Eisenhower Dwight David - The President and the apprentice : Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952-1961

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Copyright 2015 by Irwin F. Gellman. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Ruth Ann Segerstrom Moriarty
with
gratitude and love

THE PRESIDENT AND THE APPRENTICE

Eisenhower and Nixon, 19521961

Irwin F. Gellman

PREFACE

When Herbert Brownell Jr. told Dwight D. Eisenhower that his advisers had selected Richard M. Nixon as his running mate in 1952, the general readily concurred. Ike saw in Nixon a young, talented politician who, like himself, was a strong foe of communism and had distinguished himself as a congressman in 1948 by his pursuit of Alger Hiss, later shown to have spied for the Soviet Union. Eisenhower would also come to value Nixons political insight and his ability to connect with his Republican constituency. Not yet forty years old at the time he was nominated, Nixon saw his place on the 1952 ticket as a priceless opportunity, and he never lost his determination to make the most of it. Yet he never completely understood Ikes military character and would be left dumbfounded by some of Ikes decisions.

The two men were never partners. Theirs was not a strange political marriage, as Jeffrey Frank claims in Ike and Dick. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II, the former chief of staff of the Army, the first supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, did not have partners. He led a team of subordinates, who were expected to go where Ike sent them, be his eyes and ears, provide intelligent and informed advice, deliver his messages, execute his decisions, and occasionally become casualties. Whether the battlefield was military or political, Ike often had his soldiers take the heat instead of himself.

Having seen how unprepared Harry S Truman was to assume the presidency on Franklin D. Roosevelts death, Eisenhower kept Vice President Nixon aware of most of the decisions made in the White House. Nixon attended Ikes weekly meetings, presided in Ikes absence, acted as a liaison with both houses of Congress, met with dozens of foreign heads of state, and tirelessly represented the administration on the campaign trail. He had more responsibility and more authority than any vice president before him. He shared frequent breakfasts and lunches with the president, and was one of a small circle of advisers who could walk into the Oval Office without an appointment. When Eisenhower, after a futile year of trying to get Joseph McCarthy to cooperate with his administration, decided in 1954 that the senator was doing far more harm than good, Nixon was part of the small team that ruined him. When Eisenhower wanted to advance the cause of civil rights, he turned to Nixon, first as the head of the Presidents Committee on Government Contracts, and then as the point man in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1957. (Some historians have given the credit for this legislation largely to thenSenate majority leader Lyndon Johnson, but Johnson actually eviscerated two major provisions that were unacceptable to the southern caucus.)

Nixon evolved into one of Ikes most valuable subordinates. When Eisenhower suffered a major heart attack in September 1955, Nixon, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and White House chief of staff Sherman Adams were largely in charge of the White House for several months. At the time, the public did not know the severity of Eisenhowers illness, nor did anyone know that Nixon, over-stressed and overmedicated, was at the very limits of his ability to function in the first half of 1956. Nor did John Foster Dulles reveal that his cancer surgery that year had been unsuccessful; he would die in the spring of 1959.

Both Eisenhower and Dulles relied increasingly on Nixon as a foreign policy counselor. Nixons trips to Asia, Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union were never ceremonial goodwill journeys; he conducted delicate business and sometimes tense negotiations with foreign leaders, and he gave Eisenhower detailed reports on what he saw, heard, and did. In the process, he became close friends with Dulles. This immersion in foreign affairs as vice president gave Nixon the background, when he became president, to conduct a foreign policy that included winding down the war in Vietnam, dtente with the Soviet Union, and a historic opening of relations with China.

Little of this is known, or properly understood.

Instead, many historians, journalists, and others have advanced the proposition that Ike and Nixon disliked each other and barely spoke throughout the Eisenhower presidency. In past decades, critics described Ikes presidential leadership as inept and Nixon as hyperpartisan. While Ikes image has improved to that of a near-great or great president, Nixon remains an inconsequential vice president. This divergence in their reputations has created a paradox: given that Eisenhower is now seen as firmly in control of his administration, and that he was so wildly popular that he certainly did not need Nixons help to win the presidency, why did he allow Nixon to stay on the ticket? Even if we concede that he might have done so once by mistake, in 1952, why did Ike run with him again four years later?

At this point, more than a half-century since Eisenhower left office, the fog of misunderstanding has become bipartisan. The conservative British historian Paul Johnsons slim volume Eisenhower: A Life, published in 2014 and based entirely on secondary sources, includes just a single paragraph on the presidents relationship with his vice president.

Ikes attitude toward Nixon remains a mystery to this day. He behaved toward his vice president throughout the eight years they served together as if he were a burden or an embarrassment rather than an asset. Asked if Nixon had ever made a positive contribution to his administration, Ike avoided an answer and said hed like to think about it. Of course Ike had never chosen Nixon to run with him. And he disliked having around him a man he could not fire. (p. 107)