Herbert Hoover
Page 41
After years of neglect, Hoover now found himself influential in Truman’s circle. “I am delighted that you have come into your own again,” Ray Lyman Wilbur wrote to him. Chester Davis, the operational leader of the Famine Emergency Committee, had adopted Hoover’s recommendations and organized the committee as chiefly a conservation vehicle, creating local famine-emergency committees and retail organizations, and utilizing housewife pledges and a youth organization, all designed to continue at least until the harvest in August. A week later Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson invited him to return to Washington for another round of discussions concerning food problems. Anderson wrote to thank the unretired humanitarian for his efforts in resolving worldwide food problems and averting a famine.15
On January 18, 1947, President Truman asked the elder statesman to again take wing, this time to inspect and report on conditions in Germany and Austria. Hoover insisted that his mission should go beyond food and include a survey of the entire economy in those nations, and that he would summarize his conclusions in a report. At that time, the so-called Morgenthau Plan was partially in effect for the defeated powers, providing for Germany’s deindustrialization and reduction to a pastoral state subsisting primarily on farming. Hoover viewed his expedition as a tool to gain leverage to pry Germany back into the European and world economies. Despite the atrocities committed by German leaders, Hoover believed a scorched-earth policy would drag down all of Europe, and America as well, into a pit of economic torment. There could be no European recovery without German recovery, he concluded. Germany must be permitted all heavy manufacturing except weaponry in order to obtain exports to exchange for badly needed raw materials. Nor should Germany be stripped of its industrial areas. Denying Germany its industrial prowess would be an exercise in self-flagellation for the rest of the world. Further, a pro-Western Germany would be a barrier to Communist expansion in the heartland of Europe. Hoover argued to Truman and his assistants on grounds of self-interest. Moreover, keeping Germany in poverty would require American taxpayers to support the German citizens. An unspoken argument was that Hoover’s views commanded influence among the new GOP majority in Congress and that any policy he opposed might be rejected. His impact on the foreign policies of the Truman administration, both because of policies he supported and because of those he opposed, was substantial. He had logic and his congressional clout working in his favor. Moreover, the British, who ultimately merged their zone with the Americans, agreed with much of Hoover’s philosophy.16
Although Hoover’s impact on Truman’s policies toward Germany was sometimes underestimated in America, partly because much of it occurred behind the scenes, it was appreciated in Germany. When the former president visited Germany in 1954, he was praised by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. “We . . . owe it to your political farsightedness, to your comprehensive knowledge of economic life that we could again build up our country and our economy after the ravages of the Second World War,” Adenauer explained. “The limitations upon our economy were relaxed and, thanks to the magnanimous aid of the American people, we could begin the reconstruction of our native land.” Hoover’s magnanimity also benefited Germany in other ways. In February 1947 Hoover testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in favor of Truman’s request for $350 million for relief of Germany and Austria, and he collaborated with Secretary of State George C. Marshall in shepherding the legislation through. Hoover lined up Republican votes for the measure in a Congress now dominated by the GOP. After the measure passed, Major General William H. Draper, economic adviser to the headquarters of the European command, wrote Hoover, “There is no question in my mind that your report on food saved the day for our deficiency appropriation and I hope will prove equally effective with respect to the 1948 appropriation.” Draper added, “Both Germany and all of those interested in the attainment of American objectives in Europe owe you a deep debt of gratitude.”17
As with Germany, Hoover was a voice of humane self-interest about policy toward Japan. Despite U.S. citizens’ understandable ill feeling, “we must confine punishment to the war leaders and we must live with his 80,000,000 people,” Hoover advised. Japan, like Germany, must be restored to its full potential of peaceful industry and take its place in the family of nations. As Germany was the cornerstone of prosperity and a barrier to Communist expansion in the West, Japan played a similar role in the East. Japan must export enough to pay for its imports; otherwise, it would be dependent on American taxpayers indefinitely. There was no point in the United States punishing itself simply to wreak revenge on the Japanese. “Chains on any productive area are chains on the whole world,” the ex-president warned. “We need a larger vision.” Japan posed a strong ideological dam against the spread of Communist subversion as well as against Russian military threats. Historian Gary Dean Best concludes, “Again, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Hoover had a decisive influence on the change of policy toward Japan for largely the same reasons as in the case of Germany.”18
Hoover was skeptical of the expansive degree of Truman’s defense commitments and insisted that financial assistance should be in the form of loans rather than grants, lest the demand for aid become open-ended. He had to be persuaded to support the degree of commitment implied in the defense of Europe in the Truman Doctrine, announced in early March of 1947. The president promised to thwart Communist threats posed against Greece and Turkey by Soviet expansionism with a $400 million appropriation for military aid, coupled with a broad statement that America would aid any nation threatened by Communist aggression. Hoover’s Republican friends in Congress frequently asked his opinion of this extension of America’s role as a defender of virtually any nation. Many Republicans feared this was biting off more than American resources could digest. Hoover remained discreetly silent in public because he wanted to retain clout both with GOP solons and with administration shapers of foreign policy and play the role of an honest broker. Privately, he was unconvinced about an unrestricted commitment. Similarly, Hoover publicly supported the Marshall Plan of economic aid to reconstruct the European economy and foster trade with America, yet he had doubts about its scope and some of its details. Further, he felt hurt about not being consulted before it was announced. The former president proved much more amenable to supporting a bipartisan foreign policy when he was taken into the confidence of policy makers. He believed Secretary of State George C. Marshall was out of his element in the intricate details of European diplomatic intrigue. He was inviting the Europeans to gang up on America for handouts. Some greedy nations might pit America versus Russia as rival Santa Clauses.19
The Republican statesman had a more conservative and more cautious view of spending commitments than Truman and the Democrats. He believed that America should not pursue a unilateral foreign aid policy as a matter of prudence and economy. It should ask other nations who could afford to lend help, such as Canada, Argentina, and South Africa, which had not been damaged by the war, to chip in. The loans would become a political issue when the time arose to repay them, as they had following World War I, and it would be more appropriate to offer them on a multilateral basis. The United States and other contributors could utilize a vehicle such as the World Bank that would minimize nationalistic considerations. The contributing nations might purchase debentures in the bank, spreading the risk and the credit. As a moral matter, Hoover did not believe friends bought outright were any more reliable friends than ladies of the night. Moreover, if the European nations sincerely wanted to restore prosperity, they should tighten their belts and return to the six-day workweek until they surmounted the crisis. Further, the Europeans should create a “customs and transportation union” as “a practical first step towards a United Nations of Europe,” a prophetic idea.20
Hoover was a fiscal conservative, but he was no Scrooge. In a memorandum to Massachusetts representative Christian Herter, an old friend, Hoover explained that Americans should not really expect the foreign loans to
be repaid. They would actually be gifts, but to call them that would encourage a demand that would outstrip the supply. Some basic needs would be considered outright humanitarian relief. Other “loans” could be repaid in kind with raw materials and products America needed. Hoover also saw the reconstruction of Europe interconnected with that of Germany and Japan. “It is simply crazy for us to build up productivity in foreign countries out of American resources, and at the same time, to tear down productivity in these two areas.”21 Alf Landon worked in concert with Hoover on the Marshall Plan. He proposed to Congressman Joseph Martin that Congress should establish a board to administer the foreign aid appropriation and that Hoover should be a member. On the left, some feared Hoover was exerting entirely too much influence in the administration. Former vice president Henry A. Wallace, dumped in favor of Truman in 1944, now editor of the liberal New Republic, complained that Roosevelt’s successor had reversed many of FDR’s plans for the postwar world. Worse yet, “it is Hoover’s thinking which guides our foreign policy.” It was an exaggeration and a backhanded compliment, but a tribute to the distance Hoover had come.22
Late in 1947 the Republican Congress passed and Truman signed an act that established a committee to study and provide recommendations for reorganization of the executive branch in the interest of economy and efficiency, and the committee members chose Hoover to chair it. This proved to be the Chief’s most sweeping contribution to domestic policy during Truman’s administration. The committee’s report was to be delivered after the 1948 election, and Hoover and congressional Republicans expected to be dealing with a Republican president sympathetic to paring down the bureaucracy and scaling back federal power, with a shift of responsibility to the states. Hoover labored strenuously to inject his vision of government into the committee’s report. After the reelection of Truman in 1948 he realized that his intention to reduce the New Deal bureaucracy would fall short of realization, yet the report nonetheless was stamped with his crafting. A steady stream of reports flowed from the commission to Congress recommending specific changes in the administrative structure of the executive branch. Hoover’s model provided for a clear chain of command, a reduction of the numerous agencies reporting directly to the president—grouping agencies by purpose and function—and the use of standardized language to describe specific tasks. His principle was to simplify, streamline, and trim fat. The commission proposed what became the General Services Administration to centralize purchasing and save money by bulk purchasing and the prevention of overlap. The commission proposed abolishing numerous government agencies, consolidating others, and returning yet others to the private sector. It called for centralization of all public works in the Department of the Interior. Another recommendation was creation of a new department to deal with welfare and education. Overall, the report reflected Hoover’s belief in the reduction of waste and duplication and his preference for decentralization and states’ rights.23
Drafting a fine-tuned model government was one thing. Enactment encountered opposition from special interests and bureaucrats with turf to protect. Truman vowed to collaborate and congratulated Hoover on his gargantuan effort, but Hoover was not fully satisfied with the president’s follow-through. Fully aware of the political consequences of every change, Truman told Hoover he would have to take into account the viewpoints of the responsible bureaucrats, especially when changes entailed the shifting of tasks from one department or agency to another. Tucked into every nook and cranny of the government were enclaves of jealously guarded jobs, power, and prestige. Hoover’s friends helped organize and finance a private “Citizens Committee” to lobby Congress to enact the reforms. Hoover did not directly affiliate with the organization, but he complemented its efforts by delivering speeches and radio addresses and appearing before congressional committees.24
Hoover was tied up pushing through Congress the recommendations of the Hoover Commission during the 1949 debate over American membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but he considered the alliance a questionable proposition for Americans. It added nothing to U.S. defense and stretched thin America’s commitments, and the NATO members, except Britain, made paltry efforts to contribute to their own protection. During the Korean War, Hoover lamented that our NATO allies made minuscule contributions. He opposed MacArthur’s offensive north to the Yalu River and encouraged the general to use air power rather than ground troops as his primary weapon. Hoover considered limited wars against Communists worldwide diversions that might weaken America; he favored a powerful nuclear deterrent as an alternative. He supported Truman’s initial response, as he loyally backed every war, but he believed MacArthur, his close friend, had sapped American resources by taking the offensive. Although a warrior with words, Hoover was a reluctant combatant who was extremely wary about overseas commitments. A vehement ideological foe of socialism, Communism, and any form of collectivism, he also resisted militarism, which he considered a waste of lives and resources, except for self-defense. He would not strike first but when attacked would fight with every ounce of strength.25
The GOP statesman was heartened by the thunderous Republican victory in the 1946 congressional elections. His party gained control of Congress for the first time since 1928. He considered it more than a turnover in personnel; it symbolized an ideological triumph. The New Deal had lost its luster, and the appeal of collectivism was fading. Hoover set an agenda for the new Congress. Foremost must come labor reform. Big labor had gripped America by the throat and now threatened to strangle productivity. Hoover took comfort in the ascendancy of Senator Robert A. Taft to the chairmanship of the Senate Labor Committee and worked closely with Taft to thrash out provisions for a new labor law restricting the power of big labor and ending abusive practices. He also helped assemble a GOP consensus for its passage. Hoover was disillusioned by the evolution of labor, which he had always championed, into a new form of monopoly that imposed its will on an unprotected public. He felt that big labor sometimes staged strikes for ideological purposes. Such strikes affected the lives of millions of innocent bystanders. Hoover believed the president and the courts should have the power to end strikes that threatened the public welfare. He also advocated compulsory arbitration. One of the principal accomplishments of the 80th Congress, in Hoover’s mind, was enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act, a GOP bill designed to restore balance to labor relations, which had shifted in favor of unions since the New Deal’s Wagner Act of 1935. Due to several crippling strikes in 1946 that caused national hardship, and the internecine labor wars of the 1930s, punctuated by violence, the public mood had turned against big labor. Hoover felt that the unions had grown enormously in size and influence and possessed more power in some respects than the federal government. Taft, one of the chief architects of the measure, became one of the front-runners for the 1948 GOP presidential nomination due to his pivotal role in enacting the legislation. The bill defined specific unfair practices by labor, limited the role of Communists in union leadership, and required a cooling-off period before strikes jeopardizing the national welfare could materialize. Fought bitterly by the Democrats, it was enacted over Truman’s veto.26
Dewey and Taft were the chief contenders for the GOP nomination. Hoover believed either could defeat Truman in a year when the Democrats were splintered. Although he strongly preferred Taft, he designed a compromise to help avoid a deadlock resulting in the nomination of a weaker candidate. Should either Taft or Dewey stumble in the early ballots, the weaker would transfer his delegates to the leader, ensuring his nomination. Both agreed, and when Taft’s bid faltered, the Ohioan facilitated Dewey’s nomination. The New Yorker would run with a united party behind him. For many of the delegates, the pinnacle of the convention was Hoover’s speech. In his fourth consecutive address to a GOP conclave since departing from the White House, the ex-president delivered his most moving discourse. He attacked the New Deal’s foreign and domestic policies and peppered his speech with references to moral
and spiritual ideals and bedrock Republican principles. He said the next president would serve during perilous times due to the Communist threat. Hoover insisted that America must conserve, set priorities, and curtail waste. Further, the United States should not foster an interminable dependency on America by the European nations, which must become self-sustaining. Hoover’s speech was an invocation to follow the Boy Scout motto: “Be prepared.” A journalist who heard the speech wrote, “Never in his 74 years has he had a higher moment. It was astounding,” he marveled. “They drew the man to their hearts as they had forgotten to do through his long period of public service. They seemed to be trying to make up for their lapse of affection and understanding.” Hoover told a friend that he had received a handwritten note from President Truman terming the speech the greatest “since Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.”27
Hoover’s energy was devoted to his work chairing the Committee on Government Reorganization, and he made no plans to campaign. Yet when both Truman and Democratic representative Sam Rayburn of Texas resorted to Hoover bashing, reviving the epitaphs of Roosevelt’s ghostwriters, Hoover felt inclined to leap into the fray. Dewey, however, made no overture to the ex-president. Hoover felt that the bitterness of the campaign caused him to lose some of the gains he had made in restoring his reputation and he made no secret of his lack of respect for politicians who resorted to hypocrisy in the name of political expediency. Putting aside the goodwill he demonstrated earlier, Truman returned to his status as a machine politician. The Democrat and his surrogates blamed Hoover for single-handedly provoking the Great Depression, then sitting on it, without remorse. Truman veered left and tried to compete with the radical third-party candidate, Henry A. Wallace, in the North. Still a fourth candidate, Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, appealed to conservatives, especially the Southern bloc. Dewey tried to straddle issues, mimicking Landon and Willkie. Instead, he alienated regular Republicans such as Hoover. Truman marshaled a razor-thin comeback victory.28