There was another aspect of the NATO job that troubled Eisenhower: he had become, by default, the Truman administration’s most effective ambassador, yet he personally disagreed with Truman on a wide range of policy issues. As president of Columbia, he had been free to speak his mind. Now, back in uniform, his military duty required him to be silent on all political matters. Privately, though, he insisted that he was not Truman’s man. In a letter to Edward Bermingham, a financier at Lehman Brothers, a Columbia trustee, and a savvy Republican insider, Eisenhower wrote, “You are quite well aware of the extreme degree in which I differ with some of our governmental foreign and domestic policies of the past years.” But there was work to be done. The simple truth was that America faced a “deadly danger”: international communism. It was “ruthless in purpose and insidious as to method,” and its goal was “world revolution and subsequent domination of all the earth.” The only way to stop Soviet expansion was to build a formidable military alliance and to rally all Americans to that purpose. Such concerns—not political loyalty to Truman—had drawn Eisenhower back into uniform.15
Eisenhower may have differed with Truman on politics, but he had a scrupulous respect for the chain of command. While working at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE), he refused to utter a word in public that could be construed as critical of the president. By contrast, his former mentor Douglas MacArthur knew no such restraint. MacArthur had been in command of American and allied forces in Korea since June 1950, and his handling of the war had ranged from tragically inept to breathtakingly bold. He had presided over costly defeats and the daring amphibious landing at Inchon in September 1950. But MacArthur’s apparent desire to free the entire Korean peninsula from communist control—pushing much further than merely defending South Korea—had triggered Chinese intervention in the war in October and led to a series of bloody reversals for his troops.
MacArthur chose to shift any blame for the failure to win in Korea onto Truman, and he did so openly, while serving in the field. In March 1951 he called for expanding the war by taking the fight directly to communist China, using air power and perhaps atomic weapons. He also called for the use of Chinese Nationalist forces from Formosa (Taiwan) to fight against Mao’s communists. Anything less, MacArthur implied, was tantamount to appeasement. In a letter that was read on the floor of the House of Representatives by its recipient, Congressman Joseph W. Martin Jr. of Massachusetts, MacArthur stated, “Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest. . . . If we lose the war to communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable.” In a shocking act of disrespect, MacArthur rebuked Truman for his unwillingness to take the fight directly to the Chinese.16
Truman could take no more of this. On April 11 the president relieved MacArthur of his command, setting off one of the biggest controversies of the decade. For MacArthur was not just an army officer. To his admirers, he was an icon, the most storied military man of his generation, the liberator of the Philippines, the proconsul of the American occupation of Japan, and the daring strategist who had rescued a precarious American position in Korea. His dismissal triggered an eruption of hostility toward Truman across the country. “It is doubtful if there has ever been in this country so violent and spontaneous a discharge of political passion as that provoked by” Truman’s action, according to two sharp contemporary observers. “The American citizen . . . took MacArthur’s recall as if it were an outrage to his own person.” Telegrams calling for the president’s impeachment poured into Congress. Senator Joe McCarthy, the right-wing Red hunter who had been attacking the administration for over a year for allegedly coddling communists, called the president a “son of a bitch” and declared the firing “the greatest victory the Communists have ever won.”17
Some Republicans now believed that MacArthur should challenge Truman for the presidency. Sympathetic congressmen engineered an invitation to the general to speak to a joint session of Congress. There, on April 19 MacArthur, newly arrived stateside from his Asian posting, delivered an astonishing valedictory. When China intervened in the Korean War, MacArthur said, he had demanded a bold new military strategy to deal with this threat, but was denied. Thus Korea had become “an indecisive campaign with its terrible and constant attrition.” Truman’s allegedly passive, defensive attitude was to MacArthur an outrage. His peroration rang through the halls of Congress and echoed across the country: “Once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war, there is no substitute for victory.”
The following day MacArthur traveled to New York City and was met with a reception even more rollicking and tempestuous than that which Eisenhower had enjoyed in 1945: millions of New Yorkers acclaimed MacArthur a returning hero as his open car drove slowly through 15 miles of city streets under a hail of confetti. Steamboats and tugs in the harbor belched thunderous bass notes of welcome; fireboats sprayed jets of water in the air; columns of marching bands blared triumphant music. At the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the general dismounted from his car, Francis Cardinal Spellman and six bishops welcomed the general and clasped his hands, as if anointing him with holy powers.18
III
The Truman-MacArthur imbroglio roiled the waters of domestic politics. Truman’s approval rating sank below 30 percent and stayed there for all of 1951. His weakened position opened the path to a Republican presidential victory in 1952, but so far the only serious contender was Robert Taft. He had angled for the nomination three times before, losing out to Wendell Willkie in 1940 and Thomas Dewey in 1944 and 1948. Perhaps, many in the GOP argued, it was Taft’s turn. He had much support in the conservative and isolationist midwestern and western states. The Democrats had been in control of the Executive since 1933, and the country seemed ready for a change. Surely 1952 would be a Republican year.
The thought of a Taft presidency alarmed Eisenhower’s closest friends, none more so that Lucius Clay. Since returning from running the American occupation forces in Germany in 1949, General Clay had been working as CEO of the Continental Can Company and serving on various corporate boards. He was one of Eisenhower’s closest and most savvy wartime colleagues: supremely intelligent, politically sensitive—his father had been a senator—and enormously respected for his wisdom and organizational skill. He was also one of the great architects of America’s position in Europe: he had helped implement the Marshall Plan, helped cement the Western alliance and NATO, and was a stout believer in the Western security program Eisenhower was now building. Clay believed that if Taft became president, all this work would be wiped away. “We cannot let the isolationists gain control of government if we are to endure as a free people over the years,” he wrote Eisenhower in mid-April 1951. Within weeks Clay had formed a small group of moderate Republicans to start organizing a political campaign committee to win the GOP nomination for Eisenhower. “This involves no commitment on your part,” Clay reassured the general. But there was urgency in his message: “It is time to move now.”19
Eisenhower, on active duty in Europe as the NATO commander, could not condone such partisan activity. But while he told Clay that his own personal attitude toward a political career was “flatly negative,” he left the door open a crack: “Now, as to what others may or should do, I have always insisted upon the right of every free-born American to do what he pleases.” He went on, somewhat unpersuasively, “I am not trying to duck any difficult question, or to be evasive or coy. . . . My present duty is to help develop the defensive power of twelve countries. If I ever have to do any other, I shall have to be very clear that I know it to be a duty.”20
Did Eisenhower want to be president? He said repeatedly to his closest friends that he did not want a political career. But he was not immune to the arguments that reached him in Paris. He believed the country’s global interests would be profoundly harmed by a Taft presidency, and
he believed Truman’s leadership on domestic policy had been disastrous. He wanted the country to move in a sharply different direction. He understood his own popular appeal and was sensitive to the clamoring of hundreds of friends and acquaintances that he was the right leader for these difficult times. But he had serious reservations. His reputation could be tarnished by a bruising political fight. Politics was a dirty business, and he had little respect for its leading practitioners. He had already given 40 years of service to his country and was ready for an easier life. There was also the possibility that if he ran for office, he might lose.
In mid-1951 the pressure on him mounted. In late June, Bill Robinson spent 10 days with Eisenhower in Paris. During golf, luxurious dinners at Le Coq Hardi, a few trips to the horse races, and a short jaunt to London, the two friends regularly talked politics. Robinson updated Eisenhower on Dewey’s efforts behind the scenes to stop Taft. Robinson told him directly that he had “not the slightest doubt” that Ike would be nominated by the Republicans “and would be elected.” He suggested that Eisenhower “make his plans for the future on that assumption.”21
Just two days after Robinson left Paris, Massachusetts senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. called on the general at his SHAPE headquarters. Lodge was a close associate of Dewey and was known as a promising young talent in liberal Republican circles. He knew Eisenhower very slightly from the war years, when Lodge had been a junior officer. But now Lodge felt it a duty to press him to run for president. Eisenhower was surprisingly eager to talk politics. He and Lodge spoke from 9:00 a.m. until lunch, after which Lodge stayed for further conversation. He left the meeting feeling that Eisenhower would be open to a draft from the Republican Party, though Ike’s refusal to campaign would make winning the nomination difficult.22
Clay drove this point home and made a proposal to Eisenhower that only a close and respected friend could have suggested: “I would hope that sometime in the early part of next year you would request your release [from the NATO command]. . . . No matter how badly you may be needed in Europe, you are needed even more here, and perhaps if you do not return, nothing accomplished there would have any real permanency.” Soon after, Ed Bermingham beseeched Eisenhower to declare his party affiliation so he could be registered in party primaries across the country. Such a statement would “unloose the energies and activities of your friends all over America who want to get the delegate machinery moving in your behalf.” Eisenhower tried to resist these entreaties, but in his diary he revealed that the pressure was getting to him. He wrote plaintively, “It is not easy to just say NO.”23
In mid-October Eisenhower gave his friends the first real sign that he could be persuaded to enter the political battle. The occasion was a visit from a West Point graduate and fellow Army football player, Gen. Edwin N. Clark, to Ike’s headquarters in Paris. Clark had served on Eisenhower’s staff in the war, then practiced law and run an international consulting business. He brought to Eisenhower a message from James Duff, a senator from Pennsylvania and a former governor. Duff had been working hard in Congress to peel away moderate and liberal Republicans from Taft and bring them to Eisenhower’s side. To do this effectively, he needed the general’s personal assurance that Eisenhower was a Republican and that he would run if drafted. So far Eisenhower had refused to give any such assurances. But Clark had more success. After a marathon session, Clark and Eisenhower worked out a statement that was to be given, in strictest secrecy, to Senator Duff. The letter, in Eisenhower’s handwriting, was dated October 14, 1951—his 61st birthday. It stated, “I have been and am an adherent to the Republican Party and to liberal Republican principles.” He reiterated his inability to campaign for the nomination while on active duty. However, he promised that if nominated, “I would resign my commission and assume aggressive leadership of the party.” Clark promptly returned to the United States, showed the letter to Duff, and locked it away for safekeeping. There could be little doubt now: Eisenhower was preparing to run for president.24
Truman, his canny instincts bristling, sensed the political threat Ike posed. The president remained uncertain whether he would run for reelection in 1952; his decision depended largely on Eisenhower. In November he summoned Ike to Washington, supposedly for a meeting on NATO matters. The reunion was overshadowed by a new poll from Gallup reporting that if Eisenhower ran against Truman in 1952, he would capture 64 percent of the vote against a mere 28 percent for Truman. On November 5 the two men had a private lunch at Blair House and spent more than an hour closeted together. No record was kept of the meeting, and Eisenhower later denied there had been any political talk; they discussed NATO and national security issues, he said. In fact Truman did ask Eisenhower about his political intentions. And he went further: the president would bow out of the race if Eisenhower accepted the Democratic nomination. Eisenhower, probably appalled that Truman would bring up the subject, replied that he had serious differences with the Democrats on domestic politics, especially on labor and social issues, and he could not accept such a scenario. He tried to change the subject, and Truman let it drop.25
Ike affected a lack of interest in politics for Truman’s benefit, but immediately after his lunch with the president, he flew to New York, and while parked on the tarmac of LaGuardia Airport in his official airplane, the Columbine, he held an impromptu strategy session with his close friends. Bill Robinson, Cliff Roberts, and his brother Milton, among others, talked to him for three hours about politics and the plan now in place for winning the nomination. Eisenhower continued to say that he would not actively campaign, but by now he was clearly giving enough support to the draft effort to banish the idea that he was merely a disinterested bystander.26
With Eisenhower’s word that he would accept a draft from the Republican Party, the momentum began to pick up. In a press conference on November 17, Lodge announced the formation of an Eisenhower-for-President organization. Wearing an “I Like Ike” button on his lapel, the tall Bostonian declared, “We’ve got a candidate and we’ve got the one who is sure to win. . . . I know he is a Republican, period. I can assert that flatly. There is no doubt about that.”27
Working out of the Commodore Hotel in New York, the organization picked up speed. Dewey, much loathed by the Old Guard Republicans, kept a low profile so as not to tarnish the operation, but behind the scenes he provided talent and access to wealthy backers. The money began rolling in, much of it from John H. “Jock” Whitney, the multimillionaire heir to the Payne Whitney fortune, and Sid Richardson, the Fort Worth oilman. The group reached out to Sigurd Larmon of the Young and Rubicam advertising agency, which would play a major role in the election, churning out billboards, radio and television commercials, and reams of newspaper ads pushing Eisenhower’s candidacy. From New York tentacles reached out across the country to coordinate Citizens for Eisenhower groups. Eisenhower was kept abreast of all these developments by various correspondents, and while he continued to profess no interest in politics, he did tell Robinson that he could imagine enjoying the freedom to be outspoken once again. “If I ever get into this business, I am going to start swinging from the hips and I am going to keep swinging until completely counted out.”28
The New Hampshire primary, set for March 11, 1952, would be a crucial test of Eisenhower’s appeal among rank-and-file Republicans. The issue of placing Eisenhower’s name on the ballot in New Hampshire had triggered a detailed round of secretive correspondence and plotting among the many cooks in the Eisenhower-for-President kitchen. Over the Christmas holidays of 1951, Robinson had spent five days in Paris with Eisenhower. Upon his return he reported back to the team in New York: Eisenhower agreed to be placed on the ballot in New Hampshire. This was breaking news, the first public confirmation by Eisenhower of his party affiliation. Life magazine, owned by the admiring Henry Luce, rushed out a powerful endorsement of Eisenhower’s candidacy, giving four reasons why Ike should be president: “he understands war,” “his administrative ability,” “his political principles,” an
d his “gift for leadership.” Eisenhower understood that the first requirement of leadership was “moral strength, the conviction that we are right.” He himself surely possessed this virtue. “What a boost he could give to the national morale!”29
The storm was gaining force, and on January 7, 1952, Eisenhower released a message of his own. Buried inside a few paragraphs of the usual statements about his devotion to NATO and his inability to campaign in person, he confirmed his party affiliation and acknowledged that a nomination to be the Republican candidate for president would constitute “a duty that would transcend my present responsibility.” Somewhat reluctantly, he had set in motion a great national effort that would carry him to the White House.30
IV
Winning the nomination for president is hard enough for an active and willing candidate. Eisenhower was neither. He seemed to think that he could be drafted as the GOP nominee without having to lift a finger. But the odds were sharply against a draft. The only 20th-century presidential candidate to be offered his party’s nomination without openly seeking it was Charles Evans Hughes, who, then serving on the Supreme Court, was drafted as the 1916 Republican nominee to face President Woodrow Wilson. And Hughes had been a consensus candidate, facing little opposition. Eisenhower’s forces, by contrast, had to contend with the determined and resourceful Taft machine. His legions of backers in New York knew that to be nominated, Ike would have to get off his high horse and descend into the muck of politics.
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