EVEN WITH THE DEPARTURE of Sherman Adams, Eisenhower and the Republican Party were gloomy on the eve of the off-year elections. The Democrats were hitting them hard in the campaign, concentrating on Benson’s unpopularity in the Midwest, on Taft-Hartley’s “right to work” clause in the industrial states, on Republican responsibility for integration in the southern states, on unemployment throughout the nation, and most of all on the charge that “six years of leaderless vacillation have led us to the . . . brink of having to fight a nuclear war inadequately prepared and alone.”1 The charge that Eisenhower had allowed a “missile gap” to develop, which Stevenson had tried without much success in 1956, and which Symington had been using since, began paying off for the Democrats in the 1958 elections.
Eisenhower tried to keep the issue out of politics. His first effort was to attempt to convince the Democratic critics that they were wrong; to do so, he had Allen Dulles give them a briefing. But he would not allow Dulles to reveal any hard information about the U-2 program, so Dulles, unable to cite his sources, was unconvincing. In his press conferences, meanwhile, Eisenhower always managed to say a word or two about how adequate America’s defenses were, and to pooh-pooh any missile gap, but he did so in such a vague manner, without citing statistics or sources, that he too was unconvincing.2
Another favorite Democratic charge was that the Republican Party was hopelessly split between the Old Guard and the moderate Eisenhower Republicans. Eisenhower tried to turn that one on its head. On October 20, in a major campaign speech in Los Angeles, the President declared that the Democratic Party “is not one—but two—political parties with the same name. They unite only once every two years—to wage political campaigns.” One wing consisted of southern conservatives, the other of “political radicals,” the wild spenders. A Democratic victory would mean innumerable new social programs, more money for defense, and a tax cut, all of which would lead to uncontrollable inflation and an unstoppable growth of the federal government.3
On November 4, 1958, the Republican Party, despite Eisenhower’s warnings and efforts, suffered its worst defeat since the advent of the Depression. In the new Congress, Democrats would outnumber Republicans by nearly two to one in both houses. The Democrats had thirty-five governors, the Republicans only fourteen. Rockefeller’s victory in New York had been balanced by Knowland’s defeat in California, where he had run for governor. It was, all together, a humiliating defeat for the Republican Party, which had been decisively rejected by the people even though its leader was a highly popular President. It left Eisenhower with the “dubious distinction” of being the first President to face three successive Congresses controlled by the opposition party.
One might have thought that would have made him downcast, but it did not. Early in the campaign, when he was making a speech on another subject, he had questioned Arthur Larson on the need for a certain passage. Larson said that it was there for its effect on the elections. “Frankly,” Eisenhower said, crossing it out, “I don’t care too much about the congressional elections.” Senator Bricker was among the defeated, as were a number of Old Guardsmen whose passing hardly displeased Eisenhower. He had told Larson that “I’d just as soon see [Republican Senator Karl] Mundt get beat.”4 Eisenhower had told the party leaders that getting rid of Adams would not do them any good, and now look, Adams was gone, the Republicans were still badly beaten, and all Eisenhower had to show for it was poor staff work. (He complained to Whitman that since Sherman left “the staff seemed to descend upon him in droves and dump everything in his lap.”5)
The reason Eisenhower was so unconcerned by Republican losses was his faith in his informal alliance with the southern Democrats. What Eisenhower wanted from Congress was some common sense on defense spending, a balanced budget, no new social programs, and freedom to conduct foreign affairs and nuclear testing without congressional interference. Since that was precisely what most of the southerners also wanted, Eisenhower knew he could count on Sam Rayburn in the House and Lyndon Johnson in the Senate to support him. He realized that he would have to veto any number of spending bills, but with the help of the southerners he could make the vetoes stick.
So, at a news conference the day after the election, he reached out to the southerners. Merriman Smith began the questioning by asking how Eisenhower proposed to get along with the Democrats after having called them “left-wing extremists . . . apostles of wholesale reckless spending, . . . demagogic excess.” Eisenhower replied that Smith had not read his speeches carefully enough. The President insisted that he had talked only about the “spender-wing” of the Democratic Party. “There are a lot of them [Democrats] . . . that want to do what is good for the country. I assure you that I’m talking about a good many people in that party.” He said he was counting on the “conservative Democrats . . . and every kind of person that has got brains” to keep the fiscal situation in order.
Still, Democrats were Democrats. Walter Ridder wanted to know how Eisenhower felt about working with all those Democrats when he was prohibited from running again himself. Ridder asked if Eisenhower believed he would have a stronger hand if the possibility existed that he could serve a third term. Eisenhower said that the question did not apply to him, because whatever was in the Constitution, he would never run again in any event. He explained, “Any man . . . more than seventy should not be in this office. Now, that I am certain of.”6
Speculation on the effect of the losses on the 1960 presidential campaign was inevitable. Nixon, rightly concerned about his own chances when his party was in such disarray, met with Eisenhower in early December to plan a program. They agreed on various projects, such as setting up a committee to analyze the last election, but Eisenhower’s interest was less than great, and nothing came of it.7 As he explained to Harold Macmillan, who had written a letter of condolences on the election, “If I could devote myself exclusively to a political job, I’d like to take on the one of reorganizing and revitalizing the party.” But he had more important things to do, he said.8
Far more important to Eisenhower than saving the Republican Party from itself, for example, was the test-ban issue. On October 31, in Geneva, the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapons Tests commenced. One week earlier Gordon Gray met with the President to discuss the line the American negotiating team should follow. Gray was taking his post as National Security Adviser seriously. He was more forward than Cutler had been in raising subjects with Eisenhower, more bellicose and more active. He had even less trust in the Russians than Foster Dulles had, and he warned Eisenhower to be extra cautious in the test-ban talks. Eisenhower, however, thought it was necessary to take some risks. Although he insisted he would never jeopardize the real security interests of the United States, Eisenhower said that because of the numbers of such weapons and the improving means of delivery, “he would wish in any negotiation to err somewhat on the liberal side.” To continue testing and the arms race, he said, “frightened him.”9
Despite the President’s attitude, the talks got off to a bad start. On the first day, they deadlocked. The issue was the agenda. The Russians wanted to begin by discussing a comprehensive test ban, while the Americans insisted on starting with discussions of an inspection system. These were becoming classic positions—they dated back to the original U.N. discussions on atomic energy in 1946—that left little room for negotiating anything. But at least there was a voluntary moratorium on testing. Although the Russians had cheated and conducted two tests in the first week of the Geneva talks, Eisenhower had promised if they would stop testing, so would he, and after November 3 the Russians did no more testing. Thus, as Time magazine pointed out, Eisenhower had done what he had always claimed he would not do, “stopped [American] tests primarily on good faith, without any provision for inspection.”10
Having gotten from Eisenhower the unsupervised test ban they had wanted, the Russians finally agreed at Geneva to put the inspection system first on the agenda. The negotiators accepted a 180-post inspection system, but then deadlocked again when the Russians insisted on a veto in the seven-nation control commission. Eisenhower, eager to find a way out of the impasse, was therefore receptive to a mid-November proposal from Senator Albert Gore, a member of the American delegation in Geneva. Gore had concluded that there was no hope for a comprehensive test-ban agreement because of the inspection problem. He therefore urged Eisenhower to announce a three-year unilateral ban on atmospheric tests, the type that spread radioactivity around the world. Gore told Eisenhower that the Russians have been “whaling us over the head” on fallout, but if the United States limited itself to underground tests, “the Soviets would have to do the same or be put on the defensive propaganda-wise.”11
Eisenhower was perplexed. He wanted a test ban badly; he wanted more than just a ban, in fact—he wanted some real disarmament. But he felt he could not trust the Russians. On December 9, he explained to the visiting Queen Frederika of Greece that “we cannot be naïve and put the whole safety of the free world in their [the Soviets] hands.” If America pulled out of NATO and surrendered her lead in nuclear weaponry, “then we have no recourse except to try to accept the Communist doctrine and live with it.” Eisenhower said “he would not want to live, nor would he want his children or grandchildren to live, in a world where we were slaves of a Moscow Power,” because at that point “you would pay too big a price to be alive.”12
One part of the talks at Geneva concerned inspection systems designed to insure against surprise attack; it was on the agenda at Eisenhower’s insistence. On January 12, Dr. George Kistiakowsky, a Ukrainian-born chemist who was a member of the PSAC, told Eisenhower that he wished the topic had never been brought up. According to Kistiakowsky, if the Russians happened to agree to the American proposals, “such a system would reveal detailed information on our deployments, our readiness, and the protective strengths and arrangements for our striking forces,” thus operating to the net benefit of the enemy. Kistiakowsky said that the United States should accept nothing short of an arms-limitation agreement with an adequate inspection system. Eisenhower responded that all or nothing was too nonproductive. The President said “he did not see much hope for a world engaged in all-out effort on military buildup, military technology, and tremendous attempts at secrecy.” He was willing to try a step-by-step approach, beginning with a ban on testing; “then we may be able to go on to another.” He wanted it tried, if only because, he said, “in the long run, no country can advance intellectually and in terms of its culture and well-being if it has to devote everything to military buildup.”
Kistiakowsky then warned the President that in his opinion the Russians had an operational ICBM force. Eisenhower remarked that it might possibly be so, but he still doubted that they had the numbers or the accuracy to do much damage with them. “He then asked the question, if the Soviets should fire these weapons at us, where this action would leave them. They would still be exposed to destruction. In his mind there is the question whether this is a feasible means of making war; he granted that it is a feasible way of destroying much of the nation’s strength, but the resulting retaliation would be such that it does not make sense for war.”13
Back in 1956 most of the scientists who later joined the PSAC were opposed to further testing, Killian most of all. In the spring of 1958, Killian and the others had concluded, again, that a test ban would benefit the United States, and that a relatively small number (180) of inspection sites would discover all but the lowest-yield underground tests. It was on that basis that Eisenhower had agreed to the Geneva talks and the unilateral suspension of testing. But once the scientists became formal advisers to the President, a number of them—led by Killian and Kistiakowsky—began to have doubts about the wisdom of a ban. In late December, the PSAC informed the President that it had decided it could not detect underground blasts as large as twenty kilotons, and that therefore thousands of inspection sites would be required to police a comprehensive test ban. Eisenhower was understandably furious with the scientists, because he knew that the demand for a quantum leap in the number of inspection sites would give the Russians an opportunity to charge that they had been double-crossed, and because he hated being given the wrong information, and even worse having acted on it. But he felt he had to stick by his scientists, so on January 5, 1959, the American delegation at Geneva revealed the results of its latest findings and demanded more inspection sites. The Russians refused to even discuss the data, and the talks deadlocked again. Eisenhower instructed Killian to set up a new committee to find ways of making adequate inspection without so many sites.14
The DOD and AEC, meanwhile, wanted to set off more bombs, and were using the argument that satisfactory inspection systems were impossible (or unreachable) to force the President to agree to more tests. On January 12, Foster Dulles, McElroy, Twining, McCone, Gordon Gray, and Herter gathered in the President’s office to discuss testing. John Eisenhower kept the notes. McCone and McElroy began by making the case for a new test series. “The President,” John recorded, “then stated that two years ago he had visualized much propaganda mileage to be gained by a positive stand on this question . . . It had been his belief that the Soviets had no intention of allowing a true agreement on nuclear testing and that we would make many gains by pressing the issue.” However, he continued, he had given way on this point to the DOD and AEC, both having insisted on the Hardtack series, so “now we will not get the propaganda benefits which we would have received two years ago.” Nevertheless, Eisenhower wanted an agreement on banning tests, because it “would be a great advance toward reducing the danger of war,” and because of “the further advantage to the free world of obtaining a set of qualified observers within the U.S.S.R.” It would all be so easy, the President concluded sadly, “if we were dealing with sensible people, but not when we are dealing with the U.S.S.R.”15
Four days later, on January 16, McCone came to the President with a request that the AEC be allowed to build a new reactor, in order to produce more bombs, as required by the DOD. Eisenhower exploded that there were no “requirements” until he had approved them, and stated that he could see no point to building bombs at a faster rate than the current pace of nearly two per day. He said the Defense people were getting “themselves into an incredible position—of having enough to destroy every conceivable target all over the world, plus a threefold reserve.” He said “the patterns of target destruction are fantastic.” Just a few years ago, he said he had thought Defense agreed that there were only seventy targets inside Russia that they needed to hit in order to destroy the Soviet system, but now Defense came to him and said there were thousands of targets that had to be hit. So many ground bursts, Eisenhower said, would be certain to destroy the United States too from radioactivity. But then, as he almost always did, he reluctantly gave way to the AEC and DOD demands, and with a sigh “said he supposed that we have to go ahead with the construction of the reactor.”16
The President would not, however, leave the subject alone. On February 12, after an NSC meeting, Eisenhower asked McElroy, Quarles, Twining, and Goodpaster into his office, with John Eisenhower keeping the notes. Eisenhower assured the group that he was “not going to fight” the $145 million for the plutonium reactor, but he did insist that DOD had to start scaling down its “requirements.” Eisenhower said he had seen a graph on America’s projected atomic weapon’s figures by 1968, which called for numbers of bombs that he could only regard as “astronomical.” “Some of these days,” he continued, “we are going to realize how ridiculous we have been and at that time we will try to retrench.” Eisenhower claimed that the Executive Branch “has been fairly sensible, but has been pushed by demagogues and special interests.”
Quarles said that DOD needed many more small weapons than had previously been estimated, for air defense and missile defense (the ABM concept). Eisenhower replied that the scientists who had once advocated an ABM, especially Lillian, were now backtracking, because they had learned from the last explosions in the Hardtack series that the system would not work. They had set off three nuclear explosions some three hundred miles above the earth’s surface only to discover that the band of radioactivity that was created was too weak to prevent missiles from re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. They had also discovered that the explosions had not been detected, which added immeasurably to the problem of finding a workable inspection system for a test ban. Eisenhower was also critical of DOD for developing small-yield weapons for battlefield use, for which he could not visualize a need. Eisenhower concluded by saying that “we are taking council of our fears,” and by suggesting “that we indoctrinate ourselves that there is such a thing as common sense.”17
Common sense, however, was hard to find. On February 18, Eisenhower met with Gordon Gray. During the course of a wide-ranging conversation, Eisenhower returned to the subject of numbers of weapons, and to earlier JCS claims that by hitting seventy targets inside Russia, the Soviets would be effectively destroyed. The new plans contemplated targets in the thousands, involving tremendous numbers of weapons of megaton size. The JCS were planning on using thousands of weapons averaging 3.5 megatons in an all-out war; Eisenhower “wondered what would be the cumulative effect of ground bursts of such a magnitude of megatonage on the Northern Hemisphere . . . He expressed his concern that there just might be nothing left of the Northern Hemisphere.” The United States already had a stockpile of “five thousand or seven thousand weapons or whatnot.”I Eisenhower wondered why more were needed.18
• •
Common sense was also difficult to locate on the more general question of defense spending. During the 1958 campaign, as a part of their call for more expenditures, some Democrats had revived the proposal for a nationwide system of fallout shelters. That was far beyond anything Eisenhower was willing to do. He contended that a shelter that was not blastproof as well as falloutproof was useless, and, anyway, building such things would only add to the fright of an American public that was already too scared for its own good. For that reason, Eisenhower said, he had refused to have a fallout shelter built for his farm in Gettysburg. Ignoring the calls for a shelter program was relatively easy, however, because the JCS were not interested in such a passive defense system, and therefore did not give the proposal their support.
Symington’s call for keeping a third or more of the B-52s in SAC airborne at all times was also fairly easy to turn back, partly because of the enormous expense involved, mainly because the JCS were not behind that demand either. Twining told Eisenhower that he could get most of SAC into the air within fifteen minutes of a warning, which was more than adequate. Complaining that people like Symington discounted everything but relative ICBM capabilities, Twining pointed out that “our Air Force is four times the size of that of the Soviets and ten times as good.” Eisenhower heartily agreed. He said he “had spoken before about self-appointed military experts,” and that he was “considering making another statement about neurotics—either honest or dishonest neurotics—who are so fearful that they advocate taking the entire SAC into the air and keeping it there. He conceded that these people realized the aircraft must come down occasionally to gas up.”
Twining then cut to the heart of the matter. What Symington and his fellow critics were really looking for was a return to the kind of security America had enjoyed before World War II. But that would never come again. Twining said “that the public must realize that the U.S.S.R. has a capability to hit the U.S. and to live with this realization.” In short, the Department of Defense could do relatively little, if anything, about actually defending the United States. That, Twining said glumly, “is a hard fact of life.” The need was to keep the retaliatory capacity sufficient to deter the Russians. Eisenhower agreed, and SAC’s readiness posture was not changed.19
The American ability to hit the Russians was already awesome. In late November of 1958, the President undertook a review of the DOD budget request for fiscal 1960. The JCS had asked for $50 billion; DOD had brought that figure down to $43.8 billion; Eisenhower wanted it reduced to $40 billion. In a discussion with McElroy, Twining, Quarles, Gray, Goodpaster, and others, Eisenhower examined the current retaliatory capacity. In addition to SAC (which still carried the most and biggest bombs and was virtually invulnerable), there were the various IRBM and ICBM projects going forward, including the implanting of IRBMs in Europe, and six Polaris submarines were under construction. After looking it all over, Eisenhower asked rhetorically, “How many times do we have to destroy Russia?” Still the JCS and DOD wanted more of everything, including a second nuclear powered aircraft carrier. Eisenhower objected. He said he did not “visualize a battle for the surface of the sea,” and that existing conventional carriers provided sufficient mobility to meet the purposes of any small war, or of an intervention as in Lebanon. The DOD and JCS people kept coming back to the nuclear carrier, however, until the President snapped that “our defense depends on our fiscal system.” He insisted that the carrier be put on hold, and that other cuts in defense be made, bringing the total down to $40 billion, because “unless the [federal] budget is balanced sooner or later, procurement of defense systems will avail nothing.”20
• •
Eisenhower was determined to have a balanced budget in fiscal 1960, despite Democratic control of Congress and despite the demands of defense. On January 13, he gathered together the Republican leaders following the debacle in the 1958 elections (Charles Halleck had taken over from Martin as minority leader in the House, while Dirksen replaced Knowland in the Senate). Eisenhower told the politicians that “every sort of foolish proposal will be advanced in the name of national security and the ‘poor’ fellow . . . We’ve got to convince Americans that thrift is not a bad word.” One of the biggest difficulties, he said, would come because of the pressure groups, where “one of the strongest these days is in munitions.” He complained about the cost-plus contracts the defense industry enjoyed, and about the way industry leaders went around the country “talking poor mouth.”21
Big farmers also gave Eisenhower fits. He had designed the Soil Bank program with the family farmer in mind, but learned that by far the greatest payments were going to large operations. He therefore told Benson to help him establish limits on such payments, and to withdraw all supports for acreage holdings exceeding a couple of hundred acres, so that no check would be larger than $20,000. Eisenhower admitted that his ideas might be “completely impractical,” but it made him furious to discover that “we have been making millionaires with federal subsidies.”22 Benson tried, but Congress would not cooperate.
Neither would Eisenhower’s Cabinet. Arthur Flemming, Secretary of HEW, wanted new expenditures for education. Eisenhower said that the mere idea of the federal government giving aid to education “shocks me.” He wanted to leave education strictly to the states, but he allowed Flemming to convince him that the states just were not doing the job, that America’s greatest national resource, her children, was being wasted, and that the amounts he was requesting were so small that they represented no danger to the budget or to local control of education. Eisenhower still was not convinced, although he admitted that “with the world trend toward socialism, maybe we can’t get out of it. Maybe we are just like the old guard at the bridge with rusty armor and a broken sword.” Finally, acknowledging that if the Administration did not offer a bill, the Democrats would put through one of their own at a much higher level, Eisenhower told Flemming “to put in some sort of a bill,” saying he did it “begrudgingly.” “I don’t know of anything,” he added, “that I hate so much, but I think we have to do it.”23
Eisenhower took his battle for a balanced budget to the people, through his news conferences, through private meetings with business leaders, and through pressure on Congress (he warned that he would veto all budget-busting bills, that if Congress overrode his veto he would propose new taxes to cover the increase in spending, and that he would call a special session for that purpose). “When I’m in a fight,” he told the Republican leaders, “I want every rock, pebble, club, gun, or whatever I can get.” He enlisted the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and similar groups in his economy drive, and wrote hundreds of letters to the rich and powerful, urging them to help in the struggle.24
Eisenhower’s campaign for fiscal integrity, coupled with his use of the veto, worked. When the Democrats proposed spending $450 million per year for four years for urban renewal, Eisenhower objected strongly enough, and got enough support from southern congressmen, to defeat the bill. When Congress finally did pass a housing bill, with lowered expenditures, Eisenhower vetoed it. The Senate failed to override the veto, because of southern votes. That pattern held throughout the year, and to his delight Eisenhower ended up fiscal 1960 with a surplus of a billion dollars.25
• •
For their part, one of the gains for the southerners from the informal alliance with Eisenhower was a tepid approach to civil-rights questions by the White House. Five years after Brown, the school system in the South remained basically segregated. Two years after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, a large majority of Negro citizens in the South were still unable to register to vote. Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Commission conducted investigations and issued statements, but could not force southern officials to register Negroes. In buses, restaurants, hotels, theaters, even at drinking fountains, Jim Crow remained the order of the day. Nor was all southern resistance passive; in 1958 there were fifty bombings of churches, synagogues, and schools. In Atlanta, “the Confederate underground” bombed the Reform Jewish Temple. Eisenhower spoke out, forcefully, but adroitly, as he managed to use even this occasion to reassure his southern friends. “From babyhood,” he told a news conference, “I was raised to respect the word ‘Confederate’—very highly, I might add—and for hoodlums such as these to describe themselves as any part or any relation to the Confederacy of the mid-nineteenth century is, to my mind, a complete insult to the word.”26
Eisenhower’s concern with civil-rights violations was real, but not strong enough to lead him to express sympathy with the victims of prejudice. In fact, his concern was primarily with America’s image abroad. “It’s unfortunate that more people don’t realize there are five times as many non-whites in the world as there are whites,” he told Ellis Slater, because “these non-white nations control a very high percentage of the world’s resources, and someday we will want access to these resources when we have mined most of ours.” He complained that “all this anti-Negro agitation here isn’t helping to make these non-whites friendly to us.”27
Eisenhower himself, however, had innumerable opportunities to speak out on racial injustice and to promote racial harmony, but he would not seize them. At a news conference on January 21, 1959, for example, William McGaffin told him that “many persons feel you could exert a strong moral backing for desegregation if you said that you personally favored it [the Brown decision]. If you favor it, sir, why have you not said so; if you are opposed to it, could you tell us why?” Eisenhower gave his standard reply: “I do not believe it is the function or indeed it is desirable for a President to express his approval or disapproval of any Supreme Court decision. His job, for which he takes an oath, is to execute the laws.”28 The following week, Merriman Smith said that there was a rumor going around to the effect that Earl Warren, responding privately to Eisenhower’s remark, had told friends that Eisenhower’s stand on Brown was “too indecisive.” According to Smith’s information, Warren was “pained by what was described as your [Eisenhower’s] failure to take forceful action.” Eisenhower repeated that he would not comment on a Supreme Court decision, then added that “I have regarded the Chief Justice as my personal friend for years.”29
The Justice Department, meanwhile, wanted to strengthen legislation to get more Negroes on the voting rolls. This was an area in which the President was unequivocal; he thought it a national disgrace that citizens were denied the right to vote on the basis of their color, and said so privately to his southern friends on many occasions. But he had little faith in new legislation, although he was willing to consider a revision of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. In February 1959, Lyndon Johnson paid a call to offer to submit with Dirksen a bill that would strengthen the voting and registration sections of the act. The staff warned Eisenhower that Johnson was “completely untrustworthy,” but the President felt that “he had to live with Johnson,” who was less extreme than most southern senators. Russell of Georgia, for example, was going around calling Attorney General William Rogers (who was attempting to enforce the 1957 act) a “hydra-headed monster.” When Eisenhower reported that to Rogers, Rogers replied that “that was nothing compared with what Johnson was saying about the President” behind his back.30 As Rogers had feared, no new legislation was forthcoming, and Jim Crow continued his dominance of the South.
• •
In late 1958, Montgomery’s memoirs were published. Eisenhower had had an advance look at some sections, and read other excerpts in the newspapers. He told Harry Butcher that “they convinced me that it was a waste of time to read it if I was looking for anything constructive.” Consequently, “I have never even opened Monty’s book.”31 But he could not escape it so easily, because of Monty’s claims. The field marshal contended that he could have won the war before Christmas of 1944, if only Eisenhower had allowed him to make his single thrust across the Rhine. Eisenhower, who had taken so much from Monty, was absolutely incensed. No one had ever made him so furious—not de Gaulle, not McCarthy, not Khrushchev, not Faubus, no one. So angry was he that on January 1, 1959, he sent an identical letter to the top dozen of his British and American subordinates during the war, proposing that they all get together at Camp David for seven to ten days, without wives, in order to exchange information and to “develop an agreed document concerning incidents which are a part of their individual or collective experiences.” He had in mind several of Monty’s claims—that he had always intended to break out on the right in Normandy, not at Caen; that he won the Battle of the Bulge for the Americans; that his single thrust would have won the war earlier; that he could have taken Berlin if only Ike had let him.
So incensed was Eisenhower that he seriously proposed to take ten days out of his life to devote to a history of the Second World War at a time when he was President of the United States. The men he wanted to help him were all engaged in their own large affairs and weighed down by heavy responsibilities. In the end, Eisenhower reluctantly dropped the idea of a full-blast rebuttal of Monty.32
He did write privately to his British friends at length about his reaction. He told Pug Ismay, for example, that “so far as Monty’s book is concerned, my opinion is probably so much lower than yours that I would not like to express it, even in a letter.” He then went on to say exactly what he thought in a three-page letter. Monty, he said, “would scarcely stand much chance of going down in history as one of the great British captains. Alexander was much the abler. He was also modest.” Then Eisenhower went through his list of charges against Monty: the delay in Sicily; the slow-motion campaign in Italy; the failure to take Caen; the lie about his plans for the Normandy breakout; the “preposterous proposal to drive on a single pencil-line thrust straight on to Berlin”; the failure at Arnhem “even after I had promised and given to him everything he requested.” Further, “I cannot forget his readiness to belittle associates in those critical moments when the cooperation of all of us was needed.”33
Eisenhower feared that the furor about Monty’s memoirs might strain relations with the British, so he was delighted when he was asked, on January 14 at the National Press Club, to comment on his associations with Churchill during the war. Eisenhower began positively enough, calling Churchill a great man and praising him to an almost embarrassing degree. But he could not resist the opportunity to refute Montgomery’s claim that he could have won the war in December 1944. Eisenhower reminded the reporters that the British had always been hesitant about Overlord, because of their memories of World War I. Indeed, the British “could not stand the idea of starting another operation like [Passchendaele] by invading northern France.” The Americans nevertheless insisted on invading. Eisenhower quoted Churchill’s forebodings: “The tides will flow red with the blood of American and British youths and the beaches will be choked with their bodies,” the Prime Minister had said. Still Eisenhower insisted on going.
On the eve of the invasion, Eisenhower continued, Churchill, Roosevelt, and others were predicting victory within two years. Churchill told Eisenhower that if the allies were able to capture Paris by Christmas 1944, “it would be known in history as the greatest of military operations of all time up to that moment.” But in fact, under Eisenhower’s command, the allies got up to the German border before Christmas, “and if the Germans had any sense they would [have] surrender[ed] then.” But although they fought on, nevertheless the final victory was achieved eleven months after D-Day, not the two years that had been predicted. “From that moment,” Eisenhower noted, “there became many, many critics who showed how much more quickly it could have been won, and possibly it could have been.” But, he concluded, “The only answer I can give you is we won.” The reporters, Americans all, jumped to their feet and gave the President a sustained round of applause.34
Shortly thereafter, Churchill paid his last visit to the United States. Eisenhower entertained him at a formal state dinner. Ellis Slater commented on how “very feeble” Churchill was. The former Prime Minister leaned heavily on Eisenhower’s arm as they went into dinner. Slater “almost wished he hadn’t come and had been remembered as a virile man,” and another guest remarked, “You know it’s possible to live too long.”35
Eisenhower himself was sixty-eight years old, and was very conscious of his age and of his health. In January of 1959, when his friend Aksel Nielsen of Colorado had a stroke, Eisenhower wrote a letter of advice that also described his own routine: “I believe that if you will reach home at least forty-five minutes before luncheon, go immediately to bed and refuse to read any letters, memoranda, or books, that you will be astonished how much the practice will finally mean to you. The effort to make your mind a blank—to refuse to think—is not an easy one. But a measure of success can finally be attained. As a consequence you will be astonished to find that in a rest period such as that, you will frequently fall asleep and have a good nap of a quarter or half hour.”36
Eisenhower could not enjoy such enviable equanimity when he had Monty on his mind. Shortly after Churchill’s visit, Monty gave a highly publicized television interview in which he repeated that he could have won the war earlier if only Ike had let him. Then Monty had the gall to ask, through Freddie de Guingand, if Eisenhower would be his host on a visit to the United States. In a carefully worded reply to Freddie, Eisenhower said, “It would likely be bad judgment, at this particular time, for Monty to make any attempt to visit me.” He assured de Guingand that “my feeling is merely one of disappointment, not of rancor . . .” Churchill had remarked upon it, Eisenhower said, when he noticed that Monty’s picture still occupied the same place in Eisenhower’s living quarters of the White House. But despite the portrait and the disclaimer of rancor, Eisenhower told de Guingand that any attempt to open a correspondence between himself and Monty “could not be very helpful . . . I feel that if the matter is to be healed in any way, that time will have to be relied on as the healer.”37
• •
A second wartime ally who was making it difficult for Eisenhower to take a comfortable nap before lunch was Charles de Gaulle. He was proceeding with French nuclear development, and insisting on an independent role for France, much to Washington’s displeasure. In December of 1958, Foster Dulles told Eisenhower that “de Gaulle is becoming increasingly troublesome.” Eisenhower offered the warning that “de Gaulle is capable of the most extraordinary actions . . . watch out for him.”38 A few days later Dulles flew to Paris for a NATO meeting where de Gaulle argued that either France participate as an equal partner in America’s global decisions or France would cease its military participation in NATO. Eisenhower wired a weary Dulles, expressing his sympathy for the frustration Dulles felt, and adding, “It does seem that our friend should cease insisting upon attempting to control the whole world, of course, with partners, even before he had gotten France itself in good order.”39
• •
A third wartime ally to cause trouble was Russia. On November 10, 1958, Khrushchev announced his intention of signing at an early date a peace treaty with East Germany. According to Khrushchev, that action would have the effect of terminating Allied rights in West Berlin. According to the Allies, it would do nothing of the sort, as the British-French-American right to be in Berlin rested on the wartime agreements at Yalta and had nothing to do with the East Germans, whose regime the Allies did not recognize. Khrushchev did not threaten drastic action, such as the 1948 blockade of Berlin; instead he called on the Western powers to begin negotiations with the East Germans, looking to a complete withdrawal of all foreign forces from the city. Four days later, Soviet troops began harassing American Army truck convoys on the Autobahn. On November 27, Eisenhower was in Augusta when his son brought down to him a summary of State, CIA, and JCS reports. Eisenhower was astonished to read that French Foreign Minister Couve de Murville and Macmillan thought some kind of “low level” recognition of the East German government was preferable to risking war. He called Foster Dulles, who assured him that Macmillan at least was not ready to do so. Dulles also said a wire had come in from Moscow that seemed to portend a willingness to compromise. Khrushchev said that there would be no change in the status of Berlin during the next six months, but during that time, negotiations should take place. The Soviets, for their part, proposed making Berlin a free city under United Nations auspices.
Eisenhower said he would be willing to discuss free-city status for Berlin, if it included all of Berlin, East and West, and the access routes were under the jurisdiction of the United Nations. Eisenhower also indicated “that somewhere along the line we have to find a way to say that we are going to do what we want to do,” which was to stay in Berlin. Eisenhower told Dulles “that he had been worrying late at night as to what the eventual fate of Berlin would be.” He said that when Berlin was divided in 1945, he was against it and “had done his best to make the Americans and British see what a trouble the thing was going to be—but that the political leaders, naming Roosevelt and Churchill, had said, ‘Oh, we can get along with Uncle Joe.’ He said at the time he knew better and that everything he had feared had come to pass.” Finally, the President told Dulles to get together with the Foreign Ministers of France, Britain, and West Germany to compose an answer to Khrushchev. Then he mused, he “wouldn’t mind asking Adenauer now exactly what does he see as the way to get along . . . He said he would like to say to Adenauer that he has got to increase his Army and devote more of his revenues to it.”40
Two weeks later, at a December 12 meeting in the Oval Office, Dulles told Eisenhower that West Germany was making real progress in building its forces. Although it had gotten off to a slow start, it had created eight active divisions and would have four more within a year. Dulles also reminded the President that Germany was restricted, by NATO agreement, to twelve divisions, and that the creation of the twenty divisions Eisenhower wanted would scare the French. “The President retorted that he would be glad to scare them; maybe that would have an effect on French pretentions at being a world power.”41
As to Berlin itself, Eisenhower was sure Khrushchev was bluffing, that he would back down rather than match Eisenhower’s bet. “In this gamble,” Eisenhower told his advisers, “we are not going to be betting white chips, building up the pot gradually and fearfully. Khrushchev should know that when we decide to act, our whole stack will be in the pot.” In January, the JCS told Eisenhower that if Khrushchev actually tried to close down the Autobahn, they wanted to go into action on the first day with an entire division. Eisenhower patiently explained to them just how foolish that would be. A single division was far too weak to fight its way through to Berlin against serious opposition, yet far too strong for a mere show of force. A division would force the Soviets to “put up or shut up” and thus back them into a corner from which the only way out was war. Further, if the NATO powers used force to open a route, could they supply the manpower to keep a 110-mile-long road open? What Eisenhower wanted, in the event of an attempted blockade, was a probe, not a war, and he ordered the JCS to get a much smaller unit ready.42
In late January, John Eisenhower gathered together for his father information on the supply situation in Berlin. It was good; Berlin could hold on for at least two months without supplies.43 That gave Eisenhower some needed room for maneuver. On February 3, he met with Dulles, who was about to depart for London, Paris, and Bonn to attempt to reach an accord with the Allies. What Dulles was most afraid of was that the Allies would want to hold a summit meeting, something Dulles—like Eisenhower—wanted to avoid at almost any cost. But during his trip, Dulles found that the pressure for a summit meeting was irresistible, and he so reported to the President when he returned. In order to put it off for as long as possible, and to prepare for some meaningful discussions, the Americans then proposed a meeting in Geneva of the Foreign Ministers of the U.S.S.R., France, Great Britain, and the United States. It could be followed by a summit meeting. The Russians, meanwhile, were giving hints of a possible postponement of the Berlin deadline, and Khrushchev invited Eisenhower to make a visit to the Soviet Union, saying he would be received with “heartfelt hospitality.”44 With test-ban talks going on in Geneva, Foreign Ministers’ meetings and possibly a summit conference coming up, and with Khrushchev suddenly opting to reduce tensions, some early improvement in the atmosphere of the Cold War seemed possible.
• •
Since 1954 and the CIA-supported overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala, the United States had more or less ignored Latin America, as Eisenhower and Dulles concentrated on Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The Administration, and especially its expert on Latin America, Milton Eisenhower, had called for more economic assistance to the area, but obtaining funds from Congress was difficult at best, and little was accomplished. As always, Latin radicals blamed Uncle Sam for the widespread poverty and discontent; as always, the United States ignored the agitation so long as it did not threaten to actually overthrow a pro-American government.
It was in Cuba, one of the most prosperous of the Spanish-speaking countries, that the policy fell apart. There Fidel Castro was leading a revolt against the corrupt and reactionary dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Batista had an odious record; Castro was young, romantic, dynamic, and full of promises about free elections, social reform, new schools, and economic justice. Popular opinion in the United States could not resist Fidel’s appeal. Eisenhower was not so sure, but he did refuse to support Batista—American policy was to deny arms to both sides in the Cuban struggle.
On December 23, 1958, Christian Herter sent Eisenhower a State Department memorandum on the situation in Cuba. Herter said that “the Communists are utilizing the Castro movement to some extent, as would be expected, but there is insufficient evidence on which to base a charge that the rebels are Communist-dominated,” as Batista was claiming. Herter noted that Batista had managed to alienate as much as 80 percent of the Cuban people. Widely publicized “elections” in November had been a fraud, Herter continued, and the press, both in the United States and in the Spanish-speaking countries, was overwhelmingly anti-Batista. Herter ended with a policy statement: “The Department has concluded that any solution in Cuba requires that Batista must relinquish power . . . He probably should also leave the country.”45
On the day Herter wrote his memo, however, Allen Dulles gave a briefing to the NSC that undercut the State Department position. “Communists and other extreme radicals appear to have penetrated the Castro movement,” Allen Dulles pronounced. “If Castro takes over, they will probably participate in the government.” Eisenhower was much provoked by the discrepancy in the two conclusions. In his memoirs, he claimed that this was the “first time” he had heard of possible Communist penetration of the Castro movement (which could hardly have been the case, as the press was filled with speculation about the subject). At the NSC, Eisenhower commented that although Goodpaster and John Eisenhower kept him “well informed as to intelligence reports, he had not known until [now] that the view of the U.S. government was that of wishing to oppose Fidel Castro in any event. He then said that he felt the situation had been allowed to slip somewhat.” Eisenhower refused, however, to accept a recommendation that the United States support Batista as the lesser of two evils. He said that if Castro turned out “to be as bad as our intelligence now suggested, our only hope, if any, lay with some kind of nondictatorial ‘third force,’ neither Castroite nor Batistiano.”46 Thus began the search that ultimately came a cropper at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
On New Year’s Day of 1959, Batista fled Cuba as Fidel entered Havana in triumph. The United States joined other American countries in recognizing the regime. Castro appointed Cuban liberals to the top posts in his new government, a cause for hope in Washington, but in mid-January he made the Communist Party legal in Cuba, and by the end of the month his first Premier had resigned in protest over the executions of Batista supporters and the increasingly anti-American quality of Castro’s speeches. On February 13, Castro himself became Premier, and in the ensuing weeks the executions and the attacks on the United States mounted. On the last day of February, Castro announced that he was postponing, for two years, the promised elections, and Allen Dulles reported to Eisenhower that “the Castro regime is moving toward a complete dictatorship. Communists are now operating openly and legally in Cuba. And though Castro’s government is not Communist-dominated, Communists have worked their way into the labor unions, the armed forces, and other organizations.”47
The classic American response to radicalism in Latin America was to send in the Marines, an option that Eisenhower would not even consider, because of Castro’s popularity not only in Cuba but throughout Latin America and even within the United States, and because of the probable effect of such action on world public opinion. In any event, the CIA gave him an alternative to the Marines.
Under Allen Dulles’ direction, and with Eisenhower’s encouragement, the CIA had been conducting covert operations around the world. None were as successful or spectacular as Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954, and some—for example, Hungary in 1956—had been disastrous failures. Nevertheless, covert operations remained one of Eisenhower’s chief weapons in the Cold War. His problem was one that confronts every head of government in such situations—how to control the supersecret operations. In 1955, Eisenhower had created a special oversight group called the 5412 Committee, because it was chartered in an NSC Paper, Number 5412. The 5412 group consisted of the Under Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser (Gordon Gray), and the Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles. In theory, no covert operation could take place without prior approval from 5412. The major function of the group, according to Gray, was “to protect the President.” It would scrutinize proposed CIA actions, policies, and programs to make certain they did not get the President or the country in trouble. It reported directly, and only, to the President, who told Gray flatly “that he did not wish the specifics of covert operations to be presented to the NSC.”48
The difficulty was that the CIA had become so accustomed to secrecy, and to having its own way, that it was not even reporting its actions to 5412. On January 19, 1959, Gray wrote a memorandum on the problem. He had just attended a 5412 meeting at which Allen Dulles had given a briefing on covert activities over the past six months. Gray complained that all but a handful had never been cleared by 5412. In other words, Allen Dulles was acting, then informing, rather than seeking prior approval. “We need a better understanding of the mission of the Group (5412),” Gray wrote. “It is also clear to me that the criteria with respect to what matters shall come before the Group are ill-defined and fuzzy.” Gray thought that the President wanted 5412 to exercise some initiative, but “as long as I have been a member there has been practically none of this.” He suggested, for a start, that 5412 direct the CIA to begin organizing youth and student organizations in Latin America in order to counter Fidel’s appeal. This was done, as CIA agent Howard Hunt in Mexico City, and other agents elsewhere, began organizing students along the lines of Gray’s suggestion.49
On January 29, Eisenhower met with Gray, Goodpaster, Allen Dulles, and John Eisenhower to discuss 5412. He covered most of the points Gray had already touched upon, then ordered that “he wished no records kept of 5412 meetings except in the office of the Director of Central Intelligence.” He also declared that “covert activities could be carried on only under his responsibility,” and that he therefore “wished to be kept adequately informed.” He thought this could be done through oral reports from Gordon Gray. When Allen Dulles asked if he should keep the JCS informed, Eisenhower indicated that such an action was not necessary. Thus, in theory at least, CIA covert actions would be known only to the agents themselves, the 5412 people, and the President.50 The trick now was to find a way to use the CIA capabilities to get rid of Fidel.
• •
Foster Dulles and his department were getting to be almost as difficult to deal with as Allen Dulles and his people. On November 10, 1958, Whitman complained in her diary that “the State Department regards the President as its chattel.” Her specific complaints were minor but irritating. Dulles had talked the President out of going to Seattle on a Sunday night for a Monday speech, “frankly because the Secretary wanted the President’s suite at the Olympic Hotel.” State would not release a copy of the speech until Dulles had approved it, although Hagerty insisted that the President’s approval was sufficient. When the presidential party arrived in Seattle, there “were no seats for the White House staff” although State Department flunkies “sat gaily in the second row.” Whitman found it all disagreeable.51
Far more serious was the state of Dulles’ health. He was seventy years old, had been operated on for cancer, and despite some post-operation improvement, he was exhausted. Just before leaving for Seattle, Dulles had had a checkup at the hospital—Eisenhower was so impatient to have the results that he personally telephoned the hospital—which reported that except for some diverticulitis, Dulles was doing as well as could be expected. Dulles nevertheless again offered to resign. According to his notes on his private meeting with the President, Eisenhower “said he hoped very much that I would be willing to stay on . . . He said he had often thought as to whom he could find to take my place if I were unable to carry on and he could not come up with any satisfactory substitute . . . He hoped that the two of us could stay on working together until the end of his term.” Dulles said he would be glad to try.52
Three weeks later, Dulles was back in Walter Reed with pains in his colon. The cancer had returned and surgery was indicated. Whitman commented that “my hunch is that this may be finis for Dulles as Secretary of State.”53 Still Dulles carried on, flying to Europe to consult with the Allies in early February. When he returned, on February 9, he could postpone treatment no longer. He requested a leave of absence so that he could have an operation and a period of a few weeks for recuperation, during which time he said he “could concentrate on the complicated and grave problems raised by the Soviet threats regarding Berlin and the Allied response thereto.”54 Eisenhower granted the request, naming Herter as Acting Secretary. At a news conference the following day, Eisenhower spoke with typical praise of Dulles: “I believe he is the most valuable man in foreign affairs that I have ever known . . . His performance over six years has been remarkable, a brilliant one, and I think it’s almost a miracle that he hasn’t had to go for a longer period of rest and healing than he is now undergoing.”55
Four days later, on February 14, Eisenhower paid a visit to Dulles in Walter Reed. Whitman recorded his reaction: “Obviously he is hard hit by the business about Dulles. He said that if he accepted his resignation, however, he doubted if Dulles would live for more than a few weeks.” Eisenhower cited the instance of “another man in government who knows that he has an incurable disease, but he is going about his job cheerfully and well and it is far better for him and for the government too. Mostly the President does not dwell on death and, indeed, I have seen him rarely shaken by the death, or thought of death, of any of his closest friends.” But in Dulles’ case, Eisenhower said that “it seems so wrong somehow that a man who has given of himself as has Dulles must die in such a painful fashion, held up every moment to the world’s prying eyes. Somehow it makes you wonder why and whether it is all worth it.” Sadly, the doctors had given up the thought of yet another operation and were resorting to radiation treatment.56
• •
With Dulles in the hospital, Gordon Gray, always an organization man, urged the President to change his habits and begin making his policy decisions in NSC meetings, rather than in private meetings with two or three others, or over late-afternoon cocktails with Dulles alone. Eisenhower demurred. The NSC was too big, too cumbersome. Eisenhower used it to announce his decisions, not to explore possibilities. The same was true of his meetings with the Republican leaders and with his Cabinet. His bright hopes at the beginning of his first term for building a “team” with his Cabinet and party leaders had long since disappeared. With the departure of the Cabinet members he respected most—Humphrey, Brownell, and now Dulles, as well as the outspoken Wilson—Eisenhower’s Cabinet meetings became less frequent, more general and vague, and boring. The legislative leaders’ meetings were worse. Despite Eisenhower’s best efforts, his attempt to build an Administration along the lines of SHAEF and SHAPE had failed. The American government was simply too big and represented too many divergent interests to be made into a team. Eisenhower therefore increasingly made his decisions in the privacy of the Oval Office, ordinarily with only the two or three top officials (usually the Secretary of State, or of Defense, or the chairman of the JCS, and always Goodpaster) present to give him advice. What he primarily wanted from his advisers was information, a succinct expression of what his options were. That was one reason Goodpaster (and after 1958 and to a lesser extent John Eisenhower) was so invaluable to him; Goodpaster had the information and knew how to present it the way the President wanted it. Eisenhower rightly thought of Goodpaster as more intelligent, and better informed, than even Allen Dulles.
Thus when Gray suggested that Eisenhower rely more heavily on NSC deliberations, in view of Foster Dulles’ condition, Eisenhower rejected the suggestion out of hand. He said he wanted to discuss issues with Herter, McElroy, Twining, Killian, Goodpaster, and John Eisenhower, then inform the NSC of his decisions. Gray protested that at least Allen Dulles should be brought into the discussions; Eisenhower responded that “Goodpaster’s presence would suffice,” and as to Allen Dulles, “he saw no necessity for his attendance.”57
So, contrary to the popular image, so assiduously cultivated by the Democrats, that Ike was a part-time President who played golf while his staff and committees made the decisions, Eisenhower kept all the power in his own hands. Whatever response America made to Khrushchev’s threats over Berlin, or to the dangers of Castro in Cuba, would be Eisenhower’s response, no one else’s.
I. As noted earlier, getting accurate figures on the American nuclear arsenal was the most difficult research task in this study. The figures were always given to the President in oral form, by the head of the AEC. As far as the author can tell, Eisenhower inherited an arsenal of about fifteen hundred weapons ranging from the low-kiloton yield to bombs of many megatons. If there were six thousand or so weapons by 1959, the AEC had built about forty-five hundred weapons during the first six years of the Eisenhower Administration, or more than two per day.