I LIKE IKE's biography

EISENHOWER: A LIFE (New York: Viking, 2014)

BY PAUL JOHNSON

Rev. by Hugh Murray

            I like Ike’s biography, but Johnson makes some questionable assertions in this short volume.  First, the basics – Johnson stresses that Eisenhower was a team player, as coach, general, and as president.(p. 4)  Ike was intelligent, and purposely presented the image of an average Joe.  Johnson maintains that Ike was in control of the White House when he was president, but let others think that men like Sec. of State John Foster Dulles were in charge.  Eisenhower tried to get along with people, and was a hard worker, learning about the importance of industrial production and organization to the military as he rose in the ranks.  In WWII, he was less interested in capturing political objectives, like Berlin or Prague, believing that the masses of rubble would be rife with snipers and America would pay a heavy cost in lives.  But Eisenhower did rush to capture Luebeck, and thereby cut off any Soviet advance into Denmark.

            According to Johnson, Ike “regarded as his greatest error of judgment” a campaign stop in 1952 in Wisconsin, where, heeding bad advice, he deleted a paragraph praising his old boss, Gen. George Marshall for his patriotism.(19)   Marshall had come under attack by Indiana Republican Sen. Jenner as “a front man for traitors.”(85)  Wisconsin Sen. McCarthy was also critical of Marshall, and Eisenhower removed the paragraph so as not to offend McCarthy in a state the GOP hoped to win in November.  Yet, despite brooding over removing a paragraph from a campaign speech, Eisenhower conceded “The reason we lost China…was because Marshall insisted Chiang Kai-shek take Communists into the government, against Chiang’s judgment.”(101)  So whatever Eisenhower’s emotional response to Marshall, it appears his rational assessment was not significantly different from Jenner’s.

            Eisenhower’s hatred of Jenner, his hostility to California Sen. Knowland, Sen. McCarthy and other conservatives and populists is made manifest in this short book.  Ike, whose politics were so little known during and shortly after WWII that Pres. Harry Truman at one point offered him anything, including the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1948 if he so desired.(62)  But Eisenhower was a quiet Republican, who disagreed more with Truman during the Democrat’s second term.  But Ike also vehemently opposed the old isolationist wing of the GOP, headed by Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, and the seeming favorite for the 1952 nomination.  To oppose Taft, Eisenhower would receive the support of the liberal, internationalist wing of the GOP, the wing that had captured the nomination in 1940 for Wendell Willkie, and in 1944 and 1948 for New York Gov. Thomas Dewey.  Under the leadership of the liberals, the GOP lost those elections.  The nomination in 1952 was a close contest between Taft and Ike, but with a new California Sen. corralling delegates for Eisenhower, Ike won the nomination.  He then gave the vice-presidential nomination to that young Californian, Richard Nixon, to balance the ticket.  Once in power, Ike named a cabinet of millionaire businessmen.

            Johnson describes McCarthy as “a uniquely unpleasant person”; Ike thought if he used patience, McCarthy would destroy himself.(97)  But Ike used more than “patience.”  When McCarthy sought to ferret out Communists working for the government, Ike was just as devious as Truman in moving files to prevent them from being scrutinized by Congressional committees.  Eisenhower even came up with a new mwrhos to stonewall investigations, “executive privilege,”(97) a notion that would prevent exposure to the American people and shield all kinds of nefarious activities – under administrations of Eisenhower, Nixon, and up to and including Obama.

            During WWII Ike planned the Allied invasion of North Africa.  Spending several sentences on the French Admiral Francois Darlan, Johnson remarks that “the French navy was far more anti-Allies, or rather anti-British, than the army.”(32)  What Johnson fails to mention is that in 1940 Churchill had ordered the British navy to attack his erstwhile French allies whose fleet was at Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria.  The French were given short notice to surrender on July 3, and when they refused, were attacked by the British, who weeks earlier had been their allies.  Some 1,300 French mariners were killed in this attack, (for comparison, some 2,500 Americans were killed at Pearl Harbor) and consequently, in the new Vichy France, there was strong support for a declaration of war against Britain.  (However, having just lost to Germany, Marshall Petain, believed France was then too weak, so no war was declared.)

            There are some strange omissions from this short book.  According to a PBS documentary on the Supreme Court, Eisenhower later judged his decision to appoint Republican California Gov. Earl Warren to the US Supreme Court, as “the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made.”  Certainly, that court’s unanimous decision finding legal segregation of schools as unconstitutional would raise issues that Ike preferred to defer to another time.  Yet, Ike did send troops to Little Rock to enforce the Court’s decision, the first time since Reconstruction that American troops had been sent South to defend the rights of Blacks.  No Democrat had done that.  Furthermore, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction was enacted under Eisenhower.

            Another strange omission is one that occurred shortly before the 1956 election.  Johnson mentions the joint Israeli, British, French invasion of Egypt, which aimed to topple Nasser.  But almost simultaneous was the revolt against the Communist regime in Hungary – with American supported radio encouraging the rebels.  Hungary is not mentioned in the book – neither the rebellion nor its suppression by the Soviets, nor the refusal to intervene by Eisenhower.  Johnson asserts that Ike knew nothing about the invasion of Egypt, but I remain skeptical.  I read at the time that the US had give the invasion about 2 weeks to overthrow Nasser; when he retained power, then the US would force the three nations to retreat while the US gained the applause of the Third World.

            Johnson rightly notes that Ike brought peace to Korea, and did not intervene in Vietnam.  Unlike Truman, Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson, Ike never considered using nuclear weapons.(99)  Eisenhower showed no warmth toward Nixon, but disliked John Kennedy even more.  Johnson contrasts Eisenhower’s victories with the botched operation of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba under Kennedy.(113)  But the author does not include that the planning of the Bay of Pigs occurred under Eisenhower on the assumption that Nixon would win the election.  Moreover, the CIA and others lied to Kennedy about salient aspects of the project, lies which contributed to the fiasco.

            One astonishing revelation – Ike did not allow tipping in the White House.  When a Saudi was guest and left tips of $50 and $100 bills, Ike tried to retrieve them before the staff could appropriate them.

            There were two instances where Johnson might have better clarified issues for an American audience.  He gives a list of new men who in Ike’s second term replaced the older appointees, the ones with whom Ike had been close.  Among those whom he would miss and liked were (Herbert) Brownell, (Sherman) Adams, and Humphrey.  Reading this, I thought what?  Hubert Humphrey?  And then I realized, Johnson meant Cabinet member and GM President George Humphrey.(104)

            And following the British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, the U S “tabled” a motion at the UN, - meaning the motion was placed on the agenda.  That is the British meaning of the word – and it is just the opposite of the American meaning, which would indicate that the proposal had been sent back to committee for later consideration, or killed.  Clearly, Johnson meant the British use of the term, but for an American readership, he might have rephrased the sentence for clarity.

            Despite Johnson’s high opinion of Ike, he does note his vindictiveness, some of his hatreds, some of his duplicity.  Others have suggested Ike may have been extremely cruel to German POWs and other prisoners after WWII.  He obstructed McCarthy and the populist Republican and felt at home with the wealthy.  But he led Allied invasions of North Africa, then of Sicily and Italy, and finally, the world’s largest with D-Day at Normandy.  He commanded the American sector of occupied Germany, and was a commander of forces in NATO, he was president of Columbia University (an Ivy League one), and the President of the US.  He ended the war in Korea, and engaged in no large-scale adventures.  While Sputnik’s high orbiting lowered American prestige, still there was no doubt that the leading power in the world was the USA.  The economy boomed, inflation was low, new consumer products filled the markets which people rode to in automobiles over the new national highway system.  For America, it was a golden age - and Ike was its President.