28. J. B. West and Mary Lynn Kotz, Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1973).
29. Ibid. 137.
30. David and David, Ike and Mamie 195–97.
31. DDE diary, January 21, 1953, Eisenhower Diaries 225.
32. DDE to HST, January 23, 1953, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 14, The Presidency 9. Cited subsequently as 14 The Presidency.
33. Brauer, Presidential Transitions 33.
34. Richard Strout, “The Administration’s Abominable No Man,” The New York Times Magazine, June 3, 1956.
35. Perret, Eisenhower 440.
36. Ezra Taft Benson to DDE, January 28, 1953, EL.
37. DDE to Dulles, February 3, 1952, 14 The Presidency 22. Nine members favored a silent prayer; five preferred an oral one. Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 176.
38. Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 176.
39. Ibid.
40. DDE diary, February 7, 1953, Eisenhower Diaries 227.
41. DDE diary, February 1, 1953, ibid. 226. Across the nation, Eisenhower’s decision to join the National Presbyterian Church made front-page news. See The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, and The Washington Post, February 2, 1953.
42. Cutler, No Time for Rest 241.
43. Ibid. 295–395.
44. Quoted in Krock, Memoirs 281.
45. Quoted in Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower: The Inside Story 10–11 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956).
46. Quoted in Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 192. Professor Parmet cites a “confidential source,” who evidently was George Humphrey.
47. Press Conference, February 25, 1953, Public Papers, 1953 58–70.
48. Donovan, Eisenhower 40.
49. Cutler, No Time for Rest 320–21. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)
50. Lyon, Eisenhower 531.
51. Statement of the President Concerning the Illness of Joseph Stalin, March 4, 1953, Public Papers, 1953 75.
52. Quoted in Lyon, Eisenhower 531.
53. Quoted in Hughes, Ordeal of Power 101.
54. Ibid. 103. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)
55. Ibid. 103–4. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)
56. Ibid. 105.
57. Ibid.
58. Clark, From the Danube to the Yalu 240–42.
59. Ibid. 244.
60. Press Conference, April 2, 1953, Public Papers, 1953 147–48.
61. NCS notes, April 9, 1953, quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President 327.
62. See DDE to Dulles, April 2, 1953, 14 The Presidency 146–47.
63. Hughes, Ordeal of Power 107.
64. Ibid. 112.
65. DDE, Mandate for Change 147.
66. “The Chance for Peace,” April 16, 1953, Public Papers, 1953 179–88. (Emphasis added.)
67. The New York Times, New York Post, April 17, 1953.
68. The New Yorker, May 2, 1953.
69. DDE to Syngman Rhee, June 18, 1953, 14 The Presidency 309–10.
70. DDE, Mandate for Change 187.
71. Radio and Television Address Announcing the Signing of the Korean Armistice, July 26, 1953, Public Papers, 1953 520–22.
72. Donovan, Eisenhower 128–29.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: FIRST OFF THE TEE
The chapter title is from Don Van Natta, Jr.’s book of the same name (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003.) The epigraph is from Eisenhower’s comment to his brother Milton, quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower 57. Also see Milton S. Eisenhower, The President Is Calling 318.
1. Don Van Natta, Jr., First Off the Tee: The Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush 138 (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003).
2. Arthur Daley, “3,265,000 Reasons for Playing Golf,” The New York Times Magazine, May 31, 1953.
3. Herbert Warren Wind, The Story of American Golf: Its Champions and Its Championships 58 (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1962).
4. Van Natta, First Off the Tee 57.
5. Quoted in ibid. 58.
6. The information in these paragraphs is drawn from Van Natta’s marvelous First Off the Tee, which documents the golfing skills (and lack thereof) of the presidents. His portion dealing with Taft, Wilson, Coolidge, and Reagan (“Worst Off the Tee”) is priceless. The Eisenhower material I have used is on pages 56–60.
7. Ibid. 64–65.
8. Quoted in ibid. 67.
9. DDE diary, May 1, 1953, 14 The Presidency 195–97. Also see Patterson, Mr. Republican 599–600.
10. DDE diary, June 1, 1953, 14 The Presidency 265–67.
11. Patterson, Mr. Republican 611–14.
12. Ambrose, 2 Eisenhower 56.
13. Ibid. 57.
14. Ibid. 59.
15. DDE, Mandate for Change 212. By contrast, after Senate criticism, Dulles asked Bohlen if he intended to step down, and he insisted they ride in separate cars to Capitol Hill so as to avoid being photographed together. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made 568 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986).
16. Congressional Record 2277–81, 83rd Cong., 1st sess.
17. Ibid. 2282–83, 2285, 2291–92.
18. Press Conference, March 26, 1953, Public Papers, 1953 130.
19. 14 The Presidency 136.
20. Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 261.
21. Fred Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader 175 (New York: Basic Books, 1982).
22. Roy Cohn, McCarthy 88 (New York: New American Library, 1968).
23. Quoted in Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy; The Making of the American Establishment 468 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).
24. Remarks at Dartmouth College Commencement Exercises, June 14, 1953, Public Papers, 1953 411–15.
25. The New York Times, June 17, 1953.
26. Max Rabb, interview by Herbert Parmet, January 12, 1970, quoted in Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 254–55.
27. Ralph Bunche, interview by Herbert Parmet, January 31, 1970, quoted in ibid. 255.
28. Milton S. Eisenhower, The President Is Calling 318; Ambrose, 2 Eisenhower 57.
29. Gallup poll, January 15, 1954. Cited in Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 266.
30. Greenstein, Hidden-Hand Presidency 184–85; Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 346.
31. Chicago Tribune, February 25, 1954.
32. The New York Times, March 10, 1954.
33. DDE to Ralph Flanders, March 9, 1954, Flanders Papers, Syracuse University Library.
34. In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961 247–48, Edward Bliss, Jr., ed. (New York: Knopf, 1967).
35. Perret, Eisenhower 502.
36. DDE to Paul Hoy Helms, March 9, 1954, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 15, The Presidency 937–39. Cited subsequently as 15 The Presidency.
37. James Hagerty diary, February 25, 1954, EL.
38. In his scholarly account of the Eisenhower presidency, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, Professor Greenstein provides one primary case study: “The Joe McCarthy Case,” pages 155–227.
39. DDE to Charles Wilson, May 17, 1954, Public Papers, 1954 483–84.
40. James Hagerty diary, March 28, 1954, EL.
41. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency 156 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).
42. Quoted in Ambrose, 2 Eisenhower 188.
43. James Hagerty diary, March 28, 1954, EL.
44. Press Conference, March 24, 1954, Public Papers, 1954 339.
45. Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir 50 (New York: Sentinel, 2011).
46. David M. Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy 471 (New York: Free Press, 1983).
47. DDE, Mandate for Change 330–31.
48. The rule was enunciated clearly by Justice Field in the case of Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 (1890):
The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in term
s unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument.… But with these exceptions, it is not perceived that there is any limit to the questions which can be adjusted touching any matter which is properly the subject of negotiations with a foreign country.
49. In the leading cases of United States v. Belmont, 301 U.S. 324 (1937) and United States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203 (1942), the Supreme Court elevated executive agreements to the same constitutional status as treaties. As Justice Douglas said for the court in Pink, an executive agreement is “a modest implied power of the President who is the ‘sole organ of the Federal Government in the field of international relations.’ ”
50. The operative portions of the Bricker Amendment read as follows:
Senate Joint Resolution
183rd Congress, 1st Session
Section 1. A provision of a treaty which conflicts with this Constitution shall not be of any force or effect.
Section 2. A treaty shall become effective as internal law in the United States only through legislation which would be valid in the absence of treaty.
Section 3. Congress shall have power to regulate all Executive and other agreements with any foreign power or international organization. All such agreements shall be subject to the limitations imposed on treaties by this article.
Section 4. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 5. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years of the date of its submission.
51. Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate 528 (New York: Knopf, 2002).
52. The remark is generally attributed to New York Herald Tribune television critic John Crosby.
53. Quoted in Hughes, Ordeal of Power 143.
54. Cabinet minutes, April 3, 1953 EL.
55. Ibid. July 17, 1953.
56. Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay 616.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid. 616–17.
59. 15 The Presidency 848–49.
60. George substitute for the Bricker Amendment:
Sec. 1. A provision of a treaty or other international agreement which conflicts with this Constitution shall not be of any force or effect.
Sec. 2. An international agreement other than a treaty shall become effective as internal law in the United States only by an act of the Congress.
Sec. 3. On the question of advising and consenting to the ratification of a treaty the vote shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against shall be entered on the Journal of the Senate.
Sec. 4. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within 7 years from the date of its submission.
61. Caro, Master of the Senate 536.
62. Ibid. 539. Also see Robert F. Maddox, The Senatorial Career of Harley Martin Kilgore 317 (New York: Garland, 1981); Duane Tananbaum, The Bricker Amendment Controversy: A Test of Eisenhower’s Political Leadership 179–80 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988).
63. DDE, Mandate for Change 227.
64. The Memoirs of Earl Warren 260 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977).
65. Herbert Brownell, interview, Earl Warren Oral History Project, Bancroft Library, University of California.
66. Memoirs of Earl Warren 269.
67. Ibid. 270–71. Also see Bernard Schwartz, Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court 5–7 (New York: New York University Press, 1983); Jack Harrison Pollack, Earl Warren: The Judge Who Changed America 152–57 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1979).
68. The New York Times, October 1, 1953.
69. Quoted in Pollack, Earl Warren 160–61.
70. Edgar Eisenhower to DDE, September 28, 1953, 14 The Presidency 552n1; Milton Eisenhower to DDE, undated, ibid. 578n1.
71. DDE to Edgar Eisenhower, October 1, 1953, ibid. 551–52.
72. DDE to Milton Eisenhower, October 9, 1953, ibid. 576–78. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)
73. DDE diary, October 8, 1953, ibid. 564–70.
74. The New York Times, February 26, 1954.
75. In addition to Warren, Harlan, and Brennan, Eisenhower also appointed Charles E. Whittaker and Potter Stewart to the Supreme Court. Observers of the Eisenhower era have often expressed surprise that Ike appointed William Brennan to the court. According to Herbert Brownell, following the resignation of Sherman Minton in October 1956, Eisenhower told Brownell that he wanted to appoint a Democrat, and preferably an Irish Catholic. Eisenhower had apparently been impressed by John F. Kennedy’s campaign for the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1956, and told Brownell he thought the court needed an Irish Catholic. Brennan, a well-known judge on the New Jersey Supreme Court, was the obvious choice. Brennan was the first state supreme court justice appointed to the court since Hoover appointed Benjamin Cardozo in 1932. Herbert Brownell and John P. Burke, Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Bownell 179–80 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993); Professor Henry F. Graff, interview by Jean Edward Smith, September 6, 2010.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: DIEN BIEN PHU
The epigraph is a comment by DDE to Robert Cutler, his national security assistant, May 1, 1954. The source is an interview of DDE by Stephen Ambrose cited in Ambrose’s 2 Eisenhower 184, 688. The quotation has often been reprinted, but as Richard Rayner has pointed out, Ambrose’s citations to interviews with DDE must be approached skeptically. To my mind, this one rings true. See Richard Rayner, “Channeling Ike,” The New Yorker 21–22, April 26, 2010.
1. Halberstam, Fifties 398–99; Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 353–55; Chester L. Cooper, The Lost Crusade: America in Vietnam 62–72 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970).
2. Time, September 28, 1953.
3. Deputy War Minister Pierre de Chevigné, quoted in Halberstam, Fifties 403.
4. DDE, Mandate for Change 339, 351.
5. Ibid. 351.
6. DDE to Flanders, July 7, 1953, 14 The Presidency 371–73.
7. Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967). (Fall was on the faculty at Howard University in Washington, D.C.)
8. Quoted in Halberstam, Fifties 404.
9. Minutes, Legislative Leaders Meeting, February 8, 1954, EL.
10. Ibid.
11. Ambrose, 2 Eisenhower 177.
12. John Prados, The Sky Would Fall: Operation Vulture, the U.S. Bombing Mission in Indochina, 1954 92 (New York: Dial Press, 1983).
13. DDE to WSC, April 4, 1954, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, vol. 15, The Presidency 1002–4. Cited subsequently as 15 The Presidency. “I have known many reverses,” Churchill told Admiral Radford. “I have not given in. I have suffered Singapore, Hong-Kong, Tobruk; the French will have Dien Bien Phu.” From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford 408–9, Stephen Jurika, Jr., ed. (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1980).
14. Press Conference, April 7, 1954, Public Papers, 1954 381–83.
15. DDE, Mandate for Change 345.
16. Matthew Ridgway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway as Told to Harold H. Martin 275–78 (New York: Harper, 1956).
17. General Ridgway, interview by David Halberstam, quoted in Halberstam, Fifties 407. In a memorandum to Defense Secretary Wilson, April 22, 1954, Ridgway said intervention in Vietnam was “a dangerous strategic diversion of limited United States military capabilities in a non-decisive theater to the attainment of non-decisive objectives.” Memo, Ridgway to JCS, April 6, 1954. Quoted in George C. Herring and Richard H. Immerman, “Eisenhower, Dulles and Dien Bien Phu: ‘The Day We Didn’t Go to War’ Revisited,” 71 Journal of American History 354–55 (September 1984).
18. DDE to Gruenther, April 26, 1954, 14 The Presidency 1033–35. (Eisenhower’s emphasis.)
19. Remarks to the 42nd Annual Meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce, April 26, 1954, Public Papers, 1954 421–24.
20. Press Conference, April 29, 1954, Public Papers, 1954 427–28.
21. Memorandum of Discussion at the 194th Meeting of the National Security Council, April 29, 1954, United States Department of State, 13 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954: Indochina 1431–45 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982).
22. Ambrose, 1 Eisenhower 184.
23. Halberstam, Fifties 408.
24. Eisenhower’s draft was retained by White House staffer William Bragg Ewald, Jr., and published for the first time in Ewald’s Eisenhower the President: Crucial Days, 1951–1960 118–20 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1981).
25. Melanie Billings-Yun, Decision Against War: Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954 160 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
26. Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror preface (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2003).
27. Ibid. 94.
28. Ibid. 89.
29. The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 1951.
30. Franks to F[oreign] O[ffice] 371/91534, quoted in Mostafa Elm, Oil, Power, and Principle: Iran’s Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath 158 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1992). In his Memoirs, Clement Attlee wrote that choosing Morrison to replace Bevin was “the worst appointment I ever made.” Clement R. Attlee, As It Happened 246–47 (New York: Viking, 1954); Kenneth Harris, Attlee 472 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983).
31. James Chace, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World 353 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998).
32. HST to Attlee, United States Department of State, 10 Foreign Relations of the United States 1952–1954: Iran 59–63 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989). Cited subsequently as 10 FRUS: Iran 1952–1954.
33. Time, January 7, 1952.
34. HST to Henry Grady, Henry Grady Papers, Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Mo.
35. C. M. Woodhouse, Something Ventured 117 (London: Granada, 1982). Woodhouse, later a Tory MP, was elevated to the peerage as Lord Terrington and became editor in chief of Penguin Books.
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