SIGH! Eisenhower (Again...)

I always seem inordinately attracted to praise of Dwight D. Eisenhower so when I spied on the new book shelf at the Tempe public library Paul Johnson's slim volume (123 pages of text) "Eisenhower: A Life" -- in this case "a life" condensed but PJ, a sort of semi conservative well "neo con" if you will writer (he wrote "Modern Times: A History of the World From the 1920s to the 1980s" that I liked very much and also "A History of Christianity" that I found quite interesting), covers it well: the "essential" points with some "extras" so to speak.

Johnson is pretty taken with Ike all in all but he doesn't gloss over his faults -- his self centeredness and exalted sense of "duty" covering ambition; his satisfaction to be accepted and feted among the rich; his odd disconnect with the public despite his popularity.

Post WWII Eisenhower met with his former "boss" Douglas MacArthur (DDE was Mac's chief of staff and work boy for a time in the 1930s) when MacA was the American "proconsul" in beat out and beat up Tokyo.

Mac said "Either you or I will be" prez and Mac actually thought he SAID that it would be Ike. Eisenhower demurred, saying military men (Washington? Jackson? Grant?) had "no business in politics" and that he had "no intention whatever of running" whereupon MacArthur avuncularly patted Ike's knee and cracked (wisely) "That's all right Ike; you go on like that and you'll get it for sure!" Which REALLY irritated Eisenhower -- perhaps for its aptness? (p 62)

Here's something Americans ought to remember re "the midcentury":

"The United States at midcentury was unarguably the most powerful nation on earth. It was the largest petroleum producer in the world and supplied more oil than the rest of the world's nations together.

"It harvested one third of the world's grain and half its cotton. It was the world's largest producer of phosphates, iron ore, zinc, lead, copper {Arizona!}, salt and precious metals including uranium.

"It had 90 percent of the world's natural gas production. In metals the {US} outproduced the combined output of Germany, the USSR, Venezuela, Japan, France, Iran, Poland, Britain, the Netherlands, India, Burma and Belgium....

"Almost half the world's manufactured goods came from the {US}. Between 1940 and 1945 the American gross national product doubled {war was "good" for "US"? at least THAT war!} and the ranks of the US army increased to 8.2 million with more than 12 million on active duty.... This was more than Russia or the entire British empire. {So who was the "militarist" power eh.}

"...All this power was centered in the white house and effectively wielded by the president, the one man in the nation for whom everyone had the power to vote {for or against}...." (pp 77-78)

So essentially how could Ike, commander of millions in Europe, "resist" hm.

As president Eisenhower I think, taking from Johnson as well as other books on him I've read, was BOTH the president of "power" (see above), growing the thermonuclear capability immensely, establishing the Strategic Air Command (see Kubrick's satirical take on that, "Dr Strangelove Etc"), ICBMs ("intercontinental" you know!) and so on and at the same time deploring what he deemed excessive pleading ("Please sir I want some MORE!") on the part of "the services" --

"...He cut the defense budget {the previous president} Truman handed to him by $10 billion. {It rose later obviously!}

"...{H}e delivered his 'Chance for Peace' speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in which...{h}e said: 'We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8000 people.... This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.... Under the cloud of threatening war it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.'" (p 99)

A "peacenik" could have given that speech!

"He wanted people to say of his presidency: 'He got us out of Korea and he kept us out of Vietnam.'" (p 101) Welll sorta -- he definitely got "US" out of a Korean WAR but we are STILL "in Korea" to south Korea's eventual benefit and then of course Eisenhower supported the Diem regime and laid therefore the basis for Kennedy's and Johnson's considerable ratcheting up of "the commitment."

By the way I've read that Ike REALLY wanted to run again in 1960 but the 22nd amendment put the kabosh on that -- ironically Repubs hysterical about FDR's FOUR elected terms never seemed to think that THEY'd have an "FDR," i. e., a prez people would have elected "to death" so to speak.

Eisenhower never "warmed" to Nixon as PJ notes and he saw both Nix and Kennedy as "second lieutenants" and not up to snuff -- he'd have surely run (he LIKED being prez though he'd often "complain") if he could have, as a "duty" (YOU -- USA -- can't get along without ME!) And I KNOW he'd not have had a "Vietnam war" -- not the guy who got elected in '52 to END the Korean war; he wasn't "going out" having one! Nope. NOSSIR!

Okay that's it for now but I have one last chapter to go -- "The Best Decade in American History," i. e., the one I grew up in -- and I'm sure there's some quotes from it I'll put forth.

Open again for "comments" -- if any...

I know you like Ike and you know why I don't. But Ike's adventures were essentially no different from those especially after him. It's not Ike's fault that when the time came to support the French in Vietnam Truman was there to do so and he was left to continue to do so. It wasn't Ike's fault that Dien Bien Phu occurred while he was in office so he had to have the CIA there beforehand, nor was the timing of Arbenz his fault, nor, generally the United Fruit make up of the oligarchy he fronted...

Eisenhower always thought he was "right" about Arbenz.

He resisted "rescuing" the French at Dien Bien Phu when both Nixon and his chair of the joint chiefs (Admiral William Something -- I'll look it up) were pushing for it.

He supported both Kennedy and Johnson on Vietnam because he thought he ought to but he didn't think "the strategy" whatever it was, was "succeeding."

Obviously he was an "anti communist" but he was wary of war as I noted above, especially after the "trauma" of WWII AND Korea so close on it.

I never see any prez as "above criticism" but then though I'm not as "conservative" as I once was -- or maybe in a way I am only now I recognize it as "liberalism"?

I live in a country I "like" if not believe is "perfeck" but then I don't believe ANY country is...

By the way it was Admiral Arthur Radford who was DDE's chair of the joint chiefs at the time of Dien Bien Phu. The "Admiral William" was "Leahy," FDR's chair...

It's a bit strange to applaud a president's restraint (Dien Bien Phu) and aggression (Guatemala), but not entirely absurd, either.

All American political leaders, liberal and conservative, had the same view of the world in the 1950's: Stalin was like Hitler, Communism was a conspiracy centred in Moscow, if we didn't stand up to it, we would have the same result as we got from appeasing Hitler.

The Europeans were exhausted, and on the mainland not reliable anyway: in the late 40s the Italian and French Communist Parties were disciplined mass parties, who had survived (and fought courageously against) fascism, and were getting 30-40% of the vote. So it was up to America to Stop Communism.

Since we had had no hesitation in allying with Stalin against Hitler, we shouldn't hesitate in allying with not-quite-Hitlers against Stalin. Or so the thinking then went.

There was a lot wrong with this view.

You needn't have believed in the benevolence of good ole Uncle Joe and the 'peace-loving Soviet Union,' to be skeptical of the idea that Stalin (and his successors) were hell-bent on expanding their borders until they dominated the world. Soviet behavior re Finland and Austria and Greece should have indicated otherwise.

Some understanding of the colonial revolution, and the general desire of the Third World to 'stand up' and become modern, along with an understanding of how important national independence is, even to Communists, would have led to a very different approach to Ho Chi Minh and Mao and Castro --- the same approach the US did take towards Tito.

Although we'll never know if Mossadegh in Iran could have led his nation on a secular, modernizing path -- I'm skeptical, but who knows? -- at least, if the United States had quietly supported his efforts to get out from under the British, we wouldn't be hated there the way we are.

There was never any danger of Communist revolution in Guatemala under Arbenz, whose reform efforts should have been supported, and probably not in Chile either (where the Socialist experiment should have been left to fail on its own, without any 'help' in doing so by the US). In fact, the Communist Party in Chile was a moderating influence under Allende, since they were more realistic about the relationship of forces domestically than other Leftists there, who thought they were going to make another Cuba.

Speaking of Communism, in some places in the world, the Communists are the people who should be voted into power. We mustn't be hypnotized by labels. In Nepal, for instance, the Maoists (!) are actually the party deserving of support,nfrom what (little) I know of the place -- assuming we want to see a democratic, modernizing Nepal, which we should. (I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but before reaching a conclusion about this, at least read

Well what DIDN'T happen is difficult to "know" hm.

It'd have been "better" for the Chinese if Chiang had remained in power and "better" for the Russians if Kerensky had BUT -- were these matters "possible" at the time(s)?!

Re Guatemala Eisenhower thought the POSSIBILITY (or likelihood as he ACTUALLY saw it) of a communist oriented country allied with the Sovs just south of Mexico was not worth the "risk" AND it could be accomplished as per Iran with relatively little difficulty and danger TO "US" (for THEM it could turn out to be much uh "deadlier" hm).

Re Dien Bien Phu one was talking about a military rescue effort that implied some sort of intervention not doable by a coterie of CIA agents but required considerable armed FORCE. THIS he was unwilling to do as the risk was great and well Vietnam was a lot farther away than Guatemala eh.

Allende was likely to get himself in a political tangle -- a lost election in the near future -- unless he arranged himself as Castro advised: be like me! EXECUTE and EXILE! Chavez followed that advice and hence Venezuela stumbles along as a quasi dictatorship floating on oil. No US intervention necessary!

Paul Johnson's last words (literally) on "Ike" are apt:

"The glorious decade {is PJ kicking it up a bit or just funnin'} reflected much longer term and worldwide expansion of international trade and industrial production.

"Between 1705 {why "1705" I wonder} and 1971 production rose no fewer than 1736 times, most of it in the post 1948 quarter century {from '48 to '71 I presume, BEFORE the first oil embargo}. In the same quarter...world trade rose at an annual average of 7.27 percent, at its highest rate during the Eisenhower years {'53-61}.

"Nothing like this had ever been experienced before {in history? and n}othing like it, except for brief episodes, has been experienced since.... {T}he 1950s are now seen as a golden age when American power and...prosperity acted as the parameters of a stable and {relatively I'd say, compared to "now"} peaceful world.

"Ike's warning that paying for the power {i. e., for the power inherent in the arms race which HE participated in rolling along} could imperil the prosperity was not heeded, with the results he foresaw.

"And so the 'American Century' {or "Two Decades," the 1940s and '50s per se seems more accurate} passed and the world moved on {to worse things hm}....

"{Eisenhower} died, aged seventy eight, on March 28 1969 after a productive and on the whole remarkably happy life. His last words (to his son {John S D}) were: 'I want to go. God take me.'" (p 123)

And of course because THIS was the REAL "Supreme Commander" God promptly obeyed orders eh...

By the way since we're discussing anti communism during the '40s and '50s I just watched one of the most controversial films re that period, "Mission to Moscow," based on a book by a former US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph Davies.

It was a Warner Bros production -- the Warners were Republicans who had initially supported Franklin Roosevelt and early '30s Warner pictures literally cashed in on the depression by being much more "current" -- Jimmy Cagney as a bootleg gangster while say MGM was making Dickens' "David Copperfield" -- and snappier and bolder than other studios.

"MtM" was urged by the wartime Roosevelt admin and it is actually a rather intelligent film which no doubt bored most of its audiences more than convinced them that the Russians and "good old Uncle Joe" are great guys.

Stalin is played in a short sequence by an actor named Manart Kippen, a Jew? which would have been one on S!, in a low key style and without the menace of Murray Abraham in the fine satirical 1996 Australian film "Children of the Revolution."

Walter Huston, a very fine actor, portrays Davies (who himself gives a somewhat too lengthy "introduction" to the film) with some gusto as an "ordinary, folksy" corporate "capitalist" lawyer who is a former Wilsonian and now very pro FDR and anti fascist. (Roosevelt is played by a Jack Young mainly off camera, like Jesus say in "Ben Hur," with his distinctive voice and swirling cigarette holder smoke characterizing him.)

Davies-Huston visits Germany and gets the runaround in a sinister atmosphere but in Russia while GPU (later renamed the KGB) agents tail him he has relative freedom to see an industrialized and militarized USSR preparing for war with You Know Who.

The Russian folks are all hard working, fresh faced, well fed, not especially paranoid or scared of the knock on the door and demonstrate skill and panache to a more and more impressed Davies.

The most interesting part of the movie for us today is probably the depiction of the notorious "purge trials" of 1937-38 wherein "old bolsheviks" like Bukharin, Radek and others were found guilty of conspiring with the exiled Leon Trotsky to overthrow the Stalin regime. Trotsky is a "partner" with nazi Germany in this "plot" revealed in testimony by the various accused.

They are all somewhat oh so matter of fact in admitting their crimes, as if they'd robbed the candy jar instead of set themselves up for execution. There is of course no sign of "torture" (Khrushchev once said the confessions were extracted by "Beat! Beat! Beat!") -- they are sorry children admitting to Papa that yes they DID break the jar to get at the candy and they're SORRY!

Later Stalin hints to Davies that if the Brits and the French aren't willing to join the Sovs in a "defense pact" that he MAY well make a deal with Hitler so to "buy time." And in another sequence when Davies stumps the country, a la Wilson for the League of Nations in 1919, advocating war preparations in the US he defends the Soviet invasion of Finland by saying that the Finns denied the Russians territory in which to "block" any future German advance. And oh while the nazi invasion of Poland is dramatized NO mention is made that the Russians also invaded as per the Hitler-Stalin pact.

Did I "like" the movie as a movie? Yes because it was about IDEAS and had great archival footage (gathered together by future director Don Siegel who would direct John Wayne's last film "The Shootist") and the actors are very accomplished -- Huston, Ann Harding, a very young Eleanor Powell, Gene Lockhart, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine (the German aviator shot down in "Mrs Miniver"), Oscar Homolka as the charismatic Russo-Jewish foreign minister Maxim Litvinov.

Michael Curtiz who had directed "Casablanca" and a number of Errol Flynn's early and best films directed this and Howard Koch, later OF COURSE blacklisted, wrote a surprisingly entertaining (for me at least!) script for such a polemical subject.

But it's a PROPAGANDA film mainly, building regard for a "gallant" or at least long suffering and pivotal as it turned out ally -- the movie is released in 1943, in media res you could say. It glosses and it misleads in some respects but it also presents a background of the indifference to the nazi rise by Britain, France and the US and the de facto encouragement of Hitlerian aggression. And it rightly shows that the Sovs were always wary of and "on to" Uncle Adolf though capable of some cynical "deals" of their own.

The Warners' defense would have been I think "The devil (i. e., FDR!) made us do it!"...

Everyone with power was pretty shameless in prettying up Stalin's regime during the war, given that the Russians were doing almost all the fighting and dying against the Nazis. Even right-wing Mississippi troglodyte Congressmen put in a good word for him in the House of Representatives.

Once you dig a bit into real history -- or at least read some of the histories written by non-establishment people, from any political background, you start to get a bit cynical. I now see the force of Napoleon's observation, "What is history, but a fable agreed upon?"

I'm less cynical about "history" -- I actually think that historians HAVE got to "the truth" of much, as far as possible, but history is of course not "static" in the sense that there's always (in countries that allow it) new research and new interpretations. That's why I read huh.

It's during the actual "time" that it seems harder to discern what's really happening -- "news" can change not because news folks a la Brian Williams are "making it up" but because it's difficult to KNOW what is going on exactly at the moment it's happening. And it's especially hard to understand the motivations until later.

I think Napoleon by the way may have been "projecting" what any "supreme leader" likes to do -- decide what "the fable" is to be?...

Yes, I think if you can get access to the works of professional historians, and read a good selection, and perhaps read their reviews of each other's books, you can probably get as close to the truth as you ever going to get.

But most of us get our history, such as it is, from Hollywood and TV and maybe from school textbooks, perhaps from an occasional popular history or historical novel. And these are horribly biased in various ways, because they have to sell to a mass audience and/or get past politicized school boards.

I can recall repeated shocks when I learned something that I had always assumed to be true, was not in fact true, or at least was a lot more complicated than I had thought. And I started being a political dissident when I was about 14, becoming very suspicious of the American Party Line as it was presented to us in Texas in the late 1950s.

Yet I still unconsciously held lots of false beliefs, some of which I discovered were wrong only decades later. And I absorbed more false beliefs along the way, some of which I probably still have. (I'm talking about factual beliefs, not values or attitudes.) It was only fairly recently -- within the last decade -- that I learned that the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti or at least Sacco), Leonard Peltier, possibly Joe Hill ... were all guilty. (I always knew Mumia Abu-Jamal was guilty as hell ... you'd have to be an utter idiot to think he was innocent, and I was too close to the action to have any illusions about the Black Panther Party, that gang of politicized lumpen criminals and murderers.)

I believed all these falsehoods because they were the consensus of all decent people. And they fitted a kind of narrative, a stereotype I had about American justice as applied to radical challengers of the status quo, plus my own limited experience in Texas where I saw injustice up front. And yet about those cases I was wrong.

So, anyway, my advice to anyone studying history: require a lot of evidence before giving up an agnostic, skeptical attitude.

Hollywood I of course always defend: many films are NOT "history" exact but many are more nuanced than they're given credit -- King Vidor's 1940 "Northwest Passage" for instance and both Arthur Penn's 1970 "Little Big Man" and Robert Aldrich's 1972 "Ulzana's Raid" present the "Indian" side albeit Aldrich's (as well as Vidor's) is more accurate than Penn's.

Oh and Alger Hiss was apparently "guilty" as well as were the Rosenbergs or at least Julius. And Leonard Peltier! AND as per Texas, LEE HARVEY OSWALD and only LHO shot Kennedy hm...

Yes, I think the weight of the evidence is definitely against Hiss, although I did read a plausible explanation in The Nation for the new evidence not pointing to him, but I was not persuaded. About the Rosenbergs there was never any doubt.

And I am all in favor of presenting history from the side of, the viewpoint of, the defeated. (And not just because I have a Choctaw great-great -grandfather.) Here, though, we must be careful not turn the triumphalism of the victors upside-down, and idealize the defeated.

Human beings are carnivorous chimpanzees, man is wolf to man, etc. But we're getting better.

You'd hardly know it by the 21st century though hm...

See also the 2012 book Ike's bluff, written by the historian Evan Thomas, with a new and much more in-depth study of Eisenhower's personality and decisions, thanks to the recent release of long-classified government documents which view the events of his life and presidency from a startling new perspective. The author website has further information: http://www.evanthomasbooks.com

Yeah I read it too; it reiterates and reinforces the "Eisenhower was underestimated, underrated" line, in particular in "keeping the (world) peace," which I believe sure, but Murray Kempton's essay in the late sixties in what -- Newsday was it? -- was the beginning of "reassessment."

Kempton essentially said See where we are NOW, since Ike? The fifties don't look so "bad" do they?

No, they don't, even today (yes black civil rights excepted but the fifties were the catalyst for the sixties hm)...