The Age of Eisenhower

by William I Hitchcock

  On July 15, 1960, Kennedy accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. In his acceptance speech in Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, he laid out the essential themes of his campaign: the Republican leaders had let America decline, and it was time for a new and younger generation to revive the nation. “The old era is ending. The old ways will not do.” America had lost its stature on the world stage. “The balance of power is shifting,” he declared. “Communist influence has penetrated further into Asia, stood astride the Middle East and now festers some ninety miles off the coast of Florida. Friends have slipped into neutrality—and neutrals into hostility.” The Republicans had allowed “dry rot” to set in; “seven lean years of drought and famine have withered the field of ideas.”

  Kennedy, facing west and staring into the setting sun in the huge (and half-empty) sports arena, challenged the voters to choose between “national greatness and national decline; between the fresh air of progress and the stale, dank atmosphere of ‘normalcy’; between determined dedication and creeping mediocrity.” Too many Americans “have lost their way, their will and their sense of historic purpose.” The mere pursuit of creature comforts and an easy prosperity cannot animate a great nation. Leaders must articulate larger goals and ask the people to “sacrifice” in order to achieve them. He conjured up a vision of a “New Frontier” in which Americans once again took risks like the pioneers of old and set out to renew the promise of America.42

  Whether the denunciations came from Democrats or Republicans, Eisenhower’s reputation as a masterful statesman suffered in the spring of 1960. On the cusp of achieving what he hoped might be a real breakthrough in the cold war, Eisenhower stumbled and missed his great chance, just when eager would-be presidents sought to take his place. Inevitably his spirits sagged. His chief science adviser, George Kistiakowsky, recalled that sometime after the Paris summit, he found himself alone with the president in the White House. Eisenhower “began to talk with much feeling about how he had concentrated his efforts the last few years on ending the cold war, how he felt that he was making big progress, and how the stupid U-2 mess had ruined all his efforts. He ended very sadly that he saw nothing worthwhile left for him to do now until the end of his presidency.”43

  A touching portrait, but perhaps misleading. For Eisenhower did not spend the last few months of his presidency as a weepy, self-pitying recluse. Rather, stung by the critics, angered by Khrushchev’s rejection of his peace overtures, and driven to shore up his legacy as an effective leader, Eisenhower set out in his final months to reassert American power across the globe. Kennedy and the critics demanded more action, more aggression, more boldness—and Eisenhower meant to give it to them.

  CHAPTER 19

  * * *

  Fighting to the Finish

  “The past eight years have been the brightest of our history.”

  I

  REPUBLICANS OF THE 1950s KNEW how to sell a product. They pioneered the use of television advertising in politics, and at their national conventions in 1952 and 1956, they mobilized actors, dancers, acrobats, sports figures, crooners, jugglers, and sword-swallowers to infuse their rather dull message of “peace and prosperity” with some pizzazz. In mid-July 1960, though, as the GOP faithful gathered in Chicago at the International Amphitheater, the same hall in which Ike and Dick had formed their political tandem eight years earlier, the convention planners were running out of ideas. A giant elephant named Koa, on loan from Louisiana, proved to be too big to amble down the aisles of the hall and had to be returned. The torchlight parade of 500 young Republicans had to be canceled due to the fire hazard of their kerosene-soaked rags. Plans to get Henry Fonda into costume as Abraham Lincoln—a role he had played woodenly in the 1939 film Young Mr. Lincoln—were scotched when Fonda turned out to be a Democrat. Half the hotel rooms in Chicago remained empty a few days before the convention.1

  Besides an absence of hoopla the top Republican leaders had serious worries. A Gallup poll on the eve of the convention showed that since 1952, the Republicans had lost support among business and professional voters, white-collar workers, and farmers—three key demographic groups. And they had made no inroads among skilled and unskilled laborers, who favored the Democratic Party by a ratio of 4 to 1. President Eisenhower’s personal popularity had masked serious weaknesses in the Republican Party. As the Republicans gathered in Chicago, John Kennedy, a junior senator with little national name recognition, led Nixon in the polls by 4 points.2

  The press corps, bored to tears by the lack of drama in Republican ranks, worked hard to breathe life into the candidacies of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, who might, they earnestly hoped, challenge Nixon for the GOP nomination from the left and the right. The Washington Post editorial page noted that both parties inclined toward “moderate” nominees like Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Nixon, but cautioned that “an excess of moderation can yield a pudding devoid of flavor or shape” and hoped that Goldwater would add a dash of “pepper to the otherwise Bland Old Party’s Chicago solemnities.” Indeed Old Guard supporters of the dear departed Bob Taft now had a new champion in the ruggedly handsome conservative from the desert West.3

  It was not to be. Goldwater did not seek the nomination and backed Nixon. Rockefeller, whom most veteran Republicans distrusted for his ideological elasticity and his vanity, pressured Nixon to adopt a number of Kennedy-like platform planks on issues such as defense spending, civil rights, health insurance, and housing. Nixon, terrified that a Rockefeller boomlet might snatch away his long-sought prize, caved in to these demands after meeting with Rocky in New York on July 22, three days before the convention opened. Rockefeller in turn threw his support to Nixon in a feeble gesture of party unity. In extracting concessions from Nixon on the GOP platform, though, Rockefeller managed to weaken Nixon’s case that he and he alone had the toughness to confront Khrushchev on the world stage.4

  The real challenge Nixon faced in taking the leadership of the Republican Party did not come from Goldwater or Rockefeller. It came from Eisenhower. Of course Ike supported Nixon’s presidential bid since Nixon offered the best hope of extending the Eisenhower legacy. But the distance between the two men, which had always been great, never seemed wider than in 1960. Eisenhower had become the world’s most respected, most recognized, and most liked man. For all of his apparent political weaknesses and occasional lapses, and his mishandling of the U-2 affair, he occupied an unassailable place in the pantheon of great figures of his time. His war service alone would have placed him on history’s pedestal, but he followed that with eight years of dignified leadership of a country whose global power had reached unprecedented dimensions.

  When Eisenhower arrived in Chicago on July 26 to address the Republican Convention, over one million Chicagoans lined the streets along his route to the Sheraton Blackstone Hotel. Shouts of joy rang through the miles of well-wishers. “We Like Ike” signs dotted the scene, along with hand-painted expressions of thanks to the old warrior. Confetti, so dense that it stuck to Ike’s moist and beaming face, poured from the rooftops. Banners and flags draped every storefront and lamppost in a blaze of red, white, and blue. Seated behind him in the open-top presidential Lincoln, Illinois governor William G. Stratton and Senator Everett Dirksen seemed like supernumeraries. It was Ike the crowd wanted. A loudspeaker in a truck following the motorcade blared out a popular tune by the Four Knights, “I Love the Sunshine of Your Smile.” The president, visibly moved, told reporters outside the hotel, “It is one of the finest crowds I’ve ever seen.”5

  On Tuesday evening Senator Dirksen, a famously orotund speaker in a profession known for producing magnificent windbags, came to the podium in the Amphitheater to introduce the president. Few recalled that eight years earlier Dirksen had nominated Senator Taft and worked against Ike. Now Dirksen likened Eisenhower to Abraham Lincoln, the Illinois Republican whose gaunt visage hung on a huge poster above the convention speakers. During his presiden
cy Lincoln was “excoriated and pilloried, criticized and maligned, caricatured and cursed, but with humility, determination, and firm resolve, he held the course and the union was saved.” Eisenhower too, Dirksen asserted, “has been assailed and impugned. He too has been mocked and castigated.” But Eisenhower’s simple political credo of peace through strength, devotion to individual freedom, limited and prudent government, and a spirit of compassion had healed the nation and brought it unprecedented prosperity.6

  At 9:30 p.m., as Ike and Mamie stepped onto the stage, the crowd in the hall burst into riotous applause that endured for a full eight minutes. Eisenhower then gave a powerful speech that showed how much fight remained in the old warrior. Nearing 70, a survivor of a serious heart attack, a major intestinal operation, and a small stroke, Eisenhower delivered a blistering defense of his eight-year record. The crowd, delighted by this demonstration of vigor, interrupted the speech 77 times with applause, shouts, and demonstrations of affection.7

  In triumphant tones Eisenhower struck sharply at those—especially Kennedy—who dared to doubt the power of the United States. “I glory in the moral, economic and military strength of this nation,” he said with an imperial flourish. “I bring no words of despair or doubt about my country—no doleful prediction of impending disaster.” The United States “is enjoying an unprecedented prosperity”; he gleefully rattled off the economic results of his years in office. Compared to the Truman years, America enjoyed lower unemployment, higher wages, less inflation, a staggering rate of growth of the nation’s productive capacity, higher rates of homeownership, greater investment in research and engineering education, and an expansion of social security. And Ike had done it while balancing the federal budget.

  To those who had criticized him for letting America fall behind in the arms race, Eisenhower delivered an especially defiant blast: “In the sum of our capabilities we have become the strongest military power on Earth. But just as the Biblical Job had his boils, so we have a cult of professional pessimists who . . . continually mouth the allegation that America has become a second-rate military power.” This claim infuriated him, and he savored the opportunity to deflate it. He enumerated the new aircraft, the vast web of radar alert systems, the arsenal of ballistic missiles, the nuclear-powered naval vessels, the technologically stunning Polaris submarine, the globe-circling space satellites, the newly equipped army—a breathtaking catalogue of accomplishment on his watch. Giving due credit to the scientists, engineers, and armed forces who had built these weapons, he spoke with steel and fire in his voice: “To belittle this might, prestige, pride and capabilities of these groups does such violence to my sense of what is right that I have difficulty in restraining my feelings of indignation.” Bedlam in the hall. James Reston, who had covered Eisenhower closely during his eight years in office, wrote that the president “has never been more appealing or more effective politically than he has been this week in Chicago.” The “old magic” was working again.8

  Did anyone notice that during his long convention speech, Eisenhower never mentioned the name of Richard Nixon? No doubt Nixon noticed. He also observed the hero worship Ike received and must have gloomily wondered how he could compete with the president for the adulation of the country. Nixon and his running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., faced the awkward challenge of running both on and against the Eisenhower record. Nixon wanted to benefit from Ike’s successes while implying that he could fix the problems Ike had left unresolved. Playing against his natural instinct for political knife-fighting, Nixon posed as a moderate, tempered, and decent fellow, full of bromides and Boy Scout nostrums—in short, another Eisenhower. But the 47-year-old Californian possessed none of Eisenhower’s authenticity. Eisenhower had a gift for making the cornpone vocabulary of American politics sound decent and truthful. When Nixon tried it, he sounded artless and insincere.

  Nixon arrived at the Amphitheater on July 27, accompanied by his wife, Pat, and their daughters, Julie and Tricia. He received a warm welcome, though nothing like the delirium Ike prompted. His acceptance speech was wordy and lawyerly and lacked spark. Nixon told his fellow Republicans that 1960 was “a time of greatness,” but his bland comportment left them wondering if he was really the man for the job. Many in the hall looked wistfully at the brawny and uncompromising Goldwater. Nixon ticked off the usual list of domestic projects that needed attention: health care, education, wages, more defense spending, more prosperity, more spirituality, and less government. Unlike the partisan, energetic, and heartfelt address by Eisenhower, Nixon’s speech seemed engineered to tranquilize the convention and to reassure the television viewers that Nixon was a younger, technocratic version of the beloved incumbent. The crowds cheered dutifully, and the band played “California Here I Come” over and over again. But something about Nixon’s uneasy, labored performance hinted at a difficult road ahead.9

  And Eisenhower did not exactly smooth the path. In his first postconvention press conference, he seemed to suggest that the business of getting Nixon elected would not occupy much of his time. Yes, he said in reply to a question, he would “promote” the Nixon-Lodge ticket, but “this doesn’t mean I possibly should be out on the hustings and making partisan speeches.” After all, “I’ve got a lot of other responsibilities and I’ve got a lot of other commitments around the country. But I think these two fellows can take care of themselves pretty well and they are tops.” A week later, prodded by the press, Ike called the GOP ticket “fine” but considered himself “just a spectator” since he was no longer running.

  It got worse. In a press conference on August 24 Eisenhower again distanced himself from the political campaign—and perhaps from Nixon himself. Asked what “big decisions” Nixon had shaped while vice president, Eisenhower snappishly replied, “I don’t see why people can’t understand this: no one can make a decision except me if it is in the national executive area.” He went out of his way to stress no one three times when explaining who helped make his decisions. A few minutes later, when a reporter returned to the issue, Ike again insisted that he and he alone made the decisions in his administration. Of course Nixon took part in the “discussions,” but not in the decisions.

  Eisenhower was on a slippery slope, and the veteran press corps sensed an imminent stumble. So they pushed him. “I just wondered,” said Charles Mohr of Time magazine, “if you could give us an example of a major idea of his [Nixon’s] that you had adopted in that role.” It was the last question of the press conference, and Ike was already preparing to depart the podium. Hastily—too hastily—he replied with a wry grin, “If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don’t know.”10

  Pow. Had Nixon been there, he would have dropped to his knees as if poleaxed. Although Eisenhower knew he’d blundered and called Nixon right away to try to reassure the candidate, the remark completely undid all of Nixon’s own claims about his vast experience in government, on which he had premised his entire campaign. With this unguarded remark, Eisenhower confirmed the widespread suspicion that Nixon did not enjoy the confidence or trust of the president. In retrospect it seems plain that Eisenhower simply was not yet ready to share the stage with anyone, least of all Dick Nixon.11

  II

  Though staying aloof from the campaign, Eisenhower nonetheless felt the sting of Kennedy’s attacks on his record. Kennedy blamed Ike for America’s “slippage” in the cold war. He questioned Ike’s stewardship of the national defense and accused him of “losing” Cuba to the communists. He also asserted that the newly independent nations in Asia and Africa now looked to Moscow for inspiration rather than Washington. The Soviets were advancing, Kennedy charged, while America stood still.

  If Eisenhower wanted to rebut such Democratic accusations of drift, a crisis in central Africa gave him an opportunity to do so. On June 30, 1960, the former Belgian colony of Congo declared its independence; its new prime minister was Patrice Lumumba, a charismatic leftist whose political party had won the most seats in the newly formed Parliam
ent. Wealthy in cobalt, bauxite, iron, manganese, zinc, and gold, Congo had been ruthlessly exploited by European mining interests for decades, while the Belgians shamefully deprived the Congolese of any social or institutional advancement. In 1960 the country was not well-prepared for the trials of self-government. With independence, the nation’s security forces fell to pieces, as Congolese soldiers mutinied against their white Belgian officers and threatened the safety of some 100,000 Europeans still living in the country. In the midst of this chaos the mineral-rich province of Katanga in southeastern Congo, where many of the leading industrial firms had headquarters, declared its own independence and also called for Belgian military protection. The Belgians promptly sent paratroops to the breakaway province, thus aiding and abetting the breakup of Congo while seizing the richest part of the country.

  Prime Minister Lumumba, angered by the Belgian military intervention, appealed to the United Nations to send peacekeeping soldiers to replace the Belgian troops. Locked in a global propaganda battle with the Soviets to win the allegiance of newly independent Third World nations, the United States had to support a peaceful resolution of the Congo crisis and duly helped pass a UN resolution to send in peacekeepers to restore order and to keep the country from splitting apart. By the end of July some 11,000 UN troops had arrived in Congo to replace the Belgians. But the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld insisted that these UN soldiers could not be used by Lumumba to compel the Katanga province to remain in Congo. Lumumba began to suspect that the UN forces had a secret agenda to provide cover to the secessionist province. In a very unwise move, Lumumba publicly denounced Hammarskjöld and demanded the UN withdraw from Congo. In mid-August he turned to the Soviet Union with a request for military assistance with which to invade the rebellious province of Katanga and seize its secessionist government.12