Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies That Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership

by Conrad Black

  FOUR

  THE SUPREME NATION, 1957–2013

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Peace and Prosperity, 1957–1965

  1. A PROFUSION OF TROUBLE SPOTS

  On September 25, 1957, Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division, the fabled “Screaming Eagles,” to Little Rock, Arkansas, to integrate Central High School, emphasizing that he was enforcing the law, not militarily assaulting the social institutions of the South. Eisenhower saw less clearly than had Roosevelt and Truman the moral palsy of segregation and its harmful effects, though Nixon warned of the damage segregation was doing to America’s standing in the world and ability to compete with international communism, especially in African countries. Powerful senator Richard Russell of Georgia accused Eisenhower of using “Hitler-like storm trooper tactics,”180 illustrating how deep the problems supposedly settled by the Civil War remained. All that had really been settled was that no state could secede. (The Brown v. Board of Education case that caused the Supreme Court of the United States to outlaw segregation had been argued by John W. Davis, Democratic presidential candidate of 1924, for the segregationists, and by future and first African American Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall for the complainants.)

  On October 4, 1957, Eisenhower was completely blindsided by the successful Soviet launch into orbit of the world’s first man-made satellite, the Sputnik. Eisenhower was again completely out of touch with the depth of concern that immediately arose in the United States that it was being scientifically and ultimately militarily outdistanced by the Soviet Union. The whole American education system, industrial base, and military strategy were instantly placed under intense scrutiny, with Eisenhower implausibly assuring everyone that all was under control. On November 25, after intense discussions with backbiting military chiefs and budget hawks and defense hawks wanting to bust the budget to counter the perceived Soviet missile charge, Eisenhower had a stroke in his office. (He quickly recovered.)

  And in December, the long-awaited and much prepublicized launch of an American satellite led to a liftoff of the Vanguard rocket just two seconds before it fell back onto its launcher and blew up with a tremendous report, before the news cameras of the world. There was suddenly a revenance almost of the acute paranoia of the McCarthy era, with Khrushchev bouncing around the world claiming that the entire American defense commitment to manned bombers was obsolete and that communism would sweep the world on the wings of triumphant Marxist physical and social science. There was rising criticism of Dulles’s intractable foreign policy, and in retrospect, he was largely blamed for the Western fiascoes in Hungary and Suez. Eisenhower was aware that he, the president, was the author of those policies, even if Dulles, who was relatively inaccessible to the generous feelings of others because of his incessant, boring obsession with communism, was a convenient lightning rod. Eisenhower was too astute a politician not to notice that the administration needed some new policies, an infusion of energy, and a bit of panache. But he ignored a series of suggestions by Richard Nixon, including stimulative tax cuts.

  Though Eisenhower came back quickly from his stroke, he was clearly not an energetic leader. He responded to Bulganin’s request for a summit meeting in the United States, which Dulles typically considered a plot to plant spies in the country, with a suggestion of a prior foreign ministers’ meeting. There was much talk of arms control and test bans, and Eisenhower tried to get a consensus in his administration to declare a moratorium on nuclear testing, but was disturbed by the utter inflexibility of the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, Admiral Lewis Strauss (who had just managed to have the security clearance of one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, lifted), and the new defense secretary, Neil McElroy. Even Dulles argued strenuously that something had to be done or the Soviets would win a clear propaganda victory, as the CIA had advised that a unilateral test suspension by Russia was believed to be imminent.

  On March 27, 1958, Khrushchev pushed out Bulganin and consolidated the offices of premier and Communist Party chairman, as his predecessors, Lenin and Stalin, had done. On March 31, 1958, with the U.S. administration still dithering, Khrushchev announced a unilateral test ban. The Russians had just concluded a series of tests and would need some time to set up for new ones, and Khrushchev reserved the right to resume tests if the Americans and the British continued to test. It was a brilliant coup that, along with the Sputnik-Vanguard episode, gave Russia a stinging double defeat of the United States that continued to rattle the serenity of Eisenhower’s era of peace and prosperity and made the Russians seem dynamic and the emergent world force, just five months after the brutal subjugation of a briefly free Budapest. (Imre Nagy had been betrayed, seized, and hanged by the Soviet secret police, to complete the wickedness of the affair.)

  Dulles persuaded Eisenhower to propose technical talks toward a lasting test-ban treaty with the Soviets, and Khrushchev accepted. It was a positive turn and Dulles, who was instrumental in achieving it, was generally derided for delaying it. Dulles even successfully argued for restraint in defense spending, a policy that Eisenhower approved, especially after the CIA acknowledged that it had unwittingly multiplied by three the number of intercontinental bombers the Soviet Union possessed and had brought forward by some years the date of commissioning of their intercontinental ballistic missile capability.

  But American embarrassments continued. On January 31, 1958, the United States finally put up its first satellite, Explorer 1, but it weighed only 31 pounds. In March, the navy got a Vanguard missile to work, but its satellite only weighed three pounds; in May, the Russians successfully launched Sputnik III, which weighed 3,000 pounds. Eisenhower’s policies of having the three main armed services all competing in the missile field had been a costly failure. In April, and against his own wishes, because he wasn’t much interested in space but was very concerned with national defense, Eisenhower recommended the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Eisenhower was so preoccupied with balancing the budget (the deficits were very small) that he refused to increase funding for education, although the public had been whipped into a frenzy that the Russians were educating themselves toward world domination through science. One point where he did hold the line was bomb shelters, which he dismissed as a complete waste of money, as he considered massive retaliation to be the only sensible defense policy.

  The correlation of forces within the Western Alliance began to shift with the return to power in France of General Charles de Gaulle, after 12 years waiting for the Fourth Republic to stumble to an end. France would quickly cease to be the unstable and irresolute country it had been, ricocheting from one colonial imbroglio to the next. It was only a few months before de Gaulle produced a new constitution that gave France a strong executive, effectively by the brilliant stroke of creating a very strong presidency with a renewable seven-year term, which was in effect a monarchy, thus reconciling in his Fifth Republic the struggle between, on one hand, four monarchies and three quasi and restored monarchies, and, on the other, four republics and three quasi republics, which had tumbled pell-mell on and after each other since the fall of the Bastille 169 years before. He won overwhelming approval for his constitution and for his election as president, relaunched the currency, began a nuclear program, and implied that France would accept status as a Great Power or would effectively withdraw from any integrated notion of NATO. Eisenhower cautioned Dulles as he was about to emplane for Paris that “de Gaulle is capable of the most extraordinary actions.”

  Khrushchev started agitating about Berlin, demanding recognition of East Germany, and proposing that all Berlin be declared an open city under UN auspices. Faithful to their recent practice of insane suggestions, the JCS proposed that if problems arose on the highway accesses to West Berlin, the U.S. be ready with a force of one division to fight its way into Berlin. Eisenhower was incredulous that his armed services chiefs could propose such a foolish plan, as the Red Army in Germany could dispose of a single A
merican division in a day

  As Eisenhower impatiently waited for anything to happen with his Doctrine, Egypt and Syria purported to merge into one country—the United Arab Republic—and in July the entire Iraqi royal family and the eight-term prime minister, Nuri as-Said, were murdered in the most barbarous fashion. (Said attempted to flee, disguised as a woman but wearing men’s shoes, and was apprehended, executed, and buried. His corpse was disinterred by angry mobs, dragged through the streets, hung upside down and mutilated like Mussolini’s, then burned.) There was a long dispute between the two leaders of the Maronite Christians in Lebanon, Camille Chamoun, the president, and Fouad Chehab, head of the diminutive army (9,000 men of uncertain loyalty). The Christians traditionally held the presidency and the Muslims the position of prime minister, and the president did not take a second term, and Chamoun wished to change that. He repeatedly asked for American military intervention in Lebanon, claiming Egyptian and Syrian infiltration. Jordan’s youthful King Hussein made the same claim—“the two little chaps,” British prime minister Macmillan called them. UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld, who was a good deal more effective than most of his successors in that role, arrived in Beirut on June 18 and was unable to find much evidence of infiltration. The concerns in Jordan, according to Macmillan, were better founded, and Hussein sought British and American assistance.181

  Eisenhower and Macmillan, who had had a good deal to do with each other during the war, put their relations back together quickly. Macmillan was a cagey, slightly seedy Edwardian manipulator, unlike the overearnest and emotional Eden and the overpowering romantic genius Churchill. The Iraqi coup, on July 14, clearly sounded the deathknell of the Western policy to keep the Arab countries poor and dependent on the West. By now, the Middle East was becoming an armed camp, with the nationalist Arabs being supplied by the Russians, the pro-Western Arabs by the British and the Americans, and the Israelis by the French (who were paid by Israel largely with money provided by both the tax collector and the private sector of the United States).

  The U.S. Sixth Fleet began landing an American division in Lebanon on July 15, 1958. The action demonstrated Eisenhower’s peculiar brilliance again. There was no real reason for the invasion, and it had nothing to do with the Eisenhower Doctrine, which referred to foreign aggression or infiltration. He wasn’t intervening against anyone and took absolutely no casualties. He was just trying to impress Nasser, as well as his supporters and those in the region, such as Saud, to whom America was a suitor, as well as to shut down Democrats accusing him of being indulgent to “Reds and fellow travelers” and so committed to massive retaliation that the United States had no capacity for flexible response. Eisenhower always resented allegations that he, of all people, had shortchanged or mismanaged the military. Chamoun lost the election to Chehab and the Americans were all gone from Lebanon in October, and Eisenhower wrote in his diary that the operation effected “a definite change” in Nasser’s attitude to the U.S. On July 17, the British landed 2,200 paratroopers in Jordan, as reinforcement to the king in any way he wished to use them. Both the Jordanian and Lebanese crises ended quickly.

  Like Quemoy and Matsu, it was a brilliant Eisenhower initiative, an overwhelming response to an imagined threat, no enemy, no casualties—a virtual confrontation, as if in a pantomime. And Quemoy and Matsu conveniently flared up again; Chiang had stuffed one-third of his army into the ridiculous islands, over 100,000 troops. The Chinese began heavy artillery bombardments and naval interdiction of supplies to the islands on August 25. Chiang wanted to escalate, as did Dulles and the new JCS chairman, General Nathan Twining, who both recommended the use of tactical nuclear weapons on Chinese airfields. Eisenhower refused and Twining tried the back door, proposing that the commander of the Seventh Fleet be given authority to use any degree of force he judged appropriate. Eisenhower bluntly refused to delegate such war-making authority. Lunacy was breaking out in the national security establishment again. Eisenhower spoke to the nation on September 11, 1958, and said that there would be no appeasement, but that he did not believe there would be war either.

  None of America’s allies was prepared to support the United States in strong measures over such worthless islands, and 50 percent of Americans did not approve such a strenuous defense of them. Dulles, apprised of this, wondered if NATO and SEATO were “falling apart.” The president sent Dulles to Formosa to suggest that Chiang take most of his forces off the islands, and to promise to supply him with landing craft to make it appear that he was ready to invade the mainland if conditions there indicated the disintegration of the People’s Republic. Chiang declined but did issue a statement renouncing force as a method of regaining the mainland. Discussions were carried on between the American and Communist Chinese ambassadors in Warsaw, and following Chiang’s declaration, the Chinese announced they would only bombard the islands on odd days of the month, prompting Eisenhower to wonder if “we were in a Gilbert and Sullivan war.”182 Once again, at no risk and no loss, Eisenhower looked strong and his quavering allies looked like ninnies.

  Although all polls showed the president remained very popular in the country, there was now a recession, and Eisenhower ignored Nixon’s warning that if he didn’t cut taxes it would worsen and cost the Republicans dearly in the congressional elections. In November, the Democrats gained 12 Senate seats and 49 congressmen. The only bright spot for the administration was the victory of Eisenhower’s assistant and former Roosevelt under secretary of state Nelson A. Rockefeller over Averell Harriman as governor of New York by 660,000 votes. Rockefeller was a formidable personality, though Eisenhower thought him too inclined to buy expertise rather than acquire it himself. Rockefeller appeared to be the only possible rival to Nixon for the nomination in 1960, while on the Democratic side the reelection of Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy by a formidable 864,000 votes presaged the first serious challenge for the presidency by a Roman Catholic since Alfred E. Smith in 1928. Eisenhower was an old-fashioned budget-balancer, although he managed to balance it only once, and told the JCS that if the fiscal integrity of the country wasn’t protected, “procurement of defense systems will avail nothing.”183 He asked whether, with the Strategic Air Command, with IRBMs being installed in Europe and Polaris ICBM submarines and other, land-launched ICBMs being built, along with dozens of fleet aircraft carriers, the JCS were not going overboard for superfluous massive retaliation.

  As 1959 dawned, Cuban rebel leader Fidel Castro approached Havana, and the dictator who had dominated the country for more than 25 years, Fulgencio Batista, departed (his pockets heavy laden with the spoils of office). Eisenhower was disappointed to find a sharp discrepancy between the State Department and the CIA over whether the incoming forces led by Castro were communist-dominated; State thought not, Central Intelligence thought they were. It soon emerged that Castro was a communist himself and proposed to impose a communist government. The usual response to irritants in Latin America, the intervention of the Marines, was recommended, but Eisenhower, in the light of Castro’s popularity in Cuba and throughout Latin America, once again was a voice of reason over the trigger-happy hot heads who abounded in the administration and Congress, not to mention the armed forces. Eisenhower, in mid-January, approved exploration of covert actions to diminish Castro’s popularity in Latin America and to destabilize his regime in Cuba. In July, the CIA would still consider an acceptable relationship with Castro possible but problematical, and the State Department was still of the view that Castro was “interesting,” in Under Secretary Christian Herter’s word, and a formidable leader, but naïve and erratic. Though Eisenhower would not countenance military intervention, he was skeptical that a workable relationship could be found with Castro.

  2. THE END OF THE DULLES ERA, THE STATE OF THE WESTERN ALLIANCE, AND EISENHOWER’S PEACE OFFENSIVE

  John Foster Dulles was diagnosed with incurable cancer in February and soldiered bravely on for a while, but resigned on April 13, recommending Herter as his replacement
. Eisenhower accepted the resignation with profound sadness, and appointed Herter. Dulles died a brave death on May 25, 1959, and most of the world’s principal foreign ministers, including Russia’s Andrei Gromyko (who would be foreign minister of the Soviet Union for nearly 30 years), attended his funeral. Dulles is difficult to evaluate historically; he was very hardworking and well-informed and knew a great deal about almost every country in the world. He was a resolute anticommunist but not a warmonger, and deserves credit for maintaining America’s alliances well. His advice was generally judicious, and he retained the president’s confidence throughout.

  He was not over-endowed with imagination, flexibility, conviviality, or a sense of public relations, all valuable attributes in a foreign minister, but he was generally successful, and the administration’s failures, especially the shabby treatment of misguided allies in Vietnam and Suez, the breach with Nasser, and the failure to do anything about the Hungarian uprising, were Eisenhower’s errors and not his. He was guilty of paying no attention to Latin America (where Nixon was almost stoned to death by mobs in Caracas in 1958) and of the unnecessary prolongation of frigid relations with China, but in the principal areas he had to deal with, he was solid and always avoided the trigger-happy and fiscally profligate tendencies of the Joint Chiefs and the defense establishment. He was a formidable secretary and must be reckoned rather successful at conducting his considerable part of the Cold War, but probably should have retired at the end of the first term. He does rank somewhere among Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Seward, Hay, Root, Stimson, George Marshall, Acheson, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and James Baker, as one of the important holders of that office. (Many others, of course, were important public figures but not especially in that office, including Jefferson, John Marshall, Madison, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Cass, Blaine, Sherman, Bryan, Hughes, Colin Powell, and Hillary Clinton.)