ON EVERY possible occasion, Eisenhower told the press, the politicians, and the public that the only way to reduce the budget, stop inflation, and cut taxes was through disarmament. So long as the arms race went on, the United States would be putting $40 billion or so, nearly 60 percent of the total budget, into what Humphrey had called the “dump heap.” Even at those levels, however, the JCS were unhappy and demanding more; indeed they had originally requested $50 billion for 1958. In December of 1956, while the budget was being written, Eisenhower told Dulles he was going to “crack down on defense people,” and complained that “I am getting desperate with the inability of the men there to understand what can be spent on military weapons and what must be spent to wage the peace.”1
With no disarmament treaty in sight, Eisenhower concentrated on making savings where he could. Personnel was a major item; he ordered the armed forces, especially the Army, to make even further cuts in their manpower. Wilson and the JCS protested. Eisenhower told his Cabinet, “I think I know more about this subject than anyone else. What would we do with a large Army if we had it? Where would we put it?”2 Eisenhower told Wilson to reduce, and where to do it. The President wanted to streamline the forces in Germany, saving thirty-five thousand men there; he ordered a reduction of forty thousand in Japan and another twenty-five thousand elsewhere. Wilson made the point that keeping these troops in place gave the United States bargaining chips in the disarmament talks. He therefore thought the forces ought to be kept at current strength in order to keep the pressure on the Russians to agree to make reductions in their forces in Eastern Europe. Eisenhower told Wilson to go ahead and make the cuts, just don’t advertise them.3
Eisenhower was disturbed by the high cost of the CIA, and by the way in which the Agency was spending its money. At a January 17 Oval Office conference (the Dulles brothers, Radford, Wilson, Humphrey, Nixon, Goodpaster, and three deputies), Eisenhower conducted a review of the CIA, which was costing $1 billion per year. Eisenhower thought that “because of our having been caught by surprise in World War II, we are perhaps tending to go overboard in intelligence effort.” He also complained about the quality of the intelligence he was getting, and the way in which it was presented to him. Eisenhower did not say so, but everyone in the room knew that with regard to the covert-action side of the CIA, Hungary had shown its extreme limitations, indeed helplessness, in Eastern Europe, which was precisely the area in which the Republicans had hoped that the covert-activity capability of the CIA could be used most effectively. One billion dollars a year was a considerable sum, especially for poorly gathered and prepared intelligence and little effective action on the covert side.
Eisenhower had asked General Lucian Truscott to conduct a thorough review of the CIA’s activities in Hungary just before the uprising. Truscott reported that one major problem within the CIA was Allen Dulles, because the head of the Agency was more interested in covert actions than in intelligence gathering. At the January 17 meeting, Dulles told Eisenhower he was thinking of bringing Truscott into the CIA to take over the intelligence side of the operation. Eisenhower said he wanted it done “the other way around.” He told Dulles to perform the coordination, and give covert operations to Truscott.4 Dulles ignored the instructions; when Truscott came to the CIA, he took charge of coordinating intelligence reports, and Dulles kept control of covert operations.
As difficult as the CIA was to control, the DOD was worse. Not only did Eisenhower complain about having to run Wilson’s department for him, but he also objected to the way in which DOD kept spinning off new projects. At a March II Cabinet meeting, Eisenhower protested against the $200 million bill for development of an atomic plane. The Air Force was simultaneously trying to develop a power plant small enough to be carried on an airplane, and an airplane large enough to carry a nuclear reactor. Eisenhower felt that the Air Force should concentrate on the reactor, and until a smaller version was developed, to leave off the research on the plane.5 The Air Force went ahead on both fronts anyway.
On June 26, at an Oval Office meeting with Wilson, his new Deputy Secretary, Donald Quarles, and Goodpaster, Eisenhower brought up the subject again. Quarles reported that great progress was being made, that General Electric was “within gunshot distance of the desired goal.” But when Eisenhower pressed him, Quarles admitted that the weight “kept creeping up” and an aircraft of 700,000-pound capacity would be required. Eisenhower said to forget the plane and concentrate on the reactor. Then the President brought up the latest Air Force balloon operation. Although he had ordered the Air Force to get out of the balloon business, it had gone ahead anyway on a new program. Eisenhower told Wilson and Quarles to “step in” and stop it, and added: “If the Air Force continues to take on projects of its own which have not been approved, I think I will send some of these projects to the Comptroller General and make sure that someone besides the Executive Branch pays for them.”6
Eisenhower also objected to the great cost of ballistic missiles. He “did not think too much of [them] as military weapons”; he was concerned only with their “great psychological importance.” Wilson said the Air Force was almost ready to begin testing its first ICBM, and that ninety were programmed for test purposes. Eisenhower wanted to know at what rate the Air Force intended to build operational models. About one every other day, Wilson said. No, General Twining interjected; it was more like one per day. At what cost? asked the President. About $5 million per missile, Wilson replied, not counting the cost of the warhead. Good Lord, said the President, with all the bombers and submarines we already have, we have to be careful that “we do not produce too many.” Wilson thought 150 ICBMs would be sufficient; Eisenhower thought that would be too many. The President said he did not want “to put a dollar sign on defense,” but he had to point out that “many other programs contribute to making the nation strong, and that I myself am probably the only man in a position to bring all these together.” As one evidence, he cited his instructions to the Cabinet to cut costs wherever possible; he had told the Cabinet to “hold down on construction, even the road program in which I am so keenly interested.”7
But the pressure for ICBMs was too great to resist. The scientists were eager to develop them; the Pentagon wanted them; Democrats continued to criticize the President for not doing more to build them. At a February 6 press conference, Eisenhower was asked about a recent report by Senator Symington that claimed “the United States has never been more vulnerable to Soviet attack than now.” Eisenhower admitted that “the vulnerability of any nation is probably greater today than it ever was, because one bomb today can do the damage of probably all that we dropped on Germany in World War II.” But as to America’s relative position, “We are in as good a position as we have ever been in time of peace. And I don’t believe that that position by any manner of means is deteriorating at the rate that some people would have you think.” Well then, did the President think that it was possible that the Soviets might launch a first strike? “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Eisenhower responded, “of course anything is possible in this world in which we live. The older you grow the more you will understand that.” But he thought the chances of a nuclear war went down, rather than up, as the arsenals increased, and that the Russians were fully aware that a first-strike attempt “is just another way of committing suicide.”8
Eisenhower also objected to the size of the funding of Project Vanguard, designed to put an earth satellite into orbit. He told the Republican leaders that “in a weak moment” he had approved “half of what the [developers] want,” but swore he would go no further.9
With the President striving to cut or at least hold down research and development expenditures, and to reduce the size of the armed forces, while he simultaneously asked Congress for the resolution authorizing the Eisenhower Doctrine, reporters wanted to know how he proposed to defend the Middle East. Would he use atomic weapons there? Eisenhower’s response was that if necessary, yes he would. He explained that “we do regard these smaller [atomic] weapons as an almost routine part of our equipment nowadays.”10
Nuclear testing, meanwhile, went on at as fast a pace as the scientific community could make it go. In January and March, the Russians conducted a new series, followed in April by five tests within two weeks, tests which created a heavy fallout that circled the globe. The Kremlin ignored the resulting uproar, indeed fed it when Khrushchev told journalists that the Soviets had perfected an H-bomb too powerful to test, one that “could melt the Arctic icecap and send oceans spilling all over the world.”11 In May, the United States began Operation Plumbob, detonating six atomic weapons (none larger than eighty kilotons) designed to perfect tactical weapons and to produce a relatively clean atomic trigger for the nation’s H-bombs. Fallout was minimal.
Nevertheless most people, including the President, worried about fallout. Still, the President was willing to defend the tests. The day before Plumbob began, he wrote Representative Sterling Cole of the congressional oversight committee for the AEC. Eisenhower asserted that “our tests continue to develop very valuable information, not so much in the enhancement of the destructive power of atomic weapons as in civil effects tests to improve our protective measures in event of attack . . . and in the further development of the feature of cleanliness . . .”12
On June 3, in the middle of the Plumbob tests, Eisenhower called Strauss into his office to discuss his own worries about fallout. The President said he saw little need for more tests, and certainly no reason to speed up the testing process, much less for building new weapons. “You’ve been giving us a pretty darn fine arsenal of atomic weapons,” he told Strauss, and asked why more tests and bombs were needed. Strauss put his emphasis on the need to develop small warheads that could be used for air defense. The idea was to destroy incoming missiles with small atomic weapons, and for that purpose, Strauss said, the “numbers have to be so much greater.” But the estimates on Russian production indicated that the United States had a clear lead; therefore, the President said, “By now reducing our program, we are doing a pretty fine thing.” He could see little point to speeding up the tests or adding to the arsenal, and objected strongly to the costs.13
Two days later, however, when asked at a press conference about the dangers of fallout, Eisenhower’s public position remained that it was necessary to continue testing. American chemist Linus Pauling, among many others, had warned that fallout would lead to genetic damage and result in physical deformities and shortened life-spans for millions of unborn around the world. Eisenhower pointed out in his response that “here is a field where scientists disagree,” and charged that “scientists that seem to be out of their own field of competence are getting into this argument, and it looks like almost an organized affair.” He said he was ready to stop testing as soon as a general system of disarmament had been agreed upon, but until then “we do have the job of protecting the country.” Eisenhower again asserted that the purpose of testing was to find clean bombs, and claimed that the United States had “reduced the fallout from bombs by nine-tenths.” James Reston picked up on Eisenhower’s charge about “an organized affair.” Did the President think that scientists who objected to testing were part of a conspiracy? “Oh, no, I didn’t say that at all,” Eisenhower responded. “I didn’t say a wicked organization.” He acknowledged that “many” of the scientists opposed to testing “are just as honest as they can be.” It was just that men like Pauling were out of their fields in discussing radiation.14
Still the President worried. On June 24, he met with Strauss and three atomic scientists, Ernest Lawrence, Mark Mills, and Edward Teller (the “father of the H-bomb”). Lawrence assured him that “we now believe that we know how to make virtually clean weapons . . . all the way down to small kiloton weapons.” But more tests were needed to achieve that goal. Teller concentrated on the need to build tactical atomic weapons, “easily packaged.” Within six or seven years, the United States should have bombs “which would have their effect only in the damage sought, i.e., only in the area of initial effects, free of fallout.” Teller, who had been briefed by Strauss and who knew that one of Eisenhower’s great concerns was the utilization of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, then turned to the advantage of testing in producing bombs that could be used for constructive goals, such as oil exploration, or cutting through mountains to make tunnels or to alter the flow of rivers, “and perhaps even to modify the weather on a broad basis through changing the dust content of the air.” As Teller anticipated, Eisenhower liked those arguments, but still he returned to the problem of fallout and the danger of world public opinion turning against the United States. He did not want the nation “crucified on a cross of atoms.” Would the scientists accept a test ban if the Russians agreed to one? Both Mills and Teller were quick to say no, because the Russians would then carry on with their tests secretly, and they could not be detected.
In that case, the President wondered, could not the American scientists give the “other fellow” information from Plumbob, so that the Russians could develop their own clean weapons. The scientists were emphatic in saying no. They claimed that “our weapons incorporate other technological advances of great value that we do not wish to give to the Soviets.” As a final point, Teller assured Eisenhower that after the clean weapons were developed, “it is possible to put ‘additive materials’ with them to produce radioactive fallout if desired.”15
The following day, June 25, Eisenhower talked to Secretary Dulles on the telephone. Dulles was concerned about world reaction to testing. Eisenhower either had not understood what Teller and the others told him, or he believed what he wanted to believe. In any case, he told Dulles that the “real peaceful use of atomic science depends on their developing clean weapons,” which Teller had not said, and that clean weapons could be produced in “four to five years.” Teller had said it would take six or seven years. Eisenhower was correct in saying that the scientists had warned him the Russians could conduct tests without fear of detection. “They feel we are playing with fire suggesting banning of tests,” Eisenhower reported.16
The result was that the United States continued testing. As Robert Divine writes, “Ike was the prisoner of his technical consultants on such issues as testing and fallout.” It could hardly have been otherwise, especially in view of Strauss’s ability to keep the President from consulting with a broad spectrum of the scientific community and limiting him to contact with such convinced atomic scientists as Lawrence and Teller.17 At a press conference on June 26, Eisenhower repeated all the arguments he had heard from Lawrence and Teller, whom he characterized as “the most eminent scientists in this field.” But he again shortened the time from six to seven years down to four or five years. He asserted, without offering proof, that American bombs now had “96 percent less fallout than was the case in our original ones,” and that peaceful uses of the atom were just around the corner. Testing had to continue, the President said, so that atomic energy could be used “some day for the building of a civilization instead of tearing it down.”18
Privately, to the NSC and to the Republican leaders, Eisenhower expressed his reservations about the growing relationship between the scientists and the government. At an NSC meeting, “The President observed with a smile that it seemed to him that every new survey of our problems by a scientific team seemed to result in recommendations that we undertake additional things.” He said he “rather wished we could find a team which would recommend programs which we could dispense with.”19 In March, he told the Republican leaders that he was opposed to government sponsorship of basic scientific research. “We’ve always depended on universities and private concerns” for such work, he declared, and wished the situation had remained that way. But, he admitted, “When I object, I’m just a reactionary old so and so who doesn’t understand.” He could not slow the momentum of federally sponsored research that put many of the nation’s top scientists to work on projects designed to destroy, not improve, the human condition.20
On July 17, John Herling asked at a news conference if, “in view of the overwhelming importance of science to modern life,” the President had considered adding a scientist to his staff. Eisenhower said he already had the scientists in the AEC and Defense Department reporting to him, and that “it hadn’t occurred to me to have one right in my office.” But, he added on reflection, “Now that you have mentioned it I will think about it.”21
• •
The intricate, complex, and almost ritual-like maneuvers in the disarmament dance continued. On January 14, Lodge presented a five-point program to the U.N. General Assembly. It called for an end to the production of nuclear weapons under strict international supervision. Afterward, Lodge continued, the United States would be willing to negotiate a treaty to ban all testing. In addition, the American proposal included reductions in conventional forces, registration of ballistic-missile tests, and a new variation on Open Skies. Although this was the first time the United States had indicated a willingness to include a test ban in its disarmament package, the proposal had no appeal to the Russians—as Lodge knew in advance.22 (Assured suspension of production, if achievable, would have left the United States far ahead of the Russians in the total nuclear arsenal.)
Meanwhile, there was an intense struggle going on between Harold Stassen, Eisenhower’s Special Assistant on Disarmament since 1955, and Secretary Dulles. There was a policy difference between them—Stassen was willing to go much further than Dulles in making disarmament proposals—but the real difficulty was over jurisdiction. Stassen insisted on an independent course and direct access to the President; Dulles wanted all disarmament proposals cleared through the State Department, and he wanted Stassen to report to the President only through the Secretary of State’s office. In December 1956, Eisenhower told Dulles that he had been “brutally frank” in telling Stassen that Dulles was his superior, and in February 1957, Eisenhower told Dulles over the phone that he thought “it would be awkward to keep on calling Stassen the Special Assistant to the President, since it might give him the feeling he has a right to continue his attendance at meetings, which is the thing we are trying to avoid.”23 On March 1, Eisenhower announced that henceforth Stassen would report to him through Dulles.
Getting rid of Stassen was not going to be that easy. In May, Stassen attended the London disarmament talks, where he made the same proposal Lodge had put forward to the General Assembly. The Russians rejected the package, but said they were ready for an immediate and unconditional halt to tests, without any inspection. Stassen knew that was unacceptable to Eisenhower, but he suggested that the United States should at least consider a test ban as a possible “first step” in disarmament. When the world press lauded Stassen’s suggestion as a possible breakthrough, Admiral Radford responded. “We cannot trust the Russians on this or anything,” the chairman of the JCS declared. “The Communists have broken their word with every country with which they ever had an agreement.”24
Radford had expressed the President’s own convictions, but too bluntly. At his next press conference, on May 22, Eisenhower went out of his way to make his standard speech on the crucial importance of disarmament. “It seems to me that the more any intelligent man thinks about the possibilities of war today,” Eisenhower said, “the more he should understand you have got to work on this business of disarmament.” Eisenhower added, “Our first concern should be making certain we are not ourselves being recalcitrant, we are not being picayunish about the thing.” He wanted to keep an “open mind” and be prepared to meet the Russians “halfway.” But then he repeated Radford’s warning that the Soviets could not be trusted, and that an ironclad inspection system had to be part of any disarmament package.25
Three days later, Eisenhower met with Stassen, Dulles, Radford, Strauss, Quarles, and Cutler. For two hours, they debated disarmament policy, specifically the wisdom of entering into a temporary test-ban agreement with the Russians as a first step toward arms control. Eisenhower eventually authorized Stassen to return to London with a written “talking paper” that would offer the Soviets a moratorium on testing in return for future limitations on nuclear weapons production. The President stressed that the new offer was tentative and that Stassen was to show it to the French and the British and get their approval before presenting it to the Russians.26
The Russians, meanwhile, had picked up on one part of Lodge’s January proposal. Khrushchev announced that he was willing to withdraw his troops from Europe if the United States did the same. Asked at a June 5 press conference how he planned to respond, Eisenhower replied that it was obvious that the Russians were trying to “drive a wedge” between the United States and its NATO allies. As to pulling troops out of Germany, without a comprehensive disarmament agreement, Eisenhower said he would not do it until Germany was reunified. Reporters then asked about the rumors that Stassen was about to make a major new proposal in London. Had American policy shifted? Was Eisenhower ready to accept a test ban without inspections and without general disarmament? The President was cautious in his response; he said he would like to have “a total and complete ban of all testing,” but it had to be based “upon total disarmament . . .”27
Stassen, meanwhile, was back in London, where he botched everything. Macmillan, who had replaced Eden after Suez, was opposed to any test ban (Britain had just exploded its first hydrogen bomb and wanted to conduct further tests); the French, hoping to develop their own arsenal, were also opposed. Nevertheless, and despite Eisenhower’s strict instructions, Stassen gave a copy of his “talking paper” to the Russian negotiator, Valerin Zorin. Zorin then announced that the United States and the Soviet Union were close to agreement. Macmillan was furious; he fired off a cable to Eisenhower. The President answered with a cable of his own, saying that he was “astonished and chagrined” by Stassen’s action and assuring Macmillan “that there is no agreed-upon American position which is to be interpreted as a basis of negotiation with the Soviets.” Eisenhower concluded, “Everybody here deplores this occurrence as deeply as I do.”28
A week later, after Stassen had been called to Washington for a reprimand, Eisenhower had Dulles send a message to London. Dulles had proposed that Eisenhower say, “I feel that there is little likelihood that there will be any repetition . . .” Eisenhower changed it to read, “I feel certain that there will be no repetition” and told Dulles to send it off.29
On June 14, Zorin announced that the Soviets were giving up their demand for a complete test ban in favor of “a two- or three-year moratorium,” and that they were ready to accept a system of international control, with monitoring posts on British, American, and Russian soil. The next day, Robert Clark reminded Eisenhower at a press conference that the American position had been that there would be no halt to testing “until there was a firm agreement that they [the bombs] would never be used in war. Does this apply to the temporary ban proposed by the Soviet Union?” Eisenhower said, “I would be perfectly delighted to make some satisfactory arrangement for temporary suspension of tests,” and admitted under further questioning that such a moratorium would mark a major shift in American policy. For the first time since 1945, there suddenly seemed to be some hope for progress in disarmament.30
It was not to be. The Pentagon and the AEC scientists were firmly opposed to any moratorium; Strauss brought Teller, Lawrence, and Mills to the Oval Office to express their objections; Teller told the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy that a moratorium would be “a crime against humanity” because it would keep the United States from developing a clean bomb. Khrushchev scornfully asked, “How can you have a clean bomb to do dirty things?” Nevertheless, Eisenhower bowed to the pressure from the scientists. On June 25, he had Dulles tell a press conference that the United States would accept a moratorium only if the Soviets agreed to a future cutoff in weapons manufacture.31 And so nothing was done, and the arms race, and testing, went on. The truth was that the United States was no more ready to enter into genuine disarmament than were the Russians. Despite all Eisenhower’s eloquence on the subject, despite his firm conviction that an arms race could only lead to disaster, he could not bring himself, or his nation, to trust the Russians. On disarmament, he did exactly the opposite of what he had promised to do—he was picayunish and recalcitrant. Eventually, in August, Stassen was authorized to announce American agreement to a two-year test ban “under certain conditions and safeguards.” That came close to Zorin’s proposal for a two- to three-year moratorium, and forced the Russians to react. Exactly as Dulles had predicted, Zorin flatly rejected the final American proposal. In August, the Soviets began a new series of tests, and the London talks broke down. Both sides blamed the other for the failure and appealed to world public opinion to note that the fault lay with the other guy.32
• •
Actually, everyone was responsible, including America’s NATO allies, and most especially France and Britain, two countries that had nuclear pretensions but little or no reality and therefore strenuously objected to both a test ban and a prohibition of nuclear arsenal development. Because of the strength of anti-testing sentiment in Britain and on the Continent, however, London and Paris protested only in private, thus placing the onus on the United States and the Soviet Union. Eisenhower never complained, because he was happy to have the Europeans making their contribution to the Western nuclear deterrent.
Eisenhower was also pleased by two other European developments, the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). Back in October of 1956, on the eve of the Suez crisis, at an NSC meeting, Eisenhower led a discussion on EEC. Eisenhower said he welcomed the talks then going on in Europe to create a Common Market. Stassen did not. He was worried about the “danger of a European Third Force,” one that might negotiate separately with the Soviets. Better, Stassen thought, to keep Europe weak and divided. The official notes recorded that “the President, turning to Governor Stassen, stated with emphasis that weakness could not cooperate, weakness could only beg.” Therefore, the United States had to help the Europeans “build up self-confidence and strength.” Dulles added that “it would actually be a healthy thing for these nations to try to mold themselves into a Third Force,” something he and Eisenhower had been advocating for a long time.33
In February 1957, Eisenhower met with a group of European leaders who were making plans for the first nuclear electric power stations on their Continent, the Euratom program. Eisenhower told them he thought “Euratom is a great hope for the whole free world.” The President “recalled that he has strongly supported a united Europe as a third great force in the world. He had urged Jean Monnet on, as he now urges this group . . . He said that they may be sure of our cooperation, commenting that he hopes he will live long enough to see a United States of Europe come into existence. He has thought the European nations must learn the biblical concept that to save their lives they must lose them.” Eisenhower warned that if the Europeans did not get together, “deterioration and ultimate disaster were inevitable.” And Eisenhower instructed Strauss to make certain that Euratom got, from the United States, sufficient raw material to build the power plants.34 Thus encouraged, the Europeans returned home and on March 25, in Rome, the NATO Continental powers signed treaties establishing EEC and Euratom.
Two days earlier, Eisenhower had met with Quarles, Foster Dulles, Strauss, and Goodpaster to discuss a project of giving IRBMs to the British. Macmillan wanted them, and Eisenhower wanted him to have them, although he stated “very emphatically that he did not want to make a commitment to production until we have a successful missile.” Quarles assured him that such a missile was coming along nicely, and that it should be possible to deploy a “handful” of missiles in Britain within a year. The first full squadron could be in place by mid-1959, with three more to follow by mid-1960.35
In July 1957, Dulles disclosed that the President was considering a plan for establishing nuclear stockpiles of weapons in Europe. (Actually, the decision had already been made and implemented.36) Peter Lisagor asked Eisenhower at a July 17 news conference, “If one of our purposes . . . is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, . . . can you tell us what the logic is of establishing a stockpile in which fifteen other nations will have nuclear weapons?” Eisenhower replied that the Europeans, if subjected to a nuclear attack, “ought to have the right, the opportunity, and the capability of responding in kind.” Further, if the Europeans had nuclear weapons from America already available, they would not have to spend their resources on building their own and “creating a situation [that, with] everybody acting independently, could be very dangerous.”37 In any case, so long as the SACEUR was an American, the United States would make the ultimate decision on the use of nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, as the President had hoped would happen, and had helped make possible, Euratom got off to a good start, thereby achieving another of Eisenhower’s goals—freeing Europe from its total dependence on Arab oil. The man who was most closely identified with the liberation of Europe from the Nazis, and with the creation of SHAPE, thereby continued to play a leading role in the creation of modern Europe.
• •
As difficult as Congress had been for Eisenhower to deal with on such issues as the budget and the Eisenhower Doctrine, it was worse when the subject was civil rights. In his State of the Union address on January 10, Eisenhower had again submitted Brownell’s civil-rights bill. It was a multifaceted bill, but Eisenhower put his own emphasis on the right to vote. He was “shocked” to discover that out of 900,000 Negroes in Mississippi, only 7,000 were allowed to vote.38 He investigated and found that the registrars were asking Negroes attempting to register to vote such questions as “How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?” In Louisiana, the registrars had closed their doors in the face of five thousand Negroes lined up to register; a local grand jury found “no case” against the state officials. Eisenhower told the Republican leaders a story about a young Mississippi law student who failed the bar exam twice. His father went to the bar and asked to see the questions. “For goodness’ sake,” the father said, “you have given him the Negro examination!”39
Through the late winter and early spring, the House debated the civil-rights bill. Eisenhower gave it public and private support. At press conferences, he emphasized that “I want a civil-rights bill . . . In it is nothing that is inimical to the interests of anyone. It is intended to preserve rights without arousing passions . . . I think it is a very decent and very needful piece of legislation.”40 He pushed the bill in his meetings with Republican leaders. He met with Arthur Hays Sulzberger of The New York Times to urge him to support the bill. (Sulzberger “shamefacedly admitted, for private use only, that even he would not want his granddaughter to go to school with Negro boys.”41) On June 18, the House passed the bill, which then went to the Senate. Lyndon Johnson warned Eisenhower over the phone that “the Senate is going to fight on the civil-rights issue—he said tempers were flaring already and would be worse . . . Then he said, you can let us fight July and August and if necessary into September.” Eisenhower protested that what he was asking for was “the mildest civil-rights bill possible—he stressed that he himself had lived in the South and had no lack of sympathy for the southern position. He said he was a little struck back on his heels when he found this terrific uproar that was created.”42
But the uproar was there. On July 2, Senator Russell of Georgia described the bill as “a cunning device,” designed not to guarantee the right to vote, but to use the power of the Justice Department and “the whole might of the federal government, including the armed forces if necessary, to force a commingling of white and Negro children.” At a news conference the following day, James Reston asked Eisenhower to comment. The President was mild and hesitant in his reply. Certainly his own desire was only to protect and extend the right to vote, “simple matters that were more or less brought about by the Supreme Court decision, and were a very moderate move.” Now, he said, he discovered that “highly respected men” were making statements to the effect that “this is a very extreme law, leading to disorder.” Eisenhower confessed that he found such a reaction “rather incomprehensible, but I am always ready to listen to anyone’s presentation to me of his views on such a thing.” Reston asked if Eisenhower was willing to rewrite the bill, so that it dealt only with the right to vote. Eisenhower said he did not want to answer, “because I was reading part of that bill this morning, and there were certain phrases I didn’t completely understand. So, before I made any more remarks on that, I would want to talk to the Attorney General and see exactly what they do mean.”43
It was a stunning confession of ignorance. Eisenhower had been pushing the bill for two years, had managed to get it through the House and considered by the Senate, and yet now said he did not know what was in it. Eisenhower’s admission was an open invitation to the southern senators to modify, amend, emasculate his bill, and they proceeded to do just that. They offered an amendment that would assure a jury trial to anyone cited for contempt of court in a civil-rights case. Insofar as the jury lists were made up from the voting lists, which were virtually all white, the amendment would have the practical effect of nullifying the bill, since it was unlikely, indeed almost unthinkable, that a southern white jury would convict another white man of violating the rights of a Negro. But the right of an accused to a trial by a jury of his peers was so deeply ingrained in the American tradition, and so sacred, that the amendment attracted support from such northern liberals as Joseph O’Mahoney of Wyoming and Frank Church of Idaho. Eisenhower appealed to Republicans to resist the amendment, and Knowland said on the Senate floor that a vote for jury trial “will be a vote to kill for this session . . . an effective voting-rights bill.” Lyndon Johnson replied, “The people will never accept a concept that a man can be publicly branded as a criminal without a jury trial.”44
On July 10, in the Oval Office, Eisenhower had an hour-long meeting with Russell. Ann Whitman wrote in her diary that Russell, “while emotional about the matter, had conducted himself very well.” Then Whitman, always loyal to Eisenhower and nearly always unquestioningly on his side, noted that the President “is not at all unsympathetic to the position people like Senator Russell take.” Eisenhower was “far more ready than am I, for instance, to entertain their views.” Whitman chided him for supporting segregationists. “I have lived in the South, remember,” the President reminded his secretary. She hoped, and believed, that “he is adamant on the fact that the right to vote must be protected.” Then, speaking for millions of Americans, Negro and white, Republican and Democrat, North and South, liberal and conservative, Whitman declared, “It seems so ridiculous to me, when it has been in the Constitution for so many years and here at last we get around to believing it might be possible for some of our citizens to really have that right.”45
On July 22, as the Senate debate continued, Eisenhower wrote Swede, who had lived in North Carolina for two decades. “I think that no other single event has so disturbed the domestic scene in many years,” the President said, “as did the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 in the school segregation case.” In his view, “Laws are rarely effective unless they represent the will of the majority.” Further, “when emotions are deeply stirred,” progress must be gradual and take into account “human feelings.” Otherwise, “we will have a . . . disaster.” The South had lived for three score years under Plessy as a law-abiding area; it was therefore “impossible to expect complete and instant reversal of conduct by mere decision of the Supreme Court.”
Such views, which Eisenhower had also expressed to Russell (to Whitman’s consternation), gave great comfort to the southerners. They did not mean, however, that Eisenhower was going to ignore his duties and responsibilities. Eisenhower told Swede that just the other day “a violent exponent of segregation [Russell] was in my office,” where “he delivered an impassioned talk on the sanctity of the 1896 decision [Plessy] by the Supreme Court.” When Russell finally ran out of words, Eisenhower said, “I merely asked, ‘Then why is the 1954 decision not equally sacrosanct?’ ” Russell “stuttered,” then said, “There were then wise men on the Court. Now we have politicians.” Eisenhower asked him to name one justice on the 1896 Court. “He just looked at me in consternation and the subject was dropped.”
Then, in one paragraph, Eisenhower gave Swede the most eloquent and concise statement on the role of the Supreme Court in American life that he ever delivered. “I hold to the basic purpose,” he began. “There must be respect for the Constitution—which means the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution—or we shall have chaos. We cannot possibly imagine a successful form of government in which every individual citizen would have the right to interpret the Constitution according to his own convictions, beliefs, and prejudices. Chaos would develop. This I believe with all my heart—and shall always act accordingly.”46
That was a private letter to a private citizen. The day he wrote it, the President received a letter (already made public) from Governor Byrnes of South Carolina, supporting the sacred right of trial by jury. In response, Eisenhower said that “as I read your letter, it seems to me that what you are really objecting to is the giving of authority to the Attorney General to institute civil actions.” Eisenhower told Byrnes that the right to vote was what was really sacred. Although “the last thing I desire is to persecute anyone,” Eisenhower told Byrnes that “the right to vote is more important to our way of life” than anything else. Noting that Byrnes had expressed the hope that the President would show “confidence in the people of the South,” Eisenhower wrote: “I am compelled to wonder why you have to express such a thought as nothing more than a hope. Many of my dearest friends are in that region. I spent a not inconsiderable part of my life in the South.” Therefore, “I do not feel that I need yield to anyone in my respect for the sentiments, convictions, and character of the average American, no matter where he may happen to dwell.”47
Taken altogether, the President’s various statements on civil rights, whether made in private, or in meetings, or in letters to southern governors, or in news conferences, confused more than they clarified. As southern politicians chose to hear what he was saying, the President had a firm commitment to the Constitution, but it was more ritualistic than active. What came through to them was Eisenhower’s sympathy for the white South, and his extreme reluctance to use force to insure compliance with Brown. The President’s moderation, the southerners felt, gave them license to defy the Court, and to emasculate the civil-rights bill.
At a July 17 news conference, Eisenhower as much as said so directly. Merriman Smith asked the first question. Was the President aware that under laws dating back to Reconstruction, he had the power and authority to use military force to put through integration? Yes, Eisenhower said, he was aware that he had such power. But, he added, “I can’t imagine any set of circumstances that would ever induce me to send federal troops into . . . any area to enforce the orders of a federal court, because I believe that [the] common sense of America will never require it.” Few paid any attention to his qualification, because after further questioning he said, “I would never believe that it would be a wise thing to do in this country.”
The President then reiterated his most basic belief, that the right to attend an integrated school was not so important as the right to vote. “If in every locality every person . . . is permitted to vote, he has got a means of getting what he wants in democratic government, and that is the one on which I place the greatest emphasis.” In that case, Rowland Evans wanted to know, would the President veto a civil-rights bill that did not give the Attorney General the power to use the injunction to enforce integration and the right to vote? The President refused to say, but he did declare, “I personally believe if you try to go too far too fast in laws in this delicate field that has involved the emotions of so many millions of Americans, you are making a mistake.”48
For Eisenhower, the whole experience was one of the most agonizing of his life. He wanted to uphold the Supreme Court, but he did not want to offend his many southern friends. He wanted to enforce the law, but he did not want to use force to do so. He did not want to antagonize anyone, but “anyone” always seemed to turn out to be white southern segregationists. He had waged two successful campaigns to become the nation’s leader, but he did not want to lead on the issue of civil rights. The upshot of his conflicting emotions and statements was confusion, which allowed the segregationists to convince themselves that the President would never act.
In his letter to Swede, Eisenhower had concluded, “Possibly I am something like a ship which, buffeted and pounded by wind and wave, is still afloat and manages in spite of frequent tacks and turnings to stay generally along its plotted course and continue to make some, even if slow and painful, headway.”49 But to many observers, it appeared that the ship of state was in fact caught in a storm without a rudder, without power, without a captain; that it was, if the truth be told, drifting aimlessly in unknown and uncharted waters.