The Fifties

by David Halberstam

Then he looked at Morrow and asked if it was true that his father was a minister. Yes, said Morrow. His father as well as his grandfather. “Does he ever talk to you about forgiveness?” Ike asked. Yes, Morrow answered. Often. “Well, that’s what I’m doing now,” Dwight Eisenhower said. Then the candidate talked about his own prejudice toward black soldiers early in his career. It was rooted in an assignment right after his graduation from West Point, when he had been in charge of a black Illinois National Guard unit. Poorly trained, poorly educated, often led by second-rate white officers, they had performed poorly for him. Dwight Eisenhower said that he was working to overcome his own prejudices, and Morrow finally decided he was a good man, a prisoner of his own isolation and the beliefs of his generation, but decent nonetheless.