Crossing the Indiana/Illinois Border, October 2, 1952
“Not again,” Jim Hagerty whispered to Jonathon Chamberlain. “I’m not going to be able to bear this singing all the way to Milwaukee.”
“The sons of the Prophet are many and bold…and quite unaccustomed to fear.” Ike tried to project the song over the train’s rumble, and Jonathon couldn’t help but think of a largemouth bass gasping on the shore. Ike sang and walked through the train car sweeping his arms straight out through the air in time to his rhythm, nearly whacking some of his aides in the head. “Come on, come on,” he urged between stanzas.
“But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah…was Abdul Abulbul Amir.”
Hagerty mumbled the words.
“Come on Jim…don’t you know the words? ‘If you wanted a man to encourage the van…Or harass the foe from the rear.’” Ike looked expectant, and Hagerty managed to raise his voice a bit.
Ike laughed and sang even louder. “Storm fort or redoubt…you had only to shout for Abdul Abulbul Amir.” It was a soldier’s song, and he insisted on singing all twenty verses. “At least he’s in a good mood,” Hagerty said to Jonathon, “at least until I show him this.” Hagerty held up the New York Herald Tribune and pointed to a piece by John Crosby, the television critic: “Eleanor Roosevelt is a television personality the likes of which has not been seen ever before. She’s setting a pace that will not only be almost impossible for succeeding candidates to follow, but one that will be pretty hard for her to maintain, I suspect.”
“I read it,” Jonathon said. “I’m sure it’s why O’Brien’s still calling for a debate every chance he gets.”
“A debate!” Hagerty said. “That’s all we need. Put Ike under those white hot lights for an hour? He’ll look like butter melting. Not to mention, that woman is a debater. You should hear Dulles talk about her performance at the first UN meeting. Evidently, she creamed the star prosecutor of the Soviet Union—without notes. No sir, no debate—not as long as I’m running communications.”
Hagerty pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, took off his glasses, and began cleaning each lens with care.
“By the way, she’s on Meet the Press tonight,” Jonathon offered, looking like he was worried he might get blamed for her appearance.
Hagerty glared and said, “Well, I think this speech that Ike’s going to give praising Marshall, with McCarthy on the dais will get the attention of the press.”
Eisenhower owed General George Catlett Marshall his career. The man who many called the greatest general since George Washington, the man who had engineered the postwar European reconstruction that bore his name, had plucked Eisenhower from the ranks after Pearl Harbor and set him on the road to military greatness. When McCarthy called Marshall a “front man for traitors” and “the man who had aided the Communist drive for world domination,” the press begged Ike for a response.
“What do you have to say to Senator McCarthy’s accusations against General Marshall?” reporters kept hectoring Ike. But political caution caught Ike’s tongue. Wisconsin was a key electoral state, and McCarthy owned it. No one, Sherman Adams kept reminding Ike, could judge McCarthy’s impact on the national vote.
“I feel dirty from the touch of that man,” Ike told Adams. “Marshall resigned as secretary of state because of McCarthy’s smears. You realize that, don’t you?”
Adams nodded, waiting for what he could tell was an order in the making.
“I’m sick of handling these phony patriots with kid gloves. I think it’s time to take on McCarthy in his backyard. I want to pay a personal tribute to Marshall right on that stage. Do you understand? A tribute.” Adams had told Hagerty to make it happen.
Hagerty pulled Ike’s speech out of a pile of papers and handed it to Jonathon.
“That paragraph Ike wanted on Marshall is in there. It’s going to set McCarthy’s teeth on edge. Listen to this.” Hagerty grabbed the speech out of Jonathon’s hand. “‘General Marshall is a man and a soldier,’” he read, “‘dedicated with a singular selflessness and the profoundest patriotism to the service of America. Calling him disloyal, or in any way un-American is the way freedom must not defend itself. Promoting unfounded attacks and scurrilous rumors which threaten people’s reputations and livelihoods is despicable.’
“Get copies of this speech out to the New York Times, maybe a couple of others in advance,” Hagerty told Jonathon, handing back the paper. “Ike taking on McCarthy should trump Mrs. Roosevelt’s yammering on Meet the Press. Maybe even get the press off of the Nixon mess.”
As the train chugged out of Evansville toward Carbondale, Jonathon walked through the cars with the Milwaukee speech, giving it to selected reporters. Turnbull, who Jonathon found more distasteful than ever, was sitting in the press car, shooting the breeze with Cal Thompson of the Chicago Tribune. He tried to act nonchalant when Jonathon came by and handed Thompson the speech.
Turnbull didn’t know if Jonathon had heard. Adams had taken Turnbull into his private car to tell him that his services would no longer be needed after this trip. Adams had mumbled something about needing to conserve campaign funds, but Turnbull suspected there was another reason having to do with his pressing the campaign to use the scurrilous information he’d gotten on Eleanor, and he was fuming. As Thompson leafed through the speech, Turnbull read over his shoulder.
“Looks like the standard speech on corruption and all that…hey, take a look at this.” Thompson handed Turnbull the speech, pointing to the section praising Marshall and implicitly criticizing McCarthy.
“Did you know he was going to do that?” Thompson asked.
“Of course,” Turnbull bluffed. “Yeah, of course I did,” Turnbull hesitated, “but you know, there was another line we talked about including. Excuse me a minute, will you? I’d better go tell Hagerty.” Turnbull hoisted himself off the well-worn leather seat as the train slowed to a crawl for a whistle-stop in Harrisburg. He lumbered to the door and lowered his bulk to the platform as soon as the shuddering sigh of the engine assured him it was safe. He pulled a black leather-bound book out of his vest pocket as he walked, and got Walter Kohler, Wisconsin’s governor, on the phone on his first try.
“Can’t talk long Walt, but you’re about to have a big, very big problem. That speech Ike’s giving in Milwaukee? He’s going to screw McCarthy to the wall. Just remember, you didn’t hear it from me. Not from me, understand?”