THE DISASTROUS OUTCOME of the Paris summit, combined with Eisenhower’s lame-duck status, took much of the energy and vitality out of the President and his Administration. During his last half year in office, Eisenhower had nothing new to propose. He made his criteria for disarmament proposals their propaganda and political value, rather than seeking real accord with Khrushchev. He could not decide even how to define Castro, much less what to do about him. His relations with Khrushchev were characterized by snarling defiance. He grew so frustrated in attempting to deal with the problems of the Congo that he became almost irrational in his response. His control of his own party weakened badly, he could not generate much enthusiasm for his party’s candidate as his successor, he was late and ineffective in his campaigning. Even an extensive foreign trip, that proved device for getting headlines, spreading good will, and allowing Eisenhower to indulge in his passion for travel, failed of its purpose, indeed left the President embarrassed.
Eisenhower had expected to go to Russia after the summit, then on to Japan. When the Russian trip was canceled, he decided to visit the Philippines, Korea, and Formosa during the time he would have been in the Soviet Union, then go to Japan. He left on June 12, going first to Manila, where he had a nostalgic visit, which was interrupted by bad news from Japan. The Japanese government had been forced to ask him to “postpone” his visit, because street rioting in protest against it had gotten out of hand and the government could not be responsible for his safety. The riots, organized by the Japanese Communists around the issue of opposition to the mutual-defense treaty the Japanese were on the verge of signing with the United States, had reached a fever pitch. Although the treaty was ratified a few days later, as Eisenhower put it in his memoirs, “viewed from any angle, this [the withdrawal of the invitation] was a Communist victory.”1 The remainder of the Far Eastern trip was routine—huge and friendly crowds greeted Eisenhower in the Philippines, Formosa, Korea, and Okinawa. (The Chinese Communists welcomed Eisenhower to Formosa by giving Quemoy and Matsu a good pasting that day.) Eisenhower talked with the various leaders, reassuring them that America was still their good friend, but offering nothing new.
Not even at home did Eisenhower have the kind of support he had come to count on when he traveled abroad. Lyndon Johnson, and other Democrats, cited “seasoned diplomats of the State Department” as being opposed to “personal diplomacy” and questioning the value of “good-will trips.” Eisenhower, when told during a rest stop at Honolulu of the criticism, snapped, “Lyndon Johnson is getting to be one of those smart alecks.” Eisenhower wanted to know what else Johnson was saying. Herter mentioned the broken Paris summit, Japan, and Cuba, then assured the President that “it was mostly Lyndon Johnson ranting.”2
• •
Eisenhower returned to Washington and more problems. Cuba, for one. Although neither Eisenhower nor his advisers could even yet decide if Castro was a Communist or not, they nevertheless wanted to be rid of him and the dangers he represented. That Trujillo could be attacked simultaneously was a bonus, rather than a problem, because it freed the United States from the charge of opposing only left-wing dictators. At every meeting that summer with Herter or the NSC, when Cuba came up, Eisenhower insisted on linking Castro and Trujillo. When, in late June, the CIA got its propaganda radio station on Swan Island into operation, it attacked first Trujillo, then Castro.
There were major differences between the two dictators, however; the one that concerned Eisenhower most was the possibility of Cuba entering into a mutual-security arrangement with the Russians, something Trujillo would never do. In Eisenhower’s view, the worst possibility was Castro allowing Khrushchev to use Cuba as a base for Soviet strategic forces. He did not, however, think that was likely to happen. At a June 29 meeting with Gordon Gray, Eisenhower “observed that he did not believe that Khrushchev would enter into a mutual-security treaty with Castro,” and added that Chip Bohlen shared that opinion. Khrushchev must know, Eisenhower said, that the United States “could not tolerate” a military alliance between Cuba and Russia.3
On July 6, Eisenhower signed legislation authorizing a major reduction in the Cuban sugar quota, and eliminating it altogether for 1961. As he admitted, “This action amounts to economic sanctions against Cuba.”4 By that time, Khrushchev had threatened to use his rockets to protect Cuba against a military attack, and was apparently attempting to incite the Cubans to take control of the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay. He was also insisting that the Soviets were not interested in putting missiles into Cuba, because his ICBMs made them unnecessary. Herter assured the President that Khrushchev’s bluster was actually helpful, because as a result “the Latin-American countries have come around very well in the last few days.”5
Taking advantage of this development, the United States called for a meeting of the American Foreign Ministers, which took place in Costa Rica in August and which condemned “intervention or the threat of intervention by the Sino-Soviet powers” in American affairs. The same conference also condemned the Dominican Republic and called on all members of the OAS to break diplomatic relations with Trujillo (which the United States did shortly thereafter).6
Along with his diplomatic and economic moves against Castro, Eisenhower considered a full range of military or paramilitary options. At a July 7 NSC meeting, Gates briefed him on possible moves, ranging from evacuating American citizens from Cuba to a full-scale invasion and occupation. Treasury Secretary Anderson “gave a fairly bloodthirsty long speech about the need to declare a national emergency, . . . [and] argued that what is happening in Cuba represents an aggressive action by the U.S.S.R.”7
Eisenhower was not ready to sound the bugles and direct a charge up San Juan Hill. As he explained to Republican leaders—who, like Nixon, were desperate for some definitive action against Castro before the November elections—“If we were to try to accomplish our aims by force, we would see all of [the Latin countries] tending to fall away and some would be Communist within two years. . . . If the United States does not conduct itself in precisely the right way vis-à-vis Cuba, we could lose all of South America.”8
Nixon wanted public action but Eisenhower continued to refuse. The President was, however, ready to move covertly against Castro. On August 18, he met with Gates, Dulles, and Bissell to discuss implementation of the four-point plan he had approved in March. Bissell reported that point two, a powerful propaganda offensive, was under way; point three, the creation of a resistance organization within Cuba, had been a miserable failure, primarily because of Castro’s police-state control. Bissell was making progress on point four, the creation of a paramilitary force from among Cuban exiles. He had moved the original training camp, outside Miami, to the Panama Canal Zone, then to Guatemala, where the CIA had excellent ties with President Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes.
Bissell wanted to expand the training program. Eisenhower agreed. The CIA had shown him photographs of Czech arms in Cuba, which helped convince him. He approved a $13 million budget for Bissell, and authorized the use of DOD personnel and equipment in the operation, although he insisted that “no United States military personnel were to be used in a combat status.” Later, he also approved the mounting of a U.S. Navy patrol off the coast of Guatemala, supposedly to block a Cuban invasion, actually to keep the Guatemalan training base a secret.9
After giving his approval to Bissell’s expanded plans, Eisenhower asked about the original point one—“Where’s our government-in-exile?” Bissell and Allen Dulles explained that it was difficult to get the Cubans to work together, because some were pro-Batista, most were anti-Batista, all were hot-tempered and hardheaded, few were willing to compromise. Thus no genuine leader had emerged. Eisenhower, impatient, remarked, “Boys, if you don’t intend to go through with this, let’s stop talking about it.” He would not approve any action, he insisted, without a popular, genuine government-in-exile.10
• •
Khrushchev was making trouble not only with his remarks about Cuba, and not only with his continuing belligerent statements about American militarism, but also with his acts. On July 1, when Eisenhower and Mamie were at Gettysburg celebrating their forty-fourth wedding anniversary, the President was informed that a U.S. patrol plane, an RB-47, had disappeared over the Barents Sea, north of Russia. No one knew where the plane was—its mission was to fly along the Soviet border (under orders not to go closer than fifty miles), collecting electromagnetic, radio, and radar information—but Eisenhower had a sense of déjà vu. That sense was increased when Khrushchev, after waiting ten days in the hope that the Americans would issue another contradictory cover story, finally revealed that the Soviets had shot down the plane and picked up two survivors.
Eisenhower, in a telephone conversation with Herter after the announcement, said that he had been told the plane was thirty miles off the coast when last heard from. “This may be true,” the President continued, “but he said he has gotten to the point where he doesn’t trust them [the Russians] to the slightest degree. The President said they have two of our people and if these two people say maybe they were lost then we are in for it again. The President said if we can prove it was not over [Russian] territory when it was shot down, we will break relations . . .”11
The problem was proof. The best information on the location of the spy plane available to the Americans came from radar tracking stations that DOD and the CIA insisted the Russians knew nothing about, and they did not want to reveal their sources. Thus any flat assertion by the Americans that the plane never got within thirty miles of the coast would be met by Soviet demands for proof, which for security reasons Eisenhower would not be able to supply.12
A further problem was that Khrushchev was warning Eisenhower of the “seriousness” of the situation, and of the “dangerous consequences to which continuation of provocative actions by American aircraft will lead . . .” Khrushchev was also threatening the British (the RB-47 had taken off from a British airfield), telling them that allowing the Americans to use their airfields for “aggressive actions,” would “bring great danger” to the British people.
Eisenhower’s advisers, nevertheless, wanted to continue the RB-47 missions, and even revive the U-2 flights. The President wished they would pay more attention to world opinion, and proceeded to give them a lecture. As summarized by Goodpaster, Eisenhower said “that all his advisers . . . had missed badly in their estimate regarding the U-2. They had never had an idea of what the reaction . . . would be. He did not wish to say ‘I told you so’ but recalled that he was the one and only one who had put much weight on this factor, and that he had given it great emphasis.” He then ordered all U-2s withdrawn from Japan. Goodpaster brought up a CIA and DOD request to use RB-47s in the Far East. Eisenhower said that “he thought it is essential to allow time for the political picture to develop more stability. He added that another failure would in all likelihood be bound to have a determining, adverse effect upon the election.”13
On July 19, Eisenhower told Herter “we should not let ourselves be caught out in any story, as in the U-2 case, where we have to change our story subsequently or acknowledge an untruth.” But despite Eisenhower’s association of the two spy flights, there was one outstanding difference. In the RB-47 case, the United States was clearly within its rights, because in fact the plane had been shot down well off the Russian coast. Without revealing his sources, Cabot Lodge was able to make a convincing case in the U.N. Security Council. The Russian resolution calling for a condemnation of the “provocative action” by the United States was rejected, 7 to 2. Then the Soviets had to veto an American resolution calling for an investigation by the International Court of Justice. “Khrushchev’s effort to make the RB-47 a little brother to the U-2,” Eisenhower later wrote, “had turned out a miserable failure.”14 Actually, Eisenhower had enjoyed just a bit of “Ike’s luck” in that miserable summer, because while the U.N. debate was going on, an American C-47 had, through navigation error, flown directly over the Kuriles. The Soviets tried to shoot it down but were unable to hit it because of fog and clouds.
• •
Khrushchev was also making trouble in the Congo. In May, national elections were held in the Belgian colony. Three national leaders emerged—Joseph Kasavubu, Patrice Lumumba, and in the mineral-rich province of Katanga, Moise Tshombe. June 30 was Independence Day. Shortly thereafter, the army, called the Force Publique, mutinied against its Belgian officers. Belgian paratroopers re-entered the country. Meanwhile Katanga, the province that held the mines Belgium was determined to possess, seceded from the Congo, and Tshombe made his own deal with the Belgians. Lumumba, who was Prime Minister of the Congo, asked for U.N. troops to restore order. A peace-keeping force was sent. In late July, Lumumba himself flew to the United States to ask for arms and other support, so that he could re-establish control over Katanga. He made a bad impression on Under Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon, who reported, “You had a feeling that he was a person that was gripped by this fervor that I can only characterize as messianic. . . . He was just not a rational being.” Thus, Dillon concluded, “This was an individual whom it was impossible to deal with.”15
Thus began the process of inducing Eisenhower to think of Lumumba as an even greater menace than Castro. The image that Dillon and others created of the young African leader was irrational, but Eisenhower found it convincing. What Lumumba was after was arms with which to crush Tshombe and build a nation; what Eisenhower saw was a Communist take-over. The image became established after the United States rebuffed Lumumba’s call for help, and he responded by going to Moscow. A Soviet airlift then began. Eisenhower feared that Soviet troops would soon follow. Herter warned him against overreacting, reminding the President that the U.N. position was to support the Congo as an entity, and pointing out that if the United States became identified with any effort to support Tshombe and an independent Katanga, it would be regarded by the other African nations as equivalent to returning Katanga to the Belgians.16
On August 18, Dillon reported on developments in the Congo to the NSC. Lumumba and Khrushchev were both demanding that the U.N. peace-keeping force get out of the country. Dillon said that “the elimination of the U.N. would be a disaster which . . . we should do everything we could to prevent.” If the U.N. were forced out, he warned, the Soviets would come in. The minutes of the meeting continued: “Secretary Dillon said that Lumumba was working to serve the purposes of the Soviets and Mr. Dulles pointed out that Lumumba was in Soviet pay.” Eisenhower commented that it was “simply inconceivable” that the United States could allow the U.N. to be forced out of the Congo. “We should keep the U.N. in the Congo,” the President said, “even if such action was used by the Soviets as the basis for starting a fight.” Cabot Lodge doubted that the U.N. force could stay in the Congo if the government of the Congo demanded that it leave. Eisenhower responded by stating “that Mr. Lodge was wrong to this extent—we were talking of one man forcing us out of the Congo; of Lumumba supported by the Soviets.”17
When Eisenhower took office, back in 1953, he had been eloquent in telling Churchill that old-style European colonialism, especially in Africa, could not and should not last. Over the following seven years, he had held consistently to that position—with the French in Vietnam, with the French and British at Suez, in urging de Gaulle to recognize realities and grant a full independence to Algeria. Repeatedly, he had said that because of the intense feelings of nationalism of the colonialized peoples, no vestige of European control or domination could be allowed to continue. Yet here, in a case where the Belgians had simply abandoned their responsibilities in the poorer provinces of the Congo, while blatantly attempting to hold on to Kantanga, Eisenhower sided with the European colonialists and was completely unable to see Lumumba’s point of view. His reason was not, incidentally, to keep for the West access to the uranium in Katanga; the United States at this time had an embarrassing excess of enriched uranium and was trying to sell some of the surplus to the French. Eisenhower’s concern was that Lumumba would allow the Soviets to turn the Congo into their own military base, which they would then use to expand their influence and power in Africa. Rather than try to prevent that by cooperating with Lumumba, Eisenhower decided to get rid of the man.
On August 25, Dulles, Gray, and Gates met in their capacity as the CIA’s watchdog committee (5412) to discuss CIA plans for action against Lumumba. Gray reported that “his associates had expressed extremely strong feelings on the necessity for very straightforward action in this situation, and he wondered whether the plans as outlined were sufficient to accomplish this.” The minutes state that the committee “finally agreed that planning for the Congo would not necessarily rule out ‘consideration’ of any particular kind of activity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba.” The following morning, Dulles sent a cable to a CIA agent in Leopoldville, telling him that the “removal” of Lumumba was an “urgent” objective.18
Before the CIA could act, the swirling events inside the Congo intervened. General Joseph Mobutu seized power via a military coup; Lumumba placed himself in the custody of the U.N. peace-keeping force. He was eventually kidnapped by Mobutu and executed. Thus the CIA was not directly involved in Lumumba’s murder (although it had been in on his capture). That begs the question, however, as to whether Eisenhower ordered the man assassinated or not.
• •
In November 1975, the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, popularly known as the Church Committee, conducted widely publicized hearings into the CIA’s activities, including assassination plots. One of the committee’s conclusions was that “the chain of events revealed by the documents and testimony is strong enough to permit a reasonable inference that the plot to assassinate Lumumba was authorized by President Eisenhower.”19 Almost immediately, John Eisenhower, Goodpaster, Gray, and Dillon challenged this finding. In a statement to the Senate, they requested that the committee “disavow” its conclusion. Frank Church, the chairman, and John Tower, vice-chairman, refused to do so. Goodpaster testified unequivocally to the Church Committee, “At no time and in no way did I ever know of or hear about any . . . such an activity. It is my belief that had such a thing been raised with the President other than in my presence, I would have known about it.” And in a 1979 interview in the superintendent’s office at West Point, Goodpaster said he recalled some assistant once making a joking reference to bumping off Lumumba. Eisenhower reddened, as Goodpaster recalled the scene, and said sternly, “That is beyond the pale. We will not discuss such things. Once you start that kind of business, there is no telling where it will end.”20
Yet Gordon Gray admitted that when he told the 5412 committee that “his associate” wanted “very straightforward action,” his reference to “associate” was a euphemism for Eisenhower, employed to preserve “plausible deniability” by the President. And Richard Bissell testified that “there isn’t any doubt in my mind [that] the President did want a man whom he regarded . . . as a very dangerous one, got rid of. He would have preferred if it could be done in the nicest possible way, but he wanted it done and wasn’t prepared to be too fussy about how it was done.”21 The record, in short, is deliberately obscure.I It is impossible to say conclusively whether or not Eisenhower ordered an assassination. Eisenhower’s closest associates insist that he never could have ordered a cold-blooded assassination; his critics insist that Dulles never would have sent out such orders on his own responsibility.
• •
That summer of 1960, Khrushchev was making trouble for Eisenhower not only in the Congo, Cuba, and the Barents Sea, but even within the United States itself, or at least that part of it that contained the U.N. headquarters. Khrushchev indicated that he intended to exercise his rights and come to the U.N. as head of the Russian delegation. Eisenhower and his advisers had no doubt that he would indulge in more saber rattling. Eisenhower decided to try to blunt the effects of Khrushchev’s speech by exercising his rights as host and insisting on speaking at the opening session, on September 22.22 He did so, calling for support for the U.N. peace-keeping force in the Congo and proposing a Food for Peace plan. Khrushchev followed on the next day with a blistering attack on Western colonialism in the Congo, charging both the U.N. and the United States were trying to maintain Belgian control of Katanga. Later in this same session, Khrushchev insulted Macmillan by interrupting him while he was speaking, then really outdid himself by taking off his shoe and pounding it on the table. Castro, who also attended the session, made few friends for himself when he subjected the delegates to a four-hour monologue on the evils of American imperialism.
Overall, the atmosphere could hardly have been much worse, or in sharper contrast to the one that prevailed before the Paris summit. Eisenhower told Herter over the telephone that “he was a rather long sufferer, but one day he was going to call Khrushchev the ‘Murderer of Hungary.’ ” Eisenhower said that in his opinion, “Khrushchev is trying to promote chaos and bewilderment in the world to find out which nations are weakening under this attack and to pick what he can by fishing in troubled waters.” The President showed the full depth of his anger when he commented that if he were a dictator, he would right now “launch an attack on Russia while Khrushchev is in New York.”23
• •
In such an atmosphere, disarmament talks were obviously dead, at least until Eisenhower’s successor took office. Eisenhower made a halfhearted effort to keep the Geneva disarmament talks going even after Paris, but on June 27 those meetings came to an end when the Soviet delegation walked out. Their collapse, although hardly unexpected, was a blow to Eisenhower, who had in 1953 set disarmament as one of his major goals, but who by 1960 had to recognize that the arms race was out of control. By 1960, the American nuclear arsenal had grown to proportions that by 1953 and 1954 standards Eisenhower had called “fantastic,” “crazy,” and “unconscionable.” Just how big it was becoming, Eisenhower was reminded on August 15, when McCone informed him that the United States was now producing, each year, more bombs than the estimated total requirement had been back in the mid-fifties.24 Partly this was a result of Eisenhower’s own inability to stand up to the AEC and the DOD over the years and say no to the expansion, but as he said, “being only one person, he had not felt he could oppose the combined opinion of all his associates.”25 America had gone far beyond what it needed for deterrence, at least in Eisenhower’s view, without getting anywhere close to a first-strike capability. After paying the cost in money and tension for the arsenal, which now contained more than six thousand weapons of all sizes, the United States was less secure than it had been in 1953. Eisenhower hated that result, but could not do anything about it.
In his last half year in office, Eisenhower’s conversations about disarmament proposals were exclusively concerned with propaganda advantage, or the effect of this or that proposal on the election, never with seeking a compromise that could lead to a breakthrough in the talks. Indeed, he agreed, albeit reluctantly and for the first time, to an increase in DOD appropriations, primarily because Bohlen advised him that such action would give Khrushchev some pause, but also because the Democrats were making such an issue out of national security. In so doing (the amount was one-half a billion dollars), Eisenhower admitted that the additional arms were not necessary for military purposes, but perhaps they “would carry sufficient credibility to create the psychological effect desired.”26
All hint of cooperative activity with the Russians was now gone. In July, Eisenhower met with his closest advisers to discuss Operation Plowshare. One part of that operation was to investigate the detectability of underground nuclear shots, and to do so in cooperation with Soviet scientists. All this had been set up before Paris; at that time, neither DOD nor AEC had protested, because the bombs being used were obsolete and thus would not give the Russians any new information. But after Paris, none of the politicians wanted anything to do with it, for purely political reasons. As John Eisenhower put it in his notes on the conversation in July, no one would support the project, because the voters “would interpret this procedure as giving the Russians something for nothing.”27
Despite his increasingly belligerent attitude toward the Russians, the President refused to be swept away on the national-security issue. The NSC, DOD, AEC, and Henry Luce all urged him to institute a nationwide civil-defense program. Nelson Rockefeller joined the chorus. Eisenhower responded that such a program would cost the federal government more than $10 billion (Rockefeller argued that it could be done for $3 billion), and that in any case, building fallout shelters was a responsibility that “rests upon the locality and the private citizen.” Eisenhower would not put any federal money into shelters.28
Eisenhower also resisted entreaties that he spend more on the space race. Nixon, Republican leaders, and the Defense Establishment were all urging him to go all out on Project Mercury, designed to put a man in orbit around the earth, and on a man-on-the-moon project. Eisenhower called the latter “a multibillion-dollar project of no immediate value . . . He said he felt the project is useless at this moment and he would not think it really worth the money . . . The President said he likes to see us go ahead on useful things but he is not much of a man on spectaculars. He realizes that some stunts, such as the Lindbergh trip across the Atlantic, have some virtue, [but] he emphasized that he would not be willing to spend tax money to send a man around the moon . . . He said there is such a thing as common sense, even in research.”29
• •
Eisenhower was growing weary of holding the same conversations with the same men on the same subjects. After Paris, he had resolved to do his duty to the end of his term, but he was finding his job increasingly distasteful, as it seemed all he was doing was saying no to everyone on everything. He had the sinking feeling that after he was out of the White House, even if Nixon replaced him, there was going to be an orgy of spending, as the heads of all the projects he had turned down over the years would clamor for funds. Small wonder his thoughts turned more often toward his retirement.
Mamie was busy packing things up and making the other preparations for the move to Gettysburg. John was preparing to resign from the Army. Eisenhower, meanwhile, made an informal agreement about his presidential memoirs. He was determined to write them, not only because of the money involved (he was offered a flat payment of $1 million from at least one publisher), but because he wanted to defend himself and his Administration while setting the record straight. He made an informal agreement with his old publisher, Douglas Black of Doubleday, and set John to work getting the necessary documents up to Gettysburg or nearby Fort Ritchie.30
Eisenhower was now almost seventy years old. Like many old men, his thoughts turned increasingly back toward his youth. On June 30, 1960, he had a meeting with General William Westmoreland, a most pleasant affair, as Westmoreland, former chief of staff of the 82d Airborne and commander of the 101st Airborne, was on his way to West Point to assume the duties of superintendent. Eisenhower had a long talk with “Westy” about the Academy, a talk full of nostalgia and reminiscence. The only unhappy note came when Eisenhower remarked that the JCS nowadays “tend to kowtow to the Congress and to make speeches inconsistent with the decisions of their superiors.” He wanted Westmoreland to recall to the cadets “the old simple rule that after a decision is made, officers must be loyal to their commander.”31 Westmoreland said he would see to it, then rose to go, already embarrassed by the amount of the President’s time he had taken. But Eisenhower rose from his chair too, came around his desk, grasped Westmoreland by the arm, and said, “Now, Westy, one more thing. See what you can do about improving that football team!”32
• •
What was most on his mind, however, was not his retirement, nor nostalgia, nor the outcome of the next Army-Navy football game, but the election. For Eisenhower, the 1960 presidential election campaign was dominated by three thoughts. First, his intense concern about the future of his country, a concern that expressed itself in a partisan manner, as he convinced himself that victory by the Democrats would mean disaster for the country. Second, his feeling that the election was a vote of confidence and approval of his policies over the past seven and a half years. He knew this was silly, even irrational, that if he himself were the candidate there could be no question of the outcome, but he could not escape the feeling. Nor could he escape a third feeling, one of ambiguity about Nixon.
Since the time of the Checkers speech in the 1952 campaign, Nixon had served Eisenhower loyally and effectively, especially at the time of Eisenhower’s 1955 heart attack. For Eisenhower, the problem was that he never seemed to grow, never seemed to consider a problem from any point of view other than the partisan political considerations, never seemed quite ready to take over. In 1956, Eisenhower had agreed to run for a second term primarily because he could not think of anyone qualified to succeed him. In 1960, he had no choice but to turn over the government, but he still could not think of anyone qualified to succeed him. Repeatedly, in the summer of 1960, he told friends that his greatest failure was the failure to develop more Republican “comers.” He regretted that Nixon did not have more competition for the nomination. But—and there was always a “but” in the Eisenhower-Nixon relationship—he thought Nixon a far better man than his only serious competitor, Nelson Rockefeller. And as between Nixon and any of the Democratic hopefuls, Eisenhower never hesitated. Although Eisenhower could not believe that Nixon was even yet ready, Nixon was so superior to any alternative that Eisenhower gave him his full backing.
The nature of the campaign put an additional strain on the already difficult Eisenhower-Nixon relationship. It was inevitable that Nixon would stress his experience in government, and in the process claim for himself a leading role in the decision-making process of the Administration. But this was precisely the area in which Eisenhower was most sensitive. The Nixon claim reinforced the standard Democratic criticism of Eisenhower, that he reigned rather than ruled, that he did not make the decisions himself. Eisenhower could not escape thinking of the election as a referendum on his Presidency, and he could not and would not allow it to be said that he delegated his decision-making powers. Nixon, of course, could hardly see the election as a referendum on Eisenhower; it was Nixon versus Kennedy, and he needed all the support from Eisenhower that he could get. He did not want Eisenhower to campaign on the basis of the record of his Administration, but to cite Nixon’s great contributions and describe Nixon as “indispensable,” “statesmanlike,” “judicious,” and so forth. But Eisenhower nevertheless spent the campaign defending his own record.
A second major problem revolved around differences in perceptions. When he was a candidate, Eisenhower had instinctively gone into the middle of the road, with the explicit goal of winning the independent vote. He had won the 1952 nomination despite the intense opposition of the Old Guard; he was not a professional politician; he did not draw his strength or his power from the Republican Party; he simply was not a party man. Nixon, by contrast, was the quintessential party man. He drew his strength and his power from the Republican Party. Thus Nixon was more partisan in his approach, especially during the 1960 campaign, than Eisenhower would have wished.
Nixon’s felt need to unite the Republican Party, added to his perception of what the voters wanted to hear on the issue of national defense, led to the deepest wound of all. Nixon deserted Eisenhower on defense. Rationally, Eisenhower knew it had to be done, that the clamor for more defense spending had become irresistible. He also knew that Nixon had to be his own man, had to establish himself as something more than “Ike’s boy,” had to show that the Republican Party was not a standpat party. But emotionally, it felt to Eisenhower like cold rejection of everything he had stood for and fought for over the past seven and a half years.
The result of all these structural difficulties, and of Eisenhower’s ambiguity toward Nixon, was that Eisenhower’s contribution to Nixon’s campaign was worse than unhelpful—it actually cost Nixon votes, and probably the election.
• •
Defense spending was a central issue in the campaign. The Democratic candidates were stumping the country with it, charging that Eisenhower had allowed a “missile gap” and a “rocket gap” to occur, and that as a result America was in retreat around the globe. Nelson Rockefeller joined the chorus. On June 8, he called for a $3.5 billion increase (about 9 percent) in the defense budget. “I suspect that Nelson has been listening too closely to half-baked advisers,” Eisenhower commented at a Republican leaders’ meeting. Then he specifically named Emmet Hughes, his former speech writer with whom he had by then completely broken and who was now working for Rockefeller.33
That evening, Rockefeller called Eisenhower on the telephone. He wanted to know Eisenhower’s thinking on whether or not he, Rockefeller, should once again become an avowed candidate. Eisenhower took the occasion to first of all give Rockefeller a short lecture on defense spending. Whitman recorded that “the President said he did not believe it was right to alarm people unnecessarily—he thought a fair question was whether we were doing these things fast enough.” As to Rockefeller re-entering the race, “The President said he was afraid he would be called ‘off again, on again, gone again, Finnegan.’ . . . The President said he thought Nelson’s chances were very remote.” Eisenhower told Rockefeller that anyone who wanted a Republican nomination in the next four or five years “would have to get some kind of blessing from the President. He said therefore he hoped that the reasoned and positive approach he had advocated would be adopted by Nelson (instead of jumping on everybody).” He advised Rockefeller to avoid becoming a “lone wolfer—a La Follette.” He also advised him, “Don’t let anyone else write your speeches.”34
The following day, Rockefeller announced that although his previous withdrawal from the race still stood, he would accept a draft. That same day, June 11, Eisenhower talked to Mrs. Hobby on the telephone. She had called him to deplore Rockefeller’s defense-spending statement, but she also remarked that “the other one [Nixon] is not easy.” Eisenhower assured her that “Dick is growing in stature daily.” Hobby complained that Nixon’s partisanship was driving away independents and Texas Democrats who had voted for Eisenhower. She asked the President to urge Nixon to be constructive and nonpartisan in his approach. Eisenhower did as requested, dictating a letter to Nixon repeating Hobby’s advice and noting, “personally I concur.”35
Eisenhower had never developed any great love for the Republican Party, especially not for that part of it filled by Republican congressmen. In June, the President vetoed a bill raising the pay of Civil Service employees. On July 1, he called in the Republican leaders in the Senate to try to “light a fire” under them to support the veto (he knew he was going to be overridden in the House, but had hopes for the Senate sustaining his veto). But Dirksen argued that in an election year the President could not expect any politician to vote to deny a pay raise to all those constituents. The most Eisenhower could hope for was fifteen Republican and five Democratic votes, all from senators not up for re-election. Bryce Harlow, a presidential assistant who worked for Jerry Persons on relations with Congress, kept the notes. Harlow recorded, “The President expressed deep concern over the news presented by Senator Dirksen—commenting that he is at a loss, assuming Senator Dirksen to be correct, as to what Republicans really stand for. Fiscal integrity is the keystone to which all Republicans have adhered, he said, and he could hardly see how he could contend vigorously . . . that the Republican Party is the party of responsibility when the majority of the Republicans vote exactly the opposite.”
Shaking his head, Eisenhower said “he had the feeling that he was being ‘read out of the party.’ ” When the meeting ended, Eisenhower commented to Senators Dirksen and Morton that “maybe it would be better for the boys on the Hill to impeach him and he would be happy to support them in this effort.”36
Afterward, Harlow told Whitman that “Dirksen is so tired he is lethargic. It even affects his speech to the point where you practically cannot understand him.” Eisenhower told her that he personally was “disgusted with the Republican leadership; I don’t know why anyone should be a member of the Republican Party.”37
• •
The Democrats, meanwhile, met in Los Angeles and nominated Senator Kennedy as their candidate. He chose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. Eisenhower was appalled, even though he had predicted the outcome. He was vacationing at Newport at the time. Bill Robinson was with him. Robinson had breakfast with Eisenhower the morning Kennedy was to announce his choice. Eisenhower asked Robinson who he thought it would be. Symington, Robinson replied, then asked Eisenhower who he thought it would be. “He said, without hesitation, Lyndon Johnson.” Robinson remonstrated: “How could Lyndon Johnson—having said all the things he did about Kennedy, having said over and over again he wouldn’t be a vice-presidential candidate—even consider it?”
Eisenhower replied, according to Robinson’s diary, “Of course, that’s very sound thinking and fairly good deduction, unless you know Johnson. He is not a big man. He is a small man. He hasn’t got the depth of mind nor the breadth of vision to carry great responsibility. Any floor leader of a Senate majority party looks good, no matter how incompetent he may be. Johnson is superficial and opportunistic.”38
Eisenhower disliked Kennedy even more. He told Ellis Slater, who was a friend of Joe Kennedy’s, that he feared if the Kennedys ever got in “we will never get them out—that there will be a machine bigger than Tammany Hall ever was . . .”39 Eisenhower told one of his big-business friends, “I will do almost anything to avoid turning my chair and the country over to Kennedy.”40 And he gave Kistiakowsky “a long discourse on how incompetent Kennedy is compared to Nixon, that even the more thoughtful Democrats are horrified by his selection, and that Johnson is the most tricky and unreliable politician in Congress.”41 In 1956, Eisenhower had pronounced the Stevenson-Kefauver ticket “the sorriest” in the history of the Democratic Party. In 1960, he decided that Kennedy-Johnson was even worse.
• •
In 1956, he could confront Stevenson-Kefauver directly; in 1960, he had to confront Kennedy-Johnson through Nixon. He could and did, however, see to it that Nixon made the confrontation on a platform acceptable to him. The convention was to open on July 25. The week before, Eisenhower talked twice daily at least with Nixon on the telephone; the President told Bill Robinson that he was “quite content with the Nixon position.” Then, on July 22, Nixon unexpectedly flew to New York for a meeting with Rockefeller. They hammered out a joint statement, one that reporters immediately called appeasement on Nixon’s part, because on most issues (civil rights, housing, schools, and jobs) the statement reflected Rockefeller’s more liberal views. But what really upset Eisenhower was the statement on defense: “The United States can afford and must provide the increased expenditures to implement fully this necessary program for strengthening our defense posture. There must be no price ceiling on America’s security.”
Eisenhower confessed that he found the statement, which echoed Kennedy’s charges, “somewhat astonishing,” especially as it came from two men “who had long been in Administration councils and who had never voiced any doubt—at least in my presence—of the adequacy of America’s defenses.” Gabe Hauge called Robinson “in somewhat of a panic.” He blamed Emmet Hughes for the offensive passage, then told Robinson that the statement “really involved a repudiation of the President’s position on defense.” Worse, Rockefeller was insisting on putting the pledge to increase defense spending into the platform. Robinson talked to Eisenhower, who commented that “it would be difficult for Nixon to run on the Administration record if the platform contained a repudiation of it.” Eisenhower said he would still be President for six more months “and he intended to stick to his policies. Any position by Nixon or the platform in repudiation of these policies would bring discord and disunity in the Republican Party efforts.”42
The following day, Eisenhower talked to Nixon on the telephone. Nixon claimed that Rockefeller had put out the statement unilaterally. “What I’m trying to do,” he said, “is to find some ground on which Nelson can be with us and not against us.” Eisenhower told Nixon that he would find it “difficult . . . to be enthusiastic about a platform which did not reflect a respect for the record of the Republican Administration . . .” Nixon then instructed his lieutenants to eliminate the offensive passage, substituting for it a compromise: “The United States can and must provide whatever is necessary to insure its own security . . . and to provide any necessary increased expenditures to meet new situations. . . . To provide more would be wasteful. To provide less would be catastrophic.” That was acceptable to Eisenhower.
On July 26, Eisenhower addressed the convention. He spoke not of Nixon’s qualifications to take over the Oval Office, but rather about the accomplishments of his own Administration.43 Nixon won the nomination easily, then selected Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., as his running mate. Eisenhower was disappointed—up to the end he had hoped it would be Al Gruenther or Bob Anderson, and he doubted that Lodge would be an effective campaigner—but he accepted Nixon’s decision.
• •
Immediately after the Republican Convention, Eisenhower tried to convince Kennedy to tone down his criticism of defense policy. He instructed Allen Dulles to give a briefing to both Kennedy and Johnson. Eisenhower wanted Dulles to put his emphasis on how strong the American defense posture was. But in the briefing, Dulles only wanted to talk about developments in Berlin, Cuba, Iran, the Middle East, Formosa, NATO, and the Congo. The Democratic senators, for their part, were only interested in developments that might arise during the campaign. Kennedy did ask Dulles directly, “How do we stand in the missile race?” Dulles recorded, in a memorandum for the President on the briefing, that “I replied that the Defense Department was the competent authority on this question . . .”44 That was hardly a satisfactory answer, and Kennedy felt free to continue to speak of a “missile gap.”
Kennedy’s campaign made Eisenhower more determined than ever to stop him. He met with Nixon and they agreed that the President would save his effort until the last days of the campaign, when he would barnstorm for Nixon. Behind the scenes, however, Eisenhower began the process of persuading his millionaire friends to put some of their money and energy into the election. On August 8, for example, he called Pete Jones on the telephone. Jones was one of his gang, as well as head of Cities Service Oil Company. Eisenhower told Jones to use his influence to see to it that “industry do something to talk a little optimistically, not pessimistically, these next three months.” He wanted Jones to get active in fund raising. “The President also said that the government was accelerating some of its spending; that certain companies might do the same.”45
Besides stimulating the economy and raising campaign funds, Eisenhower could most help Nixon through his press conferences. He tried to do so, but the results were bad. No matter what he was asked about Nixon, it seemed, or what he intended to say, his answers could always be read two or more ways, and never constituted that clear-cut, total endorsement that Nixon so desperately needed. The total effect was almost devastating.
On August 10, a reporter asked if Eisenhower was going to give Nixon “a greater voice . . . than you have in the past, in view of his responsibility as the candidate.” Eisenhower replied that he alone could make the decisions. He would continue, as always, to consult with Nixon, but if a decision had to be made, “I’m going to decide it according to my judgment.” Did he think that Nixon had gone too far in trying to appease Rockefeller? “Well,” Eisenhower replied, “I don’t think he feels that he was appeasing.” Peter Lisagor asked if Eisenhower had any objections to Nixon holding his own press conference, so that he could speak for himself on the defense issue. Eisenhower said he had no objections: “As a matter of fact I am quite sure that while, with the exception of minute detail, he would be saying exactly the same thing I would be, I have no objection to his going and making any kind of public talk . . .” Sarah McClendon wanted to know if Eisenhower’s recent request for a larger military appropriation “is a change that you took in light of the world situation or were you influenced to do this by Mr. Nixon or Mr. Rockefeller.” Eisenhower snapped back, “I wasn’t influenced by anybody except my own military and State Department advisers and my own judgment.” Charles Bartlett asked if there were any differences between Nixon and the President on the question of nuclear testing. “Well,” Eisenhower responded, “I can’t recall what he has ever said specifically about nuclear underground testing.”46
Nixon’s major claim in his confrontation with Kennedy was that he was experienced in making the tough decisions. But at one half-hour press conference, Eisenhower had denied that Nixon, or anyone else, really participated in the decision making. He specifically denied that Nixon had been consulted on increasing the military budget. And he admitted that he could not even remember what Nixon’s advice might have been on the testing issue.
Two weeks later, at the next press conference, things got worse. Sarah McClendon asked Eisenhower to “tell us of some of the big decisions that Mr. Nixon has participated in . . .” Eisenhower replied, “I don’t see why people can’t understand this: No one can make a decision except me . . . I have all sorts of advisers, and one of the principal ones is Mr. Nixon . . . Now, if you talk about other people sharing a decision, how can they? No one can because then who is going to be responsible?” Later in the same conference, Charles Mohr of Time brought the subject up again, justifying it on the grounds that Nixon “almost wants to claim that he has had a great deal of practice at being President.” Could not the President give an example of how Nixon fit into the decision-making process? Eisenhower said that Nixon attended the meetings and gave his opinion. “And he has never hesitated . . . to express his opinion, and when he has been asked for it, expressed his opinion in terms of recommendations as to decision. But no one [at the meetings] . . . has the decisive power. There is no voting . . . Mr. Nixon has taken a full part in every principal discussion.”
By this point, Eisenhower was obviously becoming irritated at answering the same simple question over and over. But Mohr persisted. “We understand that the power of decision is entirely yours, Mr. President,” he said. “I just wondered if you could give us an example of a major idea of his that you had adopted in that role, as the decider and final—” Eisenhower cut him off. “If you give me a week,” he said, “I might think of one. I don’t remember.” And with that, the conference ended.47
Eisenhower realized immediately how terrible that remark sounded. When he returned to the Oval Office, he called Nixon to apologize and express his regret. The Democrats, of course, and the press, made the most of it. Shortly thereafter, Nixon made a plaintive appeal to Eisenhower “to be tied into the President’s action in Cuba in some way.” (Nixon was urging decisive action against Castro and wanted Eisenhower to give him the credit for it.) Eisenhower refused, saying, “This would be very difficult to do in any acceptable way.”48 To Whitman, Eisenhower complained that Nixon had made a big mistake in 1956, when Eisenhower offered him the job as Secretary of Defense. Had Nixon taken that post, Eisenhower argued, he could have gained all the decision-making experience he wanted, and “he would be in a lot better position today in his bid for the Presidency.”49
On August 30, Eisenhower went to see Nixon in the hospital—the Vice-President was in Walter Reed with an infected knee. When he returned from the visit, Eisenhower told Whitman that “there was some lack of warmth.” Whitman’s diary continues: “He mentioned again, as he has several times, the fact that the Vice-President has very few personal friends.” Eisenhower confessed that he could not understand how a man could live without friends. Whitman wrote that the difference between Eisenhower and Nixon “is obvious. The President is a man of integrity and sincere in his every action . . . He radiates this, everybody knows it, everybody trusts and loves him. But the Vice-President sometimes seems like a man who is acting like a nice man rather than being one.”50
The highlight of the campaign was the Nixon-Kennedy debates. Eisenhower advised Nixon against agreeing to debate, on the grounds that Nixon was much better known than Kennedy and therefore should not give Kennedy so much free exposure. Nixon rejected the advice, on the grounds that debate was one of his strongest points. Eisenhower then advised him “to talk on the positive side . . . and not try to be too slick.” Nixon replied that “he was going to be gentlemanly, let Kennedy be the aggressor.” After the first debate, Nixon called Eisenhower on the telephone. Nixon must have been crushed when Eisenhower explained “that he had not been able to hear the debate . . .” And he must have been hurt as Eisenhower nevertheless proceeded to advise him to “once in a while . . . not appear to be quite so glib, to ponder and appear to think about something before answering a question.”51
In late October, Eisenhower finally began active campaigning for Nixon. What he talked about, however, was not Nixon’s superb preparation for the Presidency, but the record of his own Administration. He told a Philadelphia audience, for example, that in the past eight years personal income was up by 48 percent, individual savings were up by 37 percent, school construction up by 46 percent, college enrollments up by 75 percent, that 9 million new homes had been built, the most ever in one decade, that the GNP was up by 45 percent, that inflation had been controlled, that the Interstate Highway System had become a reality, as had the St. Lawrence Seaway, that in short the past eight years had been wonderful.52 Few disagreed, although Nixon might have said that the point was that the election was about who was going to lead America forward into the 1960s, not back into the fifties.
Nevertheless, the Eisenhower speeches were eliciting a response. The polls had Kennedy ahead. Both Eisenhower and Nixon were worried. Eisenhower decided he wanted to do more campaigning and indicated that he wished to have an expanded schedule of speeches. Nixon was all for it. But on October 30, eight days before the election, Mamie called Pat Nixon to say that she was distraught at the thought of her man taking on additional burdens, and told Mrs. Nixon she feared that Eisenhower “was not up to the strain campaigning might put on his heart.” She had tried to dissuade him, but could not, and therefore “begged” Pat Nixon to have her husband convince Eisenhower to change his mind, without letting Ike know that she had intervened. The following morning, Dr. Snyder added his opinion, telling Nixon to “either talk him out of it or just don’t let him do it—for the sake of his health.”
In his memoirs, Nixon related that “I had rarely seen Eisenhower more animated than he was when I arrived at the White House that afternoon.” He showed Nixon an expanded itinerary. Nixon began giving reasons why the President should not take on the extra burden. According to Nixon, “He was hurt and then he was angry.” But Nixon insisted and Eisenhower “finally acquiesced. His pride prevented him from saying anything, but I knew that he was puzzled and frustrated by my conduct.”53
If Nixon was not ready to risk Eisenhower’s health in his cause, he was ready to call into question Senator Kennedy’s physical condition. On November 4, Whitman noted that an “air of desperation” had taken over the Nixon camp. She cited as an example a statement Nixon said he wanted the White House to put out. Rumors were flying around the country to the effect that Kennedy had Addison’s disease. The proposed statement referred to Eisenhower’s position in 1956, when he had made public the results of a complete physical examination, and called on the 1960 candidates to do the same. Nixon indicated that after the President signed and issued the statement, he would immediately make his own physical records public.
Jim Hagerty was furious. He called it a “cheap, lousy, stinking political trick.” Eisenhower felt the same way. When an aide tried to explain to the President about the rumors of Addison’s disease, Eisenhower cut him off and said, “I am not making myself a party to anything that has to do with the health of the candidates.” The idea died.54
That same day, November 4, the Nixon people called Whitman with another proposal. Nixon wanted to say in a speech that night that if elected, he would send Eisenhower on a good-will tour to the Communist-bloc countries. Eisenhower was “astonished, did not like the idea of ‘auctioning off the Presidency’ in this manner, spoke of the difficulty of his traveling once he is not President, and felt it was a last-ditch, hysterical action.” He told Hagerty to call Nixon’s people and tell them no. Two days later, Nixon’s secretary, Rose Wood, called Whitman to ask her to make sure the President listened to Nixon’s taped speech at 9 P.M. that night. Eisenhower did, and was again astonished as he heard Nixon make the promise to send Eisenhower on a tour. Eisenhower was so angry he told Hagerty to call Nixon and force him to retract the promise. Hagerty got the President calmed down. Then, Whitman reported, “The President dictated . . . a congratulatory telegram on the speech . . . to send to Nixon.” Speaking for everyone who has attempted to plumb the depths of the Eisenhower-Nixon relationship, as well as for that larger group that tries to make sense of American politics, Whitman confessed, “I do not understand.”55
• •
November 8 was election day. Eisenhower joined John and Barbara to watch the returns. The early reports were discouraging, as Kennedy was sweeping the East. At 11 P.M., Eisenhower went to bed, thinking the worst. When he woke the next morning, Nixon had closed the gap in the popular vote, which stood almost dead equal, but still looked to be hopeless in the electoral vote. Shortly after noon, Nixon called from his California headquarters. He thought he would take California, Illinois, and Minnesota, but it would not be enough. Nixon pointed out that he had run some 7 percent ahead of the Republican Party, and that he lost because of the “weakness of the Republican Party.” Eisenhower urged Nixon to take a good rest. Eisenhower then made a remark that summarized nicely his perspective on the campaign and election: “We can be proud of these last eight years.” Nixon replied, “You did a grand job.”56
Nixon later told Eisenhower that he had never heard the President sound so depressed. Eisenhower agreed that it was so. What he did not tell Nixon, but did tell Whitman, was the reason. It was not so much Nixon’s defeat as it was his own sense of rejection. All morning, Whitman recorded, “The President kept saying this was a ‘repudiation’ of everything he had done for eight years.”57
• •
At 11 A.M. on the morning after the election, the gang all gathered in the White House to fly down to Augusta with Eisenhower for a vacation. The President muttered that he thought he would cancel the trip; his son practically shoved him out the door, with Mamie telling him to “come on down and knock hell out of the golf ball and forget it.” On the plane ride, Eisenhower played bridge. His first comment was “Well, this is the biggest defeat of my life.” The postmortem began immediately, Eisenhower saying to Slater, “Dick never asked me how I thought the campaign should be run. I offered him [Robert] Montgomery, who would never have let him look as he did in that first television debate. Cabot Lodge should never have stuck his nose into the makeup of the cabinet—promising a Negro cost us thousands of votes in the South, maybe South Carolina and Texas.” After lunch, he mused that if he had written an article for Reader’s Digest, that might have turned the trick.58
As in any unsuccessful campaign, the losers could not resist torturing themselves by thinking about the might-have-beens. In the case of the 1960 losers, their most frequent thoughts were: if only Eisenhower had hit the campaign trail sooner and harder; if only Nixon had not agreed to the debates; if only Eisenhower had not made that devastating statement about “give me a week I might think of one”; if only Rockefeller had agreed to take second place on the ticket; if only a bit more money had been raised. And the biggest “if only” of all—if only there had been a fair and honest count. The 1960 election brought forth widespread allegations of fraud in the vote count. Some of Nixon’s supporters urged him to go to court and demand a recount. Nixon rejected the advice, because he thought it useless and disruptive. Eisenhower rather wanted a recount; more realistically, he wanted the Justice Department to make an investigation. In a November 30 phone call to the Attorney General, Eisenhower “admitted that the election was a closed issue, but he felt we owed it to the people to assure them . . . that the federal government did not shirk its duty.” But the Attorney General said he had talked to Nixon about an investigation, and Nixon was against it. Eisenhower let it drop.59
I. For his part, the author can testify that he has never seen any documentary evidence linking Eisenhower with an assassination plot, much less giving orders to have Lumumba murdered. Like most of the other evidence in this case, however, that testimony is negative and is not based on the total record, as some items remain classified. And of course, Eisenhower would never have put on paper orders to commit murder; he would have given such instructions in the vaguest possible way, using all sorts of euphemisms. But it is difficult for me to believe that he would not have informed Goodpaster of any secret orders to Dulles, although it is true that in his last year as President, Eisenhower did sometimes ask Goodpaster to step out of the room while he talked privately with Allen Dulles.