Conclusion

why eisenhower still matters

On Eisenhower’s last full day in office the New York Times published an evaluation of his presidency by Washington bureau chief James Reston. His appraisal serves as a time capsule of views commonly held by Eisenhower’s critics at the beginning of the 1960s. Recognizing that more perspective was necessary for an objective evaluation, Reston stated his hope that “in a generation or so, the historians may be able to agree on his place in history.” Consensus is rare, but after several generations there are some aspects of Eisenhower’s presidency that historians largely agree on. Some of Reston’s conclusions have stood the test of time and are now shared by most historians, while others have been largely refuted.

Reston’s appraisal focused primarily on foreign affairs and national security. Although he gave Eisenhower credit for avoiding war, his praise was lukewarm at best: “The Eisenhower administration has come to a close with a series of truces in Korea, Indochina, the Taiwan Strait and Berlin. Nothing has been settled but nothing vital to the free world has been lost.” Given the potential each of these Cold War hot spots had for triggering a wider war, historians generally give Eisenhower higher marks for having avoided one. During the Vietnam War, Eisenhower’s decision to put prohibitive conditions on U.S. intervention there seemed prophetic. Reston was correct, however, when he said that Eisenhower “would have liked to secure the peace he did so much to win as a soldier.”

On the subject of character, Reston said that Eisenhower had “upheld the dignity and honor of his office.” He was also “orderly, patient, conciliatory and a thoughtful team player—all admirable traits of character.” These traits, Reston said, were not enough for “his critics [who] saw him not merely as an attractive human being with decent instincts and sound objectives, but as a leader of the free world who was confronted by a unique and cunning challenge which he underestimated from the beginning.” The president, Reston elaborated, had been “preoccupied” with other things. His focus was not on “the new situation in post-Stalin Russia.” Instead, it was on “Republican objectives” such as “reducing the budget, cutting the nation’s commitments overseas, increasing the deterrent of atomic weapons, wiping out inflation, and reducing the authority of the central government.”

Reston was furthest from the mark when he criticized Eisenhower’s leadership. He said that the president relied on his cabinet and staff to make decisions, making them himself “only when his subordinates could not agree.” This view, as we have seen, was widely held at the time but has now been rejected by historians. Overall, Reston concluded, Eisenhower “presided over an era of prosperity and good feeling within the nation,” and had “avoided war and depression,” an “important if limited objective.”¹

The following day, almost lost among coverage of Kennedy’s inauguration, the New York Times editorial board weighed in with its own, much shorter, appraisal of the Eisenhower years. Like Reston, they gave Eisenhower high marks for character. He had conducted his office with “dignity,” displayed “equanimity” in the face of repeated crises, accepted criticism with “graciousness and good humor,” and shown great “personal courage” facing serious illness. In part because of these traits, they said, Eisenhower “will retire from office with the respect and good will of his countrymen.” As with Reston, however, they used complements of Eisenhower’s character as openings for criticism: “As we look back upon the record of these eight years, however, we cannot fail to note that the convictions he brought with him into office, though each was excellent in its own place, were nevertheless to prove to be the chief elements of weakness in the record of his administration.” Among these were his deference to the separation of powers, which made him reluctant to “exert the executive pressure” necessary to win passage of legislation; his dependence on the chain of command, which led him to place important decisions “in the hands of subordinate officials”; and his preference for conciliation, which led him to seek consensus rather than impose a decision on the minority. “The net reliance upon such convictions,” they concluded, “has been in some important instances an absence of strong and consistently positive leadership.”²

The argument that Eisenhower’s convictions were both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness is an interesting one that is not without merit. Eisenhower did indeed have a high regard for the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. This conviction, although it may have inhibited him from exerting executive pressure in support of his administration’s legislative agenda, was far less relevant to whether it eventually passed than the lack of support often shown for it by his own party, as we saw in chapter 3. Eisenhower’s military background had instilled in him a commitment to the chain of command. This commitment can be seen in the organization of the White House, particularly the NSC. As we have seen, however, the chain of command was designed to provide Eisenhower with the best possible information for decision-making, not to relieve him from the responsibility of making decisions. Eisenhower’s preference for conciliation is the most interesting of the three “convictions” criticized by the Times. On the surface conciliation is a virtue, but being overly conciliatory is, perhaps, at the root of two of Eisenhower’s most controversial decisions—his reluctance to publicly criticize Joseph McCarthy, and his reluctance to publicly support Brown v. Board.

Those who describe themselves as moderates are often portrayed as unwilling to take a stand or lacking in political sophistication. This was not the case with Eisenhower. His attempts to find balance were part of a carefully considered philosophy, one that he applied consistently throughout his political career. “The middle of the road is derided” by the right and the left, Eisenhower said in a speech to the American Bar Association, long before he seriously considered running for president. “They deliberately misrepresent the central position as a neutral, wishy-washy one. Yet here is the truly creative area in which we may obtain agreement for constructive social action compatible with basic American principles and with the just aspirations of every sincere American. It is the area in which is rooted the hopes and allegiance of the vast majority of our people.”³ In a letter to his friend Bradford Chynoweth during the first term of his presidency, Eisenhower defended his policies as “a practical working basis between extremists.” He added, “anything that affects or is proposed for masses of humans is wrong if the position it seeks is at either end of possible argument.”⁴ Finally, in 1961, in his last speech as president, Eisenhower counseled the American people that when meeting future crises, “whether foreign or domestic, great or small,” they should weigh each proposal “in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs… . Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.”⁵ As we have seen, these words were not mere political rhetoric; Eisenhower applied them consistently as president.

In this book, I have argued that the “need to maintain balance” defines the Eisenhower presidency. In his decision to run for president, he sought balance between his personal aversion to politics and his sense of duty to his country. In his social welfare proposals, he sought a Middle Way between conservatives who wanted to reduce federal responsibility and liberals who wanted to increase it. In his creation of the New Look, he sought to provide the nation with the maximum security possible without implementing economic controls that would threaten individual liberty. In his decision not to intervene in the French-Indochina War, he sought a course between the “unattainable” goal of an independent, noncommunist Southeast Asia and the “unacceptable” alternative of communist control. Eisenhower never considered supporting Joseph McCarthy, but he was eventually forced to take a position between ignoring the senator—which he preferred—and publicly condemning him. Eisenhower’s preference was to leave public-school desegregation to the states, but when Arkansas governor Orval Faubus violated federal court orders, he was forced to intervene—although he did so without publicly stating his support for Brown v. Board. In his response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, Eisenhower was faced with a practical application of the Great Equation, which sought balance between military security and economic prosperity. Although he believed that the military budget was more than sufficient to provide for the nation’s defense, he agreed to increase it, but not to the level proposed by those who claimed the existence of a “missile gap.”

While writing the final chapter of this book I was teaching a course called “Eisenhower and the 1950s.” During that course I presented each of the eight topics covered in this book to my class of thirteen upper-level history majors. The students seemed particularly interested in figuring out which political party Eisenhower would be in if he were alive today. Some students argued that, given his adherence to the Middle Way, he would be unlikely to win a primary in the current Republican Party. Others conceded this point but were equally adamant that he would not be comfortable with the spending proposals of the current Democratic Party. After briefly indulging their determination to decide whether Eisenhower would be a liberal Republican or a conservative Democrat, I attempted to direct them toward a more productive discussion of what their interest in this topic says about our current political polarization. The fact that most of us only hear about Susan Collins (R-ME) or Joe Manchin (D-WV) when one of them threatens to spoil the aspirations of their own party strongly suggests we have lost sight of the balance that Eisenhower sought in his own presidency. So does the fact that Eisenhower, currently sixth in the most respected ranking of U.S. presidents, would be unlikely to win an election as a member of either political party today.⁶

Eisenhower’s centrism is very appealing to many. So are his sense of duty, honor, and integrity—apparent in the topics covered in this book. Duty, honor, and integrity are words rarely used by academic historians, given the difficulty of using them objectively. The fact that so many of our elected officials fall short of our expectations for good character suggests that we should use them more often. This is not to say that Eisenhower is above criticism. As historian Richard Damms has pointed out, accepting that Eisenhower was “intelligent, articulate, and fully in command of his own administration’s major domestic and foreign policies” is not to say that one approves of “the wisdom of his policy choices, the effectiveness of his decision-making, and the long-term legacies of his actions.”⁷ The same is true regarding his character. To say that he was a person of good character is not to say that he would conform to our current views on, for example, race and gender.

Americans are living in a time of extreme partisanship. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are farther apart today than at any time in the past fifty years. Both parties have moved away from the ideological center, leaving only a small number of moderates in Congress who are amenable to bipartisan negotiations.⁸ Recent polls, however, show that 37 percent of Americans identify themselves as political moderates, and half believe that it is important for their political leaders to compromise.⁹ These Americans are frustrated by the increasing ideological inflexibility of the two major parties, both of which prioritize the views of their more partisan members. The inability or unwillingness of Republicans and Democrats to find common ground often means that victories for one side come only at the expense of the other. What is best for the country is too often lost. In his Farewell Address, Eisenhower asserted that “good judgement seeks balance.” This is the most valuable lesson his presidency left for our time.