IX
What a year it had been! Since September 1957, when the bitter confrontation erupted in Little Rock and the recession began, Eisenhower had known nothing but trouble: the launch of Sputnik in October, a stroke in November, the embarrassing congressional probe into the missile programs that ran until January 1958, the much-publicized failures of American test rockets on their launching pads contrasting with the success of the Soviets’ Sputnik III in May 1958, and now in July and August two foreign entanglements that seemed to many Americans as ill-conceived as they were dangerous. Throw into that depressing litany the most damaging, and least truthful, criticism of all, namely, the opening up of a vast and threatening “missile gap,” the result of Ike’s supposedly complacent leadership. Without a doubt the period from September 1957 to November 1958 marks Eisenhower’s most troubled year in office.
Two personal losses added anguish to the year. His longtime chief of staff, Sherman Adams, resigned in September 1958. Adams had been with Eisenhower from the first snowy days in New Hampshire in 1952 and served the president with tenacity and ferocious loyalty. He was respected and feared in Washington, and little liked, earning the nickname “the Abominable ‘No’ Man.” Eisenhower relied on him enormously. But in June the House of Representatives began an inquiry into accusations that Adams had accepted gifts from a Boston rug merchant named Bernard Goldfine, who was under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. Adams had indeed accepted an expensive vicuña coat, an Oriental carpet, and free hotel accommodations from Goldfine, though he denied exerting any pressure on the FTC on Goldfine’s behalf. The scandal grew and became a threat to the administration’s record of incorruptibility. Adams resigned on September 22 and returned to his native New Hampshire. Eisenhower felt Adams had been wronged. “Nothing that has occurred has had a more depressive effect on my normal buoyancy and optimism than has the virulent, sustained, demagogic attacks made upon him,” he wrote to a mutual friend.67
In that difficult autumn Eisenhower also lost one of his oldest friends. On November 2, 1958, following a long illness, Swede Hazlett died. They had known each other since their school days, when Eisenhower, strong and athletic, had stood up for Swede on the playground against a neighborhood tough. “Why don’t you try that on me,” he said to the bully, who skulked away. They were fast friends from that day on. Hazlett had kept up an extraordinary correspondence with Eisenhower, writing to him regularly in what might be called the unadorned voice of the everyman. In dozens upon dozens of letters Hazlett expressed opinions on matters from the Supreme Court to race relations, foreign policy, and taxes. Eisenhower often responded at length, and his letters form a crucial body of material for historians. “I can never quite tell you what Swede meant to me,” Eisenhower wrote to Swede’s wife, Ibby. “While I am glad for his sake that he suffers no longer, his passing leaves a permanent void in my life.”68
The coup de grâce in this troubled year came on November 4, 1958, just two years after Eisenhower’s triumphant reelection. On that day the midterm congressional elections delivered a huge defeat to the Republicans and implicitly to the president himself. The Democrats already controlled both houses of Congress, but they dramatically widened their lead. In the Senate, which the Democrats had held by a narrow margin for the previous four years, the Republicans lost a whopping 13 seats, giving Democrats a 30-seat advantage. In the House 48 Republicans lost their reelection bids, and the Democrats now enjoyed a 130-seat cushion. It was an unmitigated rout. Nixon, who had given speeches across the country during the campaign, recalled it as “one of the most depressing election nights I have ever known.”69
What explains this decisive rebuke from the voters? Eisenhower blamed “the seeming desire of the people of our country to depend more and more upon government—they do not seem to understand that more governmental assistance inevitably means more governmental control.” But the problems went deeper than that. The main explanation lay in the economic troubles the country faced. Most of the losses came in states with high unemployment; people were hurting, and they sent a message. More broadly, Eisenhower in 1958 lost control of the political narrative of his own presidency. Peace, prosperity, security, and small government—these had been the watchwords of “Eisenhower’s Modern Republicanism.” By late 1958 these looked like hollow phrases. The horizon was clouded by threats of war; the economy sputtered; claims of a missile gap suggested a weak national defense; and both taxes and spending remained high.70
In retrospect we can see that Eisenhower governed wisely and well in 1958. He responded thoughtfully to the Sputnik crisis and once again stamped out the flames of war in Asia. But his opponents described him as a failure. They painted a portrait of an America that had faltered economically, had fallen behind in the missile race, had let its military might wane, had stumbled over the racial crisis in the South, and had surrendered the mantle of leadership on the world stage. To his critics Eisenhower looked out of touch, indecisive, and adrift. In the final two years of his presidency Eisenhower would have to find an effective way to rebut this criticism. The stakes were enormous: his place in history was at risk.
CHAPTER 16
* * *
Contending with Khrushchev
“We don’t escape war by surrendering on the installment plan.”
I
SOON AFTER THE DISASTROUS MIDTERM elections of 1958, Eisenhower retreated to Augusta and the cocoon of his favorite golf club. He played golf every day for two weeks, usually scoring about 90 and betting with his playing partners on every game. He also huddled with his advisers and staff to discuss the future. He and his party had suffered a bad beating at the polls, a defeat that followed a rough two years for the administration. How could Eisenhower revive his flagging presidency?1
As he surveyed the domestic political scene and considered the 2–1 advantage the Democrats enjoyed over Republicans in Congress, Eisenhower knew that he could not count on any major legislative victories. In fact he expected nothing but trouble from Congress. In his first postelection press conference he pledged to fight “as hard as I know how” any proposals from the Democrats for greater spending—not exactly a message of conciliation. But simply halting Democratic activity and wielding a veto was no way for the president to recover his momentum. If he was going to restore luster and sparkle to his tarnished second term, he needed something that would fire up the national imagination.2
Eisenhower had hoped he might be able to deliver a major agreement with the Soviets on the matter of nuclear weapons testing. Anxieties about nuclear “fallout”—a new word in the American vocabulary—reached a crescendo in 1958, as scientific studies began to show the dangerous health effects of radioactivity on humans. In February 1958 Edward Teller and the Nobel laureate Linus Pauling held a televised debate on the consequences of fallout, with Teller pooh-poohing the matter and Pauling calling for an end to nuclear tests. In August a United Nations scientific committee released a damning report on the effects of nuclear weapons testing, stirring a public debate about the presence of the radioactive isotope strontium-90 in the nation’s food supply.3
The public had reason to worry. In 1957 and 1958 the Defense Department had been setting off nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert at an unprecedented rate: 28 tests in July 1957 and 36 more in October 1958. Many of the test bombs were carried into the atmosphere by balloons, thus ensuring wide broadcasting of radioactive particles. The United States and the USSR began exploratory talks in summer 1958 about an atmospheric test ban treaty, and in response to growing public pressure Eisenhower announced a one-year moratorium on such tests on October 31. But by the end of the year talks with the Soviets had bogged down and no progress seemed likely.4
What other initiatives might bring Eisenhower a victory? As he left for Augusta on November 20, he wrote a letter to his former speechwriter Emmet Hughes with an idea that might spark national enthusiasm. He wanted “to center greater attention in our country, and so far as possible in the fre
e world, on the predominant influence of spiritual values in our lives.” He yearned to transcend the stale arguments in the “freedom-communist struggle,” as he called it. “We have been tending too much toward the material. We have too much thought of bombs and machines and gadgets as the arsenal of our national and cultural strength.” He wondered if there was some way to reach out to heads of state around the world and persuade them to join in a great affirmation of the importance of religion and faith in world affairs.5
Hughes was skeptical. Although he couched his criticism elegantly, he asserted that mere “rhetoric and exhortation” would do little to impact world affairs; if Eisenhower wanted results, he would have to take action. “A good way to damage a principle or ideal is to affirm it passionately, then fail to give it true testimony in deed.” Besides, Hughes wondered, what would Secretary Dulles say about a religious and pacific appeal to the world? Not surprisingly, the stern and cagey Dulles snuffed out the idea. He had no interest in a heartfelt but vague call to spiritual uplift. That would only suggest irresolution and weakness in the cold war contest.6
Yet Eisenhower needed something bold to restore public faith in his leadership. In Augusta he held long discussions with Jim Hagerty, his press secretary and confidant. Eager that Ike should avoid looking like a “lame duck” in his last years in office, Hagerty urged Eisenhower to adopt the role of “Tribune of the People,” going over the head of the partisan Congress and speaking out on matters of national and global importance. In addition to holding the line on spending and denouncing the “sheer nonsense” about American failures in the missile race, Ike had a unique opportunity to reestablish his prestige by undertaking visible and constructive measures on the world stage. It was time for a globe-trotting campaign of personal diplomacy.
“Americans know,” Hagerty asserted in a long memo to Eisenhower, “that if anyone in our nation can keep the world at peace, it is you. They, like all the peoples of the world, look to the President as the one individual who can contribute the most to keeping the peace.” It was time to push aside the State Department and make Eisenhower the spokesman of American interests on the world stage. The president should appear more frequently at the United Nations and speak the language of goodwill. He should launch a major program of international travel to raise his profile and spread the gospel of peace and understanding in the developing world. India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa, maybe even the USSR—Eisenhower should set out to visit all of them and wave high the flag of peace. And he should seek out direct contact with the Soviet leaders through international summits, where global crises could be settled. Hagerty felt much good could come from meeting with Khrushchev and that the initiative should come from Eisenhower. “Why not propose it ourselves, on our terms, rather than end up eventually as reluctant participants in a meeting which the Soviets will herald as a meeting for peace?”
These personal gestures, which could not be constrained by a feisty, partisan Congress, might generate enthusiasm for the president and his party at home, and might also open the way to a genuine East-West peace agreement before Eisenhower left office. Accompanied by monthly radio and television speeches by the president, these trips and summits would once again place Eisenhower in the forefront of world affairs. If he could ease or even end the cold war in his final years, Eisenhower’s place in history as a champion of peace would be forever secure. Hagerty urged him to seize the moment and turn the coming two years “to advantage for the President, the United States—indeed for the entire world.”7
II
As he mused about these various initiatives, however, Ike got some disturbing news that seemed sure to dash his hopes for a new beginning in U.S.-Soviet relations. On November 27, 1958, sitting in rumpled golf togs in a small office above the pro shop at Augusta National, Eisenhower heard a report from his son and aide, Maj. John Eisenhower, who had just flown in from Washington to brief him. Khrushchev had decided to pick a fight over the city of Berlin, thus triggering a crisis that would loom over the rest of Eisenhower’s presidency and shape the cold war for decades.8
At the close of World War II, Germany was divided into four zones of occupation. The United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union each acted as the sovereign authority in their zone. The arrangement was supposed to be temporary, but it soon became permanent. In 1949 the Western powers merged their zones into a single entity that became the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany; the Soviets transformed their occupation zone into the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. Because the four occupying powers never signed a peace treaty with Germany, these two successors to Hitler’s Reich were not legally sovereign (and would not be until 1990), yet they looked and acted like fully functioning states. West Germany, led by the staunchly anticommunist Christian Democrat Konrad Adenauer, joined NATO in 1955; East Germany became a member of the communist bloc alliance, the Warsaw Pact. Odd though it seemed, dividing Germany in two proved a Solomonic solution: it was far better than fighting another war.
One major irritant remained: Berlin. Located deep inside East Germany, the former capital of the Reich was also subdivided into four occupation zones. By international agreement, U.S., British, and French soldiers and diplomats lived and worked in Berlin and could move freely across the city. Furthermore they could travel to Berlin across East German territory by road, rail, and airplane from West Germany, and the Western powers scrupulously insisted that their access into the occupied capital city never be impeded. Stalin in 1948 had tested Western resolve by imposing a blockade of Berlin, halting all road and rail travel into the city. Loath to shoot down allied airplanes, which would have been an act of war, Stalin left the “air bridge” open, and the Western states broke the yearlong blockade by airlifting millions of tons of supplies into Berlin. It was an enormous propaganda victory for the West and only heightened their determination never to leave Berlin under duress.
To the East Germans the presence of a large and distinctly capitalist foreign occupation force inside their own territory became intolerable. They declared Berlin the capital city of the German Democratic Republic. But what kind of nation would allow its capital city to be occupied by foreigners—and foreign soldiers, no less? The East Germans put constant pressure on the Soviets to resolve the nagging and embarrassing problem of Berlin. They wanted to control the city and expel the Western powers. Would Moscow help them? Khrushchev gave his answer in a formal ultimatum on November 27, 1958. He demanded the Western powers sign a peace treaty with East Germany, acknowledge its full sovereignty, and leave Berlin. If they did not do so in six months—that is, by May 27, 1959—the Soviet Union would turn over its occupation zone in Berlin to the East Germans, forcing the Western powers to negotiate directly with the East Germans over access to the isolated city.9
Khrushchev’s ultimatum pointed a threatening dagger right at one of the most sensitive spots of the cold war. Why did he do it? The explanation lies in Khrushchev’s personality and his peculiar way of thinking about world politics. Khrushchev was a true believer in the ideology of communism. He gloried in its muscular, forward-looking optimism, its promises of rapid industrialization and perfect equality among workers. He felt certain that the USSR and the world communist movement, with its vast supply of manpower and natural resources, could outproduce and outlast the crooked, rotten capitalist world in an open competition. This belief inspired his famous taunt to a roomful of Western ambassadors at a meeting in 1956: “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!” An aggressive, garrulous, argumentative man, Khrushchev relished these kinds of verbal provocations. He operated on bluff, bluster, and biting tirades. He boasted of Soviet military power, hoping to intimidate his enemies. With the October 1957 launch of Sputnik, his rhetorical boasts reached new heights. He bragged about cranking out missiles “like sausages” and threatened to strike any nation that blocked the Soviet Union’s path.
For all his bravado, Khrushchev d
id not want war. Though his tactics were clumsy and counterproductive, he hoped for a period of stability in world affairs so that Soviet industry and science could continue their remarkable progress, demonstrating the superiority of the communist system. At the same time he could never appear complacent. He was the leader, after all, not just of the Soviet Union but of the entire communist world, and for the world’s radicals, the anticolonial nationalists, the rebel fighters and leftist prophets in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, he needed to demonstrate his zeal for global revolution. Thus his dilemma: he wanted to ease the cold war with America and lower its cost, yet he also wanted to benefit from the prestige of leading an assault on the capitalist-imperialist West. Khrushchev was caught in a contradiction of his own making.
His ultimatum on Berlin in November 1958 sprang from these competing pressures. He hoped to gain prestige within the communist bloc by standing up for his East German ally, poking his finger in the chest of Western leaders and wresting full control of Berlin from the capitalists. Yet he privately hoped that his move would open up a round of high-level negotiations with the United States that might lead to a broad settlement of the German problem and even of the cold war. It was a terrific gamble: if it worked, he would secure his place as the great leader who built a firm foundation for Soviet success, but if Eisenhower felt directly threatened by this move on Berlin, Khrushchev might trigger World War III.10
Eisenhower reacted to Khrushchev’s declaration on Berlin with circumspection. He understood that this defiant outpost of Western power deep inside the communist bloc irritated the Soviets. He also knew the city could not be defended militarily if communist forces chose to seize it. He described the West Berliners as little more than “a group of hostages in the hands of the Soviets,” and he privately regretted that the United States had pledged its honor to defend them. He had advised against a joint international occupation of the city in 1945, and he now felt vindicated. Discussing the matter with his advisers, he called the Western position in Berlin “untenable” and “illogical.” He compared the predicament to Quemoy, where the United States had committed itself to defend a strategically useless and vulnerable citadel. Nonetheless there was no question of retreating under pressure. The United States would “stand firm,” he said simply. “If the Russians want war over Berlin, they can have it.”11
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