Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  Eisenhower’s face flushed beet red. He jumped from behind his desk and shook his finger at Kempton. His voice was angry and harsh. “How dare anyone say such a thing about General Marshall, who was a perfect example of patriotism and loyal service to the United States. I have no patience with anyone who can find in his record of service for this country anything to criticize.”9

  Eisenhower’s response was calculated. Warned in advance, he thundered against Marshall’s detractors but never mentioned Jenner or McCarthy by name. Ike was experienced leading coalitions. Jenner and McCarthy were Republicans and by definition members of his coalition. Both were up for reelection, and Indiana and Wisconsin were critical states. Dealing in wartime with de Gaulle, Churchill, and Montgomery had taught Eisenhower one thing: Don’t pick fights with members of your own team.d

  Eisenhower had no such qualms dealing with President Truman. Shortly after the Democratic National Convention, the president invited both Eisenhower and Stevenson to the White House for a briefing on foreign policy. Truman entrusted the invitation for Eisenhower to General Bradley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Bradley evidently dropped the ball. “Being unfamiliar with political matters it never occurred to me that the timing of the notification might become an issue,” said Bradley afterward.10 Not having received the president’s invitation, Eisenhower appeared outraged when the press reported on August 12 that Governor Stevenson had visited the White House, where he had been briefed on the international situation by Bradley and CIA director Bedell Smith, among others. Ike accused Truman of playing politics. In a press statement later that day, Eisenhower called Stevenson’s White House briefing “an unusual spectacle that implied a decision to involve responsible nonpolitical officers of our Government who bear heavy responsibilities in our national defense organization into a political campaign in which they have no part.”11

  Truman had been blindsided by Bradley’s lapse, Eisenhower exploited it, and relations between the two never recovered. The president immediately wrote Eisenhower to extend an invitation to the White House for a foreign policy briefing, and also for a private lunch. Ike declined.

  In my current position as standard bearer of the Republican Party and of other Americans who want to bring about a change in the national government, it is my duty to remain free to analyze publicly the policies and acts of the present administration. During the present period the people are deciding our country’s leadership for the next four years. The decision rests between the Republican nominee and the candidate you and your cabinet are supporting and with whom you conferred before sending your message.

  As a consequence, said Eisenhower, he thought it would be unwise to come to the White House.12

  Truman replied with a handwritten note on August 19. “I am sorry if I caused you embarrassment,” said the president. “What I had in mind was and is a continuing foreign policy. You know that is a fact, because you had a part in outlining it. Partisan politics should stop at the boundaries of the United States. I am extremely sorry that you have allowed a bunch of screwballs to come between us.” The president, who had a thicker skin than Ike, closed his letter, “From a man who has always been your friend and who always wanted to be.”13 Truman still liked Ike, and it was Eisenhower who was playing politics. His campaign hinged on differentiating himself from the Truman administration, and he feared the president’s embrace.

  Eisenhower may have been an onlooker at the Republican convention as Brownell, Clay, and Dewey marshaled his forces, but he was now calling the shots. He may not have been familiar with the intricacies of a roll call vote, but he knew the pulse of the American electorate better than anyone. Historian Garry Wills put it best when he wrote that most politicians painted by the numbers. Ike was Renoir. “Eisenhower was not a political sophisticate; he was a political genius.”14 Contrary to President Truman’s assertion that “a bunch of screwballs” were coming between them, it was Eisenhower who chose to engineer the break. As the Republican commander, Ike needed to get his troops in line before he could take on the enemy. Taft’s disgruntled supporters were sitting in their tents nursing their wounds, and Eisenhower had to bring them into action. Truman’s embrace would have been fatal, and so Eisenhower picked a fight with the president.

  As for the campaign itself, Eisenhower would not be rushed. When the Scripps Howard chain of newspapers—which had supported him for the nomination—editorialized on August 25, 1952, that “Ike is running like a dry creek,” he was not in the least perturbed. Eisenhower’s tactical sense had been honed over the years, and he knew never to attack prematurely. He also recognized the damage that might be done to his popular image if he appeared too eager for the job. Zhukov had waited on the Oder for ten weeks before attacking Berlin, just as Eisenhower had waited on the Rhine. So Ike held his fire. He made an occasional speech but waited until Labor Day to launch his attack.

  Eisenhower kicked off the campaign with a monster rally in Atlanta on September 2, 1952, where he was welcomed by the city’s Democratic mayor, William Hartsfield, and introduced by the state’s Democratic governor, Eugene Talmadge. From Atlanta he went to Jacksonville, Miami,e and Tampa, and then on to Birmingham and Little Rock. On September 9, Ike was in Indianapolis, with a major address scheduled that evening at the Butler University Field House, where an overflow crowd of twenty thousand awaited. Senator William Jenner—he of the “living lie” accusation—would not only be on the platform, but was slated to introduce Eisenhower. Ike was troubled and asked Lucius Clay for advice. Should he appear? “The question came all the way back to us in New York,” Clay recalled. “And we—Herb Brownell, Governor Dewey, and I—felt that Eisenhower had to do it. That he had to appear with Jenner. Jenner was the candidate of the Republican party in Indiana and you would really create a chasm if Eisenhower snubbed him.”15

  Distasteful as the appearance was, Eisenhower followed Clay’s advice. Ike’s speech, delivered in the Republican heartland, was one of his most partisan of the campaign. Eisenhower said he had decided to run because he could not sit by while his country was “the prey of fear-mongers, quack doctors, and bare-faced looters.”16 At every sustained burst of applause, Jenner reached out and held Ike’s arm aloft as if designating the winner in a prizefight. When Eisenhower concluded, he asked support for the entire Republican ticket in Indiana “from top to bottom,” in effect endorsing Jenner but not by name. The Indiana GOP leadership was disappointed Eisenhower did not mention Jenner, but settled for half a loaf. Jenner leaped up and embraced Ike in a bear hug, flashbulbs recorded the scene for the morning papers, and Ike gritted his teeth. “Charlie, get me out of here,” he commanded Congressman Charles Halleck, the Republican whip in the House of Representatives, and they left the platform before anyone knew what had happened. “I felt dirty at the touch of the man,” Eisenhower told Emmet Hughes.17

  Eisenhower’s implicit endorsement of Jenner was an important benchmark in putting the Republican party back together after Taft’s defeat in Chicago. Far more significant was Ike’s meeting with Senator Taft himself on September 12 in New York City. The Columbia University trustees had kept the presidential mansion at 60 Morningside Drive available for Eisenhower’s use (he was officially “on leave”), and promptly at seven-thirty that Friday morning the senator arrived for a highly publicized breakfast with Ike. Over honeydew melon, scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee, Eisenhower and Taft agreed to an armistice. Taft endorsed Ike enthusiastically, Eisenhower noted his basic agreement with a policy document Taft had drafted, and the two agreed to disagree about foreign policy. “The differences are differences of degree,” said Taft afterward.18

  Liberal commentators characterized Ike’s meeting with Taft as the “surrender on Morningside Heights.” Stevenson quipped, “Taft lost the nomination and won the nominee.”19 Despite the criticism, Eisenhower was the big winner. The public display of party unity represented by the meeting with Taft was a tonic for the Republican faithful. The Democrats were less
of a worry to Eisenhower in September 1952 than the cohesion of his own party. “Until Bob Taft blows the bugle, a lot of us are not going to fight in this Army,” said a prominent Republican national committeeman.20 By coming to 60 Morningside Drive, Taft had blown the bugle and his troops were falling in.

  By all accounts, the meeting between Taft and Eisenhower was exceptionally cordial. Taft had furnished a prepared statement of principles for Ike to read beforehand, but Eisenhower simply perused it and noted his general agreement. In Ike’s view, the text was not so important as the symbolism of the meeting, and on most domestic matters he really didn’t disagree with Taft. When reporters were ushered in after the two-hour session, Ike and Taft were discussing fly-fishing. A newsman asked Eisenhower if he agreed with Senator McCarthy. Ike responded by turning to Taft, shaking his hand, and walking out of the room without comment.21 Eisenhower left it to Taft to explain their meeting—another masterstroke by a master politician. Taft could put whatever gloss he wished on their encounter, his supporters would be mollified, the party would be united, and Ike could continue the campaign with his coalition intact.

  With his battle line formed, Eisenhower marched off to the Great Crusade only to be upended on Thursday, September 18, when the Nixon fund scandal broke. The Great Crusade became the Great Dodge-the-Bullet, and Ike scrambled to reorganize his forces. secret nixon fund screamed the banner headline in the New York Post, a left-liberal newspaper decidedly hostile to the Republican ticket. secret rich men’s trust fund keeps nixon in style far beyond his salary read the header.22 Nixon was whistle-stopping in northern California when the story broke, and muffed his opportunity to put it to rest. There was nothing illegal about the fund; no votes were bought, no favors were given, and the money (roughly $16,000) went largely for office expenses not covered by Nixon’s senatorial allowance. The fund was administered by a third party, and Nixon did not know the names of the donors. Such funds were not uncommon in 1952. Governor Stevenson, it would be revealed subsequently, had one as well.f

  Instead of addressing the issue head-on, Nixon played the Red card. As his train was pulling out of Marysville, California, Nixon heard someone in the crowd ask about the fund. “Hold the train,” said Nixon.

  I heard a question over there. “Tell them about the $16,000.” You folks know the work I did investigating the Communists in the United States. Ever since I have done that work, the Communists and the left-wingers have been fighting me with every possible smear. When I received the nomination for the Vice Presidency I was warned that if I continued to attack the Communists in the government they would continue to smear me. They started it yesterday. They tried to say that I had taken $16,000 for my personal use.23

  Nixon had made a mountain out of a molehill. (“We never comment on a New York Post story,” said Jim Hagerty on Ike’s campaign train.)24 Newspapers across the country picked up the story, and what could have been explained away was now front-page news. Nixon’s failure to explain the fund threatened to undermine the moral crusade the Republicans were waging, and Eisenhower moved to control the damage. “What are the facts?” he asked his staff. “Let’s find out the facts before I shoot my mouth off.” According to Robert Cutler, Ike was “the calmest person in this manufactured hurricane.”25

  Eisenhower instructed Sherman Adams to launch an investigation. Adams turned to Paul Hoffman, president of the Ford Foundation, who had headed the Marshall Plan aid program in Europe, who immediately engaged the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse to audit Nixon’s finances, as well as the Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher to review the legal implications of the fund. Ike then asked Cutler for a pencil and paper, and retreated to a corner of the car where he composed a personal message to Nixon. Eisenhower wrote that he was being pressed by reporters for a comment, but was unable to do so until he knew the facts.

  I suggest immediate publication by you and Mr. Smith [Dana C. Smith, the fund custodian] of all documentary evidence including amounts received in full, all payments from it, and exact nature of the speeches, letters, addresses and documents for which expenses were met out of fund. The fact that you never received a cent in cash is of the utmost importance and should be made clear in the evidence given the public. Any delay will be interpreted, I think, as reluctance to let the light of day into the case and will arouse additional doubt or suspicion. Could you not consider the advisability, coincidentally with giving the documents to the public, of inviting the Democratic former-chairman of the Committee on Ethics in government [Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois] to examine your complete records and to make his findings public? Such a readiness and announcement on your part would I believe be effective in meeting this charge.

  Our train schedules today seemingly prevent a telephone conversation but you know I am ready to consult with you on the matter whenever it is physically possible.26

  Eisenhower was not going to sweep the matter under the rug. Nor was he going to offer Nixon any support. Not only did he want a full accounting, but he wanted it blessed by Senator Paul Douglas, a Stevenson ally. He also made it clear that he expected Nixon to contact him. Ike’s longhand letter was passed to a typist for transcription, and then dispatched to Nixon by telegram.

  Speaking off the record to reporters on the train later that day, Eisenhower said he was greatly disturbed. He knew Nixon only slightly but thought he was the sort of young leader the country needed. He did not believe Nixon was involved in anything crooked or unethical, but Nixon must prove it. “Of what avail is it,” Ike asked, “for us to carry on this Crusade against this business of what has been going on in Washington if we ourselves aren’t as clean as a hound’s tooth?”27 As Eisenhower spoke, Senator William Knowland, the senior senator from California, was hurrying back from a Hawaiian vacation to join the train in St. Louis. He had been summoned by Sherman Adams. If Nixon had to go, Knowland would replace him.

  Eisenhower’s off-the-record comments were reported almost immediately. So, too, was the word of Knowland’s return. This was not accidental. Eisenhower was sending unmistakable signals that he wanted Nixon to step down. Or at least, to offer to step down. On Friday evening the early editions of the New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post, both supporting Eisenhower, called for Nixon’s resignation. “The proper course of Senator Nixon in the circumstances is to make a formal offer of a withdrawal from the ticket,” said the Trib. “How this offer is acted on will be determined by an appraisal of all the facts in light of General Eisenhower’s unsurpassed fairness of mind.” Nixon’s departure, said the Post, “would provide the Republican Party an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate the sincerity of its campaign against loose conduct and corruption in government.”28 Like the Post and the Trib, those closest to Eisenhower on the campaign train, as well as Dewey, Clay, and Brownell, were appalled by Nixon’s gaff and wanted him off the ticket. But they did not want Eisenhower to ask for his resignation. Nixon should walk the plank of his own volition.

  All day Friday and Saturday Ike kept Nixon at arm’s length, waiting for the expected resignation that did not come. In New York, Clay, Dewey, and Brownell put their heads together. Which one thought of the idea is unclear, but by noon Sunday they had settled on a plan to break the stalemate. Dewey, who had the best relations with Nixon, would call him and suggest that he go on national television, explain the fund, and conclude by offering to step down from the ticket, leaving the final decision to Eisenhower. Clay would inform Ike, and Brownell would take off immediately for St. Louis, meet Eisenhower’s train when it arrived, and work out the details.

  “I called General Eisenhower,” said Clay. “There was no telephone on board his campaign train. We got word to the train somehow, and General Eisenhower got off [in Jefferson City, Missouri] and talked to me from a phone booth. I asked him not to say anything or issue any statement. I said ‘Herb Brownell is on his way to St. Louis to sit down with you and dope out the proper strategy.’ ”29

  Brownell found that I
ke was not easy to convince. Eisenhower felt that Nixon had undermined the Crusade, the report on his finances was not yet in, and he was more than peeved that Nixon had not called and proffered his resignation. “The meeting,” said Brownell, “was a long one. It ended somewhere around midnight.”30 Eisenhower at length signed on to the strategy and assumed that Nixon would conclude his speech with an offer to step down. Arthur Summerfield was instructed to provide $75,000 from RNC funds to pay for the television time, and at Brownell’s suggestion Ike placed a telephone call to Nixon—who was campaigning in Portland, Oregon—to inform him of the decision. It was shortly after midnight in St. Louis, shortly after ten in Portland.

  Eisenhower was not happy that it was he and not Nixon who was initiating the call, and the conversation was frosty. Eisenhower told Nixon he had not made a decision and then paused waiting for Nixon to reply. Nixon remained silent. If Eisenhower wanted to drop him he could do so. But Nixon was not going to volunteer. The phone lay dead for almost a minute. Finally Eisenhower said, “I don’t want to be in the position of condemning an innocent man. I think you ought to go on a nationwide television program and tell them everything there is to tell, everything you can remember since the day you entered public life. Tell them about any money you have ever received.”31

  Nixon asked Eisenhower if he planned to endorse him. “This is an awfully hard thing for me to decide,” Ike replied. “You are the one who has to decide what to do. After all, if the impression got around that you got off the ticket because I forced you off, it is going to be very bad. On the other hand, if I issue a statement now backing you up, in effect people will accuse me of condoning wrongdoing.”

  “General,” Nixon asked, “do you think after the television program an announcement could then be made one way or another?”