The Age of Eisenhower

by William I Hitchcock

  2. For excellent essays on this problem, see Statler and Johns, The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War.

  3. NSC 5412/2, December 28, 1955, FRUS 1950–55: The Intelligence Community, 747–49; “Historical Background of the Functioning of the NSC 5412/2 Special Group and Its Predecessors,” memo by Allen Dulles, January 19, 1959, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/3xWYZ0; Prados, Safe for Democracy, 160–61; Ambrose and Immerman, Ike’s Spies, 240–44.

  4. “Report Prepared by the Ad Hoc Interdepartmental Committee on Indonesia for the National Security Council,” September 3, 1957, and Minutes of NSC meeting, September 23, 1957, FRUS 1955–57, 22:436–40, 450–53.

  5. Memorandum for John Foster Dulles, “U.S. Policy towards Indonesia,” January 2, 1958, and memorandum of conversation, January 2, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 17:1–3, 4–6.

  6. Memo by Allen Dulles, “Probable Developments in Indonesia,” January 31, 1957, and NSC discussion, February 27, 1958, in “Editorial Note,” FRUS 1958–60, 17:19–24, 49–50.

  7. Telegram from Jones to State Department, March 19, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 17:74–80.

  8. Memorandum of conversation with the president, April 15, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 17:109–10.

  9. Prados, Safe for Democracy, 175–79; Washington Post, May 29, 1958. Pope was tried and condemned to death but released in 1962 on Sukarno’s orders.

  10. Washington Post, May 3, 1957.

  11. On Diem’s rise to power and appointment, see Miller, Misalliance, 19–53; Jacobs, America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam, 26–59; Logevall, Embers of War, 588–93.

  12. On the close ties between Diem and the CIA, see the recently declassified CIA history by Thomas Ahern, The CIA and the House of Ngo.

  13. Spector, The United States Army in Vietnam, 303–27; Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, 305–16.

  14. “Briefing Book of May 1957 Visit of Ngo Dinh Diem,” DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/429Hi9.

  15. Memorandum of conversation between Eisenhower and Diem, May 9, 1957, FRUS 1955–57, Vietnam, 1:799–801; New York Times, May 10 and 14, 1957; Jacobs, America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam, 255.

  16. Durbrow to State Department, December 5, 1957, FRUS 1955–57, Vietnam, 1:869–84.

  17. Logevall, Embers of War, 687–91.

  18. CIA, National Intelligence Estimate 63–59, “Prospects for North and South Vietnam,” May 26, 1959, CIA Vietnam Collection, CIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/vietnam-collection; Ahern, The CIA and the House of Ngo, 113–36. On the guillotine, see Richard Ehrlich, “When Heads Rolled in Vietnam,” Asia Times, September 15, 2010, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LI15Ae01.html. A guillotine is still on display at the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City.

  19. Among the many official documents that reveal this line of thinking, a useful summary statement is in Ambassador Durbrow’s year-end telegram to the State Department on December 7, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, Vietnam, 1:255–71.

  20. Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic, 52–63.

  21. Matthews wrote a three-part portrait of Castro in the New York Times, February 24, 25, 26, 1957; see also Life, March 25, 1957.

  22. Life, April 14 and July 21, 1958.

  23. Dulles to embassy in Cuba, February 28, 1958; Herter to embassy in Cuba, March 12, 1958; embassy in Cuba to State Department, March 14, 1958, all in FRUS 1958–60, 6:42–43, 55–56, 57–59.

  24. NSC meeting, December 23, 1958, and Herter to Eisenhower, December 23, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 6:302–3, 304–7. The 5412 Group discussed third force efforts on December 31, 1958. See “Memorandum for the Record,” U.S. National Security Council Presidential Records, Intelligence Files, 1953–61, box 1, DDEL. For efforts to find a third force between Batista and Castro, see Paterson, Contesting Castro, 216–25.

  25. Life, January 19, 1959; Dulles to Eisenhower, January 7, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 6:347.

  26. White House staff note, January 13, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 6:356; Life, January 26 and February 2, 1959.

  27. John Foster Dulles remarks in memorandum of discussion, NSC meeting, June 19, 1958, FRUS 1958–60, 5:27–32; Allen Dulles remarks in NSC meeting, February 12, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 6:397–98.

  28. “Briefing Memorandum—Cuba,” February 6, 1959; “Political Conditions in Cuba,” February 25, 1959; memorandum of conversation, March 12, 1959; NSC meeting, March 26, 1959, all in FRUS 1958–60, 6:395–96, 410–20, 424–28, 440–42; Nasser parallel made by Karl Meyer in Washington Post, April 5, 1959.

  29. Washington Post, April 16, 1959; memorandum of conversation, Eisenhower-Herter, April 18, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 6:475.

  30. Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Washington Post, April 18, 1959.

  31. Nixon’s memorandum was reproduced in Safford, “The Nixon-Castro Meeting of 19 April 1959.” See also Nixon, RN, 201–3.

  32. New York Times, April 21 and 22, 1959; Washington Post, April 26 and 27, 1959; Wall Street Journal, April 23, 1959.

  33. Memorandum from Herter to Eisenhower, April 23, 1959, FRUS 1958–60, 6:482–83.

  34. New York Times, February 20, April 5, April 24, 1959.

  35. Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic, 93–97; State Department to embassy in Havana, May 22, 1959; Herter comment in NSC meeting, June 25, 1959; Ambassador Philip Bonsal to State Department, August 2, 1959; on Che’s world tour, CIA memo to State Department, August 19, 1959, all in FRUS 1958–60, 6:510–11, 541–43, 580–82, 589–91.

  36. New York Times, July 14 and 16, 1959; Wall Street Journal, July 15, 1959; testimony of Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz, July 10, 13, and 14, 1959, and testimony of Spruille Braden, July 17, 1959, in U.S. Senate, Communist Threat to the U.S. through the Caribbean.

  37. Life, July 27, 1959.

  38. LeoGrande, “Anger, Anti-Americanism, and the Break in U.S.-Cuban Relations”; Fidel Castro, “Speech to the People of Cuba at Loyalty Rally,” October 26, 1959, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1959/19591026.html; Bonsal, Cuba, Castro, and the United States, 106.

  39. NSC meeting, October 29, 1959; Herter to Eisenhower, November 5, 1959; “Basic Policy toward Cuba,” all in FRUS 1958–60, 6:646, 656–58, 638–39. Eisenhower read and initialed Herter’s November 5 memo. See White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, International Series, box 4, DDEL.

  40. CIA, Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, vol. 3 (December 1979), 28–29.

  41. Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 154. On the January 8, 1960, meeting see CIA, Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, 3:30–34.

  42. Minutes of 5412 Special Group meetings, October 28, November 4, November 18, December 9, 1959 and January 13, 1960, U.S. National Security Council Presidential Records, Intelligence Files, 1953–61, box 1, DDEL.

  43. Memoranda of meetings on January 23 and 25, 1960, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, International Series, box 4, DDEL.

  44. CIA, Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, 3:47–50; 5412 Group meetings, February 3 and 17, 1960, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, International Series, box 4, DDEL; Gray’s report to the president, February 17, 1960, FRUS 1958–60, 6:789–90.

  45. DDE, Waging Peace, 525–31.

  46. DDE, Waging Peace, 532–33.

  47. NSC meeting, FRUS 1958–60, 6:832–37.

  48. The process of drafting the March 16, 1960, policy memo is covered in detail in CIA, Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, 3:57–75. A redacted version of the memo is in FRUS 1958–60, 6:850–51; the full text, declassified in 1998, can be seen in White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, International Series, box 4, DDEL. Eisenhower quoted in memorandum of conversation, March 17, 1960, FRUS 1958–60, 6:861–63.

  CHAPTER 18: U-2

  Epigraph: Minutes of meeting of Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, February 2, 1960, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Records, 1952–61, Subject Series, Alpha
betical Subseries, Box 15, DDEL.

  1. NSC meeting, February 18, 1960, FRUS 1958–60, 3:842–43.

  2. Memorandum of conversation, Eisenhower, Dulles, Twining, January 22, 1958, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/45Vr28; memorandum of conversation with the president and the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, December 22, 1958, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, box 15, DDEL.

  3. Memorandum for the record, February 12, 1959, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/45Vwp7. On congressional pressures, see Pedlow and Welzenbach, “The CIA and the U-2 Program,” 161.

  4. Memorandum of conversation, April 3, 1959, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/45VdN3; “U-2 Vulnerability Tests,” DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/45VxY8.

  5. Memorandum of conference, April 11, 1959, DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/45VeG3.

  6. “Report of the CIA Ad Hoc Panel on Status of the Soviet ICBM Program,” August 25, 1959, CIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1959-08-25a.pdf; Bissell to acting chief, Development Projects Division, August 28, 1959, CIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1959-08-28.pdf.

  7. Robert Amory to Allen Dulles, “Operational ICBM Sites,” January 27, 1960, CIA Reading Room, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1960-01-27a.pdf.

  8. Columns in the Washington Post, January 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 1960.

  9. There are two sets of notes taken by General Goodpaster of the February 2 meeting, one written on February 5 and one on February 8, 1960. They can be seen at DDO, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/45WFx8 and http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/45Vyy2.

  10. Pedlow and Welzenbach, “The CIA and the U-2 Program,” 167–70.

  11. Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 123.

  12. Bissell stresses the pressure from Congress (Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 124–25).

  13. Michael Beschloss has written a thoroughly researched and lively account of these events, Mayday, and chapters 1, 2, 9, and 10 deal superbly with the shoot-down and the immediate U.S. response. See also Brugioni, Eyes in the Sky, chapter 13; Pedlow and Welzenbach, “The CIA and the U-2 Program,” 174–81.

  14. “Chronological Account of Handling of U-2 Incident,” White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, box 25, DDEL.

  15. Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 128–29.

  16. Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, 380; Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs, 3:239–40.

  17. Andrew Goodpaster, “Cold War Overflights: A View from the White House,” in Hall and Laurie, Early Cold War Overflights, 44.

  18. Beschloss, Mayday, 43–44.

  19. Thompson telegram, May 5, 1959, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, box 25, DDEL; Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, 380.

  20. The NASA and State Department press releases of May 5, 1959, are in White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, box 25, DDEL.

  21. Beschloss, Mayday, 58–59.

  22. State Department press release, May 7, 1960, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, box 25, DDEL.

  23. James Reston, New York Times, May 9, 1960.

  24. Thompson telegrams to State Department, May 9, 1960, FRUS 1958–60, 10:519–21.

  25. New York Times, May 10, 1960.

  26. “The President’s News Conference,” May 11, 1960, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11778.

  27. Certainly Bissell hailed Ike’s manly decision (Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 128); Brugioni, Eyes in the Sky, 345–57. Ike told a group of Republican senators on the morning of May 11 that the summit would be held without any problem and that “the U.S. would not be encumbered by the U-2 incident” (memorandum for Ann Whitman, May 11, 1960, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary, box 50, DDEL).

  28. Walter Lippmann, “The U-2 in Paris,” Washington Post, May 17, 1960. Eisenhower’s brother Milton also thought the president should not have accepted personal blame (Milton Eisenhower Oral History, OH-345, DDEL).

  29. Beschloss, Mayday, 262–66. Details on Khrushchev’s remarks in embassy to State Department, May 11, 1960, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, box 25, DDEL.

  30. Memorandum, May 15, 1960, 4:30 p.m., Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary, box 50, DDEL; meeting of heads of state, May 15, 1960, 6 p.m., FRUS 1958–60, 9:426–35.

  31. Khrushchev, Memoirs, 3:243–44.

  32. Meetings of heads of state, May 16, 1960, and Herter to State Department, FRUS 1958–60, 9:438–52, 453–54; John Eisenhower, Strictly Personal, 274.

  33. Eisenhower to various allies, May 19, 1960, Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, DDE Diary, box 49, DDEL; DDE, Waging Peace, 558.

  34. Text in New York Times, May 20, 1960.

  35. Kennedy quoted in Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1960; other Democratic critics quoted in New York Times, May 21, 22, and 23, 1960.

  36. Washington Post, May 22, 24, and 29, 1960; Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1960; New York Times, May 24 and 28, 1960.

  37. U.S. Senate, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vol. 12.

  38. Excerpts from Fulbright speech in New York Times, June 29, 1960.

  39. See Kennedy’s essay, dated January 1, 1960, published as the foreword to a book of JFK’s speeches edited by Allan Nevins, The Strategy of Peace, 3–8.

  40. Text of speech in New York Times, June 15, 1960.

  41. New York Times, June 15, 1960.

  42. “Address of Senator John F. Kennedy Accepting the Democratic Party Nomination for the Presidency, July 15, 1960,” American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25966.

  43. Kistiakowsky, A Scientist at the White House, 375.

  CHAPTER 19: FIGHTING TO THE FINISH

  Epigraph: Speech at New York Coliseum, November 2, 1960, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 832.

  1. Wall Street Journal, July 22, 1960.

  2. Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, July 22, 1960; Rowse, “Political Polls.”

  3. Washington Post, July 22, 1960.

  4. New York Times, July 23 and 24, 1960; Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1960.

  5. New York Times, July 27, 1960.

  6. Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1960.

  7. New York Times, July 27, 1960; Washington Post, July 27, 1960.

  8. “Address at the Republican National Convention,” July 26, 1960, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 589–601; James Reston, New York Times, July 28, 1960.

  9. Richard Nixon, “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Chicago,” July 28, 1960, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25974.

  10. Press conferences, August 10, 17, and 24, 1960, PPP: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 619–29, 633–43, 647–58.

  11. For a careful analysis of the remark, see Frank, Ike and Dick, 204–9. Nixon wrote later that the comment “hurt” him (RN, 219).

  12. Charles C. Cogan and Ernest May, “The Congo, 1960–1963,” in May and Zelikow, Dealing with Dictators, 49–66.

  13. NSC meeting, July 21, 1960, FRUS 1958–60, 14:338–42.

  14. Devlin cable to CIA, August 18, 1960, in U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 14; NSC meeting, August 18, 1960, FRUS 1958–60, 14:421–24.

  15. U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 55. The minutes that Johnson took appear in FRUS 1958–60, 14:421–42; Papers as President, Ann Whitman File, NSC Series, box 13, DDEL.

  16. Dillon and Gray remarks in U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 58–60. Goodpaster said, “My very firm belief and my very strong and
clear recollection is that there was nothing whatsoever of that kind during that period either involving the President or any member of his staff of which I was aware” (Goodpaster Oral History OH-378, DDEL). In 1976 Gray, Dillon, Goodpaster, and Marion Boggs, another NSC note taker, wrote a joint letter to Senator Church to condemn the Church Committee’s inference that Eisenhower knew about the plot to kill Lumumba (Gordon Gray Papers, box 2, DDEL).

  17. Special Group minutes, and Dulles telegram to Congo station, August 26, 1960, U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 60, 15. See also Dulles telegram, September 27, 1960, to Station in Congo FRUS 1964–1968, 23: 22–23.

  18. Bissell, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 144. Bissell said much the same to the Church Committee (U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 61).

  19. U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, 19–70; Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo, 94–97.

  20. Eisenhower comment made on September 19, 1960; Dulles remark on Mobutu in NSC meeting, September 21, 1960; Dulles on Lumumba as insane, NSC meeting, September 15, 1960, all in FRUS 1958–60, 14:495, 497, 490.

  21. For the most detailed account of Lumumba’s story, based on a careful analysis of all the available evidence, see Gerard and Kuklick, Death in the Congo.

  22. Larry Devlin met with Mobutu before the coup and offered American support for it (Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo, 76–83).

  23. Portland speech on September 7, 1960, Chicago Tribune and Washington Post, September 8, 1960.

  24. Chicago Tribune, September 15 and 18, 1960; New York Times and Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1960.

  25. Kornbluh, Bay of Pigs Declassified, chronology, 267–74.

  26. CIA, Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, 3:103–9; “Memorandum of Meeting with the President,” August 18, 1960, DDO, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/4ARK50. The argument that Eisenhower was “unenthusiastic” about the Cuba plan, asserted by Peter Wyden, is clearly incorrect. See his Bay of Pigs, 30.

  27. New York Times and Washington Post, September 20, 1960.