The Age of Eisenhower

by William I Hitchcock

  68. Morrow, Black Man in the White House, 47.

  69. “Minutes of Cabinet Meeting,” March 23, 1956, Ann Whitman File, Cabinet Series, box 7, DDEL; notes on conversation with Billy Graham, March 21, 1956, Papers as President, Ann Whitman Diary Series, box 8, DDEL.

  70. Brownell, Advising Ike, 219. Gerald Morgan penned a one-page “Memorandum for Mrs. Ann Whitman,” dated March 24, 1956, that describes Eisenhower showing a good deal of ambivalence in the cabinet meeting about what to do with Brownell’s bill. Morgan wrote that after Brownell’s private meeting with Eisenhower, “the Attorney General came out, he reported that the President had given the proposed statement a complete okay”—a sign of how clever Brownell could be in handling Eisenhower. Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, box 14, DDEL.

  71. The text that Brownell sent to the House and Senate is in “The Civil Rights Program: Letter and Statement by the Attorney General,” April 10, 1956, circulated to the cabinet, Maxwell Rabb Papers, box 43, DDEL; also printed in the Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1956. Press coverage in New York Times, April 11 and May 3, 1956; Pittsburgh Courier, April 14, 1956; Baltimore Afro-American, April 21, 1956; Anthony Lewis in New York Times, June 6, 1956.

  72. Martin Luther King Jr., E. D. Nixon, E. H. Mason, and Rufus Lewis, joint letter to President Eisenhower, August 27, 1956, Records as President, General File, box 909, DDEL.

  CHAPTER 10: GOD, GOVERNMENT, AND THE MIDDLE WAY

  Epigraph: Diary entry, November 20, 1954, PDDE, 15:1402.

  1. Washington Post, January 31, 1951; Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1952; Washington Post, December 27, 1953; Washington Post, December 26, 1954; Washington Post, December 30, 1955; Los Angeles Times, December 30, 1956; Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1958; Washington Post, December 28, 1958; Washington Post, December 26, 1959; Washington Post, December 25, 1960.

  2. “Presidential Approval Ratings: Gallup Historical Statistics and Trends,” Gallup, www.gallup.com/poll//116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx.

  3. William Lee Miller, “The Liking of Ike,” in Piety along the Potomac, 3–29. The essay was originally published in The Reporter on October 16, 1958.

  4. Remarks broadcast as part of the American Legion “Back to God” program, February 7, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 243–44. Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post, February 8, 1954. Correspondence concerning the event can be seen in Central Files, President’s Personal File, box 786, DDEL.

  5. Peale, Inspired Messages for Daily Living, 3, 35, 195–96. See also his A Guide to Confident Living, The Art of Real Happiness, and Stay Alive All Your Life.

  6. Edward Elson, America’s Spiritual Recovery, 15–29, 33, 35, 53, 59, 83.

  7. Graham to Sid Richardson, October 20, 1951, PDDE, 12:696–97, note 3.

  8. Billy Graham, Just As I Am, 188–92; Gibbs and Duffy, The Preacher and the Presidents, 31–40. Eisenhower’s religious views received wide press attention: Washington Post, September 16, 1952; Chicago Tribune, September 15, 1952.

  9. Billy Graham to Eisenhower, June 29 and September 28, 1953, Central Files, President’s Personal File, box 966, DDEL.

  10. Washington Post, November 4, 1953. Eisenhower thanked Graham for the book in a personal letter dated November 3, 1953, Central Files, President’s Personal File, box 966, DDEL.

  11. Billy Graham speech and Eisenhower message to the International Christian Leadership prayer breakfast, Washington Post, February 4, 1955; Eisenhower speech at the 1955 American Legion “Back to God” radio broadcast, New York Times and Chicago Tribune, February 21, 1955.

  12. Washington Post and New York Times, March 7, 1955; Reinhold Niebuhr, “Varieties of Religious Revival,” New Republic, June 6, 1955. Niebuhr kept after Graham in a number of barbed essays. See his editorial in Christianity and Crisis, March 5, 1956; “Literalism, Individualism and Billy Graham,” Christian Century, May 23, 1956; “Proposal to Billy Graham,” Christian Century, August 8, 1956, which chastises Graham for ignoring racial intolerance.

  13. State of the Union address, January 7, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 6–23; speech at U.S. Chamber of Congress meeting, May 2, 1955, in Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1955.

  14. These numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports on “100 Years of U.S. Consumer Spending,” http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/1950.pdf (1950) and http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/1960-61.pdf (1960–61). For further indices of prosperity, see Dunar, America in the Fifties, 167–203; Oakley, God’s Country, 228–48.

  15. Annual Budget Message to Congress, January 17, 1955, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 89.

  16. DDE, Mandate for Change, 304; see also Griffith, “Dwight Eisenhower and the Corporate Commonwealth”; Sloan, Eisenhower and the Management of Prosperity, 12–20; Eisenhower quote from Annual Budget Message, January 21, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 89.

  17. Address on the Tax Program, March 15, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 313–18. For a detailed analysis of tax policy in this period, see Joseph Thorndike, “Soak-the-Rich Republicans? The Persistence of High Tax Rates in the 1950s,” George W. Bush Institute, http://www.bushcenter.org/sites/default/files/The%20Persistence%20of%20High%20Tax%20Rates%20in%20the%201950s.pdf.

  18. Witte, The Politics and Development of the Federal Income Tax, 144–50; Gupta, “Revisiting the High Tax Rates of the 1950s”; letter to Harry Bullis, March 18, 1954, and letter to Swede Hazlett, March 18, 1954, PDDE, 15:961, 962–64.

  19. State of the Union Address, February 2, 1953, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 31; “Statement by the President Concerning the Need for a Presidential Commission on Federal-State Relations,” February 26, 1953, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 17.

  20. “Special Message to the Congress Transmitting Proposed Changes in the Social Security Program,” August 1, 1953, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 534.

  21. “Annual Budget Message to Congress: Fiscal Year 1955,” January 21, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 140–41.

  22. For the changed rules, see “Extension of Old Age and Survivors Insurance,” Social Security Bulletin, September 1953, 3–7; details on the evolution of the program available at www.ssa.gov/history/1950.html; letter to Edgar Eisenhower, November 8, 1954, PDDE, 15:1386–89.

  23. DDE, Mandate for Change, 295.

  24. State of the Union address, January 7, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 20; Washington Post, March 12, 1954.

  25. Washington Post, July 14 and 15, 1954; press conference, July 14, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 633; Chicago Tribune, July 16, 1954. Ike fumed to Jim Hagerty, “How in the hell is the American Medical Association going to stop socialized medicine if they oppose such bills as this?” (diary entry, July 14, 1954, Ferrell, The Diary of James C. Hagerty, 90).

  26. Flanagan, “The Housing Act of 1954”; Hunt, “How Did Public Housing Survive the 1950s?”; Washington Post, June 13, 1954; New York Times, August 3, 1954.

  27. DDE, At Ease, 157–66; DDE, Mandate for Change, 548; Wells, “Fueling the Boom.”

  28. Message for the Governors’ Conference, July 12, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 628–29; press conference, July 14, 1954, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 629–39; New York Times, July 13, 1954; Washington Post, July 13, 1954.

  29. Lewis, Divided Highways, 105–12; Rose, Interstate, 69–78; New York Times, January 12, 1955; Washington Post, January 12, 1955.

  30. Rose, Interstate, 77–84; Byrd’s objections in New York Times, January 16, 1955; Ferrell, The Diary of James C. Hagerty, February 16, 1955, 195; Eisenhower’s message to Congress, Los Angeles Times, February 23, 1955, and Washington Post, February 23, 1954; reaction to the plan, Wall Street Journal, February 23, 1955, and New York Times, February 27, 1955.

  31. Lewis, Divided Highways, 112–23; Rose, Interstate, 85–94; Wells, “Fueling the Boom.”

  32. DDE, Mandate for Change, 428–42. A detailed account of Nixon’s grotesque stump speeches during the 1954 congressional campaign is in Costello, The Facts about Nixon, 119–34.

 
33. Diary entry, April 1, 1953, PDDE, 14:136–39; letters to Bradford Chynoweth, July 13 and 20, 1954, PDDE, 15:1185–87, 1202–4.

  34. Diary entries, December 8 and 20, 1954, Ferrell, The Diary of James Hagerty, 130–31, 145; diary entry, November 20, 1954, PDDE, 15:1402–5.

  35. New York Times, January 2 and 16, 1955; Wall Street Journal, January 31, 1955; Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1955; Chicago Tribune, February 19, 1955.

  36. New York Times, February 18, 1955.

  37. Arthur Krock in New York Times, March 20, 1955.

  38. Eisenhower spoke at a gathering of the Bull Elephants Club (GOP congressional staff) on the South Lawn, August 2, 1955, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 748–53; Washington Post, August 3, 1955.

  CHAPTER 11: TO THE SUMMIT

  Epigraph: DDE, closing statement, Geneva Conference, July 23, 1955, as reported in New York Times, July 24, 1955.

  1. A useful assessment of Khrushchev’s early moves is Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 15–47. For insight into Khrushchev’s reasoning and his attack on Molotov’s previous policies, see “Central Committee Plenum of the CPSU Ninth Session, Concluding Word by Com. N. S. Khrushchev, 12 July 1955,” July 12, 1955, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Wilson Center Digital Archive, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/110452.

  2. Press conference, April 27, 1955, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 432; Eisenhower comment reported in telegram from Undersecretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr. to Dulles, May 8, 1955; Dulles telegram to Eisenhower, May 9, 1955; Dulles remarks in NSC meeting, May 19, 1955; Dulles conversation with German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, June 13, 1955, all in FRUS 1955–57, 5:172–73, 174–75, 182–89, 224–28.

  3. DDE, Mandate for Change, 506.

  4. Telegram from London to Department of State, April 30, 1955; Eden to Eisenhower, May 6, 1955; Dulles to Eisenhower, May 9, 1955, all in FRUS 1955–57, 5:160–61, 164–65, 174–75; letter to Eden, May 31, 1955, PDDE, 16:1720–21. Eisenhower knew how important the summit was for European public opinion. See his comments in the NSC meeting of July 7, FRUS 1955–57, 5:268–83. Harold Macmillan confirmed the significance of the summit for reasons of domestic politics (Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, 584–85).

  5. Joseph Alsop, “Ike at the Summit,” Washington Post, July 18, 1955.

  6. Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, June 16, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 20:121–25; NSC meeting, July 7, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 5:268–83.

  7. NSC meeting, June 30, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 20:144–55. Nelson Rockefeller, Ike’s special assistant on cold war affairs, advised the president to “capture the political and psychological imagination of the world” by making a series of new proposals on a wide array of security issues (FRUS, 1955–57, 5:298–301). Rockefeller’s ideas were drawn from the work of a panel he chaired in early June at the Quantico base in northern Virginia. For the full declassified report, see “Quantico Vulnerabilities Panel,” June 10, 1955, DDO, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4mgtm5. Some of the planning documents have been collected and analyzed in Rostow, Open Skies. For discussion of Eisenhower’s differences with Dulles and the JCS, see Richard Immerman, “ ‘Trust in the Lord and Keep Your Powder Dry’: American Policy Aims at Geneva,” in Bischof and Dockrill, Cold War Respite, 35–54.

  8. C. D. Jackson log entry, July 11, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 5:301–5.

  9. Radio and television address, July 15, 1955, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 701–5.

  10. Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1955; New York Times, July 18, 1955.

  11. New York Times, July 17, 1955; description of Ike’s villa, New York Times, July 11, 1955.

  12. Wall Street Journal, July 18, 1955; DDE, Mandate for Change, 512; Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1955.

  13. James Reston, New York Times, July 20, 1955; Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, 616–17.

  14. Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1955; James Reston, New York Times, July 21, 1955.

  15. Minutes of the U.S.-Soviet dinner, July 18, 1955, and minutes of conversation with Zhukov, FRUS 1955–57, 5:372–82, 408–18.

  16. Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, 622.

  17. Tripartite meeting, July 17, 1955, and lunch with Zhukov, July 20, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 5:350, 412. Eisenhower’s deep concern about a surprise attack drove his Open Skies proposal, as he made clear in a private letter to Gen. Alfred Gruenther, July 25, 1955, PDDE, 16:1790–91. For the linkage between the U-2 and the Open Skies proposal, see John Prados, “Open Skies and Closed Minds: American Disarmament Policy at the Geneva Summit,” in Bischof and Dockrill, Cold War Respite, 215–33.

  18. Two sets of minutes of this meeting exist, and they bear careful comparison. One suggests unanimity about the idea, the other suggests some dissent. Meeting of July 20, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 5:425–29.

  19. Minutes of the fifth meeting of heads of government, July 21, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 5:452–53.

  20. Ambassador Charles Bohlen memorandum, July 21, 1955, FRUS 1955–57, 5:456–57; Bohlen, Witness to History, 384–85.

  21. Los Angeles Times, July 23, 1955; New York Times, July 23, 1955.

  22. Bohlen, Witness to History, 386; New York Times, July 25, 1955.

  23. Dana Adams Schmidt, New York Times, July 31, 1955; Drew Middleton, New York Times, July 24, 1955; Stewart Alsop, Washington Post, July 24, 1955.

  24. Drew Pearson, Washington Post, July 27, 1955.

  25. Washington Post, August 5, 1955.

  26. Letters to Swede Hazlett, June 4 and August 15, 1955, PDDE, 16:1729–31, 1820–23.

  27. Letter to Milton Eisenhower, September 12, 1955, PDDE, 16:1850–52.

  28. James Reston, New York Times, September 11, 1955.

  29. Eisenhower gave a fairly complete account of his heart attack and subsequent events in Mandate for Change, 535–46. Dr. Snyder wrote a narrative account after the fact, in an unpublished draft of a memoir. Snyder Papers, box 11, DDEL.

  30. The essential book on the topic is Lasby, Eisenhower’s Heart Attack, which presents remarkable research and analysis showing that Snyder initially misdiagnosed the heart attack and tried to cover up this fact for years afterward. There are detailed hourly accounts of Eisenhower’s condition from his admission on September 24 at Fitzsimons Army Hospital until his release on November 11 in the Howard Snyder Papers, box 4, DDEL. Note also the brief summary of the illness by Dr. Paul White, dated November 10, 1955, Snyder Papers, box 4, DDEL. Snyder, anticipating the criticism, wrote numerous letters to Ike’s close friends and associates explaining his decision to put the president to bed under sedation rather than transfer him to the hospital immediately. Snyder claimed his action “limited the heart damage to a minimum.” See, for example, Snyder to George Allen, September 29, 1955, Snyder Papers, box 10, DDEL. He wrote dozens of similar letters in the weeks after the attack.

  31. September 24, 1955, Ferrell, The Diary of James C. Hagerty, 233–36; narrative of events surrounding heart attack, Hagerty diary, James Hagerty Papers, box 1a, DDEL. According to Hagerty, Snyder was an emotional wreck by the time Hagerty got to Denver. “Howard was visibly upset. He was under a great strain and his hands were shaking badly. Almost tearfully he told me he was glad to see me out there.”

  32. John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 180–82.

  33. An example of the first press reports from Denver is Los Angeles Times, September 25, 1955, which reported that the president was in “good condition” and was “resting well.” Dr. White’s comment, Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1955. White’s lengthy press conference is transcribed in New York Times, September 27, 1955. On stocks, Wall Street Journal and New York Times, September 27, 1955.

  34. Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1955; New York Times, October 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 1955; Washington Post, October 8, 1955. Eisenhower’s appointment calendar is available in Snyder Papers, box 7, DDEL.

  35. Nixon, Six Crises, 132, 134, 147. For the press reaction to Nixon’s disappearance, see Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1955.

  36. Adams, Firsthand Report,
180–87.

  37. Chicago Tribune, October 11, 12, 1955; New York Times, October 16, 26, 1955; Washington Post, October 27, 1955. Daily details are in the clinical record prepared by Col. Byron Pollock, dated November 8, 1955, Snyder Papers, box 4, DDEL.

  38. New York Times, November 12, 1955. Partial minutes of the two Camp David NSC meetings are in FRUS 1955–57, 19:150–53, 166–70.

  39. Len Hall’s account is in his unpublished memoir, typescript pages 92–103, Henry W. Hoagland Papers, box 5, DDEL.

  40. Washington Post, November 29, 1955; Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1955; diary entry, December 12, 1955, Ferrell, The Diary of James C. Hagerty, 241; diary entry, January 10, 1956, PDDE, 16:1947–49.

  41. Whitman diary notes, January 11, 1956, Papers as President, Ann Whitman Diary Series, box 8, DDEL.

  42. John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 184–85; notes by Dulles in Dulles Papers, White House Memoranda Series, box 8, DDEL; Len Hall manuscript, 100, Hoagland Papers, box 5, DDEL; Milton Eisenhower Oral History, OH-292, DDEL.

  43. Press conference and address to the nation, February 29, 1955, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 263–79.

  CHAPTER 12: A FORMIDABLE INDIFFERENCE

  Epigraph: “Address at the Cow Palace on Accepting the Nomination of the Republican National Convention,” August 23, 1956, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=10583.

  1. Nixon, Six Crises, 159–60. This episode in the Eisenhower-Nixon relationship has been expertly covered in Frank, Ike and Dick, 120–33; Malsberger, The General and the Politician, 86–98; Gellman, The President and the Apprentice, 298–308.

  2. Nixon, Six Crises, 160–61. Nixon always thought Eisenhower’s move was the result of advice from Sherman Adams, Lucius Clay, and some of the president’s friends who wanted Nixon out. “It was hard not to feel that I was being set up,” he wrote (RN, 167). Milton Eisenhower claimed that the president genuinely wanted to help Nixon and thought the Defense job would strengthen him. The job offer was an “expression of confidence” in Nixon rather than a disparagement of his vice president (Milton Eisenhower Oral History, OH-292, DDEL).