Herbert Hoover

by Glen Jeansonne

  Much of the battering he was taking from Democrats in the campaign was soothed by the glow of human affection when Hoover returned to his birthplace to celebrate his seventy-fourth birthday at West Branch, Iowa, on August 10, 1948. Columnist Anne O’Hare McCormick wrote that “the former President’s homecoming was the counterpart in personal terms to the address he delivered at the Republican convention a few weeks ago. In Philadelphia he was the elder statesman calling upon the party he once led,” she explained. “In West Branch he was the country boy grown old and mellow and renowned. The burden of his speech was not that he is self-made but that he is America-made, the product of this society and this system.” It was a poetic tribute to the nation that had helped make and mold him. “He has seen far more of this tortuous and tortured world than most political leaders, and the sum of his experience, distilled into this testament, is that there is nothing like America.” Newsweek explained that the outpouring of affection, at least in West Branch, brought a measure of redemption, an indication of how far he had come. “It also meant vindication for his ideas—ideas which had been jeered at during the depression but had since regained respect.” U.S. News and World Report heaped on another accolade when it wrote that “Mr. Hoover, a former President, may have more influence on the country now than he ever did while he was in the White House.”29

  A year later, Hoover celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday by delivering a speech at Stanford’s Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, which he had founded thirty-four years earlier. During these years, Hoover had helped raise more than $3.45 million in private contributions for the library, which had grown exponentially. Hundreds of individuals and some thirty-six governments had contributed to its holdings, he revealed. The institution preserved records of wars and revolutions, archiving the errors of troubled times in order to avert the mistakes of the past. Its documents in its area of specialization were unduplicated anywhere. It was not dead storage; it continued to grow as history evolved. The institution was funded entirely by grants and private donations. It never received one cent of government funds. Scholars from throughout the world utilized its resources. The library was not for his generation alone, Hoover explained. It taught stern lessons to coming generations in the hope that it could prevent future war, revolution, and genocide. Respect for Hoover attracted invaluable documents to the collections, and he also proved the library’s most effective fund-raiser. Along with the Boys Clubs and Stanford University, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace constituted his chief charitable commitment. Hoover shifted his focus beyond the library to the world and to the next generation of Americans, and he sought to engage his audience in the quest for tempering the growth of collectivism—a dangerous fallacy, he believed. At best, it wasted money, and at worst it enslaved peoples. Americans must remain a progressive people, he said, and collectivism was the antithesis of progress. Hoover went on to describe the tangle of bureaucracy that had grown and the cost to taxpayers compelled to feed the weeds sown by gratuitous and misdirected spending. A major enemy of individual liberty had become the massive burden of red tape that entangled lowly individuals in its quest for infinite bureaucracy. Further damaging was the polarization of the country into rapacious private pressure groups.30

  Hoover now considered his abstention from the 1948 campaign a mistake. Thus, the seventy-six-year-old former president decided to deliver several speeches prior to the 1950 congressional elections because he understood the high stakes. However, he believed he could be most effective if he presented his addresses in a nonpartisan format. Most of his speeches were related to the great debate over military strategy that had recently commenced. Hoover argued that the policies of the Truman administration had overextended America and compromised the country’s ability for self-defense. Further, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO burdened American taxpayers. The great debate over military strategy began with Truman’s decision to enter NATO, extended through the Korean War, and culminated during the Eisenhower administration, when Hoover essentially won his point. His chief ally in reliance on use of air and sea power rather than on ground troops was Senator Robert A. Taft. Hoover, Taft, and Eisenhower himself considered air power a cheaper, more efficient weapon. Hoover went further than Eisenhower; he opposed stationing American divisions in Europe to flesh out NATO, arguing that they would pose little realistic resistance to a massive Soviet ground assault, which would overwhelm and slaughter the outnumbered NATO troops. Fighting a ground war against Communism in Europe or Asia would be brutally suicidal and accomplish nothing, Hoover argued bluntly. The elder statesman reiterated his complaints about the stubborn negligence of America’s NATO allies, save for Britain, to contribute meaningfully to their own protection, while simultaneously spending on extravagant social programs. Moreover, it was unhealthy for the Europeans to be completely dependent on the Americans. The GOP spokesman presciently pointed out that the United States could never fight everyone else’s wars for them; it was a task worthy of Sisyphus. In the long run, even after Communism imploded, this proved all too true. Where the local will is lacking, America cannot impose a stable, just world order. The United States must depart sooner or later, and its well-intentioned nation building only delays the inevitable. On December 20, 1950, as American forces were driven back by the Chinese in Korea, Hoover delivered a speech that called for assessing the strength of the ground forces arrayed against the United States before the country became engaged in another conflict such as Korea.31

  Hoover calibrated the odds of winning a worldwide ground war against the United States’ Communist adversaries. Opposed to some 800 million people and more than three hundred combat divisions available to the Communist world, the United States and its only reliable major ally, Great Britain, could muster only sixty combat divisions on the ground, yet the United States possessed an overwhelming advantage in air and sea weaponry. Moreover, trying to match the Soviet land forces would bankrupt America. Before agreeing to dispatch ground divisions to Europe, America must ascertain the degree to which the Europeans were willing to contribute. Yet air and naval resources provided a potent deterrent and, if necessary, a far more powerful offensive weapon. While these forces deterred attack, the United States and Britain could buy time for the Communist system to collapse from within. To act otherwise would engage additional Koreas, at great expense and loss of life, with negligible gain. This stood in stark contrast to Truman’s policy of dispatching Eisenhower to Europe to command American ground forces there. Press reaction could be calibrated by the political affiliation of the newspaper or journal. The Democratic press distorted Hoover’s message by labeling it “isolationist” or “appeasement,” a withdrawal to the Western Hemisphere. As Hoover explained his defense theories, it became clear that he intended to place limits on assistance only to countries who contributed nothing to their own defense. Moreover, he extended America’s defense perimeters to Britain, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, with Taft adding Australia and New Zealand, not to mention all of North and South America. The nuclear umbrella protected nations in Western Europe and Southern Asia. This defense would be more cost-efficient than attempting to match the Soviets and the Chinese and their allies man for man. Also, U.S. air power could strike anywhere, almost instantly, like a lightning bolt. Taft emphasized air power’s great mobility and offensive potential. The massive Soviet land army, its vast territory, and the Russian winter provided no defense against air power. Naval power could complement air superiority. The Soviets, with few warm-weather ports, were unlikely to develop a formidable navy. In the air, the United States had only to maintain the technological advantage the country already possessed. Further, the advocates of air power did not rule out ground support for nations that devoted sufficient resources to their own land armies. Because Hoover’s defense program promised more defense for less money, it appealed to fiscal conservatives. Later, it was described as “More Bang for the Buck.” Hoover’s plan was vi
ewed as GOP doctrine. Some considered it dangerous because it left no option for fighting limited wars and potentially made every war a nuclear war.32

  After Truman excoriated Hoover for failing to end the Great Depression, Hoover refused to attend the ex-president’s seventieth birthday party in 1954. Hoping to repair Hoover’s hurt feelings, Truman paid a courtesy call on him in New York in October 1955 and the men chatted amiably. Later that month the GOP ex-president attended a meeting with sponsors of the Truman Presidential Library who were seeking to raise $200,000 in the Southwest as part of the $2 million they needed to erect the building in Truman’s hometown, Independence, Missouri. In July 1957 Hoover traveled to Independence, where he helped dedicate the Truman Presidential Library along with Chief Justice Earl Warren, Eleanor Roosevelt, Senator William Knowland, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, Congressman Charles Halleck, and other dignitaries. In a brief speech, Hoover stated that it was important that Americans disperse the history of the nation throughout the land rather than limiting it to Washington, DC. Libraries should go to the people as well as people go to libraries. Their status as the only living ex-presidents brought Hoover and Truman back together, the scars of the political wars healed, and the two men resumed their friendship. The ex-presidents genuinely liked each other and developed a relationship that almost approached intimacy. In 1958, Truman, who had had his gall bladder removed, consoled Hoover, who was recovering from a similar operation. A year later, Hoover sent an ailing Bess Truman a bouquet of white mums and yellow roses. He invited Truman to the Bohemian Grove and recalled that his friend’s visit to the Waldorf was “my intellectual stimulant of the month” after Truman visited in March 1960. Later, after Truman gave his friend a copy of his most recent book, Hoover wrote that “it goes into the file of most treasured documents.” Truman responded with equal kindness: “I didn’t receive a single birthday telegram that I appreciated more than I did yours.” He wrote in July 1963 that they understood each other. Indeed they did. Historians have compared their postpresidential correspondence to the twilight missives of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, old adversaries who consummated a profound friendship in their declining years.33

  Many gave Hoover credit for eloquently and tirelessly campaigning, election after election and in between, to educate the public and keep the flame of conservatism flickering. Journalist Mark Sullivan wrote, “It was during these years that Mr. Hoover, in private life, strove passionately with word and pen, in addresses, magazine articles, and books, to make America see the virtues of individualism, [and] the perils of the collectivism which threatened to supplant it.”

  Sullivan believed, “That patient and laborious work of public education . . . will be Mr. Hoover’s real distinction in history.”34

  SIXTEEN

  The Republicans Return to Power

  In 1951 Hoover began to closely follow the GOP presidential nominating campaign. He considered the election crucial, the Republicans’ best opportunity since Roosevelt to elect a president, and perhaps the last opportunity they would have during his lifetime. Hoover strongly backed his old friend Senator Robert A. Taft. During the early months Hoover maintained a pose of neutrality, though behind the scenes he orchestrated Taft’s campaign, persuading Joseph P. Kennedy, his old friend and a Democrat, to contribute $5,000 to the candidate’s coffers. The chief obstacle to Taft’s nomination was the popularity of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a war hero yet an amateur in politics. Hoover feared that the famous general, the favorite of the liberal, internationalist wing of the GOP, would become another “me too” candidate like Landon and Willkie. Ike’s supporters, however, argued that the Kansan was more likely than Taft to sweep a Republican Congress in on his coattails.1

  The nomination at the Republican National Convention, held in June 1952 in Chicago, hinged on contested delegations from a few Southern states. Hoover offered to mediate the controversy through a compromise in which he and two other senior Republicans would examine the delegate claims and seat them on a case-by-case basis. Ike’s campaign manager, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., rejected Hoover’s scheme, and the Eisenhower delegations were seated.2 Hoover, conceding that his candidate could no longer win, attempted to persuade Taft to withdraw in favor of Douglas MacArthur. Taft said he would withdraw after the first ballot if his cause appeared hopeless. Unfortunately for the Taft supporters, Eisenhower won on the first ballot. Many Republicans considered Taft more qualified and a purer Republican, yet considered Eisenhower more electable.3

  On the second night of the convention, Hoover delivered his address. Using a teleprompter for the first time, he needed glasses, which Chairman Joe Martin accidentally crushed when he pounded his gavel. Nonetheless, Hoover’s speech was applauded thunderously by the delegates, less because of its ideological content than because of its tone of moral uplift and nostalgia for the old party warrior, who had kept the torch of Republican philosophy burning through five consecutive Democratic administrations. Hoover condemned the minor scandals of the Truman administration but focused more on the incumbent’s failures in foreign policy. The Democrats had been extremely gullible in trusting the Soviets to keep their promises, and nation after nation had fallen under the domination of the hammer and sickle. “The ghosts of the Four Freedoms now wander amid the clanking chains of a thousand slave camps,” said the once awkward speechwriter who had made himself a phrasemaker.4 When Hoover delivered his speech, the 1952 nomination had already been settled. Eisenhower had won virtually all the contested delegates and was certain to win. Nonetheless, Hoover endorsed Taft as a matter of principle because he believed in his heart the Ohio senator would have made a superior president. He gained respect in some quarters for his action. One daily wrote, “He could have remained silent, packed his grips and gone home, the ovations of his party music in his ears. But Mr. Hoover was never a man to bid for popularity by doing or failing to do something.” Instead, he went ahead and spoke his mind. “So feeling as he did that Senator Taft best fulfilled his ideas of the type of leadership he thought America needed, he endorsed the Senator, full knowing that his only reward would be a sharing in another political defeat.” The editorial concluded, “Even Eisenhower partisans, of whom we count ourselves among the first, will honor Mr. Hoover’s final act of courage. He is a man who ploughs the row to the end.”5 The Washington Daily News led with the headline “Herbert Hoover Is Our Real Mr. Republican.” Robert C. Ruark concluded, “I just wish we could return Herbert Hoover for President, because I am certain we could win with him and fetch a little sanity back home.”6 The Wall Street Journal concluded that Hoover had received the longest and most enthusiastic reception of anyone who had spoken at the convention.7

  Hoover expressed regret to Taft that his old friend would lose his last, best chance to capture the presidency. Truman, mired in scandals at home and bogged down abroad, had grown unpopular, and the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, while polished, and popular among liberals, appeared to be an elitist intellectual who failed to connect with ordinary Americans. He seemed too leftist ideologically and projected a cold, haughty demeanor. “I am sorry beyond expression,” Hoover wrote to Taft. “We did our best.” He remained cool toward Eisenhower, issuing an abrupt statement: “Being a Republican, I shall vote the Republican ticket.” As to a possible role in the campaign, Hoover remarked, “I am going fishing.” He was still annoyed by Eisenhower’s support for stationing U.S. troops in Europe, nor could he forgive Lodge and others in the Eisenhower camp for what he considered the stealing of disputed delegates at the nominating convention. Nonetheless, Eisenhower treated Hoover respectfully and courted his favor. Like the press, Ike had been impressed by the loyalty to Hoover among bedrock Republicans and the reception he had received at the GOP convention. After waiting three weeks for nerves to cool after the convention, the candidate wrote a generous letter to the elder statesman expressing regret for not being able to visit him personally at the Chicago conclave. The general also expressed his interes
t in meeting with the venerable Republican to consult with him about the Hoover Commission reports and other matters, signing the missive, “With my sincere and respectful regards.” In response, the ex-president sent the newcomer to politics a gift of his memoirs, and further correspondence followed. Ike wrote that only Hoover could understand the way he was besieged on all sides by people telling him different things, and he knew he could rely on his experience.8

  Eisenhower employed his strongest asset, acquired as a general leading a coalition of armies: the combination of a calm, genial, yet firm personality and an ability to deal with people and to conciliate conflicting opinions. Ironically, the general, like Hoover, was born into a pacifist sect, the Mennonites. Hoover came to the defense of his friend and fellow Quaker Richard Nixon when the vice presidential candidate was accused of maintaining a secret fund, rumored to be for lavish living. Hoover argued that Nixon should remain on the ticket, stating publicly, “If everyone in the city of Washington possessed the high level of courage, probity and patriotism of Senator Nixon, this would be a far better nation.” Nixon wrote Hoover that none of the thousands of endorsements he received gratified him more than Hoover’s.9