IN JANUARY of 1958, Nasser had announced that Egypt and Syria were uniting into a new nation, the United Arab Republic (UAR). The UAR then began propaganda broadcasts over the radio to appeal to pan-Arab sentiment in Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. In response, the feudal monarchies of Jordan and Iraq formed their own federation, the Arab Union. In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, King Saud—on whom Eisenhower had placed such high hopes—was forced into virtual abdication. Saud granted his pro-Nasser brother, Crown Prince Faisal, full power over the nation’s foreign, internal, and financial policies.
There was a great deal of loose talk within the Eisenhower Administration about Nasser. Officials assumed he had a “timetable” for taking over the Middle East, country by country, just as Hitler had taken over Europe. They also assumed that Nasser was a Communist, and argued that his acceptance of arms and money from the Soviets proved it. If Nasser succeeded, it was felt, the Russians would take control of the Middle East and its oil. Before Eisenhower would let that happen, he said on many occasions, he would fight.
True, in public Eisenhower too called Nasser a Communist. And in private, he frequently discussed with the CIA and others possible ways of getting rid of the Egyptian leader. But the President in fact was ambiguous about Nasser. In November 1957, Eisenhower wrote Dulles. His opening sentence was “Do you think there would be any percentage in initiating a drive to attempt to bring back Nasser to our side?” He wanted Dulles to make some discreet inquiries to find out what Nasser “would be prepared to do in the way of easing tensions in the Middle East if we on our part would resume efforts to help him over some of his difficulties.” It would have to be “skillfully done—certainly we don’t want to be in the position of ‘bootlicking a dictator.’ ” Eisenhower said he did not want a written answer, but did want to talk to Dulles about the subject.1 But Dulles, burned once by Nasser at Suez in 1956, hesitated to take the plunge, and before he could, Nasser had created the UAR.
By that time, too, a situation had developed that Eisenhower had said he never wanted to see take place—there was an active arms race in the Middle East, with the United States supplying Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and (to a slight extent) Lebanon with military equipment, while the Russians supplied Syria and Egypt, and the French sold arms to Israel. As the Middle East became an armed camp, Eisenhower’s worries increased. Although for public-relations purposes he said his concern was with internal Communism in the Arab countries, he had no evidence to support such a charge, and solid evidence against it, beginning with the fact that the Communist Party was outlawed in Egypt.
What Eisenhower really feared was radical Arab nationalism. Nasser was almost openly appealing to the Arab people of the feudal states of Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia to revolt against their monarchs and join the UAR. If he succeeded, and continued to rely on the Soviets for arms and money, Khrushchev might possibly get a stranglehold on the Western world’s basic energy source, and Israel could be crushed. Under those circumstances, Eisenhower could only conclude that America’s vital interests were at stake. He therefore began searching for a way to demonstrate, unequivocally, America’s readiness and capability for action, and its determination to use force to prevent the domination of the area by anti-Western pan-Arab nationalism. He searched, in short, for a place and time to implement the Eisenhower Doctrine.
He found it in Lebanon, a country without oil, almost without an Army (nine thousand men), but with a strong democratic tradition. Indeed, Lebanon was the first country he thought of in relation to the Eisenhower Doctrine, precisely because it was weak but democratic. In April of 1957, only a couple of months after the adoption of the Eisenhower Doctrine, he had almost intervened there. Camille Chamoun, a pro-Western Christian and President of the Republic of Lebanon, had complained to him that pan-Arab agitators from Jordan were stirring up trouble in Lebanon, and wanted to know if Eisenhower would send troops to help him through the crisis. Eisenhower responded by ordering units of the Sixth Fleet, plus Marines, into the eastern Mediterranean, and offering to send them to Beirut if necessary.2 But the crisis passed before that could be done.
In late April 1958, another crisis had begun, this one brought on by Chamoun himself. In violation of Lebanese tradition and constitution, he decided to amend the constitution to allow himself to serve an unprecedented second term. Moslems began rioting in protest. In early May, armed bands of Christian and Moslem militia began fighting in Beirut. The Lebanese Army Chief of Staff, General Fuad Chehab, also a Christian but Chamoun’s strongest political rival, held his troops out of the struggle.
In his memoirs, Eisenhower wrote that he had a “deep-seated conviction that the Communists were principally responsible for the trouble . . .”3 He never cited any evidence. He did have Communists very much in his mind, however, because simultaneously with the crisis in Lebanon, he had a crisis in Venezuela to deal with. Vice-President Nixon, on a good-will trip, had been attacked, spat upon, and otherwise insulted and threatened by Communist-inspired mobs. To Eisenhower, and to Foster Dulles, it looked suspiciously like part of a conspiracy. “The Communists,” Dulles told Eisenhower, “are stirring up trouble in area after area.” He cited Venezuela, Indonesia, and Burma as current examples. The situation in Venezuela was so tense that Eisenhower, on the morning of May 13, ordered a thousand troops flown to Cuba and Puerto Rico to be on hand should the Venezuelan government need help in getting Nixon out of the country.
The President then called a meeting in the Oval Office, with the Dulles brothers, Under Secretary of State Herter, Twining, Gruenther, and Goodpaster. Allen Dulles gave a short briefing, concluding with a summary of a letter from Chamoun asking if the United States would join the British and the French to intervene in Lebanon if he requested such action. Eisenhower’s first response was to dismiss any French connection out of hand. Then he ordered the Sixth Fleet, with Marines, to steam toward Lebanon. Foster Dulles was worried about justification. He asked, “On what theory would intervention be based?” The best Dulles could come up with was to protect American life and property, and he warned that “if we should go in, we must expect a wide reaction—the pipelines to be blown up, the canal denied to us, and a wave of feeling against us throughout the Arab world.” Dulles also said he was opposed to backing Chamoun for a second term.
Allen Dulles too was opposed to intervention. He said, “We should not take overt action immediately. The situation might collapse within twenty-four hours, or General Chehab might move in to bring the situation under control.”
The President interrupted. He pointed out that “while there are difficulties and dangers in taking action, we must think of the difficulties and dangers of not doing anything.” Foster Dulles then changed his position, saying he thought “we are at a very fateful point in our affairs in the Middle East . . .” Dulles acknowledged Eisenhower’s point, that usually in cases of Communist agitation, the United States was powerless, but “here is a case where we can clearly respond on the basis of a call for help.” Eisenhower then told Twining to put the Sixth Fleet on a full war footing, and to arrange for cooperation with the British. The President wanted a joint operation, with a British officer in overall command. Dulles demurred; he cited “resentment toward Britain throughout the Middle East.” Eisenhower reluctantly accepted that judgment, but he did tell Twining to cooperate fully with the British. It was an exciting thought, the first Anglo-American amphibious operation since June 6, 1944.
It was correspondingly risky. At the conclusion of the meeting, Foster Dulles brought up the real danger, more important even than the probable adverse Arab reaction. As Goodpaster recorded the exchange: “Secretary Dulles then said that we must think of the possibility of Soviet reaction. The President said he considered it doubtful if we stay in Lebanon. If we were to have to hit Syria, however, that would be something else again.”4
Eisenhower’s prediction was not put to the test, because the next day Chehab put his troops into action and took control of the city. Beirut became quiet, although some fighting continued in Tripoli. The Sixth Fleet stood down. The crisis appeared to be over.
But within a week, new fighting broke out. Chamoun, on May 22, asked for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council to consider his charge that Egypt and Syria had been instigating revolt and arming the rebels. On June 10, the Security Council voted to send a military observation team to Lebanon. It began arriving two days later. Simultaneously, Nasser tried to calm the situation. He contacted Eisenhower and offered to use his influence to end the trouble; he would propose that Chamoun give way to Chehab, and that the rebels should be accorded amnesty. Eisenhower was impressed, and thought it sincere. He regretted having backed King Saud, rather than Nasser, in the Middle East struggle. Saud, he told Ann Whitman, “was too weak an individual.” He wondered how one could save a country from its own leaders. “Chamoun, for example, has not yet fired Chehab, despite more than ample cause.” Then the President mused, “No matter what you think of Nasser, at least he is a leader.”5
That afternoon, June 15, from 5:10 to 6:45, Eisenhower met with Dulles, Quarles, Twining, and Allen Dulles to discuss Lebanon. The minutes of that meeting, kept by the State Department, remain heavily censored. It was a tense meeting, as the men explored the possibilities and consequences of action. Positions shifted as new points were made. Someone evidently advocated sending in the Marines immediately. Dulles was horrified. The notetaker recorded: “The Secretary felt it would be catastrophic to lay ourselves open” to a charge of acting before the U.N. team had a chance to report. He insisted that “we ought not to make an immediate military response . . .” Eisenhower agreed that “we would be in a bad spot” if the United States intervened before hearing from the U.N. But, expecting the U.N. to fail, he wanted to find a reason for intervening. After all, he pointed out, the Eisenhower Doctrine “had been directed only against external aggression. The President wondered, therefore, what possible future there would be if we intervened except to remain indefinitely.” That was an unhappy prospect, as he recalled the warnings he had given the British and the French before Suez. Those warnings were “Where would it lead? Where would it end?” He again bemoaned the lack of leadership in Lebanon. “There seems nobody on whom we can pin our hopes.” Chamoun was a virtual prisoner in his hotel room—he had not been out in more than two months—and a victim of a recent heart attack. Under the conditions prevailing on June 15, Eisenhower told the group “he had little, if any, enthusiasm for our intervening at this time.”
Foster Dulles then faced the prospect of another letter from Chamoun requesting American intervention. If that happened, Dulles said, “and we do not respond, that will be the end of every pro-Western government in the area. This leaves us with little or no choice, even though every alternative is ‘wrong.’ ” Eisenhower agreed “and noted that in such circumstances we would have to fulfill our commitments.”6 Exactly what those commitments consisted of, no one knew or asked. The United States had no treaties with Lebanon. The Eisenhower Doctrine, as the man who wrote it himself confessed, did not apply, because Lebanon was not being invaded by external armies.
On June 18, the U.N.’s Dag Hammarskjold arrived in Lebanon. A few days later, he reported that Chamoun’s charges about Syrian and Egyptian infiltration into Lebanon were exaggerated. Fighting in Lebanon became sporadic as a truce settled in. Whatever excuse the United States may have had for an intervention seemed to have gone.
• •
Sherman Adams, meanwhile, was in deep trouble. No one, except Eisenhower himself, had ever liked him very much. Adams’ abruptness and absence of emotion were one reason for his vast unpopularity. The man just seemed to have no human feelings at all. Once Eisenhower had painted a portrait of Adams, taken from a color photo. The President worked on it many hours. When he presented it, Adams’ only remark was “Mr. President, thank you, but I think you flattered me.” He then turned on his heel and walked out.
Foolish stories, wildly exaggerated, about Adams’ supposed immense influence with the President were a standard feature of Washington gossip and newspaper columns. The truth was that Adams had almost no influence on the President’s policies—he was the gatekeeper, the schedule maker, the man who smoothed things over, but never was he involved in making decisions. Nevertheless, every man who had had a request turned down by the White House blamed Adams; every man whom Eisenhower did not want to see in the Oval Office blamed Adams for his failure to gain admission; every man who objected to a specific Eisenhower decision, whether to veto the farm bill or to resist putting sufficient funds into NDEA, or whatever, blamed Adams. Old Guard Republicans hated the man, whom they blamed for Eisenhower’s refusal to adopt their pet projects. The Democrats hated him because he was a Republican, and because in January 1958, he had delivered a blistering attack on the Democratic Party, blaming it for Pearl Harbor and the loss of the space race. (The President was dismayed by Adams’ speech; he told Whitman he had consistently refused to blame Pearl Harbor on the Democrats, because he knew that the real blame lay with the military.7)
The Democrats controlled Congress, and thus the committees and investigations. Like the Republicans from 1953 to 1955, they wanted to use that power to expose their political enemies. In early June 1958, a subcommittee of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee charged that Adams had allowed a New England industrialist named Bernard Goldfine to pay some of his hotel bills in Boston, and that in return Adams had engaged in influence peddling for Goldfine, who was having tax and regulatory problems with the SEC. Adams might have cited Eisenhower’s blanket protection against testifying before committees for White House employees, given in 1954 during the Army-McCarthy hearings, but instead he decided to face his accusors directly. He explained to Eisenhower, “I made a mistake, but I’m no crook.” Eisenhower had no doubts about that, but he was distressed by the business of gifts (it turned out that Adams had accepted not only payments on his hotel rooms, but expensive coats and other items from Goldfine). Eisenhower himself, after all, accepted gifts from his gang and other rich friends, gifts worth far more than anything Goldfine had given Adams. The President told Slater that “the gift situation is a very difficult one. It’s a custom the world over and where do you stop?” Slater assured him that no one expected him to refuse a personal gift, and that the donors did not expect special favors in return.8
On June 17, Adams made his appearance before the committee. He admitted to a lack of prudence in his dealings with Goldfine, but insisted that the only thing he had done for the man was to place one phone call to the SEC, asking it to expedite its hearings in Goldfine’s case. The following day, Eisenhower opened a news conference with a prepared statement. He issued a ringing defense of Adams. No one, the President said, could doubt Adams’ “personal integrity and honesty.” As for himself, Eisenhower said, “I personally like Governor Adams. I admire his abilities. I respect him because of his personal and official integrity. I need him.”9 But the Democrats, smelling blood, were not deterred. The investigation continued, more Goldfine gifts were uncovered, and the Old Guard Republicans, seeing their opportunity, began demanding Adams’ resignation (Barry Goldwater and Bill Knowland were the first to do so).
On June 23, Eisenhower expressed his feelings about the uproar to Paul Hoffman. “Nothing that has occurred has had a more depressive effect on my normal buoyancy and optimism than has the virulent, sustained, demogogic attacks made upon Adams,” he said. Eisenhower admitted that Adams had been “less than alert” in his dealings with Goldfine, but “the fact remains that he is not only honest, effective, and dedicated, but in most cases, his attackers know this to be true.” At the least, Eisenhower said, he would have hoped the Republicans would not add to the clamor. “I grow to despise political expediency more every day.”10
Nevertheless, Eisenhower could not completely ignore what was becoming an almost unanimous Republican demand that Adams resign. In July, the President sent Nixon to talk to Adams about the situation, emphasizing that he felt such deep loyalty to Adams “that he did not want to even discuss the possibility of a resignation.” But he did want Nixon to point out to Adams what a liability he had become. In his talk later that morning with Adams, Nixon put the stress on the upcoming congressional elections. He warned Adams that if the Republicans did badly (which was widely anticipated), they would inevitably, if unfairly, blame Adams. But Adams refused to resign. He told Nixon that only Eisenhower could decide what the proper course of action should be.11 Meanwhile the investigation went on. Goldfine appeared before the committee and made an awful impression. The Republican Party was distraught, Eisenhower hardly less so.
• •
On July 14, the day before Nixon talked to Adams, the President had a great deal more on his mind than Bernard Goldfine. Pro-Nasser forces in Iraq had pulled off a coup in Baghdad that morning, overthrowing the Hashemite monarchy and assassinating the royal family. Although there was no direct evidence linking Nasser to the coup, Radio Cairo was urging regicide throughout the feudal Arab states. Hussein was the target of plots in Jordan; Saud was worried and demanding that the United States send troops to the Middle East, else he would be forced to “go along” with the UAR. In Lebanon, Allen Dulles reported to the President, Chamoun had again requested British and American intervention. The entire Middle East seemed on the verge of falling into the hands of anti-Western pan-Arabs controlled by Nasser.
Since the basic Western policy was to keep the Arab states weak, divided, and dependent on the West, this was a major crisis. To deal with it, Eisenhower did not turn to the NSC, but to an informal group of key advisers, meeting in his office. He told Bobby Cutler the trouble was that the NSC meetings were so large (usually more than twenty people present) that top-secret material could not be discussed anyway, and in addition, the large group provided an audience that was too tempting for the Dulles brothers to resist attempting to impress. Eisenhower told Cutler that he had “real impatience” with Allen Dulles, because his briefings were “too philosophical, laborious, and tedious.” Eisenhower admitted that “one must recognize the personality of the individual involved,” and confessed that “he really had not sought to do anything about it.” The President also told Cutler that Foster Dulles’ briefings “were frequently too long and in too much detail in historical account.”12
So, on July 14, when he had to make a decision, Eisenhower endured an NSC meeting, where he was noncommittal, then called the Dulles brothers, Nixon, Anderson, Quarles, Twining, Cutler, and Goodpaster into the Oval Office. Cutler recalled that the President “sat sprawled back in the chair behind his desk in a comfortable position, the most relaxed man in the room . . .” Cutler had the feeling that Eisenhower “knew exactly what he meant to do.”13 He did indeed; as Eisenhower put it in his memoirs, “This was one meeting in which my mind was practically made up . . . even before we met. The time was rapidly approaching, I believed, when we had to move into the Middle East, and specifically into Lebanon, to stop the trend toward chaos.”14 As the President explained privately to Nixon, just before the meeting (when he had also asked Nixon to talk to Adams about resignation), “We have come to the crossroads. Since 1945 we have been trying to maintain the opportunity to reach vitally needed petroleum supplies peaceably, without hindrance on the part of any one.” Eisenhower thought the current unrest came about “by the struggle of Nasser to get control of these supplies—to get the income and the power to destroy the Western world.” The President concluded, “Somewhere along the line we have got to face up to the issue.”15
So, in the Oval Office, Eisenhower listened patiently to yet another of Allen Dulles’ briefings, then turned to Twining to discuss the readiness of the Sixth Fleet and the Marines in the eastern Mediterranean. Secretary Dulles asked, almost plaintively, “Would you wish to hear my political appreciation?” Obviously embarrassed, Eisenhower replied: “Go ahead, Foster . . . please.” Dulles said the Russians would be content with making noise, but he warned that “if the United States went into Lebanon we could expect a very bad reaction from most Arab countries.” He feared for the pipelines and the canal. But he assured Eisenhower that from a legal viewpoint, an American landing in Lebanon was far different from that of the British-French attack on Suez, because Chamoun had invited American troops into his country. He also warned, however, that few people would get the distinction.
Eisenhower knew all that already. Cutler noticed that the President, “calm, easy, and objective . . . was dealing with something which he thoroughly understood. His unruffled confidence was apparent to all.” He told Dulles to have Lodge request an emergency meeting of the Security Council for the following morning; he told Jerry Persons to assemble the legislative leaders that afternoon; he told Twining to start the Sixth Fleet and the Marines toward Lebanon.16
• •
That afternoon, intervention proved to be a difficult proposition to sell to Congress. The legislative leaders were not at all enthusiastic. Some argued that intervention would undo America’s good reputation; Sam Rayburn feared that America was getting into a civil war; Senator Fulbright doubted seriously that this crisis was Communist-inspired. Only three men supported action. But Eisenhower had not called the congressmen together to elicit support, or for consultation—he had called them in to inform them of what he intended to do.17 At the conclusion of the meeting, he met with the Dulles brothers, Twining, Quarles, Hagerty, and Goodpaster to “fix firmly upon specific action steps.” Eisenhower told Twining to send the Marines ashore at 3 P.M. Lebanon time, which was 9 A.M., July 15, Washington time. No one, not even Chamoun, should be given advance notice, because the President did not want to give the rebels in Lebanon an opportunity to prepare resistance. Eisenhower instructed Foster Dulles to have Lodge tell the Security Council that the United States sought only to stabilize the situation until the U.N. could act.18
Eisenhower then called Macmillan. The Prime Minister had also received Chamoun’s call for help, as well as one from Hussein of Jordan—“the two little chaps,” Macmillan called them. Eisenhower informed Macmillan that American Marines were on their way to Lebanon.19 Macmillan laughed and said, “You are doing a Suez on me.” Eisenhower laughed at his end. Macmillan wanted to act jointly; Eisenhower insisted on a unilateral American intervention in Lebanon, and asked Macmillan to be prepared to move into Jordan with British paratroopers. The President did not want to give the impression that the two countries were acting in collusion (although obviously they were), so he promised full logistical support for the British in Jordan, but refused to include American armed forces in that movement. He also assured Macmillan that he would not abandon his ally.
• •
Thus did Eisenhower unleash the American military for the only time in his Presidency. A quarter of a century later, his motives still seemed unclear. Lebanon was under no real threat; Chamoun had already announced that he would not seek a second term; evidence of any Russian, or Egyptian, involvement in either Lebanon or in the coup in Iraq was lacking; there were no vital American interests in Lebanon itself. Eisenhower’s decision to intervene, in addition, contrasted sharply with his response to the various crises in the Far East from 1953 through 1955. Then he had been cautious and prudent, far more so than his professional and political advisers. Now he was much more eager to intervene than were the politicians or the State Department people, indeed had been eager to go into Lebanon for more than a year, and was just waiting for a proper excuse. Why was he so much more aggressive in the Middle East than in the Far East?
For one reason, because the chances of a clash between the superpowers was so much less in Lebanon, and the potential for indigenous resistance was far less than in Indochina or on the Chinese coast. Further, by 1958 one of the Democratic charges against Eisenhower had become his defense policy, with its emphasis on big planes and big bombs. Maxwell Taylor, as Army Chief of Staff, had joined the Democrats in this criticism, which had become widespread and claimed that for America it was all or nothing—the country had no capability of making a flexible response appropriate to the occasion. By intervening in Lebanon, Eisenhower proved that was not true. Within two weeks, he had the equivalent of a full division in the country, equipped with Honest John rocket batteries that had atomic weapons, with another two divisions alerted to go on a few hours’ flight from Germany. Lebanon, in short, was a show of force—and a most impressive one.
Against whom was it directed? Not the Soviets, who already knew, roughly, what American capability was. Not the Lebanese, virtually unarmed. The real target was Nasser. As Eisenhower later summed it up, he wanted to bring about a change in Nasser’s attitude. Nasser, according to the President, “seemed to believe that the United States government was scarcely able, by reason of the nation’s democratic system, to use our recognized strength to protect our vital interests.” Eisenhower wanted to impress Nasser, and to show him that he could not count on the Soviets, in order to give him “food for thought.”20 Eisenhower was also anxious to demonstrate to King Saud that the United States could be counted on to support its friends. (The President had told the legislative leaders that Saud had made it clear that “if we do not come in we are finished in the Middle East.”21) Most of all, Eisenhower’s gunboat diplomacy in the Middle East was based on his perception of the importance of the area to the United States and its allies. In his judgment, the Middle East was immeasurably more within an area vital to the interests of the United States than the Far East ever would be.
• •
Eisenhower kept the intervention limited in scope and duration. Three hours after the Marines landed, he talked to Macmillan again. The Prime Minister, Eisenhower later told Twining, “wants to get us to commit ourselves now to clearing up the whole Middle East situation” through a massive joint intervention into not only Lebanon, but Syria, Jordan, and Iraq as well. Eisenhower confessed that the proposition “gives me a good deal of concern.” He wanted to limit, not escalate, and refused Macmillan’s request.22
The Marines landed without incident, to find a country going about its business. Having made the commitment, Eisenhower downplayed its significance. In a special message to Congress, in Cabot Lodge’s announcement to the Security Council, and in his own nationwide radio and television address that evening of July 15, Eisenhower expressed the hope that the U.N. could quickly come into Lebanon and “permit the early withdrawal of United States forces.” He used the words “stationed in” Lebanon rather than “invading.” American forces would secure the airfield and the capital, but would otherwise not operate in Lebanon.
In justifying the intervention, however, Eisenhower overstated his reasons. He linked Lebanon in 1958 with Greece in 1947, Czechoslovakia in 1948, the Chinese Communist victory in 1949, and the Korean invasion of 1950. But then he could hardly have said that he was sending in the Marines in order to impress Nasser, Saud, and the others, or to show that the American armed forces were not muscle-bound, or to protect feudal monarchies.
Two days later, on July 17, the British sent twenty-two hundred paratroopers to Jordan to bolster King Hussein’s shaky regime. Macmillan still wanted direct American participation; Eisenhower again refused. The next day, Eisenhower sent Robert Murphy to Beirut to act as his special representative; Murphy talked with Chamoun and persuaded him to hold new elections at the end of July. Chehab won the election, and by early August the United States began to withdraw from Lebanon. The Russians, as Eisenhower had predicted, limited their response to diplomatic maneuvers (Khrushchev was calling frantically for a summit meeting to deal with Lebanon, while denouncing American aggression). In less than four months, the crisis was over; by October 25, the last American troops were withdrawn. Eisenhower had accomplished his basic objectives without risking general war (Nasser had flown to Moscow in July, only to find that the Soviets had no interest in challenging the United States in the Middle East). The whole affair, Eisenhower noted in his memoirs, brought about “a definite change in Nasser’s attitude toward the United States.”23
• •
For Eisenhower it had been an exciting experience, not one to be compared to Overlord, to be sure, but nevertheless hardly something that was all in a day’s work. On May 13, the day he sent a thousand American troops to Puerto Rico and Cuba to rescue Nixon, if necessary, and the day he started units of the Sixth Fleet toward Beirut, he told Whitman, “I am about ready to go put my uniform on.” That night, he told Mamie he was thinking of “digging out my uniforms to see whether they still fit.”24 In July, when the intervention took place, Dr. Snyder worried about the “anxious hours” the President was putting in on the crisis. Snyder thought Eisenhower was “tense,” and feared “he might blow a valve again.” But Ellis Slater, who spent the evening of July 16 with Eisenhower, thought he looked great. Eisenhower told Slater that although things were “a little tough,” he was confident they would come out all right. Slater talked to Whitman (“that most devoted friend and slave,” he called her). “She said things had been hellish but that she never ceased to admire more and more the attitude of this man under pressure.”25 It almost seemed to rejuvenate him.
• •
The aftermath was not so pleasing. Charges of American gunboat diplomacy, of bullying, of militarism, filled the world’s airwaves. Khrushchev blustered and threatened. The Arab world was inflamed. Eisenhower thought it all terribly unfair. He complained about the way Nasser was able to “inflame an illiterate populace” and about the way Khrushchev “can stir all this fuss and the world stands quiet—only two years after Hungary!”26
On July 23, Eisenhower conducted a thorough review of world reaction. Dulles began the discussion, saying that “we must regard Arab nationalism as a flood which is running strongly. We cannot successfully oppose it, but we can put up sandbags around positions we must protect.” America’s major difficulty, Dulles said, was that “Israel is a hostage held against us.” Eisenhower heartily agreed, pointing out that “except for Israel we could form a viable policy in the area.” In his mind, he said, “the question is how to take a sympathetic position regarding the Arabs without agreeing to the destruction of Israel.” He feared that “if our policy is solely to maintain the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia in their positions, the prospect is hopeless, even in the short term.”
The President’s tone of voice, as well as what he said, worried Dulles, who now feared an overreaction. Contradicting what he said at the beginning of the meeting, the Secretary told Eisenhower, “We must not overestimate . . . Arab nationalism and Arab unity.” There was no real alliance between Egypt and Syria, he said, and Arab unity “is not a valid, permanent movement.” Eisenhower disagreed. He thought, with regard to Arab unity, that “we must either work with it or change it, or do some of both.” The President noted that he had tried to “work out a line of action with Saud, but it availed us very little.” Dulles disagreed; he pointed out that “it has gained us at least a couple of years in which the area did not go Communist.” Eisenhower had rather hoped that more than a mere couple of years of buying time could result from American policies, but in the end he agreed with Dulles that so long as the United States was forced to support Israel, “we are laboring under an inherent disadvantage in this area.” And with that expression of helplessness, the meeting broke up, having decided nothing.27 The intervention in Lebanon had not solved anything.
• •
On July 22, Eisenhower wrote a seven-page letter to George Humphrey. He described some of his problems with Congress, with the AEC, with DOD, with State, with Sherman Adams, with the CIA, and others. “With this list of things to command my attention,” he declared, “you can easily understand that calm, continuous, searching analysis of all factors in the complicated Middle East question is indeed difficult.”28
The failure of his subordinates to carry out his orders was especially irritating to Eisenhower. Back in 1952, Truman had warned that Eisenhower would find the Presidency much more frustrating than being the Supreme Commander, because as President he would say, “Do this!” or “Do that!” and nothing would happen. The Air Force’s addiction to balloon projects showed how right Truman was. Eisenhower had twice, unequivocally, ordered the Air Force to cease sending reconnaissance balloons over the Soviet Union, but in late July, he was chagrined to receive another protest from the Soviets about intrusion of their airspace by Air Force balloons.29 Eisenhower tried to get Secretary McElroy on the phone, but he had gone home, so the President talked to his deputy, Quarles, instead. As Whitman recorded his end of the conversation, Eisenhower “complained, in salty language, about the laxity in the defense forces—he said he would have, if he had done some of the things that have been done in the last few days—shot himself . . . The President suggested firing a few people—and said that people in the service either ought to obey orders or get the hell out of the service.”30
Eisenhower followed up with a formal memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, telling him that “there is disturbing evidence of a deterioration in the processes of discipline and responsibility within the armed forces.” He cited, in particular, “unauthorized decisions which have apparently resulted in certain balloons falling within the territory of the Communist bloc,” and U-2 flights over routes “that contravened my standing orders.” He wanted action taken, “at once,” to tighten discipline.31 Five days later, Eisenhower groaned and cursed in helpless anger when Foster Dulles reported to him yet another protest from the Soviets about balloons.32
• •
The Air Force motivation was less to get information from inside Russia, more to compete with the CIA’s U-2 project, which the Air Force had tried to persuade Eisenhower to give to its care. He had refused. Nevertheless the competition flourished, and not just over intelligence. Each service continued to criticize its rivals and demand more appropriations for itself. Each service had its own champions in Congress, and among the large contributors to campaign funds. John J. McCloy explained to Eisenhower that “the interservice game extends right down through the corporations, depending upon which branch their contracts flow from and it even goes into the academic institutions depending from where their research grants flow.” Eisenhower agreed with McCloy, and added that “it is from these vested interests that a great deal of the objection to unification springs.”33
Eisenhower knew full well that there was an artificial, self-serving quality to many of the demands for more spending on the military, but he hardly knew how to cope with it. Again and again he stressed to his Cabinet, his Republican leaders, his friends, and the public that unless defense spending was cut, there would be annual deficits of $10 billion or more, extending as far as forty years into the future. Under those circumstances, he warned, “we just can’t compete” with a closed society.34
Part of Eisenhower’s difficulty in dealing with DOD resulted from the ingrained habit of disgruntled officers in the Pentagon leaking information to sympathetic congressmen. In August, an Air Force officer told Stuart Symington that the Pentagon was undertaking studies to determine under what conditions the United States might have to negotiate a surrender following a nuclear attack. Symington made this the subject of a major speech that attracted widespread attention. Republican senators asked Eisenhower about it. The President “asserted that he might be the last person alive, but there wouldn’t be any surrender in the next two and one-half years, at least.” He said he knew of no such study, and commented that Symington’s allegations “were about the same as saying ‘there is no sun!’ ”35
Two weeks later, on August 29, Symington wrote Eisenhower directly, to say that he had information (from undisclosed sources) “that would appear to show that Allen Dulles heavily underrated Soviet missile development to date, as well as planned capabilities.” Symington charged that because of this, and because of Eisenhower’s refusal to spend more on defense, “we leave ourselves and our allies subject to overt political, if not actual military aggression . . . with a relatively slight chance of effective retaliation against such aggression between 1960 and 1962.”36
Eisenhower asked Symington to come to his office, with only Goodpaster present. The President explained that Symington had it backward—what Allen Dulles had really done was overestimate Soviet development and capability. In a grand understatement of his own, “the President said he thought it would be out of character for him to be indifferent to valid assessments of Soviet strength.” Symington was not convinced.37
• •
Neither were John McCone, Strauss’s successor as head of the AEC, Quarles, or McElroy convinced that Eisenhower’s desire for a test ban was good for the country. Even after the Hardtack series, they wanted more tests. In late July, they proposed to the President a new series designed to test the ABM. The AEC and DOD proposed conducting the tests from Eglin Airfield, on the Florida Gulf coast, firing out into the Gulf. Secretary Dulles was appalled; he said it would do great damage to relations with both Cuba and Mexico. (No one at the meeting raised the question of what the American residents of the Gulf coast might think.) On the basis of Dulles’ advice, Eisenhower ordered the series canceled.38
In Geneva, meanwhile, the technical experts from Russia and the United States continued their deliberations in an attempt to agree on an inspection system that would justify a test ban. On August 4, Killian reported that they were making progress. Eisenhower told Killian that “if full technical agreement is reached, the weight of argument for doing so [ceasing the tests] would be very great.” Both Twining and McCone strongly protested, but Eisenhower insisted.
On August 21, the Geneva experts adopted their final report. It concluded that “it was technically feasible” to create “a workable and effective control system to detect violations of an agreement on the worldwide suspension of nuclear weapons’ tests.” There was some disagreement among the experts on the number of control posts needed, and on the ability to detect small underground blasts, but that could not obscure the fact that for the first time in the nuclear age, Soviets and Americans had reached an agreement on atomic matters. Eisenhower told the State Department to begin test-ban negotiations with the Soviet Union.
DOD and the AEC were not the only ones opposed. Macmillan told Eisenhower that a test ban would be a great mistake, and reminded him that Britain had a new series of tests scheduled for the early fall. Eisenhower replied that he had a personal commitment to a ban, and insisted that the moment for action was “psychologically correct.”39
Eisenhower was greatly concerned by the British military position, which the JCS told him was woefully weak. McElroy reported that the British had gone “very far downhill” since the war. Eisenhower thought the reason was too much emphasis on atomic weapons, not enough on conventional forces. The President wanted to divert the British away from strategic weapons and toward more ships and ground troops; to persuade Macmillan, he offered to send more American nuclear weapons to England and to share more atomic information with the British.40 But the AEC and DOD were opposed to such sharing, and they cited the McMahon Act, which forbade giving atomic information to foreign countries. Eisenhower insisted that although he did not want to violate the law, he did want to treat the British as “true allies” and “be full and generous” in exchanging information. The President recalled British assistance during the war, mentioning specifically the way they shared Ultra with the United States, and their radar discoveries, not to mention their original contribution to atomic research.41
The French, under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle since the spring of 1958, were also adamantly opposed to a ban, as they wished to develop their own bomb. The project was part of de Gaulle’s determination to restore the glory and prestige of France, which in turn was part of his program of freeing France from her military dependence on NATO and the United States. De Gaulle’s insistence on French independence greatly alarmed many Americans; C. D. Jackson, for example, wrote an editorial for Life full of foreboding about de Gaulle and his effect on the alliance. Eisenhower read it, then told Whitman that “sometimes C. D. finds ghosts in the attic where none is there.” He thought he could work successfully with de Gaulle, as he had in the past, and that de Gaulle would be good for France.42 Eisenhower also told congressmen, who feared that the end of NATO was at hand, that “a Frenchman looking for power and one exercising power are two different things.” He admitted that de Gaulle was “very vain,” but insisted that he was “realistic in the military sense.”43
Eisenhower did not think, however, that de Gaulle was very realistic about nuclear weapons. He could see no reason for the French to have their own nuclear arsenal, and on August 21 he told the new French Foreign Minister, Maurice Couve de Murville, just that. The President said that he was about to make a public statement calling for negotiations for a ban to begin on October 31, and as a sign of good faith, to suspend all American testing for one year, provided the Russians did not test. Couve de Murville was unimpressed; he said the French would conduct their tests regardless of what the United States and the Soviet Union did. Eisenhower said he wished they would not.44
The AEC and DOD had hoped that the British and the French could persuade Eisenhower to oppose a test ban. When that did not work, they made one last attempt of their own. Quarles told Eisenhower that the JCS believed a ban “will be disadvantageous militarily,” and McCone told him that every member of the AEC agreed with the JCS. Eisenhower curtly told McCone he was aware of that fact, but pointed out that the AEC was “not concerned with the question of the world political position.”45 The next day, August 19, on the verge of Eisenhower’s announcement, McCone made one last, desperate effort. Fully aware of Eisenhower’s great interest in using atomic power for peaceful purposes, he told Eisenhower that if only the AEC were allowed to continue underground testing, it would soon be able to use atomic energy to extract oil from deep deposits, blast tunnels through mountains, and achieve other goals. Could not the President at least announce that America intended to continue underground testing? Eisenhower said that if he made such an exception, “we would lose the political gains we are seeking,” so “no matter what our military might say” he was going ahead with his announcement.46
On August 22, Eisenhower issued his statement, offering to enter into test-ban negotiations with the Russians on October 31. As he explained to McCone, his responsibilities compelled him “to take some risk” in order to “do away with atmospheric testing, thus eliminating the health hazard, and at the same time . . . slow down the arms race.”47
On August 27, before Khrushchev had replied to Eisenhower’s proposal, McCone met with Eisenhower to ask for “one more test.” He said he needed a decision “immediately.” Eisenhower “expressed some irritation, saying that he had announced the tests’ suspension and now ‘they’ wanted to have another big test.” But McCone persisted, and finally got a weary President to agree; Eisenhower said “he supposed that the AEC might as well go ahead.”48 Part of the reason was undoubtedly the roar of protest that had greeted his announcement, from such people as Teller, Strauss, Hanson Baldwin, and Henry Kissinger. Another factor may have been Macmillan’s actions; on August 22, the day of the announcement, the British began their latest series of tests with an explosion at Christmas Island. On August 29, Khrushchev indicated his willingness to enter into negotiations at the end of October; that same day, the AEC began a new series, officially named Hardtack II but called Operation Deadline by the press. Hardtack II set off nineteen separate explosions, most of them in the low-kiloton range, and including one of a nuclear bazooka shell designed to be fired by two men at a range of less than two miles. The Soviets also participated in this orgy of last-minute testing, starting their own series on September 30 and setting off fourteen weapons, most in the megaton range, and in the process releasing vast quantities of radioactive material.49 In all in 1958, the year that saw the first respite in testing since 1945, the three nuclear powers set off more bombs than in any other year (the Soviets set off more in October 1958, alone, than they had in all of 1957). The final total was eighty-one blasts. Radioactivity levels were at their peak. But at least there was, for the first time, some genuine hope that it all might soon end.
• •
Hopelessness, meanwhile, was the dominant mood in the Republican Party as the off-year elections came closer. Eisenhower’s veto of the farm bill was one reason, and the relatively lackluster candidates the party was offering was another. Little Rock and Sputnik added to Republican woes. The Democrats, anxious to increase their lead in Congress and thus lay a base for the 1960 presidential election, were conducting a vigorous campaign, one in which they were able to reverse the roles of the 1952 campaign—they were on the offensive, while the Republicans were thrown back on the defensive. Under the circumstances, a Democratic sweep seemed certain.
Almost every Republican wanted a scapegoat. Some settled on Benson, but most put the blame on Sherman Adams. In early September the demands for his resignation became irresistible. Still, Eisenhower hated to let Adams go. Both as general and as President, Eisenhower found it extremely difficult to fire a man who had served him well and loyally, no matter how great a handicap the man had become. So it was with Adams.
Eisenhower was unmoved by demands from Goldwater, Knowland, and other Republican senators that Adams be forced out of the Administration, and by Nixon’s warnings that keeping Adams would cost two dozen or more seats in Congress. But when his own gang began to put the pressure on, it was a different matter. Cliff Roberts sent him a handwritten note, saying that the Adams’ affair was the cause of “hopelessness” in the party. Eisenhower wrote back on September 4, trying to argue with Roberts. The President said that Adams “admittedly made a mistake, but no one has ever accused him of crookedness. Yet this [Goldfine-Adams business], almost alone, seems to account for the alleged Republican ‘hopelessness.’ ” Eisenhower protested that Adams had worked with “extraordinary dedication,” and cited “the round-the-clock days that he has devoted to the service of the country.” But all that work was “seemingly forgotten by the public with a consequent readiness to make [Adams] a greater villain than almost anyone in current history.” Eisenhower said it all left him “puzzled and resentful.”50
But no matter how patently unfair it was to blame Adams for Republican difficulties, there was no escaping it. After Eisenhower dictated to Whitman his letter to Roberts, he called Winthrop Aldrich on the phone. Aldrich was a friend of Adams’, but he told Eisenhower that “this man has got to go or we are done.” Eisenhower then called Meade Alcorn, chairman of the RNC. Alcorn said he was having trouble raising money for the campaign, and he put the blame on Adams. Eisenhower, greatly depressed, finally said “my mind is pretty well cleared up as to what would be the better thing to do. The difficulty is to find a good way to do it.” He asked Alcorn to get together with Nixon and talk to Adams. Alcorn said he would.51
They did, without results. Adams told them, “I will have to talk to the boss myself.”52 Eisenhower agreed to a meeting, then commented to Whitman, “How dreadful it is that cheap politicians can so pillory an honorable man.”53 At the meeting, on September 17, Adams indicated that he was willing to hand in his resignation, but that he wanted to wait a month or so to get the personnel situation straightened out. Eisenhower told him, “If anything is done and we make any critical decision, as I have always said, you will have to take the initiative yourself.” But after the meeting, the President changed his mind and called Adams on the telephone to tell him that he could not drag the thing out for a full month. Then he added that he wanted to protect Adams “from anything that looks cold and indifferent.”54
Five days later, on September 22, Adams announced his resignation. Eisenhower accepted it with the “deepest regret.” The boil had been lanced, but whether the surgery would cure the desperately ill Republican Party remained to be seen.
• •
The ChiNats and the ChiComs were at it again, over Quemoy and Matsu. Eisenhower first learned of the latest crisis on August 25 in appropriate Dr. Strangelove conditions. He was deep in the bowels of the earth, in a bombproof shelter in the North Carolina mountains, surrounded by the most advanced electronic gadgetry, participating in the annual Operation Alert. The crisis brought on a war scare with a potential for a nuclear exchange, thus emphasizing the importance of the government’s ability to carry on in the event of an atomic attack.
Allen Dulles gave the briefing. The ChiNats had been steadily increasing their strength on Quemoy and Matsu, to the point that Chiang had 100,000 men, a full third of his total force, on the islands. The ChiComs had protested against this act of provocation, to no avail. On August 24, they began shelling the islands. Dulles said the physical damage from the artillery barrage was slight, although casualties were substantial. He expected the ChiComs to throw a blockade around the islands, in an attempt to starve out the garrisons. He did not, however, think they intended to launch an assault, because they had not brought their mainland forces and amphibious lift to a level that would make it possible for them to do so.
Goodpaster recorded that “the President thought it desirable to make some show of force, with a few calculated leaks regarding our actions to strengthen our forces.” Eisenhower ordered two aircraft carriers from the Sixth Fleet to steam through Suez and join the Seventh Fleet in the Formosa Straits. Quarles pointed out that this might have an effect on the ChiComs, “but might also have the effect of Chiang being more provocative.” Eisenhower said he would not give Chiang a full commitment. “The Orientals can be very devious,” he admonished, and if he told the ChiNats that they had his full support, the ChiNats “would then call the tune.”55
Still, in Eisenhower’s view, what was at stake was much more than Quemoy and Matsu. Using his domino image, he predicted that if Quemoy and Matsu were lost, it would “lead to the loss of Formosa,” which would threaten “the future security of Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and even Okinawa . . . and United States vital interests would suffer severely.”56 By August 29 the President was back in Washington. The artillery barrage continued, the ChiComs had introduced their Air Force into the conflict, and were blockading the islands. If they actually attempted an invasion of Quemoy and Matsu, Eisenhower declared, he was considering authorizing the use of tactical atomic weapons against ChiCom airfields. However, he added, “We cannot be sure this would be necessary, and since we do not want to outrage world opinion, perhaps we had better reserve this.”57 Instead, he authorized the use of the Seventh Fleet to provide convoy protection to ChiNat supply ships attempting to get through to the islands, although he carefully instructed Twining to make certain that no American ships went within the three-mile limit. To his disgust, however, the ChiNat supply ships turned and ran when the Americans left them and the ChiComs began shelling the convoys.
On September 4, Eisenhower met with Goodpaster and Foster Dulles to talk about what to do next. Dulles was all for using tactical atomic bombs. Eisenhower demurred. According to Dulles’ memo on the conversation, he then told the President, “I thought we had acknowledged the risk of the political and psychological dangers of the use of these weapons when we decided to include them in our arsenal.” According to Goodpaster’s notes, “Mr. Dulles directed attention to the point regarding atomic weapons, recalling that we have geared our defense to the use of these in case of hostilities of any size, and stated that, if we will not use them when the chips are down because of adverse world opinion, we must revise our defense setup.” Eisenhower pointed out that if the United States used atomic weapons against ChiCom airfields, the Communists might well retaliate with nuclear weapons against Formosa (in his memoirs, Eisenhower said that he was convinced that the Russians were behind this latest ChiCom aggression). Under the circumstances, he was not ready to authorize the use of atomic bombs.58
A good thing too, as two days later, on September 6, Chou En-lai made a statement that indicated he was ready to negotiate. Dulles was suspicious. He offered the President a draft of a statement that was full of threats. Eisenhower “suggested modifications,” saying “he wanted to add something in the way of a concrete and definite acceptance of Chou En-lai’s offer to negotiate.” The President thought “that some honorable way out of the Offshore Islands dilemma was desirable,” although he recognized that “his views . . . were somewhat at variance with the Secretary of State’s.”59
Chiang, meanwhile, like Dulles, wanted to escalate. So did the JCS. On September 6, Twining gave the President a proposal that gave complete freedom of action to the commander of the Seventh Fleet. If the admiral thought it necessary, he could order atomic air strikes against the ChiCom mainland. Eisenhower refused; the President insisted that any attacks against the mainland “could be ordered only upon his approval.”60 Thus rebuffed, the JCS then completely reversed themselves; on September 11, Twining told Eisenhower that in the view of the JCS, “the islands are not defensible and probably not required for the defense of Formosa.”61
The problem was to convince Chiang of that fact, and it was insurmountable. Chiang’s goal, Eisenhower and his advisers felt, was to embroil the United States in a war with the ChiComs. Gordon Gray, former president of the University of North Carolina, who had in July replaced Cutler as the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, discussed the problem with Eisenhower. Gray wondered “how long we should continue to encourage Chiang in the notion that we would support his return to the mainland by force inasmuch as it seemed to me that this was no longer a reasonable possibility.” Eisenhower replied that Chiang hoped “that there would be disintegration from within Communist China and that in the ensuing chaos he would be in a position, with our support, to move in and take over.” The President thought that was “a possibility,” and that “as long as the possibility existed it was important to maintain the morale of Chiang and his people.”62
That evening, September 11, Eisenhower went on national television to talk to the public. The bombardment and blockade were still going on, and no negotiations had gotten started. Eisenhower stated that the United States was bound by its treaties, its principles, and its pledge in the Formosa Resolution of 1955. There would be no retreat, he promised. “There is not going to be any appeasement.” But he added, “I believe there is not going to be any war.”63
The reaction to Eisenhower’s statement, except from Republicans who automatically gave the President their support, was disastrous. Hardly anyone was willing to risk World War III over Quemoy and Matsu. By September 23, talks had begun between the American and Chinese Communist ambassadors to Poland, but Dulles reported that the initial discussions were not productive, and he still wanted action. Eisenhower told Dulles that “as much as two-thirds of the world, and 50 percent of U.S. opinion, opposes the course which we have been following.”64 None of the NATO allies was willing to support the defense of Quemoy and Matsu, a situation that led Dulles to complain to Eisenhower about “the regrettable failure of any of our allies to stand by us publicly . . .” He feared that NATO, and possibly even SEATO, were “beginning to fall apart.”65
McElroy suggested one way out of the dilemma. He told Eisenhower he had “been wondering whether, if we cannot persuade Chiang to get off the island . . . there isn’t someone else who could step into the position.”66 Eisenhower was not, however, ready to consider assassination. He did say that “something must be done to make Chiang more flexible in his approach.” He added that he did not want to wage a fight “on the ground of someone else’s choosing, and this is the case in Quemoy and Matsu where we are at a great disadvantage in terms of world opinion.”67 The President’s own solution was to give Chiang some American landing craft, so that he would be in a position to return to the mainland if conditions seemed favorable, while he simultaneously “removed all or nearly all his garrison from the offshore islands.”68 He sent Dulles to Formosa to make the proposition to Chiang. The ChiNat leader refused to retreat, but he was willing to issue a statement renouncing the use of force as an acceptable means of regaining the mainland.
The ChiComs responded. After a brief cease-fire, they announced that they would fire on the ChiNat convoys only on odd days of the month, permitting resupply operations on the even days. Eisenhower “wondered if we were in a Gilbert and Sullivan war.”69 Chiang did reduce the garrison, although not to the extent Eisenhower thought he should, and the ChiComs ceased firing. The crisis passed, without war, without retreat, without putting an intolerable strain on NATO, and without a loss of face by the ChiNats or the United States. Eisenhower had used a combination of threats, firmness, and resolve, combined with a willingness to negotiate and be reasonable, to achieve an outcome satisfactory to him.
• •
Early in the Formosa crisis, at a time when the Adams furor was at its height and the test-ban debate was intensifying, and while the Lebanon crisis was still unresolved, Ellis Slater and the rest of the gang spent a weekend at the White House with the First Family. Just before Saturday’s dinner, nine-year-old David came in to present his grandfather with a bill for the work he had done on the farm the past two weeks. David had put the bill in an envelope addressed to “President Dwight Eisenhower”; it tabulated his days and hours—twenty-four hours’ total at thirty cents per hour. Eisenhower reminded David that he owed forty cents for a previous loan, so David deducted that amount from the bill, which Eisenhower then paid. At the President’s suggestion, David marked the bill paid in full and signed it.
Eisenhower cooked Sunday breakfast—cantaloupe from his farm, stacks of wheat cakes, and big link sausages—all served on trays on stands while the guests sat in easy chairs. They talked for three hours, mainly about farming and cattle and fertilizer and fields. Eisenhower said he was desperately looking forward to January 20, 1961, when he could retire and “just sleep and rest and be himself.” Mamie commented that she had a lot of work to do before they left the White House, and said “it wasn’t going to be fun getting ready to vacate that place.” The morning, Slater wrote in his diary, was “refreshing and diverting” for the President.
Toward the end of the breakfast session, however, Eisenhower got to talking about what a terrible year he had had; he called 1958 “the worst of his life.” He then commented that years ending in eight always seemed to be bad ones for him. In 1918, he said, he had missed World War I. In 1928, he had been in Paris, writing a guidebook—pleasant enough, but it had given him a feeling of treading water in his career. In 1938, his last year in the Philippines, he had gone through some bitter battles with MacArthur and feared he would never get away from the islands or the man. In 1948, he had retired from the Army and gone to Columbia, where he found much frustration and little satisfaction. In 1958, he had suffered a stroke, found himself in frequent disagreement with his chief foreign-policy adviser and with Congress, lost Sherman Adams and Lewis Strauss, endured a series of international crises and an economic recession, and had to anticipate major Republican defeats in the next election. Small wonder he was looking forward to retirement.70
But he was naturally an optimist. In a letter full of grousing to George Humphrey, he concluded, “Actually, of course, the sun is shining . . . the United States is still populated by relatively happy people, and by and large our grandchildren do not seem too much worried.” He thought everything would work out all right.71