a long operation, but it could not be avoided, and Eisenhower’s quick recovery soon laid to rest the Republican fears that he would not be able to run again. Eisenhower himself, at a press conference, compared the excitement caused by his illness to the Battle of the Bulge. He said that in December 1944, “I didn’t get frightened until three weeks after it had begun, when I began to read the American papers and found . . . how near we were to being whipped.” So too with the ileitis operation; he claimed he had never been afraid until he began to read the papers.
When William McGaffin of the Chicago Daily News suggested that the American people loved Eisenhower so much that they would vote against him because “they are afraid you won’t live for another four years,” Eisenhower replied: “Well, sir, I would tell you, frankly, I don’t think it is too important to the individual how his end comes, and certainly he can’t dictate the time.” There was never any doubt in his mind; he intended to stay in the race.8
To prove his capacity to serve, in July, after recuperating from his operation at Gettysburg, Eisenhower made a trip to Panama for a meeting of the Presidents of the Americas. On July 20, the day before Eisenhower left Washington, Harold Stassen came to see him. Like nearly every other Republican, Stassen was delighted that Eisenhower was staying in the race. Like some other Republicans, Eisenhower’s surgery had Stassen worried about the increased importance of the vice-presidential nomination. The possibility of Nixon’s succeeding Eisenhower was not, however, what Stassen talked about. Instead, he showed Eisenhower a private poll he had taken which indicated that Nixon’s name on the ticket would cost the Republicans 4 to 6 percent of the electorate. Such losses, Stassen asserted, would in turn cost the Republicans control of Congress.
How Eisenhower replied is unknown. He did not turn his recording device on, and when the subject was purely political, Goodpaster stayed out of the office. Eisenhower had earlier fretted over polls that roughly paralleled Stassen’s, and may have been impressed by Stassen’s figures. But in his memoirs, Eisenhower claimed that “Mr. Stassen’s attitude was astonishing to me . . .”9 That could hardly have been so; the fear that Nixon would cost votes in November was a frequent topic of his conversation. Whatever Eisenhower said to Stassen (according to his memoirs, it was: “You are an American citizen, Harold, and free to follow your own judgment . . .”), he did not tell Stassen to stop.10 That he did not may indicate how tempted he was by the thought of getting rid of Nixon, an interpretation that gains strength when one considers Stassen’s suggested replacement, Governor Christian Herter of Massachusetts. Herter’s name had not appeared on any of Eisenhower’s numerous lists of possible successors. Although Eisenhower had a high opinion of Herter, he could not have expected Herter to add much to the ticket. Herter was sixty-one years old, suffered badly from arthritis, was identified with Harvard and the East Coast Republicans, and was not a lively campaigner. Herter was, in fact, one of the worst possible choices Stassen could have made, which makes it all the more remarkable that Eisenhower did not put a stop to the “dump Nixon” move immediately.
July 20 was a hard day for Eisenhower. Before meeting with Stassen, he had dealt with Nasser’s vehement protests over the announcement that the United States would not help Egypt finance the Aswan Dam. When Stassen left the office, Larson went in. “Art,” the President asked, “have you ever been Nasserized and Stassenized on the same day?” Then he referred to Stassen’s poll and said that if Nixon was going to cost him 6 percent, “that’s serious.”11
On July 23, while Eisenhower was in Panama, Stassen called a press conference. He announced that Eisenhower had approved the idea of an open convention, and that he personally was supporting Herter for Vice-President. When Eisenhower was told, he instructed Hagerty to issue a statement stressing Stassen’s right as an American to campaign for whomever he wished, but that he could not conduct independent political activity and remain a member of the “official family.” Eisenhower was therefore giving Stassen a leave of absence without pay until after the convention.12
It was all quite unusual, and had most observers confused—but not Nixon. He reasoned that what Stassen was doing was not promoting Herter, but rather using the obviously unsuitable Herter to throw the vice-presidential nomination open. There were, Nixon darkly observed, “several potential vice presidential candidates eagerly waiting in the wings for just such a situation.”13 Nixon was quite possibly right in thinking that Eisenhower was trying to use the Stassen/Herter combination to open the nomination, which is to say, to get rid of Nixon. Eisenhower had tried Anderson and failed. He evidently was not averse to trying Stassen/Herter.
But by the time Eisenhower got back to Washington, on July 26, he discovered that Stassen had blundered. The Republican Party was outraged. Among numerous protests Eisenhower received from prominent politicians, the one that stood out was an endorsement of Nixon by 180 of the 203 House Republicans.14 That was a statement of party preference so direct and clear that Eisenhower could not ignore it. The party as a whole had not previously had an opportunity to speak out on Nixon (although he had done very well with write-in votes in the New Hampshire primary). Eisenhower’s offer to Anderson of second spot on the ticket was made in private; Eisenhower’s offer to Nixon to chart his own course had been worded in such a way that few dared protest. But the Stassen news conference gave the party regulars the chance to speak out, and they did. When they did, they showed that Nixon had a power base of his own. It was neither as wide nor as deep as Eisenhower’s, except within the Republican Party organization, which was where it counted at a convention. Old Guard Republicans still did not regard Eisenhower as a true Republican, they objected strongly to nearly all his domestic programs, and they saw Nixon as the only link between the RNC and the Administration. If Eisenhower tried to dump Nixon, they would rebel, especially over such an inappropriate substitute as Herter. Nixon had built his strength through his Checkers speech, through his exemplary behavior as Vice-President, most of all following Eisenhower’s heart attack, and through his unflagging efforts on behalf of the party. There was scarcely a Republican county chairman in the country who did not owe Nixon a favor. If Eisenhower wanted to be rid of Nixon, he was going to have to do it himself, not through the bumbling Stassen.
Eisenhower chose not to do it himself. Instead, he decided to act behind the scenes to put a stop to the Herter nonsense. The President had Sherman Adams tell Herter that there was a job waiting for him in the State Department, but that if he wished to be a candidate for the vice-presidential nomination, that was his choice. However, if Herter did enter the race, the State Department position “would not be possible.” Herter said that he was not a candidate, and in fact that he would place Nixon’s name in nomination at the San Francisco convention.15
Eisenhower still held back from a public endorsement of Nixon. At Eisenhower’s August 1 press conference, James Reston asked if it was fair to conclude that Nixon was his preference. Eisenhower said Reston could conclude whatever he pleased, “but I have said that I would not express a preference. I have said he is perfectly acceptable to me, as he was in 1952 [when] I also put down a few others that were equally acceptable to me.”16 Eisenhower insisted that the Republicans were going to have an open convention and nominate the best men for the ticket. Merriman Smith reminded him that he had said some weeks earlier that if anyone came into his office to propose a “dump Nixon” move, he would create quite a commotion in his office. “Have you created such a commotion in the wake of Mr. Stassen’s recommendation?” “No,” the President replied, because “no one ever proposed to me that I dump Mr. Nixon. No one, I think, would have that effrontery.”17
That was just an outright denial of the plain truth, and thus an indication of how impossible Eisenhower found his situation to be. No matter how often he insisted that the choice of a vice-presidential candidate was the responsibility of the delegates to the convention, and not his, he knew perfectly well that he could dictate that choice if he wanted to do so. But except for Anderson, he saw no rival to Nixon who did not also have, like Nixon, severe disadvantages. Eisenhower did not decide to dump Nixon, nor did he decide to keep him. He turned the decision over to Len Hall, the RNC, and the delegates, and their overwhelming choice was Nixon.
Eisenhower almost seemed to enjoy keeping Nixon in a state of high tension. When Cliff Roberts called him on July 27, Eisenhower pointed out that “there’s one little thing” about the Stassen business: “It did stir up some interest.” The Democrats were engaged in a highly publicized contest for the presidential nomination (between Stevenson, Harriman, and Kefauver, among others); the Republicans, by contrast, were dull and stodgy. Eisenhower said he was pleased about Stassen’s attempt, because “our program has been so cut and dried, a little interest won’t hurt.”18 But he must have known that his failure to issue a clear endorsement of Nixon hurt Nixon personally and politically and added to the coldness between the two men that had started at the time of the Nixon fund crisis of 1952.
Despite Eisenhower’s muddled response to the dump Nixon movement of 1956, however, it must be emphasized that it would be incorrect to state that Eisenhower found Nixon unsatisfactory. Given Eisenhower’s health and age, the chances of the VP nominee of 1956 becoming President sometime before 1960 were high. Potentially, Eisenhower’s choice of a running mate in 1956 was among the most important decisions of his life. While it was true that he did not choose Nixon, it was also true that he did not reject Nixon. When he said Nixon was acceptable, he meant it. At his August 1 news conference, he pointed out the obvious to the press: “If any man were nominated as Vice-President that the President felt he could not, in good conscience, run with, he would have just one recourse; to submit his own resignation.”19 Eisenhower did not think that there was anyone in the country, other than Anderson and himself, qualified to be President. But he was willing to turn the country over to Nixon. That in itself was the highest possible compliment he could pay to Nixon.
Aside from the excitement over the VP, the Republican preconvention activity was quiet and dignified. In 1952, Eisenhower and the Republicans had won a campaign in which they took the offensive, leveling various accusations against the Democrats. In 1956, Eisenhower intended to run on the defensive, pointing to his record of accomplishments instead of to the shortcomings of the opposition. Given the record levels of employment, the general prosperity, and the achievement of peace in the world, pointing to the record was obviously a wise and prudent decision. In addition, Eisenhower had many specific pieces of legislation he could point to with pride; his own favorite was the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, which he signed into law on June 29, 1956.
There were, however, three outstanding problems the Republicans had to face in the weeks before the convention. First was civil rights. Second was the Middle East, where the situation threatened to escalate to a war that would damage Eisenhower’s reputation as a peacemaker. Third was the festering sore in East Europe, recently made worse by Khrushchev’s secret speech denouncing Stalin and hinting at a liberalization of the Soviet control of the area.
• •
On civil rights, Eisenhower’s chief initiative in the summer of 1956 was Brownell’s civil-rights bill. Republican leaders were cautious about the bill; although they loved putting the Democrats on the defensive by forcing the southern senators to take a stand, they worried about losing their best chance to crack the Solid South. They therefore advised Eisenhower to go slow, and told him Brownell’s bill was too stringent. Eisenhower told the leaders that Brownell had been under terrific pressure “from radicals on his staff” to write an even tougher bill, and that the one Brownell had produced could hardly be “more moderate or less provocative.” He complained that the southerners, who were already denouncing the bill, had not even bothered to read it. But then he turned his attention to the other side, saying that “these civil-rights people” never consider that although the President could “send in the military,” he could not “make them operate the schools.” He then repeated a little story he had heard from Bobby Jones down at Augusta; one of the field hands was supposed to have said, “If someone doesn’t shut up around here, particularly these Negroes from the North, they’re going to get a lot of us niggers killed!”20
Brownell sent his civil-rights bill to Congress. After prolonged infighting, in July the House passed the two mildest provisions of the bill, one creating a bipartisan commission to investigate racial difficulties, the other establishing a civil-rights division in the Justice Department. Voting rights and federal responsibility for enforcing civil rights were dropped from the compromise package. Nevertheless, the bill died in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where the chairman was Senator James Eastland of Mississippi.
Despite his formal support for Brownell’s civil-rights bill, the President was not badly disappointed. He believed that “civil rights will not be achieved by law alone.” He told Jerry Persons that “leaders must be encouraged to appeal to the moral obligation of our people rather than refer only to the law.” Eisenhower indicated to Persons that he thought racial progress had been set back, not gone forward, as a result of the Brown decision.21
Two weeks later, a few days before the convention, Eisenhower told Whitman that he felt civil rights was the most important domestic problem facing the government. He said he wished that the Court had ordered desegregation first in the graduate schools, later in the colleges, then the high schools, and only after that in the grade schools.22 Meanwhile the Republicans had a platform to write. Eisenhower called Deputy Attorney General William Rogers to tell him that the Justice Department draft of its plank in the platform had to be softened. “What are you going to do,” Eisenhower demanded of Rogers, “get an injunction against the governor of Georgia, for instance?” Eisenhower indicated that he deplored the possibility of a federal-state confrontation on desegregation.23 The next day, August 14, Eisenhower called Brownell, already in San Francisco, to tell Brownell to rewrite the section that said “the Eisenhower Administration . . . and the Republican Party” supported the Brown decision. Eisenhower ordered the words “Eisenhower Administration” deleted. Then he told Brownell “that in this business he was between the compulsion of duty on one side, and his firm conviction, on the other, that because of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the whole issue had been set back badly.” Brownell argued his case, with some success: Eisenhower eventually allowed him to state that “the Republican Party accepts” school desegregation.24
• •
A major feature of the 1952 Republican platform had been the call for “liberation” of the East European satellites. Nothing that Eisenhower or his associates had done since had brought liberation any closer; indeed, as noted, Dulles thought that Eisenhower’s going to the Geneva summit had signaled an American acquiescence in Soviet domination of East Europe. But in the spring of 1956, as a result of action by the Russians, not the Americans, the prospects for liberation suddenly seemed bright again.
In his famous secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, Khrushchev denounced Stalin for his crimes against the Russian people, and seemed to promise that in the future there would be a relaxation of Communist controls both inside Russia and in the satellite countries. The CIA obtained a copy of the speech; with Eisenhower’s permission, Allen Dulles gave it to The New York Times. On June 5, the paper printed the speech in its entirety. Publication caused great excitement throughout East Europe. Perhaps, just perhaps, the long-awaited breakup of the Soviet empire was at hand. Republicans wanted another strong plank on liberation. Eisenhower insisted that they proceed cautiously. He told Persons “that this particular plank should make it clear that we advocate liberation by all peaceful means, but not to give any indication that we advocate going to the point of war to accomplish this liberation.”25
• •
Nor was Eisenhower ready to go to war over Suez. Some were, especially the British. Eden was engaging in provocative warmongering against Egypt; Israel was conducting border raids against her neighbors; Nasser was making inflammatory speeches. Eisenhower wanted to be friends with all sides. On April 7, in a telephone conversation with Dulles about the Middle East, Eisenhower said, “We can’t do any one of these things in a vacuum—have to look at rounded picture—everybody has got to have something.”26 Since “everybody” included the British, the French, the Egyptians, the Israelis, and the other Arabs, that policy statement contained some major inherent contradictions, but they did not keep Eisenhower from trying. On April 10, Eisenhower again called Dulles, to remind him of the key importance of Saudi Arabia. Eisenhower “wondered if there was any way we could flatter or compliment King Saud,” and later in the conversation returned to the subject, saying, “We must find some way to be friends with King Saud.”27 On April 30, Eisenhower wrote David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli Prime Minister, who had asked to buy arms from the United States. “We are not persuaded that it would serve the cause of peace and stability in the world for the United States now to accede to your request for arms sales.”28
Within the context of those three goals—something for everybody, improvement of American relations with the Saudis, and avoiding an arms race in the Middle East with Russia and America as the suppliers—Eisenhower wanted his own military option. On May 1, he talked to Dulles about putting some American arms on a ship in the eastern Mediterranean “for quick delivery to whichever country was the victim of aggression.” Eisenhower said he liked the idea and wanted it implemented. Eisenhower also told Dulles to “be prepared to give some substantial amount of armaments to the Saudis.”29
Nasser, meanwhile, continued to provoke the Americans. In late May, he announced that Egypt was withdrawing recognition of Chiang’s government and recognizing that of Red China. He also seemed to be blackmailing the United States over the most important immediate question in U.S.-Egyptian relations, the financing of the Aswan Dam. In December 1955, the United States, in Eisenhower’s words, had “all but committed ourselves” to help in the financing of the dam. No great sums were involved (a grant of $70 million and a loan of $200 million, with Britain paying about 20 percent), but opposition was strong. Pro-Israeli senators, southerners worried about increased Egyptian cotton production, and Old Guard opponents of any kind of foreign aid banded together to try to block the deal. Humphrey warned that the Egyptians would not be able to pay back. Eisenhower wanted to reduce Nasser’s influence. Dulles was furious with Nasser because of the arms deal with the Czechs and the recognition of Red China. The Aswan Dam deal, in short, had almost no support within the United States. Eisenhower could see nothing to be gained by going through with it. He therefore agreed with Dulles to stall on the talks to build the dam. That added to American annoyance and led Eisenhower to mutter about blackmail.30
Nevertheless, Eisenhower felt “obligated” to go through with the offer, and on June 20 sent Eugene Black, president of the World Bank, to Cairo to brief Nasser on a final offer. Nasser objected to some of the conditions and made a counterproposal that included conditions “unacceptable” to Eisenhower. This gave Eisenhower the excuse he had been searching for to back out. On July 19, the Egyptian ambassador called on Dulles. According to Eisenhower’s memoirs, he came to “issue a new demand for a huge commitment . . .” According to Eisenhower’s contemporary diary, “Nasser sent us a message to the effect that he had withdrawn all of the conditions that he had laid down and was ready to proceed under our original offer.”31 But it was too late for Nasser. Eisenhower had decided that he wanted to “weaken Nasser.” The deal was off. Dulles so informed the Egyptian ambassador that afternoon.
Nasser said he was astonished. Dulles replied that he had no reason to be. Eisenhower was nevertheless bothered by the charge of a double cross, and expressed to Dulles his concern with the “abrupt” manner in which the Egyptians had been informed. Dulles explained to the President that “telephone conversations of which we learned indicated that the Egyptian government knew that when they came . . . to get a definitive reply it would be negative.”32 Dulles’ interpretation was shaky—the phone-tap information he had was based on Egyptian conversations before Nasser withdrew his conditions; surely Nasser expected his act of compromise to elicit a favorable response from the Americans.
Whether Nasser knew in advance or not, his next act was a bold one. On July 26, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and took control of its operations. “The fat,” as Eisenhower said in his memoirs, “was now really in the fire.”33
Eden was ready for action. On July 27, he sent a cable to Eisenhower, arguing that the West could not allow Nasser to seize Suez and get away with it. They must act at once, together, or American and British influence throughout the Middle East would be “irretrievably undermined.” He said that the interests of all maritime nations were at stake, because the Egyptians did not have the technical competence to run the canal. Eden said he was preparing military plans and said the West must be ready, as a last resort, to “bring Nasser to his senses” by force.34
Eisenhower hardly viewed the situation so seriously; he felt “there was no reason to panic.” He dispatched Robert Murphy to London, with instructions to “just go over and hold the fort. See what it’s all about.”35 More particularly, he wanted Murphy to make certain “that any sweeping action to be taken regarding Nasser and the Canal should not be an act of the ‘Big Three Club,’ ” and he warned Murphy to keep the French from relating the canal seizure to the Egyptian-Israeli hostilities. In order to stall and delay, so that emolions could quiet down, Eisenhower also wanted Murphy to propose a conference of interested nations.36
Murphy convinced Eden to agree to a conference. On July 31, with that news in hand, Eisenhower met with the Dulles brothers, Admiral Arleigh Burke, the Chief of Naval Operations, Under Secretary Hoover, Humphrey, and Goodpaster to discuss the situation. But then another message from Eden arrived. According to Goodpaster’s notes, “In essence it stated that the British had taken a firm, considered decision to ‘break Nasser’ and to initiate hostilities at an early date for this purpose (estimating six weeks to be required for setting up the operation).” Eisenhower opened the discussion by saying “he considered this to be a very unwise decision on [Eden’s] part.” The United States could not support military action without prior congressional approval, which would not be forthcoming in this case, and in any event Eisenhower “felt that the British were out of date in thinking of this as a mode of action.” He thought serious and effective counterproposals could be made via the agency of a conference of maritime nations; if the British rejected them, or attacked before they could be made, “the Middle East oil would undoubtedly dry up, and Western hemisphere oil would have to be diverted to Europe, thus requiring controls to be instituted in the United States.” Eisenhower said he thought Dulles himself should go to London at once to make the American position clear to Eden.
Humphrey supported Eisenhower. He said the British “were simply trying to reverse the trend away from colonialism, and turn the clock back fifty years,” which could not be done. Admiral Burke, however, said “the JCS are of the view that Nasser must be broken.” Therefore, if the United Kingdom used force, “we should declare ourselves in support of their action.” Eisenhower interjected the view that “it was wrong to give undue stress to Nasser himself. He felt Nasser embodies the emotional demands of the people of the area for independence and for ‘slapping the white Man down.’ ” To join with the British against Nasser, he warned, “might well array the world from Dakar to the Philippine Islands against us.” Better to try to split the other Arabs, especially the Saudis, away from Egypt and Nasser than to try to destroy Nasser. Dulles’ position was complex. He thought that “Nasser must be made to disgorge his theft,” but he also reminded the group that “the British went into World War I and World War II without the United States, on the calculation that we would be bound to come in,” and they were thinking they could make it happen again.
Eisenhower too was drawn in different directions by his various desires and needs. He said that the U.S. “must let the British know how gravely we view this matter, what an error we think their decision is, and how this course of action would antagonize the American people . . .” But as to the British claims that Egypt had committed a crime, Eisenhower could only say that “the power of eminent domain within its own territory could scarcely be doubted,” and that “Nasser was within his rights.” As to the British claim that the Egyptians could not run the canal, Eisenhower scoffed at it. The Panama Canal, he said, was a much more complex operation; he had no doubt the Egyptians could run it. But he also said that “thinking of our situation in Panama, we must not let Nasser get away with this action.” He decided to place his hopes on a conference, which would at least slow things down.
Humphrey asked what the repercussions would be if Dulles came back with an obvious split of views between the two countries. “The President said such an event would be extremely serious, but not as serious as letting a war start and not trying to stop it.” In conclusion, Eisenhower told the group he wanted “not a whisper about this outside this room.”37
For Eisenhower to take a stance in such direct opposition to the British, at a time when Eden felt Britain’s basic interests were involved, pained him deeply. “I can scarcely describe the depth of the regret I felt . . .” he wrote in his memoirs. Eden, and many members of his Cabinet, had stood beside Eisenhower in World War II. Nevertheless, he “felt it essential” to oppose precipitate action, and told Eden so in a blunt letter of July 31. He said there had to be a conference. If the British acted before negotiating, there would be a wave of anti-British feeling sweeping across America and the world. “I do not want to exaggerate, but I assure you that this could grow to such an intensity as to have the most far-reaching consequences.” The President also warned that while “initial military successes might be easy, . . . the eventual price might become far too heavy.”38
Dulles went to London, conferred with the British and the French, and returned to report that he had persuaded them to postpone military action until after a conference, scheduled to open on August 16 in London, involving twenty-four nations, including Egypt. But Nasser immediately announced that Egypt would not participate, since the conference was called only under a threat of armed force. He began moving reserve units into the Suez Base area. Dulles thought he still might be persuaded to accept a reasonable solution, and the Secretary and the President then worked out the American position. Dulles would propose, in London, the creation of an international authority to operate the canal, with Egypt getting the bulk of the revenues from the tolls. Eisenhower accepted that position, even though he had little hope that Nasser would, but he also emphasized to Dulles that if Nasser were to prove he could run the canal and that he intended to maintain it as a world waterway, “then it would be nearly impossible for the United States ever to find real justification, legally or morally, for use of force.”39
Eisenhower spoke most eloquently on the subject of colonialism in a letter to Swede, written on August 3, at a time when “Nasser and the Suez Canal are foremost in my thoughts.” Eisenhower said that “in the kind of world that we are trying to establish, we frequently find ourselves victims of the tyrannies of the weak.” American policy, in general, was to support colonial peoples attempting to win national independence. In this situation, Eisenhower said, “we unavoidably give to the little nations opportunities to embarrass us greatly.” The great Western nations had no choice but to swallow their pride, accept the insults, and attempt to work to bolster “the underlying concepts of freedom,” even though this was “frequently costly. Yet there can be no doubt that in the long run such faithfulness will produce real rewards.”40
On August 12, before Dulles left for the London Conference, and on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, Eisenhower called together the Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress, to brief them on developments. As they were gathering in the White House, Eisenhower met privately with Dulles, who pointed out that if the British and the French did decide to attack, they would do so knowing that there would be no active American support. But they would expect economic assistance, and especially access to American oil. Most of all, Dulles said—pointing to a central feature of the emerging British-French (and, unknown to the Americans, Israeli) strategy—“they would hope that we would neutralize Soviet Russia by indicating very clearly to Russia that if it should enter the conflict openly, the United States would enter it on the side of Britain and France.”41
Then, at the meeting with the congressional leaders, Eisenhower outlined the situation. Lyndon Johnson thought the proper response was to “tell them [the British and the French] they have our moral support and go on in.” Eisenhower demurred, although he agreed with Johnson’s point that the United States could not support Europe’s need for oil by itself. Republican Senator H. Alexander Smith complained that “we get a picture that Nasser is the bad man, but Nasser is the end of a long line.” Smith thought that Nasser might perhaps “be better than what we might get.” Dulles disagreed. “He’s the worst,” Dulles said of Nasser. “Not in terms of personal morals, but he’s a Hitlerite personality.” Dulles also reminded the senator that “we’ve put two world wars and a Marshall Plan into Europe,” and it would be foolish “to throw our chips away.” Eisenhower then assured the congressmen that he did not “intend to stand impotent and let this one man get away with it. . . . I hope there’s no doubt that we will look to our interests.” And with that, the meeting broke up, as the politicians went off to their national conventions. Eisenhower had hoped that two senators, one from each party, would join Dulles in London, but none would do so. They were satisfied to leave the crisis in Eisenhower’s capable hands.42
Dulles flew off to London. Within a few days he had worked out an agreement for an international board to run the canal; it specified that the board would do the “operating, maintaining, and developing of the canal.” Eisenhower told Dulles, by cable, that “Nasser may find it impossible to swallow the whole of this as now specified.” He suggested that if Dulles changed the key word from “operating” to “supervision,” Nasser might find it possible to accept.43 But although Eisenhower tried to downplay the difference as inconsequential, the French and the British let Dulles know immediately that the difference was everything. “It is felt,” Dulles reported, “very strongly here by most of the countries that if all the hiring and firing of pilots, . . . and engineers is made by the Egyptians . . . then in fact Egypt will be able to use the canal as an instrument of its national policy.” The reality of control was at stake, and on this point, Dulles said, the British and the French could not be budged. Eisenhower reluctantly told Dulles to go ahead with the initial wording.44 The majority (18 to 4) of the nations at the London Conference then accepted the American proposal and appointed a committee, headed by Prime Minister Robert Menzies of Australia as chairman, to take the proposal to Nasser.
• •
Eisenhower, meanwhile, flew off to San Francisco on August 21 to attend the Republican National Convention. It was a welcome respite. Throughout the second half of July and the first half of August, as the Suez crisis escalated, he was at his coolest and best. Nevertheless, the long hours and complex problems had taken a toll on a man still recovering from major surgery. Eisenhower had not gained back all the weight he lost after the operation. When he left for Panama on July 21, he told Persons, “If I don’t feel better than this pretty soon, I’m going to pull out of this whole thing [the campaign].” Persons related what happened: “So he goes down to Panama, almost gets crushed by the mobs, . . . suffers through all the damn receptions—and . . . three days later, he comes waltzing back looking like a new man.”45 The Suez crisis also had a rejuvenating effect on him, but the real lift he needed he got from the RNC.
It was San Francisco in August, and it could hardly have been better. Everyone had on “I Like Ike” buttons, or “Ike and Dick.” Peace and prosperity were the theme. Eisenhower had Mamie, John, Barbara, Milton, and Edgar with him. All the members of his gang came out. The only unpleasant note of the week was one last attempt by Harold Stassen to dump Nixon. Stassen wrote an appeal to every delegate, and tried to persuade Eisenhower to declare for a genuinely open vice-presidential race. But Eisenhower refused to see him unless Stassen promised in advance that he would second Nixon’s nomination. Stassen finally agreed, saw Eisenhower, and withdrew. Eisenhower announced to the press that Stassen had become convinced that “the majority of the delegates want Mr. Nixon,” so he was ending his effort to nominate someone else.46 That afternoon, August 22, the convention nominated Eisenhower by acclamation, and Nixon as vice-presidential candidate. Eisenhower made an appropriate acceptance speech, then went off for a few days’ vacation on the Monterey Peninsula, at the Casa Munors Hotel. The gang was along and they played golf and bridge for four days. On the plane ride back to Washington, Eisenhower had his friends join him on the Columbine, where they played nonstop bridge for eight and one-half hours.47 Eisenhower returned to the White House sun-tanned, buoyant, eager to go to work on his problems.
• •
Politics had provided an interlude in the Suez crisis, but only a brief one. As soon as Eisenhower returned to Washington, the Middle East—not the upcoming campaign—was his central concern, to which he wanted to give his undivided attention. But of course he could not. The issue of elementary schools, for example, was pressing in on him, because simultaneously with the Suez crisis and the campaign, the 1956–1957 school year began across the nation. At all levels, college, secondary, and elementary, it was the largest opening in the history of the Republic. The classroom and teacher shortage was acute. Eisenhower often said that education was as important, or even more important, than defense, yet the sole significant contact his government had with these millions of children, who everyone agreed were the nation’s greatest asset, was a school-lunch program. The two great needs of the education system, teachers and classrooms, were not addressed in any way by the federal government. The baby-boom children were being shortchanged in their education.
By no means was it entirely Eisenhower’s fault, but at least some of the responsibility for this situation was his. Although he had no proposal to help the teacher crisis, beyond urging the states to raise salaries, he did propose a federal program of loans and grants to the states for school construction. He put conditions on his program, however, that made it—as he had certainly been told that it would—unacceptable to Congress. His principal condition was that the money go to the poor states; rich states like California or New York could solve their own problems. In practice, that meant most of the money appropriated for schools would go to the Deep South. There it would be used to strengthen a segregated school system existing in open defiance of the Supreme Court. That was what opened the way to the Powell Amendment, which amendment, by denying funds to segregated school systems, gave “rich state” congressmen the perfect reason to vote against the bill. Eisenhower himself said that if he were a congressman, he would have to support Powell, on the merits of the case. But having said that, he refused to widen his proposal to send money to all the states, which would have ensured passage. Instead, he did nothing. He hoped the states would solve the problem, or that it might otherwise somehow go away.
It did not, could not, has not. As schools opened, mob violence broke out in Clinton, Tennessee, and in Mansfield, Texas, as school officials attempted to carry out court-ordered desegregation. On September 5, Eisenhower was asked at a press conference whether he thought “there is anything that can be said or done on the national level to help local communities meet this problem without violence.” Eisenhower thought not. It was a local problem. “And let us remember this,” he said, “under the law the federal government cannot . . . move into a state until the state is not able to handle the matter.”48 But he could not get off that easily, because the desegregation crisis was getting closer to the basic point every year. That point was the question, Would the federal government use force to insure court-ordered desegregation? If it would, then integration would prevail, and the South (and the nation) thereby changed forever. If it would not, segregation would continue.
Everyone involved in the crisis knew those basic facts. Everyone knew that the ultimate test had to come. Eisenhower admitted to Whitman, “Eventually a district court is going to cite someone for contempt, and then we are going to be up against it,” that is, forced to act.49 As in Suez, Eisenhower wanted to delay as long as possible, to allow people to cool down. But others wanted the test now. Governor Allan Shivers of Texas, who had supported Eisenhower in 1952, sent Texas Rangers to defy a court order, reassigned the Negro pupils, and then said, “I defy the federal government. Tell the federal courts if they want to come after anyone, to come after me and cite me in this matter.” Edward Morgan of ABC asked the President, “Would you consider that an incident in which the federal government had a responsibility, and, if not, can you give us an idea of what the formula is that would have to be followed for the government to intervene?”
Eisenhower was clear in answering one part of the question, while managing to ignore the other. If a federal court cited someone for contempt, Eisenhower said, of course U.S. marshals would serve the warrants and take the man to jail or force him to pay a fine. But as to using marshals, or any other form of federal force, to put the Negro children back into the school to which the court had assigned them, Eisenhower said not a word. Instead, he deplored violence, then expressed the hope that the states would meet their responsibilities, both to maintain law and order and to enforce the court orders on desegregation.50
Eisenhower was asked if he had any advice for young people in the border states who would be attending desegregated schools that fall. Eisenhower’s thoughts immediately turned to the white children, not to the Negro students. He expressed his sympathy for their situation, said he recognized that “it is difficult through law and through force to change a man’s heart.” The South, he said, was “full of people of good will, but they are not the ones we now hear.” Eisenhower then condemned “the people . . . so filled with prejudice that they even resort to violence; and the same way on the other sides of the thing, the people who want to have the whole matter settled today.” (Eisenhower’s comparison of civil-rights activists to southern mobs infuriated the NAACP.) Eisenhower also said, “We must all . . . help to bring about a change in spirit so that extremists on both sides do not defeat what we know is a reasonable, logical conclusion to this whole affair, which is recognition of the equality of men.”
That statement led to the next question: Did Eisenhower endorse the Brown decision, or merely accept it, as the Republican platform did? Eisenhower replied, “I think it makes no difference whether or not I endorse it. The Constitution is as the Supreme Court interprets it; and I must conform to that and do my very best to see that it is carried out in this country.”51
It was an attitude he carried with him through the campaign. He refused to discuss the Brown decision or the topic of desegregation, except to point with pride to his ending of Jim Crow in Washington, D.C., and at Army and Navy posts. Since desegregation was not a subject the Democrats could afford to raise, Eisenhower managed to successfully avoid the issue for another year. At what cost to the nation’s children, and especially those who were black and lived in the South, no one can say.
• •
On September 2, the Menzies committee arrived in Cairo. Nasser was cordial and willing to make many promises—among them, freedom of passage of the canal; proper maintenance of the canal; equitable tolls. But as Eisenhower had warned, he would never agree to international control. Anticipating this response, on September 2 Eisenhower wrote Eden, to say that the next step had to be to refer the problem to the U.N. and to warn that “there should be no thought of military action before the influences of the U.N. are fully explored.” British mobilization and the evacuation of British citizens from Egypt were counterproductive, Eisenhower said, because they were “solidifying support for Nasser, which has been shaky.” Turning to the American position, Eisenhower was forceful and could not have been clearer: “I must tell you frankly that American public opinion flatly rejects the thought of using force . . .” Then he explained to Eden why turning to force could not work for Britain: The British economy could not sustain prolonged military operations, nor the loss of Middle East oil. Further, the peoples of the Middle East, and of Asia and all of Africa, “would be consolidated against the West to a degree which, I fear, could not be overcome in a generation . . . particularly having in mind the capacity of the Russians to make mischief.” Finally, Eisenhower pointed to an alternative to force. “We have friends in the Middle East,” he said, “who tell us they would like to see Nasser’s deflation brought about.” But these Arabs were unanimous in saying that Suez was not the issue on which to bring that about. Eden should wait before acting.52
Eden would not wait. He replied, on September 7, in a letter that warned Eisenhower about appeasement and Munich (only fair; Eisenhower had used the historical example himself against the British when it suited his purposes during the 1954 Indochina crisis). Eden searched for words to express the depth of feeling in Britain. Assuring Eisenhower that he was conscious of the burdens and perils of military action, he then asserted: “But we have many times led Europe in the fight for freedom. It would be an ignoble end to our long history if we tamely accepted to perish by degrees.”53 Eisenhower called Dulles to confer; Dulles told him a story that made it clear he had fools on both sides of the Atlantic to deal with. Dulles said “that he had had a number of senators in yesterday to discuss the situation—and he said that in general they wanted the canal closed so that America could sell oil to the British.” Scornfully, Eisenhower asked, “With the British using what for money?”54
To Eden, in a reply of September 8, Eisenhower deplored the use of such language as “ignoble end to our long history.” He said Eden was “making of Nasser a much more important figure than he is.” Eisenhower expressed his alarm at continued British mobilization, and urged Eden to consider how effectively economic pressures against Egypt, and Arab rivalries, could be exploited “if we do not make Nasser an Arab hero.” Further, Eden should consider the possibilities of new gigantic tankers that could go around Africa, new pipelines, and oil sales from North America. Then, in a prophetic warning, Eisenhower said, “Nasser thrives on drama.” He urged Eden to drain some of the drama out of the situation, to go about deflating Nasser slowly.55
That evening, Eisenhower talked with Dulles about their next step, in view of Nasser’s rejection of an international control board. What they were looking for was another way to stall; they found it in a “Users’ Association.” It was an absurd idea; it called for maritime nations to band together, hire pilots, put control ships at each end of the canal (which had no obstacles through its length), use the canal, and put the tolls in escrow. Dulles managed to make the proposal complex enough to force the actors to spend weeks discussing it. Nasser, however, undercut the Users’ Association idea before it was hardly born. On September 14, the British pilots walked off their jobs at the canal. The next day, Egyptian pilots brought through a convoy of thirteen ships. By the end of the week, 254 ships had passed through, a record. Nasser was operating the canal more efficiently than the British had. Thus, as Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs, “The ascumption upon which the Users’ Association was largely based proved groundless.” Eisenhower felt that Nasser’s action made “any thought of using force . . . almost ridiculous.”56 In his opinion, the British should accept the Egyptian offer for compensation for their 44 percent interest in the Suez Canal Company, and get back to their real problems, such as restoring their economy and making their contribution to meeting the Russian threat.
• •
The split between America and Britain over Egypt was having repercussions in areas of secret military collaboration, specifically on the bases for the U-2. By early 1956, Richard Bissell had twenty-two U-2s, plus trained pilots, ready to go. Bases were necessary to overfly East Europe, the first target. As to what happened from that point on, much of the story must be based on oral history interviews, because most of the documents (and especially those that deal with the British) remain sealed. But the chief informants—Bissell himself, John Eisenhower, who joined the White House staff as Goodpaster’s assistant in 1958, and Goodpaster—agree on all the major events, and the few documents that are available substantiate their account.
Bissell flew to London to confer with Eden sometime in the spring of 1956. Eden agreed that the CIA could fly U-2 missions from a SAC base northeast of London. In May, flights over East Europe began. The Russians protested against the violation of airspace. On May 28, Eisenhower met with Allen Dulles, Radford, Twining, and Goodpaster to discuss the subject. Eisenhower expressed his concern over the effects the spy flights might have on the chances for peace, his readiness to see how far the Soviets might go to put relations on a better basis, and his consequent determination to be “wise and careful in what we do.”57 Eden, meanwhile, had grown skittish over the Russian protests, and—more important—could hardly see the point to maintaining American spy-mission airfields within his country at a time when the British were secretly preparing for war. Eden told Eisenhower he did not want any more British-based U-2s flying over Communist territory. Bissell then went to West Germany. Adenauer gave him permission to base the U-2 in Wiesbaden; later the planes were based farther east, near the East German border. Bissell also arranged for bases in Turkey.
On May 31, while these arrangements were being made, Eisenhower approved, in principle, a program for U-2 flights over the Soviet Union itself. By June 21, Bissell was ready and asked for a final approval. Eisenhower quizzed him about the “yield to be expected,” operating conditions, control and direction of the missions, and other details, as well as what Bissell proposed to do if a U-2 malfunctioned. Bissell said the CIA would claim it was on a weather reconnaissance flight. Eisenhower told Bissell that he authorized the initial flights for a period of ten days. Bissell said he assumed that meant ten days of good weather, not just ten calendar days. Goodpaster said, “No, you have just ten calendar days and you will have to take your chances with the weather.” Eisenhower then told Bissell he wanted to be kept thoroughly informed, and had to be consulted before any “deep operations are initiated.”58
The first flight went, successfully, five days later. In the following week, there were six additional missions. Then came a great shock—the Russians sent in a private but firm diplomatic protest. The CIA and the Defense Department had assumed the spy planes flew too high (more than eighty thousand feet) to be tracked. American radar could not follow them; its upper limit was sixty thousand feet. But the Russians could. Eisenhower told Bissell to slow down, “and it was quite a few months before he was ready to authorize another flight.”
As Bissell explained in a 1979 interview, the entire program “was controlled very tightly by the President personally.” Before each flight, Bissell would draw up on a map the proposed flight plan and spread it out on the President’s desk. Along with Goodpaster, the Dulles brothers, Wilson, and Radford, Eisenhower would study it. “The President would ask a lot of questions. He would ask me to come around and explain this or that feature of the flight, and there were occasions, more than once, when he would say, ‘Well, you can go there, but I want you to leave out that leg and go straight that way. I want you to go from B to D because it looks to me like you might be getting a little exposed over here,’ or something of that kind. So we had very, very tight ground rules,” Bissell concluded, “very tight control by the President.”59
As Bissell emphasized, Eisenhower was cautious about overflying the Soviet Union. Overflying France or Britain was out of the question. But still the U-2 could be used to gather intelligence from the Middle East. Sometime in the late summer or early fall of 1956, Eisenhower ordered it done. In mid-October, he noted one discovery in his diary: “Our high-flying reconnaissance planes have shown that Israel has obtained some sixty of the French Mystère pursuit planes, when there had been reported the transfer of only twenty-four.”60 In the three weeks that followed, he found that the U-2 was his best source of information—but only with regard to the British, French, and Israelis, not the Russians, against whom it had been intended to be directed.
• •
Like the U-2, Eisenhower wanted to keep American nuclear testing secret, and if that were not possible, at least relatively quiet. But the fear of fallout was widespread—the President shared it—so interest was high. Further, the tests could not be hidden from the Russians, who were sure to announce them anyway, so some publicity was inevitable. Khrushchev himself had made sure that it would be; in November 1955, he boasted that the Soviet Union had detonated “the most powerful” H-bomb ever. Western observers calculated the blast at between two and four megatons, much smaller than Bravo. What impressed the Americans was the Russian ability to drop a weapon of that size from an airplane, something the Americans could not yet do.61
Further American testing was necessary, Strauss and the AEC told Eisenhower, to find a configuration that would fit into a plane, and another, smaller one, to fit into the nose cone of an ICBM. Eisenhower was hesitant, but when in March 1956, the Soviets undertook another series of tests, the President gave his final approval to Operation Redwing, a series of tests of more than a dozen different nuclear explosions at proving grounds in the Pacific. In doing so, Eisenhower “pointed out that without the H-bomb the guided missile amounts to nothing—if they stop tests they would have to stop work on the missiles.”62 Redwing began on May 5; on May 21, an Air Force plane released a hydrogen bomb over Bikini. It exploded with a force of ten megatons.63
To Eisenhower’s consternation, Stevenson had meanwhile tried to make testing a partisan political issue. In April, running for the Democratic nomination, he called for an end to testing. Stevenson said he found little “sense in multiplying and enlarging weapons of a destructive power already incomprehensible.” Then he criticized Eisenhower for being “dangerously dilatory” in the development of missiles.64 At an April 25 press conference, Eisenhower was asked to comment on both Stevenson’s points, and on Khrushchev’s latest boast, that the Russians would soon have guided missiles with H-bomb warheads capable of hitting any point in the world.
Eisenhower replied that it was difficult to build missiles, it took a long time, and they were far from dependable. Did he think it important for America to stay ahead of the Russians in missiles? He did, stressing that “you can scarcely overemphasize the psychological value of such a weapon.” But he repeated that they were expensive and took a long time to build. Did he then think the United States was spending enough? The reporter added, “There are Democrats who say we are not.” “Not only Democrats,” the Presidnt said, laughing. “There are lots of people saying we are not.” But there were only so many scientists, only so many facilities. They were being used to the maximum.
May Craig brought the wandering discourse back to one of Stevenson’s points. She asked Eisenhower to comment on the call for a halt to nuclear testing. He immediately brought in Stevenson’s other point—more money for missiles—into his answer. “It is a little bit of a paradox,” he pointed out, “to urge that we work just as hard as we know how on the guided missile and that we stop all research on the hydrogen bomb, because one without the other is rather useless.” He said he was going to go forward with the Redwing tests, “not to make a bigger bang, not cause more destruction—[but] to find out ways and means in which you can limit it, make it useful in defensive purposes . . . reduce fallout, make it more of a military weapon and less one just of mass destruction. We know we can make them big,” he said. “We are not interested in that anymore.” The Redwing tests were designed to go along with the missile research, “so if you don’t work on one . . . , why work on the other? . . . Research without tests is perfectly useless, a waste of money.”65
The logic and the authoritative tone in which “General Ike” delivered that statement put Stevenson very much on the defensive on the issue. Eisenhower had made him look like a bumbling amateur trying to interfere in a business that was beyond his competence.
The only way out of testing and missile development was through an acceptable disarmament plan. In the spring of 1956, even while Redwing was going on, Eisenhower remained committed to disarmament. At a meeting with Republican leaders on May 18, however, Knowland spoke up for the Bricker Amendment. Knowland said the nation needed the amendment, because all this disarmament talk could lead to a treaty taking away the people’s constitutional right to bear arms. Eisenhower replied that if the people’s right to bear arms became an issue in a disarmament treaty, then the Constitution should be amended to remove that right. “If he had to give up the objective of getting a disarmament agreement, the President said, there would be no reason for staying here. A decent disarmament treaty is an absolute must!”66
But with Stassen on leave to plot against Nixon, nothing was done on disarmament in mid-1956. Then on August 24, the Russians resumed testing. They also renewed their call for an international test-ban agreement, saying they were ready to stop testing when the United States was also ready.67 Eisenhower was tempted. On August 30, he wrote Strauss, “I have spoken to you several times about my hope that the need for atomic tests would gradually lift and possibly soon disappear.” He said that Isidor Rabi, the Columbia physics professor, had just told him that he thought it was now possible to stop testing. Therefore, Eisenhower concluded, “I should like to talk to you about this when you have an opportunity.”68 Strauss continued to insist on the need for further testing.
By September, however, Stassen had gone back to disarmament concerns, and was pressing for an American initiative on the test-ban issue, and disarmament generally. On September 14, Eisenhower held a major White House conference on the subject. Present were Stassen, Dulles, Strauss, Wilson, Radford, Goodpaster, and the President. Stassen had a series of ideas on arms reduction to present, and he said he proposed to set July 1957 as the date to initiate actual disarmament. All those at the conference, save the President, were taken aback. That was “totally unrealistic,” they asserted. Dulles thought “two or three years” was more like it. Eisenhower broke in. He said “we could sit and find obstacles to the plan without end. Something, however, must be done. . . . We must set some date, and work toward it.” The conferees then agreed to set December 1, 1957, as the date.
What Goodpaster described as “spirited discussion” ensued over the subject of a test ban. Eventually, “agreement was indicated that any stopping must be predicated upon an inspection plan.” Along the way, however, Eisenhower had grown irritated at his people arguing among themselves. He told Stassen to get together with Strauss, Dulles, and Wilson and “work out an agreed staff position. He said he was not accustomed to have his staff come in to him with disorganized point of view so that he would have to argue each aspect with separate individuals.” Eisenhower told them to go back to work on the problem, “and not come back until they had a common position to present.”69
• •
Poor staff work was becoming an increasing problem for Eisenhower. He had hoped, in January 1953, to put together a team that could operate like the one at SHAEF, but he had soon realized how impossible that was in an organization so much larger than even SHAEF had been, and in the past three years had turned increasingly to small, private meetings in the Oval Office when making his decisions. In the public view, and according to the Democrats, Eisenhower’s weakness was that he spent too much time with, and paid undue attention to, staffs and committees. The truth was that they were all, from legislative leaders’ meetings right through to NSC meetings, pro forma gatherings for the President. He used them to explain what he was going to do, and to get support for it, not to discuss what to do.
Whitman made this point clearly in an August 28 letter to Milton, who had asked her to describe for him how the President spent his official time. Whitman replied with a six-page letter, “written with all the frankness I can command,” which she asked Milton to keep strictly to himself.
The most time-consuming meetings, Whitman began, were those of the NSC. She thought they could be cut back considerably, because Eisenhower “himself complains that he knows every word of the presentations as they are to be made.” But he said that to maintain interest among those present, “he must sit through each meeting—despite the fact that he knows the presentations so well.” Next worse were Cabinet meetings. Whitman noted that “little briefing, if any, is required for these meetings.” Then there were the press-conference briefings, where for a half hour each week the staff went over possible questions. “Especially in the last year or so,” Whitman wrote, “it has seemed to me that the President knows full well how he is going to answer any given question, without assistance from the staff.” Eisenhower used the briefings, she continued, “to urge the staff members to be a little more definite and not always to beg the issue (as so many want to).” The meetings with Republican leaders, held weekly when Congress was in session, lasted only half an hour “and only about five minutes’ preparation is required.”
Eisenhower’s important meetings, Whitman said, were those he held weekly with Drs. Burns and Hauge, to discuss the economy, and the more frequent but ad hoc discussions he held with Foster Dulles. But the most time-consuming Cabinet officer was Wilson, who turned to Eisenhower to solve the frequently bitter interservice rivalries, and for help on such matters as budget, manpower, etc. In a fascinating juxtaposition, in the next paragraph Whitman wrote that in contrast to Wilson, Strauss and the AEC took hardly any time at all. “As far as I can judge, the President has only to make the top decisions in this field, and they take a minimum amount of time.” In other words, Eisenhower was sure of himself in DOD matters and spent hours on details, but was unsure of himself in the nuclear field and thus let Strauss run it.
One-half hour of each day was devoted to Goodpaster’s early-morning briefing on intelligence and foreign-affairs reports. Then there were appointments with senators and congressmen, which had been “drastically curtailed” since the heart attack. Additional appointments with visiting groups, heads of organizations, signatures, and a dozen other things also took time. One of the worst was speeches; Whitman wrote, “I guess he spends twenty to thirty hours on each major speech.” Often he caught mistakes that had gotten by everyone else. “I shall never forget the time a phrase ‘consumer demands have not changed in 2,000 years’ got by everybody,” Whitman wrote, until it got to the President—“But of course he caught it!”70
• •
Whitman was describing only Eisenhower’s official meetings, activities, and schedule. He did even more work unofficially. He was, obviously, a very busy man. Not so busy, however, that he could not find time to worry about some details in the upcoming campaign. One of his pet projects was getting out a big vote. On September 6, he wrote Cliff Roberts, suggesting that Roberts get some signs worked up urging people to vote, and told him to quote the President in doing so. Eisenhower told Roberts to distribute the signs through the U.S. Golf Association. He said he wanted to see one of them up in every clubhouse in the country, and warned that he would be looking for such a sign at Burning Tree.71 The President called Arthur Sulzberger on the phone to ask why the Times was hesitating in endorsing the Republican ticket. “It is your running mate that bothers me,” Sulzberger replied. Eisenhower asked Sulzberger to come down for lunch sometime soon to talk about it. Sulzberger said he would be there the next day. The Times then endorsed the Republican ticket.72
Most of all, Eisenhower wanted to get going on the campaign because of the way Stevenson kept opening himself to criticism for not knowing, or thinking through, what he was talking about. On September 5, addressing the American Legion, Stevenson simultaneously called for an end to the military draft and an end to nuclear testing. On issues such as those, Eisenhower was eager to do battle.