Eisenhower in War and Peace
Jean Edward's Smith's new biography obliterates earlier arguments that Eisenhower’s was a dull, torpid presidency.
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Ike ended the Korean quagmire he inherited from Truman, avoided mutually assured destruction with the Soviets, and routinely ignored entreaties from his military advisers to send in troops or, worse, deploy nuclear weapons. As the French fell apart at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the president responded to suggestions by American strategists to consider air strikes and the atomic bomb with a swift rebuke. “You boys must be crazy,” he said. “We can’t use those awful things against Asians for the second time in less than ten years. My God.”
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In similar fashion, he resolved international crises with China and over the Suez Canal by employing a poker face that leveraged the possibility of military engagement just enough to prod adversaries to choose diplomatic means.
•Making crucial appointments in the Supreme Court – most notably former California Gov. Earl Warren as Chief Justice – and lower-level federal courts that established not only the precedent of desegregation but carried it out in ruling after ruling. Also, Eisenhower left no doubt about the intention and integrity of Brown v. Board of Education when he sent in federal troops to break the resistance of Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus and preside over the safe integration of Central High School for the Little Rock Nine three years later. Smith writes: “Those who would criticize Eisenhower for not moving fast enough on civil rights should remember that it was his judicial nominees who made the revolution possible.”
•Reaching across the aisle. Eisenhower was a Republican, but he worked with a Democrat-led Congress through most of his eight years in the White House. House Speaker Sam Rayburn and his Texas protégé, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, shared a mutual respect with Eisenhower and, hard as it is to imagine in 21st-century America, often engaged in a ritual known as bipartisanship. In many cases, Eisenhower bucked his own party. The Republican platform called for, among other things, killing FDR’s New Deal programs, reducing foreign aid, and cutting taxes. Ike ignored them all, pursuing a moderate, incremental strategy that paid later dividends and justified his approach.
Smith lauds Eisenhower for his political pragmatism and notes that “the calcified wing of the Republican party” presented more challenges than did the Democrats.
•Balancing peace and prosperity. Not only did Eisenhower avoid wars and skirmishes that would have imperiled young Americans, he also left those future generations in much better financial shape. What might best be described as prudent austerity practiced by the Eisenhower administration led to a balanced federal budget. Government efficiency improved during Eisenhower’s tenure and he famously delivered the unheeded warning in his farewell address to limit the scope of “the military-industrial complex” and its “permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.”
Smith delves into these and other issues without ever lapsing into hagiography. Eisenhower emerges here as a remarkable but flawed and human subject.
Throughout his military career and into the presidency, Eisenhower was a political animal, prone to recasting unpleasant events and episodes in a more favorable light.
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