Eisenhower's Lonely Presidency



Dwight David Eisenhower(1890 -- 1969) served from 1953 -- 1961 as the 34th president after a heroic military career in which he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during WW II. Proceeded by Harry Truman and followed by John Kennedy, Eisenhower's presidency tended to be poorly regarded in its immediate aftermath. But Eisenhower's presidency continues to attract attention and debate. Beginning in the late 1960's, scholars began revisiting Eisenhower's leadersh

Eisenhower's Lonely Presidency



Dwight David Eisenhower(1890 -- 1969) served from 1953 -- 1961 as the 34th president after a heroic military career in which he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during WW II. Proceeded by Harry Truman and followed by John Kennedy, Eisenhower's presidency tended to be poorly regarded in its immediate aftermath. But Eisenhower's presidency continues to attract attention and debate. Beginning in the late 1960's, scholars began revisiting Eisenhower's leadership style and accomplishments to find that he was a president of both force and subtlety. Early in 2012, Jean Edward Smith published a lengthy and highly laudatory biography of Eisenhower that has received substantial critical attention. "Eisenhower in War and Peace" Smith covers Eisenhower's entire life rather than focusing on his presidency. Evan Thomas' new book "Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World" (2012) is much more narrowly focused. Thomas covers only Eisenhower's presidency, and considers almost exclusively his foreign policy rather than his domestic programs. A Washington insider, Thomas has written extensively on 20th Century American history.



The title "Eisenhower's Bluff" refers to the central characteristic of the president's enigmatic foreign policy. In public, Eisenhower appeared a smiling, confident, avuncular war hero who frequently spoke in fractured syntax and who displayed a fondness for playing golf. Eisenhower as also a skilled a fiercely competitive poker and bridge player. In these games, and as a general, he learned how to hold his cards and his feelings. The "bluff" refers to Eisenhower's attitude towards the use of nuclear weapons. As Thomas points out, with his presidency and with the United States possession of a nuclear arsenal, Eisenhower became the first person to literally hold the fate of the world in his hands.



Eisenhower's foreign policy was based on a doctrine called "Massive Retaliation" under which war would be averted and avoided by the United States threat to resort to nuclear weapons, even in seemingly local conflicts. Eisenhower seemed to be convinced that nuclear weapons had made conventional warfare obsolete. In seeming contradiction to this policy, Eisenhower was fully aware of the terrible character of the nuclear bomb and was convinced that such weapons should never be used. Eisenhower's foreign policy, for Thomas, turned upon the threat to use nuclear weapons, not their use. Thomas summarizes his study of Eisenhower early in the book.



"The 1950s were boringly peaceful (or are remembered that way) only because Eisenhower made them so. Eisenhower governed by indirection, not just because he preferred to, but also because he had to. His ability to save the world from nuclear Armageddon entirely depended on his ability to convince America's enemies-- and his own followers-- that he was willing to use nuclear weapons. This was a bluff of epic proportions."



Thomas offers a number of telling anecdotes to explain Eisenhower's bluff. The first involves a meeting with Dean Acheson, Truman's Secretary of State, who advised Eisenhower to determine for himself when, if at all, he would commit to the use of nuclear weapons and to "tell no one" what he decided. Then, in 1958,the poet Robert Frost visited the White House to present Eisenhower with a book of poems. Frost inscribed the book: "[t]he strong are saying nothing until they see." Eisenhower wrote in response "I like his maxim perhaps best of all."



Thomas book is in two parts, each of which considers one of Eisenhower's two terms as president. Thomas describes the many foreign policy crises in the Eisenhower years beginning with Korea, and continuing through Vietnam, Formosa, the Suez Canal, Berlin, and much more. In these and other crises, many advisors close to the president were willing to opt for the use of nuclear weapons, a prospect Eisenhower seemingly found unthinkable. Eisenhower governed, Thomas argues, through indirection and through deliberately sending mixed and confusing signals to achieve his goals. Eisenhower was willing to threaten in public the use of nuclear power while working in a different direction behind the scenes. The process was messy but it kept the United States out of war during Eisenhower's presidency. Thomas argues that Eisenhower's method of governance was dependent upon the esteem in which Eisenhower was held and upon his stature as a war hero and could not have been used effectively by any other American leader.



The book describes Eisenhower's complex relationship with John Foster Dulles, his Secretary of State, and with his brother Allan Dulles, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Eisenhower could reign in his sometimes blustering Secretary of State but he fared less well with the CIA and the many covert operations in which it engaged during the 1950s and thereafter.



The book describes well the tensions of the Cold War and the exaggerated views held by many, not including Eisenhower, about the Soviet threat at the time. The launching of Sputnik and the fears of an in fact nonexistent "missile gap" brought a great deal of fear to those growing up in the United States at the time. Thomas suggests that Eisenhower would have had difficulty defusing these fears at the time because doing so would have required the release of highly secret information and of the means of its collection.



Following Eisenhower's presidency, his successors adopted a doctrine called "Flexible Response" which Eisenhower had rejected. This doctrine allows for the prosecution of limited war without the nuclear threat. As Thomas points out, the use of flexible response has achieved questionable results in places such as Vietnam and perhaps Iraq and Afghanistan.



Scholars remain divided on the nature of Eisenhower's commitment to "Massive Retaliation" and whether the threats to use nuclear weaponry in fact constituted a "bluff". Thomas offers a detailed examination of Eisenhower's governance which on the whole offers a highly favorable assessment of Eisenhower and his accomplishments, while recognizing that the policy would not have worked in the hands of his successors. Thomas concludes:" Eisenhower understood with profound insight, the moral ambiguities, the wrenching dilemmas, the dreary expediencies, and the quiet moral courage required of a life of duty, honor, country..... That he could be, as he made his lonely and sometimes inscrutable way, so resolutely cheerful, so determinedly optimistic, was a kind of miracle born of faith."



This book will be of interest to readers with a passion for 20th Century American history, particularly to aging baby boomers.



Robin Friedman