The Age of Eisenhower

by William I Hitchcock

  Nixon discouraged Rogers when the two met at Nixon’s hotel in Key Biscayne, Florida, on November 20. Nixon did not show any zeal for a prolonged legal wrangle. Even if he could have reversed the election, it would come at a high cost of personal and partisan acrimony and might well have crippled his presidency. More likely, Nixon knew, he would lose any challenge to the election results and only mar his reputation. He would look like a sore loser and damage his future political prospects. Even though Eisenhower lent his support to Senator Morton’s continuing efforts to “expose irregularities,” as Morton put it, Nixon dropped the matter. But he never forgot. William Ewald recalled vividly Nixon welcoming staffers to his Washington home just before Christmas with these words: “We won, but they stole it from us.”50

  CHAPTER 20

  * * *

  A New Generation

  “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

  I

  TWO MINUTES BEFORE 9:00 ON the morning of December 6, 1960, Eisenhower strode out onto the north portico of the White House, stopped at the top of the stairs, and stood rigid in a brown suit and brown felt hat, as if at a funeral. The 70-year-old president bore a dignified countenance, grave and preoccupied. An honor guard drawn from the army, navy, air force, and marines lined the driveway to the White House, and a marine band stood at the ready. The White House gleamed under a fresh coat of paint; the newly blackened wrought-iron railings and lampposts sparkled. Across Pennsylvania Avenue the president could hear the hammering of carpenters who were erecting a large reviewing stand. The nation’s leading officials and public servants would gather there to watch the Inaugural Parade on January 20. The president remarked, “I feel like the fellow in jail who is watching his scaffold being built.”

  At 8:59 precisely, a cream-colored limousine arrived at the northwest gate of the White House, bearing the man on whom the world’s attention had been intensely focused since the morning of November 9, when his election victory was announced. As the car slowed to a stop, the door precipitately opened. President-elect John F. Kennedy, lean and tanned, holding a gray hat in his hand, leaped from the door of the still-moving vehicle, his momentum carrying him swiftly up the stairs in a few athletic bounds. “Good Morning, Mr. President,” he cheerfully exclaimed. The glow of victory, youth, and destiny radiated from the 43-year-old. Eisenhower, caught off guard by this rush of vitality, reached out, shook the proffered hand, and mumbled, “Senator.” The two men paused for the photographers, then turned and walked into the White House together, a somber Eisenhower and a smiling Kennedy.1

  This could have been a difficult, tense encounter. On the campaign trail Kennedy had laid it on thick, accusing Eisenhower of failing to meet the global communist threat with sufficient zeal. In accepting the Democratic nomination for president in July 1960, Kennedy had painted the Eisenhower years as a lost era. “There has been a change—a slippage—in our intellectual and moral strength,” Kennedy said. He called on Americans to leave behind men of Eisenhower’s generation who sought only “the safe mediocrity of the past.” To JFK the Age of Eisenhower had been bland, unimaginative, and sclerotic. Privately Kennedy jeered at Eisenhower, calling him “the old asshole” to members of his entourage. Kennedy told Arthur Schlesinger Jr. that Eisenhower was “a terribly cold man. In fact, he is a shit.”2

  Kennedy may in fact have believed some of the caricature he drew of the president. But if, as he arrived at the White House on December 6, he expected to find Eisenhower dim-witted and distant, out of touch with the realities of governing, he was deeply mistaken. Eisenhower brought the president-elect into the Oval Office and over two hours treated him to an astonishing tutorial that ranged across domestic policy, economics, the governing structure of the National Security Council and cabinet, military security, and world affairs. In a far-reaching briefing, Eisenhower pulled back the curtain on the powers, and preoccupations, of the presidency.

  He took control of the meeting from the outset, spending some time on the structure of the National Security Council, the setting for “the most important weekly meeting of the government,” as well as the Defense Department. Kennedy, eager to show that he was well-briefed, referred to a recent Senate proposal to reorganize the Pentagon. Eisenhower urged Kennedy to avoid any decisions on reorganization until he had studied carefully the activities of the defense establishment. Eight years of “patient study and long drawn out negotiations with Congress and the Armed Services” had made major changes to national defense; Eisenhower wanted Kennedy to take time to assess these changes before making alterations. Eisenhower’s call for patience applied also to the cabinet and White House staff: both bodies were carefully designed to serve the needs and interests of the president, so he could make decisions based on the best information possible. Eisenhower told Kennedy that it was vital to have a chief of staff who could coordinate the flow of information to the president.

  Kennedy would later show himself allergic to this sort of hierarchy and careful structure: he believed in a loose flow of information, people, and ideas; his watchwords would be “flexibility” and “improvisation.” He would have no chief of staff. In fact Kennedy seemed uninterested in structure and pressed Eisenhower for details about personalities like French president Charles de Gaulle, British prime minister Harold Macmillan, German chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Eisenhower knew them all, of course. He had worked closely with the first two during the war, while Lieutenant Kennedy was skippering a torpedo boat in the Pacific. Eisenhower was cautious in characterizing these men; he knew Kennedy would have to take their measure one by one, on his own terms. He did allow that de Gaulle was a difficult ally at times, but insisted that NATO was crucial to American “security and prosperity.” He urged Kennedy to think through the possibility of sharing nuclear weapons technologies with American allies.

  Then he shifted terrain and spoke for 20 minutes on the growing problem of America’s unfavorable balance of payments, an issue close to his heart. The United States was spending too many dollars overseas, partly the result of a large U.S. troop presence in Europe. Since the dollar was still pegged to a fixed exchange rate for gold, these dollars could be cashed in for U.S. gold by European banks, so the United States was facing a drain on its gold reserves. Eisenhower suggested that the balance of payments problem had to be addressed by asking the NATO allies to pay a greater share of their own defense. He spoke freely, without notes.

  The meeting between the two men ended after one hour and 45 minutes. They then walked to the Cabinet Room, where Secretary of State Christian Herter, Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates Jr., and Secretary of the Treasury Robert B. Anderson, along with Eisenhower’s chief of staff Gen. Wilton B. Persons and Kennedy’s transition director, Clark Clifford, joined them for an additional hour and 15 minutes of briefings on foreign affairs, national security matters, and economic issues.3

  President-elect Kennedy was obviously impressed by what he found in the Eisenhower White House. He spoke to reporters afterward and was gracious in his thanks to the president for his effort to assure an easy transfer of power to the new administration. But privately Kennedy said even more than that. “Eisenhower was better than I had thought,” he later confided to his brother Robert. Ike had a “strong personality,” and JFK “could understand, talking to him, why he was President of the United States.”4

  Of course the Kennedys—like many later historians—would never truly respect Eisenhower. They viewed him as belonging to another age, without the imagination to grapple with the dawning world of the 1960s. John Kennedy “felt Eisenhower was a ‘non-President,’ ” according to Clark Clifford, because he did not effectively use the powers of the office. Clifford also admitted that all of Kennedy’s staff looked on Eisenhower “with something bordering contempt.”5

  Yet on this day, as Kennedy sat with the outgoing president, he could see that the old general was more than just a numbskull,
a pachyderm, a dinosaur. He demonstrated his mastery of detail and could effortlessly conduct a briefing on a wide array of complex issues before a sparkling, supremely confident Kennedy, who had been devouring briefing books for a week in preparation for this meeting. The two men were worlds apart in their personalities, their styles, and their political philosophies. There was little warmth between them; they offered one another simply the dignified respect due to the office of the presidency. But at this meeting, though Kennedy’s star was shining and Eisenhower was now yesterday’s man, Eisenhower dominated the proceedings. He showed, and Kennedy perceived in him, the attributes that had made him such an effective leader for the previous two decades: assurance, careful accumulation of detailed knowledge, and above all a habit of command.

  II

  Foreign crises preoccupied Eisenhower during his final weeks in office, and while he dutifully kept Kennedy informed, he still made key decisions that would shape the choices available to his successor. One problem, the source of later headaches for President Kennedy, was Laos, a small Southeast Asian nation that mattered to the United States because of its geography: it shared a long, sinuous border with Vietnam. Laos had been declared neutral by international agreement at Geneva in July 1954, and an uneasy standoff prevailed between the Royal Laotian government and a communist movement called the Pathet Lao, which was loosely aligned with the North Vietnamese.

  The Eisenhower team had been watching Laos carefully for years, nervous that its government was too “soft” in its handling of the communist threat in its midst. They saw Laos as a vital buffer state; were it to fall under North Vietnamese influence, South Vietnam as well as Cambodia and Thailand might be imperiled. The Americans opened up an economic aid mission in the capital, Vientiane, and sent significant military aid there in hopes this would embolden the government to take firmer steps. The CIA also set up a program to arm and train the Hmong tribes in northern Laos, who were ardently anti-Vietnamese. In 1959, though, as the North Vietnamese stepped up their infiltration of South Vietnam, Laos became a dangerous zone of Great Power conflict.

  The Americans, desperate to halt the slippage of Laos into the communist camp, supported a right-wing coup in December 1959 that brought Brig. Gen. Phoumi Nosavan to power. Phoumi’s position was always weak, and during 1960 he fought against dissident factions in the army as well as Pathet Lao communists. In November and December 1960, much to Eisenhower’s alarm, the Soviet Union launched a major airlift of supplies via Hanoi to the Pathet Lao. Ike sent U.S. Air Force bombers from Taiwan to Thailand in case they were needed to support Phoumi. In mid-December Phoumi began a major campaign against the neutralist and communist forces around Vientiane and secured control of the capital. Eisenhower personally ordered that a bonus of one month’s pay be doled out to Phoumi’s soldiers “to maintain morale.”6

  A new pro-Western government now held a tentative grip on power and immediately sent out a request for American military aid. The Pathet Lao was licking its wounds and gaining more supplies from North Vietnam and seemed poised to reopen a push to take Vientiane and perhaps seize control of the country. When Allen Dulles reported to the NSC on December 20, he predicted a “strong Communist reaction” to Phoumi’s victory, and said “the present anti-Communist government in Laos would require extensive outside assistance to survive.” To openly aid the government, however, would invite an equally vigorous Soviet response.7

  On the last day of 1960 Eisenhower had a somber and anxious meeting about Laos with key members of his security team. CIA reports suggested that Pathet Lao forces were on the move out of North Vietnam and appeared to be planning to seize control of the country. Eisenhower stated simply, “We cannot afford to stand by and allow Laos to fall to the Communists.” He was prepared to deploy the Seventh Fleet and the marines to forestall a communist attack. The Joint Chiefs declared their readiness, with the aircraft carrier Lexington in the Gulf of Tonkin, airborne troops at the ready in Okinawa, and a fleet of C-130 transport planes ready in Bangkok.

  Eisenhower, the man who had built a reputation on avoiding entangling conflicts, seemed prepared to commit U.S. troops to battle in Southeast Asia. He directed Ambassador Tommy Thompson to tell Khrushchev that the United States viewed the threat to Laos very seriously and that, “in the event of a major war, we will not be caught napping.” Eisenhower reiterated his position: “We must not allow Laos to fall to the Communists, even if it involves war in which the U.S. acts with allies or unilaterally.” Invoking the domino theory a few days later, he insisted, “If the Communists establish a strong position in Laos, the West is finished in the whole Southeast Asian area.”8

  The day before Kennedy took the oath of office, he came to the White House again, chiefly to discuss Laos. Eisenhower seemed to relish the opportunity to show Kennedy just how much power the commander in chief possessed. He walked Kennedy through the procedures to launch a nuclear attack, drawing on “the satchel filled with orders applicable to an emergency and carried by an unobtrusive man who would shadow the President for all his days in office.” He also went into a detailed discussion about the acute Laos crisis with Secretary Herter. The Soviets had launched an airlift to supply communist fighters in Laos; the North Vietnamese were helping. Kennedy asked Herter directly if the United States should intervene if invited to do so by the Laotian government, and Herter unequivocally said yes. Some 12,000 U.S. troops could be transported into Laos in two weeks from Okinawa. “It was the cork in the bottle. If Laos fell, then Thailand, the Philippines, and of course Chiang Kai-shek would go.” Eisenhower concurred. Kennedy dictated a memorandum of the meeting showing the impact of the discussion on him. “I came away from that meeting feeling that the Eisenhower administration would support intervention—they felt it was preferable to a communist success in Laos.”9

  Clark Clifford believed the discussion had enormous significance. Eisenhower, with his vast experience in military affairs, firmly invoked the domino principle and insisted that this tiny backwater nation suddenly held the key to America’s position in Asia. The mood was grim, Clifford remembered, and the conversation marked “a real turning point.” Eisenhower’s portentous tone “had a powerful effect on Kennedy” and all others in the room and “cast a shadow over the early decisions on the next administration.” The dark assessment of the Laos problem, and Ike’s clear support for a military intervention there to counter a communist offensive, influenced Kennedy’s early thinking not just toward Laos and Vietnam, but also—most immediately—toward Cuba.10

  III

  If Eisenhower was prepared to fight a war in faraway Laos in the waning hours of his presidency, it is not hard to imagine how strongly he felt about the Cuba problem festering just off the coast of Florida. The centrality of Cuba to the 1960 election only fed the fires of his impatience. Indeed the evidence shows that in his final weeks in office, Eisenhower dramatically increased the scope and tempo of the covert operation against Castro. As of the fall of 1960, the subversion plan, which focused on infiltration of small sabotage teams, seemed bogged down. Small groups of guerrillas had been sent in, but most were rounded up by Castro’s militia. Air drops went astray, radio communication with the infiltrated teams was nonexistent, and there was no hope that such small-scale efforts would trigger internal uprisings against Castro. At the start of November, CIA planners concluded that a strike force of as many as 3,000 armed and trained fighters would be needed to stage an invasion of Cuba, seize and hold a lodgment area, and begin military operations in conjunction with guerrilla warfare teams. Such a force would require air and naval support on a substantial scale.11

  On November 3 the 5412 Committee convened for a wide-ranging review of the Cuba operation, led by National Security Adviser Gordon Gray. “Covert operations of the type originally envisaged,” they agreed, “would not be effective.” Castro had tightened his grip, a popular uprising against him was unlikely, and “time was actually working on Castro’s side.” Gray now took the unprecedented posit
ion that the only way to “clean up” the situation in Cuba was with an overt invasion of the island “by U.S. military forces.” He even floated the idea of using Cuban exiles to launch a fake attack on American forces in the Guantanamo base, which would create a pretext for a U.S. invasion. This idea was quickly shot down, but Livingston Merchant, the State Department representative on the 5412 Committee, inquired whether the CIA had plans for “direct positive action against Fidel, Raul, and Che Guevara.” Without these three, he said, the government would be “leaderless and probably brainless.” Gen. Charles Cabell, the deputy director of the CIA, reared up against such talk, saying such operations were “highly dangerous” and “beyond our capabilities.” Either he did not know that Richard Bissell was deeply engaged in a series of plans to assassinate Fidel, or he lied to his colleagues. The discussion reveals the frustration senior planners felt about the lack of results of the CIA’s efforts against Castro.12

  In the midst of this reevaluation of the anti-Castro plan, Dulles and Bissell traveled to Florida on November 18 to meet with President-elect Kennedy and brief him on the operation. In Dulles’s account, Kennedy said that “if Mr. Dulles believed it to be in the U.S. interest to proceed with the project, he had no objection.” But what was Kennedy assenting to? The project was in flux, expanding from an infiltration and sabotage operation into a full-scale invasion. Kennedy’s presidency would clearly be shaped by Eisenhower’s decision on Cuba.13