The Fifties

by David Halberstam

Eisenhower was cautious, pragmatic, modest, and given to understatement; Dulles, bombastic, arrogant, and self-important. He tended to underestimate even the intelligence of the President he served, and there was no doubt among his aides that on occasion he believed his principal job was to save the President from his more trusting self, that is, the side that might be exploited by the Soviets, on occasion. He complained to close aides of Ike’s lack of a sense of crisis. Still, he honored Eisenhower for the wise choice of himself: “With my understanding of the intricate relationships between the peoples of the world and your sensitiveness to the political considerations involved, we will make the most successful team in history,” he told Eisenhower early on. In public at least, Dulles did not seem a man much given to nuance. Instead, he thundered out his own certitudes, oblivious to others, in a voice that seemed to threaten anyone who did not accept his idea that American goodness included the use of nuclear weapons.