The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

by William I. Hitchcock

But at a summit starved for signs of real progress, Eisenhower’s visionary proposal captivated world opinion—just as he hoped it would.

When the conference came to an end on July 23, the professional diplomats called it a failure. The U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Charles Bohlen, thought it “the most disappointing and discouraging of all the summit meetings,” and he had been present at the great wartime meetings between Stalin and Roosevelt. There was “no real progress” on the major issues, and though the foreign ministers would continue to meet in the following months, they produced no breakthroughs. But for Eisenhower personally, the summit had been a magnificent success. Ike transformed a meeting he initially opposed into a triumph for his style of politics. He won a “moral victory,” the New York Times asserted, by stressing his desire for peace and making innovative proposals for arms inspections: “He represented what is best in this nation.”

He persuaded a skeptical world that “the United States is sincerely

opposed to war, cold or hot.” He also imposed his will over his truculent secretary of state, his chief military advisers, and many on the right in his own party who viewed conciliation toward the Soviets as tantamount to appeasement. These ...

“The big figure of the American president, perfectly tailored, vigorous in action and broad and sweeping in thought, dominated the conference,” according to New York Times reporter Drew Middleton. Eisenhower, wrote an admiring Stewart Alsop, “has the grandeur and the power, and a curious brand of earnestness as well, which makes him a man remarkably difficult to disbelieve.”

In fact the senior members of the Eisenhower administration quickly moved to limit Nixon’s authority. The vice president did not occupy center stage during the weeks that followed the heart attack. Sherman Adams did. It was Adams who along with Attorney General Brownell (also hastily returned from a European vacation), decided that there was no need to turn power over to the vice president. The president was ill, but still alive and mentally alert. He needed time to convalesce, and the nation needed continuity.

Some commentators delivered a more cutting assessment. Richard Rovere, the acerbic New Yorker columnist, described the Eisenhower administration as a non-event in the nation’s history: “It has left the country almost exactly as it found it, with nothing added and nothing taken away.” Ike governed with reference to a “pastiche of pieties” and seemed content to “subcontract” his job to others. Eisenhower himself was lazy. “The whole operational side of government has bored him,” Rovere asserted. “No president since Calvin Coolidge, who was a devotee of the afternoon snooze, has relaxed more or taxed his energies less than Eisenhower.” He preferred to be kept out of the loop: “There is a great deal of which Eisenhower has never heard, and he has organized his office staff and his Cabinet into a kind of conspiracy to perpetuate his unawareness.” To be sure, he had steered the country away from war and proved able to restrain his hawkish lieutenants. Even so, the dirty work of politics diminished him. He had become merely a “distressed, flustered, put-upon man.” If Eisenhower possessed a certain sanity, a quality of decency and maturity that Americans respected and valued, his chief characteristic as president had been his coldness, what Rovere called “a formidable indifference.”

The Brown decision, according to Kilpatrick and many other white southerners, sought to rob the states of their right to educate children in a manner conducive to southern tastes and values. The Constitution did not give to the federal government the duty to educate children; it left education to the states. This right must now be defended with “massive resistance” to federal demands for racial integration. In Kilpatrick’s skilled hands, “interposition” became a way of hiding the ugliness of white supremacy in the legalistic appeal to states’ rights.

And the leading political figures of the South rose with one voice in the halls of the Capitol to denounce federal overreach and the specter of race mixing. On March 12 Senator Walter George read the infamous “Declaration of Constitutional Principles,” or “Southern Manifesto,” on the floor of the Senate. Nineteen senators and 82 members of the House of Representatives appended their names to the shameful document. Distinguished

legislators like Richard Russell of Georgia, Harry Byrd of Virginia, Russell Long of Louisiana, William Fulbright of Arkansas, and even the 1952 Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Sparkman of Alabama, all signed. The manifesto accused the Supreme Court of substituting “naked power for established law,” declared the Brown decision an “abuse of judicial power,” and insisted that the South be allowed to protect its “habits, traditions, and way of life.” The Supreme Court’s action had triggered racial tumult in the South that was “destroying the amicable relations between white and Negro races.” The Court had “planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding.”

As the 1956 presidential campaign approached, Ike adopted what his speechwriter Emmet Hughes called “the most conservative caution” toward the subject of civil rights. Although Max Rabb, the “minorities officer” in the White House, urged Sherman Adams to push Eisenhower on civil rights, the president remained wary.

He did not think there was much to be gained politically by drawing attention to the Brown decision. On August 8, just before a press conference, Hagerty advised Eisenhower that black voters in the North were likely to fall in line behind the Democrats anyway, and too much pressure on civil rights would alienate white southerners. Ike agreed. When asked by reporters later that day if the GOP platform should explicitly embrace the Brown decision, Eisenhower dodged the question. “I don’t know how the Republican plank on this particular point is going to be stated,” he said.

Republicans, he said, wanted a government that promotes individual liberty and freedom while also protecting each citizen “against falling into the depths of poverty and misery through no fault of his own.” Good government must enhance free enterprise but also encourage community values and mutual goodwill so that no American will be left behind. Government must operate with thrift and integrity but “must never pinch pennies where the security of the nation is concerned.” Government must arm for war but strive toward world peace through cooperation

and diplomacy. Here in a nutshell was the basic message of the Age of Eisenhower: Government must be moderate, efficient, empathetic, responsive, and compassionate. It must govern with restraint, wisdom, and a constant insistence on frugality. Above all, government must adhere to a disciplined policy of limited spending and limited interference in the lives of American citizens.

Eisenhower understood better than his British and French counterparts that Nasser “embodies the demands of the people of the area for independence and slapping the white man down.” Any use of force against Nasser now would “array the [Muslim] world from Dakar to the Philippines against us.” When Eisenhower learned from his special envoy Robert Murphy that the British cabinet had already decided to “drive Nasser out of Egypt,” he responded by writing immediately to Eden, whom he had known well since the Second World War. But that old friendship did not soften Eisenhower’s tone now. The president expressed his “personal conviction . . . as to the unwisdom of even contemplating the use of military force at this moment.” Eden could have no doubt: the United States opposed any British military action toward

Thousands of Soviet troops, backed by hundreds of tanks and trucks, were rolling into Budapest, firing upon anticommunist protesters. The Western world looked on aghast at this dramatic and tragic confrontation in the heart of the Soviet bloc.

Khrushchev’s risky gamble had been part of a series of actions—including his agreeing to the neutralization of Austria, his openness to meet Eisenhower in Geneva, and his effort to improve ties to Yugoslav leader Josip Tito, whom Stalin had excommunicated for his anti-Soviet sentiments—all designed to send the message that the communist experiment in Eastern Europe would no longer rely upon terror. The world would see a new communist bloc, made up of willing socialist states working in harmony toward a common Marxist future. Having opened up Pandora’s box, however, Khrushchev found himself struggling to contain the demons within. In Poland, long one of the most ardently anti-Soviet nations of Europe, workers called Khrushchev’s bluff and began to agitate for improved pay and working conditions. In late June 1956 a wildcat strike erupted into a major uprising in the city of Poznan, as workers rioted against food shortages, inadequate housing, low wages, and the incompetence of their managers. The

protestors carried signs declaring “Bread and Freedom” and “Russians Go Home.” As the march grew, shots were fired into the crowd by the Polish security forces; over 50 marchers died. In October, Khrushchev traveled to Warsaw to meet with Polish leaders and make it plain that the Soviet Red Army would use force to ensure Poland’s continued obedience. Rather than knuckle under, however, Polish leaders insisted that any use of force by the Soviets would trigger a massive uprising, and crowds in the major cities of Lodz, Wroclaw, and Warsaw protested the Soviet threats.

Meanwhile, in Hungary, anti-Soviet feeling surged. On October 22 students, intellectuals, and factory workers gathered at the Technological University in Budapest and adopted a wide-ranging list of demands, including the removal of Soviet troops and the replacement of the pro-Moscow leadership with Imre Nagy, a former prime minister who was identified with liberalization policies. Protesters also demanded multiparty elections, freedom of press and assembly, and the prompt removal of the massive statue of Stalin that still stood in central Budapest. A mass demonstration the next day led to an outpouring of anti-Soviet rhetoric, and spontaneous demonstrations popped up across Budapest. In the evening a group of

ironworkers managed to cut through the metal legs of the statue of Stalin, toppling the grotesque memorial. At about 9:00 p.m. on October 23 the Hungarian Security Police fired into the crowd, killing unarmed demonstrators. Hungary was on the brink of revolution.

By early the next morning 30,000 Red Army troops had entered the country, bringing with them over 1,000 tanks. But these invaders only provoked the citizens of Budapest to defend their city. Using Molotov cocktails, as well as thousands of rifles taken from the barracks of army units that had rallied to the side of the rebels, Hungarians defied the Soviet troops, and open combat broke out in the streets.

CIA sources learned on October 26 that the Israelis were mobilizing their armed forces for war. The Americans did not know the intended target of the Israeli action but suspected it was Jordan. (The Israelis asserted that a hostile Jordanian-Egyptian-Syrian alliance was poised to attack them.)

In late October these flights found clear evidence that French jets had been delivered to Israel and that a large British naval buildup was under way in Cyprus.

At the same time Secretary Dulles reported that America’s key allies, Britain and France, had gone suspiciously quiet, “keeping us completely in the dark as to their intentions” in the Middle East.

The whole picture now came plainly into view: Britain wanted Israel to attack Egypt, knew about it, and would use it as a screen to wage its own war on Nasser. The painful realization set in: the Americans had been duped.

He insisted that the whole affair be taken to the United Nations and resolved with respect for international law. “There can be no peace without law,” he concluded. “And there can be no law if we invoke one code of international conduct for those who oppose us and another for our friends.”

This was an unprecedented, even shocking step: one week before the presidential election, Eisenhower announced a cutoff of military aid to Israel at the very moment Israel was fighting an Arab state with clear Soviet sympathies. And his secretary of state strongly agreed with the decision.

Throughout the crisis Eisenhower consistently held to this position, even though some in his cabinet and many in the press disagreed. He went so far as to record his views in a secret “memorandum for the record.” He wrote that Israel should not assume “that winning a domestic election is as important to us as preserving and protecting the interests of the United Nations and other nations of the free world in that region.” Eisenhower did not veer from this belief.

Above all, “the Soviets must be prevented from seizing the mantle of world leadership.” In essence Ike wanted to discipline his own side in the cold war so he could sustain the narrative that the Soviet Union, not the Western powers, was the true source of conflict and trouble in the world.

Assembly, “The United States finds itself unable to

agree with three nations with which it has ties of deep friendship, of admiration and of respect, and two of which constitute our oldest and most trusted and reliable allies.” It was a public slap in the face for Britain and France.

Unlike so many interventions at the UN, Dulles’s speech won great acclaim. His resolution garnered 64 votes, with only five nations—Britain, France, and Israel, joined by Australia and New Zealand—voting against. The world had rallied to America’s leadership.

Rising above partisan politics, he reminded his listeners of the grave events in the world: “We

have heard with deep dismay the crack of rifle fire and the whine of jet bombers over the deserts of Egypt.” In such an anxious time, he asked, what does American stand for? “What are the marks of America—and what do they mean to the world?” He gave a clear answer: Americans believed in the rule of law. That principle had won the admiration of so many millions of the world’s peoples. America was a land without “class or caste,” a country that did not judge a man by his “name or inheritance.” It was America’s mission to uphold the rule of law around the world. “There can be no second-class nations before the law of the world community.”

Eisenhower acknowledged that the crisis in the Middle East posed “a test of our principles” because it asked Americans to choose between friendship with old allies and respect for the law. But America had made its choice and would uphold the integrity of the law of nations. “We cannot proclaim this integrity when the issue is easy—and stifle it when the issue is hard.” Law must govern nations just as it must govern free peoples. “We cannot and we will not condone armed aggression, no matter who the attacker and no matter wh...

Britain and France, then, would move ahead with their plans for a land invasion of the Suez Canal. Hoping to forestall this, the Canadian delegation at the UN, with strong American backing, proposed the creation of a UN peacekeeping force that would enter the Canal Zone and do the job that Britain had arrogated to itself. On the evening of November 3 the UN endorsed this proposal by an overwhelming vote of 57–0. The British and French abstained. But it was a race to see who would get there first: British and French soldiers or the blue-helmeted UN troops.

The Soviet Union had installed Imre Nagy in power on October 24 with the intention of using this moderate and reform-minded leader to quell the Hungarian uprising. Instead Nagy had been captured by the euphoria of the anti-Soviet rebellion and declared Hungary’s intention to leave the communist bloc, setting off a panicked reaction in the Kremlin. Khrushchev and his colleagues worried that if Hungary could slip away from communist control just when Egypt, a potential client state, was being invaded by the Europeans, the West would have delivered a dual blow to Soviet prestige. In a secret meeting on October 31, Khrushchev and the Soviet Presidium ordered the preparation of Operation Whirlwind: the repression of the Hungarian Revolution by over 60,000 Soviet troops.

But Eisenhower understood there were no measures the United States could take to halt Soviet

aggression.

Hungary was landlocked and surrounded by Warsaw Pact countries. Any intervention there would certainly lead to a wider war. As he candidly wrote lat...

The Anglo-French landings stirred the Soviets into action. Their invasion of Hungary had produced an avalanche of global criticism, and they were all too keen to redirect the world’s focus to the Suez Crisis.

Then came a shocking proposal: that the United States and USSR send a joint task force to Egypt to pull apart the warring nations, impose peace, and restore order. “If this war is not stopped,” Bulganin darkly concluded, “it is fraught with danger and can grow into a third world war.”

Meeting with Hoover and other senior aides in the afternoon, Eisenhower wanted a reply sent to Bulganin immediately with “a clear warning” to stay out. The Soviets were embarking on “a wild adventure,” perhaps because their invasion of Hungary had been such a stain on their public reputation. They were “scared and furious” and therefore liable to make very bad decisions.

“He was thinking,” Hughes recalled, “with cold realism and as Commander in Chief of the menace that seemed to him implicit in the Bulganin message. ‘You know,’ he said tautly, ‘we may be dealing here with the opening gambit of an ultimatum. We have to be positive and clear in our every word, every step. And if those fellows start something, we may have to hit ’em—and, if necessary, with everything in the bucket.’ ”

Eisenhower approved Radford’s suggestion to send two aircraft carriers, the newly minted USS Forrestal and the USS Franklin Roosevelt, to the eastern Atlantic. He also approved putting the Continental Air Defense Command on increased readiness, thus sending more interceptor aircraft in the sky above the homeland. Eisenhower did not want to be the victim of a surprise Soviet attack.

He reluctantly concluded that Britain must accept the cease-fire, for three powerful reasons. First, the Soviet Union might well join the hostilities in the region, which would be a worldwide calamity. Second, the British had claimed all along that their invasion was mainly a “police action” designed to separate the Israelis and the Egyptians; now that those nations had agreed to a cease-fire, there was no plausible excuse to continue an armed invasion of Suez. The third and most pressing reason was that Britain had come under terrific economic pressure as a result of the crisis. With the canal blocked and the Iraq pipeline closed, Britain had lost about a quarter of its daily oil supply. The only way it could offset those losses was to purchase oil elsewhere, mainly from the United States or Latin America.

That required dollars. And Harold Macmillan, chancellor of the Exchequer, reported that Britain’s dollar reserves were evaporating at an alarming rate. Markets do not like war, and Britain had started one. Currency traders and national banks around the world were rapidly cashing in their British

pounds for dollars, threatening to wipe out Britain’s supply. Dependent on dollars to pay for oil imports, Britain could not survive long if its reserves disappeared. The British economy teetered on the...

The previous night Macmillan had frantically called American officials to get them to release these British-owned dollars, but Treasury Secretary Humphrey refused to allow the transaction. Although no evidence exists to link Eisenhower to this decision, Humphrey never would have taken such an unfriendly position without the president’s approval. Britain had come up against a basic reality: it could not act alone on the world stage without the support of the United States.

But he was not satisfied with only a cease-fire. Before approving any economic aid to Britain, Eisenhower wanted Eden to withdraw his troops from Egypt. The UN would send in a peacekeeping force now, and that force should have no troops from any of the “big five”—the United States, Britain, France, the USSR, and China. “You people ought to be able to withdraw very quickly.” This hit Eden hard. He had assumed that he would be able to keep his forces in the Canal Zone, thus giving him leverage over the Egyptians if they should not