“NEW FORCES and new nations stir and strive across the earth,” Eisenhower declared in his Second Inaugural Address. “From the deserts of North Africa to the islands of the South Pacific one-third of all mankind has entered upon an historic struggle for a new freedom: freedom from grinding poverty.” Across this world, he said, “the winds of change” were blowing. The Communists were trying to get those winds blowing their way, in order to exploit the Third World. The great battleground of the Cold War had shifted away from Europe and Korea and Formosa, where the situation was relatively stable, to Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent, where the situation was in active ferment. Suez was only the most spectacular event in the process of the breaking up of European colonialism. New nations were emerging, or struggling to emerge, from the wreckage. Most had not been prepared by their rulers for independence. Many had raw materials unavailable elsewhere, particularly oil and minerals that were crucial to the Western industrial system. All of the new nations appeared to be more or less in danger of falling to the Communists.
Suez made Eisenhower almost painfully aware of the importance of the Third World to the United States, which was why he made it not only the theme of his second inaugural but of much of his second term. “No people can live to itself alone,” he told the American public. If living conditions were not improved in the Third World, it would go Communist. “Not even America’s prosperity could long survive if other nations did not also prosper.”1 Even before the inaugural, Eisenhower had set his Administration to work on what Burt Kaufman has called “the most searching review of the U.S. foreign-aid program since the adoption of the Marshall Plan.” When the reports came in, two months later, they concluded—as Eisenhower already had—that economic assistance to the Third World would lead to economic developments which would lead to political stability and the evolution of democratic societies. To get the process started, soft loans on a long-term, continuing basis were necessary.2
Convincing the American people was the trick. Over the next four years, Eisenhower would try every form of persuasion at his command to demonstrate to his countrymen the importance of the Third World to the United States. It was one of the most frustrating experiences of his life. He could not convince the people; he could not convince the Republican Party; he could not even convince his own Secretary of the Treasury. Eisenhower recognized that one of the fundamental truths the Suez crisis taught was that the Arabs were more important to the West than the West was to them, but he could not get enough of the American people to see it that way, much less that what happened in Central Africa or Algeria or India made any difference in their lives. Eisenhower tried to explain, on February 5, to a group of Old Guard China Lobby Republicans, that “Formosa, if lost, is a blow, but not a major world defeat.” But if the West lost the Middle East, “that would be major.” The Republicans did not believe him, and could not see the point to giving away money to Africans and Asians (other than those in South Korea and Formosa).3
One of Eisenhower’s great concerns was the raw materials that would be lost to the West if the Third World went Communist. Fearful that it might happen, he made stockpiling one of his pet projects, a subject he raised innumerable times in Cabinet meetings. He was particularly eager to trade the grain in storage for minerals or oil that could be stockpiled. At a leaders’ meeting, “the President again set forth his belief that the U.S. should miss no opportunity to replace perishables with nonperishable resources which might some day be exhausted.” But he could never get his Cabinet or his party to agree. “The President told the leaders how he had shocked Secretary Humphrey when he stated his preference for manganese instead of gold in Fort Knox, on the basis that you can’t make bullets out of gold.”4
Humphrey objected to stockpiling because it was expensive and would disrupt the world market; he objected to loans to developing countries because they would never be paid back and would unbalance the American budget. Eisenhower patiently tried to avoid a split with Humphrey by educating the Secretary to the realities of the modern world. “Few individuals understand the intensity and force of the spirit of nationalism that is gripping all peoples of the world today,” Eisenhower said. Humphrey protested that the United States should not encourage the emerging nations, that it should instead support the French in Algeria, the British in Rhodesia, and so on, because the Europeans ran the colonies more efficiently and thus would improve living conditions faster. Eisenhower replied that “it is my personal conviction that almost any one of the newborn states of the world would far rather embrace Communism or any other form of dictatorship than to acknowledge the political domination of another government even though that brought to each citizen a far higher standard of living.” Citing his own experiences in the Philippines, Eisenhower explained the obvious to Humphrey, that through national independence people obtained “fierce pride and personal satisfaction.”
Eisenhower wanted Humphrey to understand “that the spirit of nationalism, coupled with a deep hunger for some betterment in physical conditions and living standards, creates a critical situation in the underdeveloped areas of the world.” He pointed out that “Communism is not going to be whipped merely by pious words, but it can be whipped by . . . a readiness on the part of ourselves . . . to face up to the critical phase through which the world is passing and do our duty like men.”5
Eisenhower’s exhortation to Humphrey to be a man did not succeed. The President himself, indeed, agreed with one part of Humphrey’s position. On July 2, at a leaders’ meeting, the Republicans told Eisenhower that Senator Kennedy was going to make a long speech on Algeria, and propose a resolution in support of Algerian independence. They wanted to know how to reply. Eisenhower, citing Humphrey, admitted that “the people of Algeria still lacked sufficient education and training to run their own government in the most efficient way.” Eisenhower was also concerned about the effects on relations with France if the Senate supported Algerian independence.
But strong as those arguments were, the President continued, they had to give way to even stronger ones. “The United States could not possibly maintain that freedom—independence—liberty—were necessary to us but not to others.” Therefore, the Republicans could not argue against the Algerian cause. “Perhaps,” the President concluded, “Republicans might best just chide Mr. Kennedy a bit for pretending to have all the answers.”6
When Eisenhower entered office in 1953, he was in agreement with the moderate Republican notion that aid programs, and preeminently the Marshall Plan, had served their purpose and ought to be abandoned in favor of more trade; thus his attempt to lower tariffs. “Trade, not aid” was the slogan. Humphrey was the strongest advocate of this policy, with its emphasis on private American investment in underdeveloped countries. Eisenhower, however, had learned during his first term that the flow of private capital into the Third World was a mere trickle, and that the money that did go in was invested to provide profits for the West, not improvements in living conditions for the recipient nation. He decided to make a major policy shift.
By 1957, as Kaufman notes, Eisenhower’s slogan had become “trade and aid,” with the emphasis on government to government, soft, long-term loans to Third World countries. He therefore called for a Development Loan Fund of $2 billion, spread over a three-year period.7 Even as he made his proposal, however, Eisenhower feared that his chances of getting it through Congress “were approximately nil.”8 Nevertheless, he made it a top priority of the Administration for 1957, along with direct-aid packages to such countries as India and military-assistance programs to neutral as well as allied nations.
Eisenhower put his time, prestige, energy, and persuasive powers into the effort to get his foreign-aid package through Congress. He met interminably with the Republican leaders, with the Democratic leaders, with groups and associations interested in the subject. He made speeches. He devoted nearly every one of his stag dinners to convincing his guests to become missionaries for foreign aid.9
A conversation Eisenhower had with Senator Styles Bridges on May 21 illustrates the President’s methods. Bridges had characterized the foreign-aid program as nothing but “a do-gooder giveaway.” Eisenhower called him into the Oval Office. “It is pretty hard,” he said, “when I have to bear the burdens not only of the Presidency,” but also those of head of a party in which “one of the principal people”—Bridges—could so characterize his program. “I think nothing could be further from the truth” than to call it a “do-gooder” program, Eisenhower said. The program was necessary to meet the Communist menace. “If I knew a cheap way out of this one,” he added, “I certainly would take it . . . I think my party ought to trust me a little bit more when I put not only my life’s work, but my reputation and everything else, on the line in favor of this.”
Bridges protested that what he had in mind was money going to Yugoslavia, India, Indonesia, and other neutrals. Eisenhower said he had been making a study of neutrality, that “I’m reading Horace now for that purpose,” and that in the case of India, or Yugoslavia, he highly approved of their neutral stance. Take India, he said; suppose it declared, “We take our stand with the West.” India had an eighteen-hundred-mile border with China. “How much have we got to put into India to make it reasonably safe for them even to exist?” Could the United States afford to arm India sufficiently so that it could defend itself? Could the United States afford to send the troops necessary to defend that long border? India was better off neutral.
But India had to develop. It contained 350 million people, many of them practically starving. “You could put all the defense in the world in there, and they will go Communistic.” Eisenhower reminded Bridges of his responsibilities: “You are the United States Republican senator who has been in the longest; you are respected; you are intelligent and can look these problems in the face.” He admitted that “sometimes I think it would be wonderful if only we could go back to the days of 1896,” but insisted that “we cannot . . . Freedom happens to be something that, if it becomes practiced only in one place on earth, then it can no longer be practiced even there.” As the President talked, he grew agitated and began pacing. “Look,” he told Bridges, “I want to wage the Cold War in a militant, but reasonable, style whereby we appeal to the people of the world as a better group to hang with than the Communists.” Bridges managed to put in a protest—he did not like giving money to Yugoslavia. Eisenhower snapped back, “Tito is the only man in Europe who succeeded in breaking away completely from the Soviets.” The United States had given him six jet aircraft, obsolete ones “but which are all right for him.” Eisenhower said he wanted more aid for Yugoslavia because “I do not by any manner of means want Tito to find that he has no place to go except back to the Soviets.” Bridges asked about the danger of Tito using the military equipment against the United States. Eisenhower scoffed at the notion—“I would say that two bombs in Yugoslavia would make the country helpless.”10
Despite Eisenhower’s efforts with Bridges and other senators, the Senate and House continued to cut back on his requested $4 billion appropriation. Eisenhower called in the ten members of the House and Senate most concerned in the appropriation debate to tell them that he felt so strongly about his program that he would sacrifice part of his own salary “to meet the pressing need of adequate funds for foreign aid.” He repeated this unique offer the next morning at his regular meeting with Republican leaders. It did not work. In the final bill, Congress cut his request by almost one-third, to $2.7 billion. This was, according to Republican Senator N. Alexander Smith, “a devastating defeat . . . for the President.”11
Eisenhower was furious. To Swede, he wrote, “I am repeatedly astonished, even astounded, by the apparent ignorance of members of Congress in the general subject of our foreign affairs.” He realized that congressional penny-pinching “reflects abysmal ignorance” among the general public as well. Each congressman, he said, “thinks of himself as intensely patriotic; but it does not take the average member long to conclude that his first duty to his country is to get himself re-elected,” a conviction that led to a “capacity for rationalization that is almost unbelievable.” “Again and again,” he said, he had patiently explained to congressmen that foreign aid represented America’s “best investment.” It helped keep down the cost of the American military establishment and provided consuming power in recipient nations. Most of the foreign-aid money was spent in the United States to provide goods and services for the Third World countries. It was a program that, to the President, was so obviously good for America that he could not understand how anyone could be opposed.12 But opposed Congress was, and his virtual one-man attempt to push through an adequate foreign-aid program failed.
• •
What Congress was willing to give the President, although only after intense debate, was the Eisenhower Doctrine. Immediately after the Suez crisis, Eisenhower decided that the President needed, in advance, authorization to intervene in the Middle East before the next crisis got out of hand. He also wanted authorization to send military and economic aid to the Arab nations. At an extraordinary meeting on New Year’s Day, 1957, that lasted from 2 to 6 P.M., and that included the top thirty senators and representatives from both parties, plus thirty-two men from the Executive Branch, Eisenhower explained his reasoning. As summarized in the minutes of the meeting, Eisenhower said “that should there be a Soviet attack in that area he could see no alternative but that the United States move in immediately to stop it, other than suffering loss of that area to Russia.” Soviet control of the Middle East “would be disastrous to Europe because of its oil requirements.” Eisenhower said that in his view “the United States must put the entire world on notice that we are ready to move instantly if necessary.” He assured the congressmen that he would always follow constitutional procedures if possible, “but pointed out that modern war might be a matter of hours only.” If Congress would give him the authority he sought, Eisenhower added, “it might never have to be used.”
The congressmen voiced several reservations or objections, and protested that the President already had the power to act without a congressional authorization. Eisenhower said that “greater effect could be had from a consensus of executive and legislative opinion,” and pointed out that the countries of the Middle East wanted reassurance that the United States was ready to help them. If the Russians started to move whole armies into the Middle East, it would take time, and in that instance, Eisenhower said, he would be able to go to Congress. But if the Communists began fermenting internal coups within the Arab states, he would have to move fast. He would not, however, intervene unless asked to do so by the government that was threatened. The resolution he was offering, he said, would “contain clear indications that the United States would act only where requested, and that the United States was not being truculent.”13
At noon on January 5, Eisenhower went up to Capitol Hill to deliver in person his special message on the Middle East. After a brief review of the situation there, he asked Congress for authorization to provide economic aid and military assistance to “any nation or group of nations which desires such aid.” Further, he wanted authorization to employ American armed forces “to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid, against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism.” To implement the economic and military aid portions of his request, the President asked for $200 million beyond the foreign-aid money already appropriated. Eisenhower assured Congress that he would not use the authority for American military intervention “except at the desire of the nation attacked,” and expressed his “profound hope that this authority would never have to be exercised at all.” In justification for his request, he said the “greatest risk” in the Middle East “is that ambitious despots may miscalculate. If power-hungry Communists should . . . estimate that the Middle East is inadequately defended, they might be tempted to use open measures of armed attack.” In that event, the United States could not stand aside. “I am convinced that the best insurance against this dangerous contingency is to make clear” America’s readiness and willingness to act.14
The problem with going to Congress for prior authorization was that the ensuing debate revealed America was neither ready nor willing to act. Politicians who were unwilling to support Eisenhower’s overall economic-aid program for the Third World in general were just as unwilling to authorize money and arms for the Arabs. Speaker Rayburn told Dulles that neither he nor any other Democrat would cosponsor the resolution, nor in any other way identify themselves with the unpopular proposal. But he also promised that the Democrats “were not going to put in a counterresolution.” Then Rayburn himself proposed a substitute declaration: “The United States regards as vital to her interest the preservation of the independence and integrity of the states of the Middle East and, if necessary, will use her armed force to that end.” Eisenhower refused to accept it because it eliminated economic and military aid. In the Senate, Richard Russell of Georgia made a similar proposal. Like Rayburn, he linked his substitute to the ongoing battle over the budget and the need to eliminate the deficits. Eisenhower thought Russell’s argument was a case of penny-wise and pound-foolish. He said his original resolution was directed against two dangers, direct armed aggression and indirect subversion. “To counter one and not the other would destroy both efforts.” The Arabs needed arms, and “their peoples need hope for improving economic conditions.” Further, Eisenhower feared that the Russell substitution “would suggest that our country wants only to wage peace in terms of war.”15 But Congress was not convinced. Some members, known as prominent friends of Israel, objected to any aid to the Arabs. Others objected to relinquishing, in advance and without knowledge of the particular circumstances, the Constitution’s delegation of the authority to declare war to Congress alone. Still others feared it would weaken America’s ties to the NATO countries, to the U.N., or both.16 The debate continued.
• •
While Eisenhower bemoaned what he regarded as the stupid shortsightedness of the Congress toward the Arabs, and regretted its ability to delay and even destroy his foreign policy, there was an area for action available to him that did not require congressional approval. It was personal diplomacy, and he went after it with a vengeance. As soon as the Suez crisis had simmered down, Eisenhower invited a series of Arab and Asian leaders to the White House, where he greeted them with enthusiasm, showered them with honors, and talked to them at length about their problems and what America could do to help. It was, in effect, a blitz of the Third World.
The first to come was the Premier of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba. His primary concern was the French in Algeria. Then came Nehru, followed by the Lebanese ambassador, who was worried about the effect of Nasser’s appeals to pan-Arab nationalism in his country. Eisenhower deplored the intervention and agitation in Lebanon’s internal affairs and promised to do all he could to help the Lebanese.17
The most important visitor was King Saud, who remained Eisenhower’s personal choice as the man who could successfully challenge Nasser for leadership of the Arab world, turning pan-Arab nationalism away from the Soviet Union toward the West. More specifically, the West needed Saudi Arabian oil for Europe, and the Americans needed to extend their lease on Dhahran airfield. For his part, Saud needed American arms. Throughout the Suez crisis, Eisenhower had treated Saud with the most exquisite care, flattering him, making promises, repeating assurances (“Your Majesty’s needs have been always in our mind.”).18 When Saud indicated that he wished to visit the United States, Eisenhower was enthusiastic, although he had one worry—“Will he bring his harem?”19
It was the wrong worry. On January 9, Dulles called Eisenhower to report that Saud had sent word “that he will not come to the U.S. unless the President would meet him at the airport.” Saud’s demand posed two major problems for Eisenhower. First, it would shatter precedent. American practice had always been for the President’s first greeting of a foreign head of state to take place at the White House. If Eisenhower went to the airport to greet Saud, he would have to do so for every subsequent visitor, a time-draining act that could also jeopardize the President’s health (Eisenhower was trying to cut down on, not add to, the physical demands of his job). It was a mark of how important the role was that Eisenhower had projected for Saud that Eisenhower told Dulles, “I don’t know how we can get out of it, unless we don’t want him to come at all.” But Eisenhower definitely did want Saud to come, so he told Dulles, “Of course I will meet him.”20
The other problem posed by Saud’s demand was that it highlighted the king’s visit at a time when pro-Israeli forces in the United States vigorously objected to any visit at all by Saud. When Saud arrived, on January 29, Eisenhower had escort ships of the Navy meet him in New York harbor. Cabot Lodge was there, along with other dignitaries, but the mayor of the city, Robert Wagner, refused to grant Saud the customary reception, saying that the king “is not the kind of person we want to officially recognize in New York City.” Saud flew to Washington, where Eisenhower met him at the airport. That evening, at a formal dinner at the White House (white ties and tailcoats, or flowing robes), Eisenhower entertained Saud, helped by the chief executives of Aramco, Jersey, Socony, Texaco, and Standard of California, all of whom had had a great year in 1956, thanks to the Suez crisis.21
Saud was the first non-European monarch Eisenhower had met, and he was more than a bit astonished. He got Saud to talking about hunting, and asked what kind of rifle and shotgun the king preferred. Saud said he hunted with falcons and never used a gun. The heavy robes that Saud and his people wore had a musky odor, Eisenhower found, and when he was surrounded by Saudis “I nearly suffocated.” The king, he discovered, “is strictly medieval. When he says ‘my people,’ he means just that.” Saud handed out $50 and $100 bills to the waiters as tips; Eisenhower never allowed tipping in the White House, but on this occasion he held his tongue.
Insofar as there were substantial discussions, Saud gave his grudging approval to the Eisenhower Doctrine, assured Eisenhower that he would never allow Saudi Arabia to go Communist, pointed out that he had refused numerous Soviet offers to provide him with arms, and said he had no intention of making any threats about forcing the Americans out of Dhahran. But, Saud added, “My people would revolt if I renew the Dhahran lease without an arms agreement.” The chances of a Saudi revolt against the king were about nil, but Eisenhower suppressed his smile and promised to do his best to get arms for Saud. He also promised that no American Jew would serve in the U.S. Air Force in Dhahran (this was long-standing practice; the oil companies too promised the Saudis that no Jew would ever work for them in Saudi Arabia).22 Overall, Eisenhower thought Saud “introspective and shy,” which hardly qualified him to challenge the charismatic Nasser for Arab leadership. But there was no one else in sight, and Eisenhower decided that Saud would be “the person we tie to.”23
• •
Saud’s visit coincided with a crisis in American-Israeli relations, one that also threatened to weaken or defeat the Eisenhower Doctrine. Three months after the crisis, Britain and France had withdrawn from Suez and the Egyptians were clearing the canal. But the Israelis refused to leave Gaza, as they had promised to do and as had been required by the U.N. resolution. By the end of January, the Egyptians were threatening to stop the process of clearing the canal unless and until Israel withdrew from Gaza. On February 3, Eisenhower sent Ben-Gurion a strongly worded three-page telegram, urging him to pull out of Gaza and warning that unless Israel did so, the U.N., already being pressed hard by the Arabs on the subject, would impose sanctions on Israel.24
The President then went down to Humphrey’s plantation in Thomasville, Georgia, for two weeks of bridge and hunting. The newspapers, at that time, were speculating on a rift between the President and the Secretary of the Treasury over the budget and over the foreign-aid proposals, but as Slater said in his diary, “If there is a rift it is because of that stupid club lead George made last night.” The quail shooting was superb, and Eisenhower managed to shoot a twenty-two-pound wild turkey, his first. The hunters rode in wicker buggies drawn by white mules and driven by “the old colored retainers.” Perfect weather helped make the vacation even more enjoyable.25
But Eisenhower had to cut it short because of the Middle East situation. On February 16, Dulles flew down to Thomasville, along with Lodge, to talk to the President and Humphrey about Ben-Gurion’s response to Eisenhower’s telegram. Unless Israel retained civil administration and police power in Gaza, Ben-Gurion said, and had a guaranteed right to use the Gulf of Aqaba, she would not withdraw. Dulles was angry. He told Eisenhower that the United States “had gone just as far as was possible to try to make it easy and acceptable to the Israelis to withdraw.” Dulles said that to give any further help to Israel “would almost surely jeopardize the entire Western influence in the Middle East and make it almost certain that virtually all of the Middle East countries would feel that United States policy toward the area was in the last analysis controlled by the Jewish influence in the United States and that accordingly the only hope of the Arab countries was in association with the Soviet Union.”
Eisenhower thought that was a powerful, indeed overriding, argument. He decided to step up the pressure on Israel. Lodge told him that he would have to hurry, because the Arabs were pressing for a General Assembly vote condemning Israel, and Lodge could not delay the vote much longer. Dulles went over the options. The United States could support a resolution of condemnation (insufficient, Eisenhower said); it could support a resolution calling for a suspension of governmental support for Israel (we have already done that, replied the President); support a resolution calling on the members to suspend not merely governmental assistance but private assistance to Israel (I like that, said the President, and he told Humphrey to call the tax people in Washington to find out how much money was involved); a resolution calling for present sanctions against Israel and prospective sanctions against Egypt if she did not open the Gulf of Aqaba to Israel shipping (good, Eisenhower nodded).
Humphrey returned to report that the rough estimate was about $40 million a year went to Israel as private gifts (tax deductible), and about $60 million worth of Israeli bonds were sold each year in the United States. Eisenhower calculated that the threat to stop the flow of that money should be sufficient to get the Israelis out of Gaza, and he told Humphrey to “get in touch with one or two leading Jewish personalities who might be sympathetic to our position and help to organize some Jewish sentiment.”26
It is curious but true that Eisenhower himself never attempted to make contact with American Jewish leaders. In nearly every other instance—Soil Bank, foreign aid, NATO relations, oil prices, and so many more—it was his customary practice to call in the spokesmen of the groups involved. He would hear them out, then turn the full power of his personality on them in a summation that exhorted them to see reason and support his position. He would also carry on an extensive correspondence, urging his rich and powerful friends to support his program. But in two areas, Israel and civil rights, he did not follow that pattern. Eisenhower had no close Jewish friends, but he did have many acquaintances who were leaders in the Jewish community, including Baruch, Strauss, and Louis Marx. But he never reached out to them, or to the wider Jewish community. Similarly, Eisenhower had no Negro friends, nor even more than one or two acquaintances. He gave the white South and its leaders the full Eisenhower treatment, but he ignored the Negro community. While he was in Thomasville, Martin Luther King asked for an opportunity to talk to him. Eisenhower refused. He was uncomfortable with Jews and Negroes, so much so that he did not want to hear their side.
He did reach out to Congress. Returning to Washington, on February 20 he called in two dozen of the leading Democrats and Republicans to tell them he intended to support sanctions on private gifts to Israel. He gave them the full treatment—a long, impassioned speech of his own, reviewing the situation and stating the reasons for his decision, followed by a half hour of Dulles giving his supporting arguments. Eisenhower then allowed the congressmen ample time to ask questions, propose their own alternatives, and generally be heard. Knowland said that in view of Israeli intransigence, “voting against sanctions did not seem to be feasible,” but he also wanted to impose sanctions on the Soviet Union for its failure to comply with the U.N. resolution calling for withdrawal from Hungary. Lodge said that “the U.N. will never vote sanctions against either Russia or the United States.” Senator Lyndon Johnson protested that in “cracking down” on Israel, Eisenhower was using a double standard of following one policy with regard to the weak, another toward the strong.
In general, the politicians were somewhat less than enthusiastic about imposing sanctions on Israel, and eager to dissociate themselves from such a policy. When one of them asked whether it was agreed by everyone that Israel had to withdraw, “Senator Fulbright was not so sure all agreed unless it could be certain that Israel would get justice in the future.” Senator Russell said there was no possibility of getting unanimous agreement. It was up to the President to “crystallize the thinking of the American people.” Speaker Rayburn commented “that America has either one voice or none and the one voice was the voice of the President even though not everyone agreed with him.” In short, Congress wanted no part of the responsibility, and was more than glad to leave it to Ike.27
Eisenhower moved quickly. He cabled Ben-Gurion, warning him to get out of Gaza before the vote came at the U.N. Then he took his case to the people, on national TV and radio, eloquently and earnestly explaining his policy. The pressure worked. Ben-Gurion pleaded for a bit more time; Lodge managed to stall in the U.N.; on March 1 the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mrs. Golda Meir, went before the General Assembly to announce Israel’s plans for a “full and complete withdrawal.” A U.N. peace-keeping force moved in, and another Middle East crisis had cooled.28
On March 2, the Senate voted 58 to 28 against the Russell proposal to eliminate any funds for economic and military assistance for the Eisenhower Doctrine. On March 5, the Senate passed the original resolution, 72 to 19. On March 9, Eisenhower signed the Eisenhower Doctrine into law. Although he still had to go to Congress for the funds to implement the resolution, he had managed to achieve congressional support, however reluctant, for whatever he might do in the Middle East. It was an impressive achievement.
• •
Not so impressive was his handling of Congress over the issue of the 1958 federal budget. Even before he submitted it, indeed within less than a week after the election, Eisenhower began to build bridges to the majority Democrats, especially the southerners, and seek support from them. On November 13, he told Jerry Persons, himself from Alabama, to talk to Byrd, Thurmond, Stennis, Lyndon Johnson, and other leading southerners. He wanted Persons to tell them to forget “antiquated loyalty to two parties,” and to say, “If we do have to stress party differences, let us do it on relatively small matters.”29 At his meeting with thirty congressmen on New Year’s Day, Eisenhower remarked at the conclusion of the day that despite the lateness of the hour he wanted to say a few words to the Democrats. He spoke of the need for the executive and legislative branches to get along and work together. He warned of the dangers of inflation, and of the need to keep expenditures down. If they felt it necessary to propose additional spending, he asked them to first talk to him. “You know you are as welcome in this house—in this office—as anyone.” He wished them a happy new year “from the bottom of my heart, even though we belong to different clubs. And of course I belong to the better one!!!”30
The budget that Eisenhower feared the Democrats would try to increase was already at $73.3 billion for 1958, up $2.8 billion from 1957. Eisenhower had worked hard to keep it down to that figure, his principal difficulty coming with the DOD. The JCS wanted $40 billion; Eisenhower said the highest he would go was $38.5 billion. Wilson was “kicking and storming” about the inadequate funding, while Humphrey was furious at the overspending. At a Cabinet meeting on January 9, Humphrey said he did not “want to give even an appearance of division among us,” but he had to point out that “we’re throwing away forty billion in capital every year—on the dump heap—serves only our security for that year, then on the dump heap.” But Wilson was unconvinced, and more inclined to support the JCS than he was the President on the issue of the budget. (Eisenhower told Humphrey, over the telephone, “I have got a man [Wilson] who is frightened to make decisions. I have to make them for him.”31) For himself, Eisenhower made a signed pledge: “During my term of office . . . I will not approve any obligational or expenditure authorities for the Defense Department that exceed something on the order of 38.5-billion-dollar mark.”32
Other than in defense, it was almost impossible to cut the budget. Even at more than $73 billion, Eisenhower’s budget was less than 18 percent of the gross national product, the lowest percentage since 1939.33 Still, Eisenhower tried to persuade his Cabinet to cut deeper. He wanted the members to reduce personnel in their departments. He swore that he would veto any bill raising salaries. “We’re going to economize,” he said. “This is the time to do it.” Hold the line on new construction.34 But when the figures came back from the departments, the savings were minimal. As Eisenhower presented it to the Congress on January 16, it projected spending $73.3 billion in 1958.
That same afternoon, Humphrey held a press conference. Instead of supporting the Administration’s budget, he seemed to attack it. “I would deplore the day that we thought we couldn’t even reduce expenditures of this terriffic amount,” he said. He feared the long-range effect of “the terrific tax we are taking out of this country.” He hoped Congress could cut the budget, because “if we don’t [reduce expenditures], over a long period of time, I will predict that you will have a depression that will curl your hair.”35 That colorful phrase, not Eisenhower’s budget, was the headline item the next day, and the lead question at Eisenhower’s next press conference.
Eisenhower tried to calm everyone down. He emphasized that the Secretary of the Treasury was not predicting an imminent depression. “When he said a hair-curling depression,” Eisenhower said, “he is talking about long-term continuation of spending of the order of which we are now doing.” Eisenhower said he too was eager to cut the budget, and he encouraged Congress to study it carefully. If it could find places to cut, he would be delighted. But he warned that because of the services the people demanded from government, there was little room to cut. The reporters, eager to find a split between the President and Humphrey, pressed on. Did Eisenhower agree with Humphrey’s statement that “deficit spending is never justified even as a tool to ease a recession?” Eisenhower gave a wandering, discursive answer, finally ending up: “If the thing got serious . . . you would go into every single thing, and very quickly, that would . . . correct the situation. And there would be no limit, I think, to what should be attempted as long as it was constitutional.”36
At the following week’s press conference, reporters asked Eisenhower about growing Republican criticism of his budget. Republicans were saying that Eisenhower had gone over to the New Deal, that what the American people wanted was not more services from the government, but a break in inflation and a cut in taxes. Would the President comment? Eisenhower would. “I was talking about the kind of things that have now become accepted in our civilization as normal,” he said, “that is the provision of Social Security, unemployment insurance, health research by the government, assistance where states and individuals are unable to do things for themselves.” He cited the school-room shortage as an example.37
Suddenly, inexplicably, the Democrats joined the Republicans in criticizing Eisenhower for spending too much. Gleefully citing his invitation to Congress to find places to save, the Democrats spent the late winter and early spring chipping away (foreign aid was the easiest and favorite target). Knowland, Styles Bridges, and other Republican senators joined them. It was a case of American politics at its worst, as the congressmen tried to outdo each other in irresponsibility.
The hardest part for Eisenhower was increasing Republican criticism that he had deserted his party’s principles. One part of the criticism centered around Arthur Larson, who had written a book entitled A Republican Looks at His Party, which called for a “Modern Republicanism” that followed the middle of the road. Eisenhower had frequently used the phrase “Modern Republicanism” in the campaign, and it was widely known that he had a high opinion of Larson and the book. At a press-conference briefing on May 15, Adams told him to expect a hostile question on Modern Republicanism from the press corps. Eisenhower mused that he had been “forced down the throats of a lot of people” when he captured the 1952 nomination. “Some will never forget it.” Even George Humphrey had been against him, Eisenhower said. “There is so much resentment, and those people will never give up.”38
At the press conference later that morning, Laurence Burd of the Chicago Tribune asked him if it was true that he had moved to the left since 1952. “Far from it,” Eisenhower replied. “If anything, I think I have grown more conservative.” But, he added, “At the same time I thoroughly believe that any modern political philosophy [has] to study carefully the needs of the people today, not of 1860; of today . . . I believe the federal government cannot shut its eyes to these things.” After mentioning specifically the disruptions in industrial employment, old age, disability, and related social problems, Eisenhower said, “I believe that unless a modern political group does look these problems in the face and finds some reasonable solution . . . then in the long run we are sunk.”39
But Congress cut and cut, eventually approving a budget some $4 billion below Eisenhower’s original proposal (much of the cut was later restored in emergency authorizations). “I think it is a mistake to cut as seriously as these people have,” said the President. He lost on school-construction costs again. But when he was asked if he intended to tell Senator Knowland, who had fought against many of the Administration’s appropriation requests, to resign as minority leader, Eisenhower replied blandly that the organization of the Senate “is a matter for Senate decision.”40 Taken altogether, the Battle of the Budget for 1958 was, in Sherman Adams’ words, “a serious and disturbing personal defeat” for the President.41
• •
Fortunately for Eisenhower, as he battled with Congress over his budget, foreign aid, and other problems, he was able to get away most weekends to Gettysburg. There he could relax, check on his cattle, oversee the planting of his vegetable garden, play golf and bridge with the gang, and take pleasure in Mamie’s happiness as she put the finishing touches on the place. Eisenhower enjoyed everything about the farm, even the drive from Washington to Pennsylvania. In March, he got into a discussion with the Republican leaders about advertising along the Interstate highways. The President admitted “he rather liked to read the Burma Shave signs along the way,” but did say he was opposed to billboards beside the new highways.42 Everything about Gettysburg was not perfect, however. As a farmer, Eisenhower wanted to operate independently from the federal government, as he was urging other farmers to do. In April he reported to his Cabinet that the preceding week he had been delighted to find that his tenant had not planted wheat that spring, so would not be applying for wheat support payments. But when he “joyfully commented” on this development to the tenant, he learned that the county agent had sold the tenant on the merits of the Soil Bank and consequently the farm was now receiving Soil Bank payments. “I’m so mad,” said the completely frustrated President.43
Invitations to spend a weekend with the First Family at the farm were rare and precious. Ordinarily, only Eisenhower’s closest personal friends received one. Field Marshal Montgomery solved that problem by inviting himself. He arrived in June. Eisenhower took Monty on a tour of his favorite battlefield. As the two old generals scrambled over the rocks on Little Round Top, or studied the lay of the land from Cemetery Ridge, Eisenhower explained the action to Monty, reporters trailing behind recording every word.
“As you know,” Eisenhower later told his old friend “Gee” Gerow, “Monty can never resist a newspaper reporter nor a camera.” Finally, Eisenhower said, “I got a bit tired of Monty raising his voice, knowing well that he was doing it for the benefit of eavesdroppers.” So Eisenhower walked over to the car, while Montgomery kept talking. “Taking advantage of this golden opportunity to try for something sensational, he called over the heads of the crowd, ‘Both Lee and Meade should have been sacked.’ ” He added something about incompetence, then called over to Eisenhower, “Don’t you agree, Ike?” Eisenhower, by now “resentful of Monty’s obvious purpose and his lack of good taste,” merely replied, “Listen, Monty, I live here. I have nothing to say about the matter. You have to make your own comments.”44
Nevertheless, the story got page-one space on Sunday, the reports claiming that Eisenhower had agreed with the Field Marshal that Lee and Meade should have been sacked. At his Tuesday press conference, Eisenhower was asked about it. He would not comment directly, but he did point out that he had the portraits of four men on his Oval Office wall—Franklin, Washington, Lincoln, and Lee—and insisted on his great admiration for Lee.45
Monty gave Eisenhower a set of the galley proofs of his memoirs, indicating passages that discussed Eisenhower. The President read the marked sections, then told Whitman that Montgomery “is pretty clever . . . He says I am so loving and kind . . . that I let him have his own way and he really planned the war.” When he read that “Ike reached his greatest heights as President of the United States,” Eisenhower grunted and said, “He doesn’t want to say I was responsible for winning the war.”46
Eisenhower could hardly have expected praise from Monty, but he did receive that year some high praise from an unexpected source. Henry Wallace, the Progressive Party candidate for President in 1948 and a leading critic of American policy in the Cold War, sent Eisenhower a copy of a talk he had given in which he said he found certain similarities in the characters of Presidents Washington and Eisenhower. Eisenhower was quite sincerely flattered. He wrote Wallace, “My sense of pride is all the greater because I’ve never been able to agree with those who so glibly deprecate his [Washington’s] intellectual qualities.” Subconsciously describing himself as well as Washington, Eisenhower went on: “I think that too many jump at such conclusions merely because they tend to confuse facility of expression with wisdom; a love of the limelight with depth of perception.” Speaking directly of himself, Eisenhower concluded, “I’ve often felt the deep wish that The Good Lord had endowed me with his [Washington’s] clarity of vision in big things, his strength of purpose, and his genuine greatness of mind and spirit.”47