Transcripts For CSPAN2 Susan Eisenhower How Ike Led 20240711

A tradition which began with president theodore roosevelt. The great and the near great have addressed this audience and tonight we welcome a man who eventually we will record as preeminent among World Leaders in the area of greatest need. [applause] i have in mind the discussion of communist aggression as millions of people were enveloped behind an iron curtain. I have in mind the feeling of futility in korea, oppression in our homeland but to meet out the savings and troubling the motors of ourfree enterprise economy. Here then is the man, framed in more who will be acclaimed by future generations as the man who laid the foundations of peace. [applause] and more, he is our president who we love with a deep andabiding affection. [applause] [music] welcome to the Commonwealth Club, im george hammond, chair of the Commonwealth Club. This tech staff is helping to put together these online programs. Weve done dozens and dozens of them since the crisis began and its my great pleasure to introduce Susan Eisenhower who is with us today. Shes the granddaughter of president eisenhower and shes written a great book, how ike led. Its like a u2 spy plane overview of his whole, the principle that led his presidency but with a young girls point of view on the man himself and its quite a combination. Its a nice combination because its also a combination that you lift your life in, susan because youre a political analyst and youve lived your life this way and in addition to that you knew him personally for many years. That was interesting, he didnt pass away until you were in college or around the age. So welcome everybody and we are going to get started to talk about president eisenhower. Those of you who arent familiar with him, he was president from 1953 until 1961, jfk was the president afterward and he was the supreme allied commander during world war ii so susan, thank you very much for joining us from afar in our online world that weve all recognized, it happened much more easily than we thought but tell us a little bit about what inspired you to write the book . Youve been working in this field for a long time as a political consultant, advisor and you decided to write about your own grandfathers worked. It must have beeninteresting to try to be objective and subjective at the same time. You did it successfully but it couldnt have been easy. First of all i want to thank you somuch for the opportunity to be back at the Commonwealth Club. I have a wonderful opportunity of presenting books to the club in years past so its great to be back and to talk about this and yes, i think the question is a very interesting one that maybe as part of the disclaimer for our discussion this evening i should say that as a kid i was really pleased to compartmentalize what i knew about his politics, about the period in which he governed, about the issues that he dealt with. And on the other side, our relationship with his grandparents. So this book is really a marriage of those two things with you said and its quite an experience forme to put together in one place. Just because i was continually struck how we were doing as a family and some of you was dealing with some ofthese crises so that was interesting. The impetus for why i do it now, evolved around free events i guess. One is the 25th anniversary of the end of world war ii. Certainly vj day is about to occur but we had of course the 75thanniversary of the end of the war in europe. Back in mayof this year. Secondly, the eisenhower memorial in washington dc will be dedicated on september 17th. A much more scaledback version of its original self but it will nevertheless be open to the public after that and then finally, i would bring into an Election Year and theres always a lot of thinking about the presidency. As the most important for your election occurs. And so i thought that i had something to sayto us today. I guess thats the reason i put it together. You really did and i found that you took it from that angle but theres so many different elements thatwere so interesting to me , as applicable. One of them that i bought just a small tangent but there were people who decided in 1956 that were against him being reelected and youre going to actually be electing Richard Nixon, youre not going to beelecting eisenhower becauseeisenhower is sick. He just had this heart attack and so on so pretty soon Richard Nixon will be the president and same thing is going on in the democratic party. People are saying biden will never be president for more than a month or two so youre really electing , like harris so its interesting these things being thrown out of people. I dont want to speculate on whether thattheres a difference in approach. Ive been conscious of what it would be to be a diminished president. We have to remember a president wilson was really almost a scandal but people in the country didnt know how ill that president was ike was determined not to find himself in a situation for the good of the country and after he had three illnesses during his presidency and after each one of them he would give himself a very arduous test like a round the world trip or a trip to europe required lots of meetings and lots of steps and feed always tell his advisors if i dont perform at top level, you have to tell me becausethen ill resign. In any case, that never happened. He became actually a rather adroit at managing his time, managing his stress and generally positioning himself to get through his second term. It was interesting also, a small tangent doctors lied to him about the helium thing so he didntthink it was a serious. Kind of thought you might have made a different decision in 56 if they hadnt warned him about that. I thought that was interesting. One of the biggest decisions about when he was running as a second term as you point out, he had a heart attack in 1955 and he had a doctor named general Howard Snyder and although they were devoted friends and they been together in one for another is the war , Howard Snyder actually drove him off the wall because first of all he came up with all sorts of things eisenhower wasnt allowed to do including watching armynavy Football Game. Howard schneider decided it was going to raise the president s blood pressure. And he really did care about the outcome of the game. And so i think Howard Schneider was part of the team that kind of wasnt actually really direct with the president about his ileitis situation and back to your question ike was not going to be a diminished president so you might well have decided differently. But ithink he really in the day , my grandmother intervened the first time i think since the early part of their marriage and encouraged him to run again because he thought that he would probably die out another heart attack watching everything from the sidelines. I found it interesting the way your grandfather mothers decision was easy to understand. The doctors position wasthis is the guy whos making all these decisions about the war on korea , all these Big Decisions and youre worried about him watching the Football Game even if he takes it too seriously , it seemed a little bit ludicrous. I told that story in the book in the context of how an extraordinary amount of power, how that often worked relationships, you have with other people. It does mean that it makes some terrible bit of sense but it does change things and the doctors for some reason, i love this expression actually tried to handle this man which only make him more wound up because he was a guy who was used to making Big Decisions and was perfectly capable of taking any difficult news. One of his last years of life i saw this so often how brave he was and how ready he was to take whatever was coming. As a matter of fact he even volunteered for some rather exotic treatments for his condition because he thought it might help people after he was gone. But there wasnt anybody he wasnt straightforward with, i want to say. Its a good transition because the four we get to the big issues, i think its good to talkabout these personal relationships that he had. Friendships that he had, the people that kept him honest, his family and your own relationship with him and you have pictures to show include some pictures of yourselfwith him when you were younger so will get those up on the screen. Theres apicture weve been showing. This is him right around the end of worldwar ii. This picture was taken 1945. By that time he had is six star and i think he looks tired though. Idont know if youd agree but he looks content. Its if the picture were fulllength, you would see that hes wearing only a single bar of ribbons on his shoulder. He was not one to walk around like a soviet general metals all the way down to their waist. And i like this picture because i think he looks approachable. Though i would say tired and thats got to be a fairly accurate assessment since its impossible to know how you could be working 100 hours a week, 130 hours a week sometimes up all night, up in the middle of the night and not come out on a threeyear stint like that really deeply tired. And in 45, how old was he . Was born in 1890. It was 55 years old and as a matter of fact if you look at pictures , when he was president he actually looks younger than he does in that picture even though it was another five years later. Gave a lot of energy. The next picture is a picture of you. And this is you as a teenager. Is there a horse in the picture, you cant see it from here. Perfect. Well, he became an amateur photographer and we have the family collections, also to these homemade things read what i like about that picture is somebody else took a picture of ike taking a picture of me and i dont know every time i see this picture it makes me smile because of that bald head of his as my grandmother said she always loved to roll over in bed and pats little baldhead. But yes, and theres a horse in the picture from this standpoint i cant quite see it but i was the family horseback rider and so this was a bond we had because he loved horses. And the only animals on his farm that he indulgedin any way shape or form. You know, he was terrible with cattle and he certainly didnt like writing on cats but he loved his horsesso i think its a rather sweet picture. You have a short story in your book about when you were 11 and he had just put in a putting green. A very special putting green, tell that story. Because i think it showsyour relationship. I think the story says a lot about ikes compassion and my lifetime guilt because he had just put in a putting green and he put the putting green in the cause he wanted to have some privacy while he practiced. Otherwise he would have had to go to the Gettysburg Country club which he enjoyed doing and seeing people but that wasnt actually any privacy. People came out to watch him golf so one evening i was padlocking a gate and five of the horses on the farm pushed against the gate, sort of almost knocked me over and then went running all around the lawn in front of my parents, their parents sitting area where they always sat in the evening and all five of these forces are running around circling here and going there. And then made a huge sweep across his golf green. And i was more than in a state of panic. Everybody came out, field hands, secret service, everybody and we were trying to wrap around which we finally did and i had to go and now have they ruined my golfgreen but i was late for dinner. So it was one of those moments in childhood you dont forget. So i walked in, he always sat in a swivel chair and he swiveled around and looked at me and he said you know what i said to your grandmother . I havent seen horses runlike that since i was a kid in abilene kansas. The course i apologize after that but i never heard of it again and it was a very smart move on his part. Because the guilt would be lingering. He would never make a mistake like that again he was very nice not to bring it up or hold it against me or hold it over my head because he was devastated. And he wouldnt do it again. Its one of those experiences that ended in a disney cartoon that a child makes that mistake of irresponsibility and in the ones where the parentsare good, they do what ike did and when their bad they look like a witch. Five and one more thing, i had a great expense to apologize profusely and take full responsibility and i think that went down very well. I would have had a significant ongoing lecture about personal accountability had i not done so. I learned that one. So gary, i assume that youre in that picture. Can see from the postcard hes painting, they photograph, its my mother and three of my four siblings. My youngest was born in 1955 after that fortress was painted but it was taken at camp david and against one of the helpers at camp david came in and took a picture of him during that but he took up painting actually after the war. He sort of mentioned churchills example, he was impressed by how much painting the Prime Ministers did while he was trying to get his set together and also his own painter gave him some oil paints as a present and ike took it up then then became really very attached as a pastime because he found that it centered him. And while he was concentrating on the painting , he was allowing his mind to work through some verygood problems. You have a short story in the book about how he got an exhibit and at an art museum and he saidtheres only one reason theyre being shown here and thats because i was president. They never give a guy like me and exhibit for painting that look like this. Exactly, he was very modest, not like churchill who took his painting so seriously that he wanted to be regarded almost as a professional. Ike did it to give away his gets and he gave cabinet memberspaintings of them. He painted all his wartime colleagues. He actually even painted Prince Charles for the queen of england and always was full of apologiesabout their execution but actually he had some talent i think. We have a picture here of the picture of churchill. At the next picture. Looks talented. Its not amateur. Not bad. The other charming thing about this painting is that he was able to present it to Prime Minister churchill when churchill had just stepped down and was visiting in the United States. Thats a wonderful picture of churchill looking it over. Like churchill the painter would. Ike also painted field Marshal Bernard montgomery. Its a lovely, lovely painting in the British Embassy in washington dc. You said its one of his interesting personalities, they got along but they were enemies to so in the next picture, thats one that he gave to you. Theres a little story about this one. Theres a story aboutthis one. I often stood behind him when he was at the easel. He had in addition to his retirement years, he always insisted on having a studio somewhere nearby so in the white house it was on the second floor overlooking lafayette park. And it was around that time was standing behind him, admiring his work. This is a landscape, i dont know what the scene is as i said before, he painted usually postcards. And they were more landscapes he did were always serene and its been noted that its something ironic about it because probably every picture is some kind of turbulence hes trying to make sense of. This painting at the bottom is dated the heat, 1957 in 1957, many things happen but i was intrigued when i lookat the back of it that says to susan, 1958. That means its likely painting was done for cabal during the little rock crisis when eisenhower since the hundred First Airborne Division to desegregate Little Rock High School into to escort nonafricanamericans to school that september. And then right after that of course was slightly, the soviet union launched its first artificialsatellite. So i look at this painting and think theres brushstrokes, i must have provided somerelief. So it was a great controversy. Going to go back to people talk about october surprises and in 1956, your grandfather certainly got to really huge ones. But lets finish the pictures and then we will go ahead. By the way for the audience, if you have any questions just send them into the chat room. And we will ask them, will get to the korean conflict a little bit later. So next picture is. And thats you ryan . It is me, i look like terribly thoughtful and he looks terribly kind. I like that picture because i have always wanted people to know that he had some very very tough decisions and some very dark times during our history because think about what you saw and what he had ordered during the war but you know, he never becamehard or cynical. And i think as those Family Members, both in a Family Member and an analyst i think itsremarkable. It says a lotabout his character. One of the hardest things to do is to make those decisions , to know that so many people will die and at worst, you dont even succeed at what youre trying to accomplish and more people die. The people who made those decisions for us, i think its why they get acquired for decades and evencenturies to come because its so crucial. The next picture. We have acouple of pictures of him. Theres a picture of him as a young man, just so that you can seehim before his ball. Thats right. I was looking, its always fun to see ikewith a full head of hair. Though he is, george, maybe you coulddescribe which one he is. Thats exactly right. This is the Abilene High School and he was on the baseball team. He was a very good baseball player but i think his real passion was football. He lost his way for a little while when he broke his knee andwas unable to continue playing football west point. He had played against jim for as a matter of fact in the army versus carlisle game and he was regarded very fast , effective Football Player and that was very discouragingfor him. And he had to learn how to snap out of that downer. After taking a cigarette, of course. One tangent, i didnt plan on going there but i thought it wasinteresting you mention , all these people that he was kind of a kind of not a bad boy but he got himself in trouble he was at west point he didnt even go there to become a soldier ready weather for the free education. Another very interesting candidate. He shared that with utilities as great a lot of great leaders turned out to be civilians who had never imagined themselves as soldiers. , one thing worth mentioning thank you for the context of west point really grew up in a religious household. The eisenhower forecast this, they were godfearing pacifists. There was an eisenhower who fought in the civil war so they made ikes uncle, Abraham Lincoln eisenhower they wanted to express their views. But they were conscientious objectors. So you can imagine the family feeling when ike goes off west point because he cant wait any longer for his younger brothers toput him through college. Fascinating and a little more detail, its in the book but the next picture is meeting with chris jeff which was, your grandfather had an interesting idea and you mentioned we were talking about earlier. I dont think many people know about this but when he was talking about the distinction between what was going on during the cold war , what was the matter of capitalism versus socialism or the economy. He said actually in the speech at the Commonwealth Club is really about openness , democracy versus authoritarianism. And then he goes on to say about a prefree and open society as opposed to a closed secretive society. And i just thought that was rather intriguing. Yes, because a lot of times in order to fight the enemy you become like the enemy and closing off and become secretive yourself sometimes. If i could add two things, something here about this picture. This is in 1959, even though theres flying, the United States at this point has been thrown into what is called the berlin ultimatum. So Nikita Khrushchev is currently threatening the United States. With punitive action. Over berlin. And it turned into war, there would be no way to defend berlin with conventional weapons so it might have turned nuclear. Today we have a kind of standoff but eisenhower actually invited chris jeff to come to the United States and chris jeff was here for 10 days. 10 days. And during that time, the soviet premier was subjected eisenhowers grandchildren as a way to soften him up. And all i can say is that the future of the world hung in the balance as to whether or not we would be well behaved that afternoon. He apparently managed to save the world for the first and last time. I shouldnt make jokes about this, it was a very serious time but after the trip, the soviets did lift the ultimatum with some agreement to continue to talk about it at a summit in paris. Will talk about the u2, we were going to do it later but let me do it now. Whats also fascinating was how much information president eisenhower had about what the russians actually had done and what they hadnt and he knew that everybody was lying about the missile gap and this other stuff and was driving the cold war and it was perfectly clear he did not have a force that we needed to worry about thatthe time that was going on because they did have the information. Tell me a little bit about whathappened. Itsintriguing and the sputnik is tied up in that. We just have the dawn of the space age during his administration and there were no rules for outerspace at all. It was undecided whether or not sovereign airspace would extend all the way out into outer space and through an agreement with the soviet union and the United States and the soviet union agreed to launch artificial satellites in 1957 so the Eisenhower Administration, there was no surprise about. The point of free access to space which is what eisenhower strongly endorsed and had to make it possible for the use of the free use of satellite in orbit and the reason the satellites were so important to eisenhower is because it would help avert a surprise attack. And before the satellites could be launched, into free access to state, he wanted, he proposed overflights and the United States and soviet union to fly the aircraft over each country territory to ensure that they would not be surprised if they were attacked. I just have to say, the administration knew they were going to launch the satellites, they didnt even feel very badly as a matter of fact, sort of encourage the soviets to go first behind the scenes without telling them anything. But they were sort of hoping this the soviets would go for so the soviet union would accidentally establish the precedent for free use of outer space. So not long after that, he satellites we have been working on, at the project launched and we could tell from space and from the u2 exactly what not i should say quite successfully what the soviet military buildup look like including the number of rockets they had. Nevertheless, sputnik open the way for opposition to the Eisenhower Administration and preparation for the 1960 president ial campaign. Turned into a scandal which was the missile gap and the democrats were accusing the Eisenhower Administration of failing to keep up with a huge leads of the soviet union allegedly had in rockets and Nuclear Weapons and that kind of thing. It turned out to be a fiction. We were way ahead of the soviet union and the only way we could eventually tell that was because of the programs that eisenhower initiated. The u2 and also the satellite programs read for reconnaissance purposes. Your version of the story made me think you must have come up with good lawyers on his team advising if you do it this way, the soviets over this is going to set the precedent going to allow us to get with what we want jesus free and open spacing and if we go first are trying to dominate it and then it will work. We had to because we had proposed the open guys treaty at the Geneva Summit in 55 and the soviet union absolutely rejected. They would have had overflights during through the United States but they didnt want this mutual overflight business because they thought they were going to use it for targeting purposes so you can imagine if we had gone intospace first , they would well have accused us of going into space or doing what the u2 was meant to do. Itssort of a competent story but its one i call playing a long day. Its a big political hit but when sputnik went up before any of our successful satellites, or im sorry, our successful artificial satellites, but in the end it was what began to establish a framework for space which allows, allowed all of the tremendous amount of development to take place without conflict. You with the right man in the right place because he had a long game in his mind a lot and he had plenty of experience with. The other thing that was interesting also tangential about your book was because he had so much dealing with the russians during world war ii and so on, it was in a good position to have a realistic idea of what they were up to and what they would do and what they would do and he didnt have to consider them so dramatic that they woulddestroy themselves , that they were rational players. My father had a tremendous sense, i asked him what he thought was one of the biggest intelligence conclusions of the 1950s. And my late father said that that soviets were not early christian martyrs. In other words, the assessment was the soviet leadership wanted to stay in power. And so thats a very big difference between wanting to launch a preemptive strike. Thats a big analytical difference. You just mentioned your father. Great story about conversations he had with president eisenhowers father. About 40, you wanted to go to korea, wanted to go back with the troops. And its pretty serious, you didnt find out about that when you were young. Did you find out when your father was still alive . Okay. Telling the story to summarize it , when general eisenhower becomes president eisenhower, now hes got, gets to fivestar general and as a matter of fact, he gave up his Army Commission to run for president because we dont havegenerals as president of the United States. So he suddenly is the commanderinchief and he is my father, whose graduate at west point two. An army officer who was stationed in korea. Comes back with his fathers inauguration and they have a very serioustalk. And i say you have to decide whether going youre going to go back to your unity through or stay in the United States but your video. If you go back to korea, you need to carry a handgun with you at all times and you have to promise me that you will never be taken as a hostage. For stay in a situation where youcan put the president of the United States in any jeopardy. So what that really adds up to is that my father agreed to commit suicide if he were in a situation where he was going to betaken hostage. And it sounds like a really by that time my father and mother already had three kids. I was a third of that group. As i say, my sister mary came along in 1955. This is several years before. Its kind of stunning today. We think actually that our leaders always send their kids overseas but the potential for blackmail and the president of the United States in opposition undermine the security of the United States was unacceptable for those who arent officers my father. Thankfully, the age of 91 so he came home korea without having to take such a drastic and tragic step. Its such a telling detail about the differences in time and place and what they had already gone through with the war that this father and son could make this deal and both understood thats the only thing you could do. And also, they were both, its called doing your duty. Because the Mission Always supersedes any individual desires or however youd like to put it. I think it is moving. I think that story is important to because to understand Dwight Eisenhower is to understand that he was trained as a military mind you he was strategic leader. He was somebody who was highly self discipline area he didnt like histrionics. He didnt like over emotionalism. The lead in selfdiscipline and process and process for him was extremely important because he didnt want to his subordinates out freelancing and he certainly didnt want to make any impetuous uninformed decisions. And that is all training that comes out of a lifelong experience inthe military , especially at the highest level. Great stories about how he dealt with the whole atomic weaponry issue with everything, making three different commissions. He did this in this very elaborate way but lets move on to the next picture. Here he is talking to the soldiers. He had several great stories, not only at the time during world war ii after, 10 years afterwards. Second airborne, he met with them and he had met with them i think this is the group is meeting with now on their way off. I think its interesting because i dont think people realize ill personally latest and how difficult that must have been to do that. This picture was taken on june 5 as they were about to take off to the normandy coast to unknown fates. In the part of the reason i think this particular picture is so wonderful is look at his face and how hessmiling. I think its particularly noteworthy because airborne drop, his decision about the airborne drop was probably one of the toughest of that whole normandy enterprise and the reason for it is rather simple. His technical experts, air marshal lee mallory, a british air marshal who was responsible for 24,000 paratroopers that dropped warned ike about general eisenhower about a week before the dj assault was to take place that he thought that the paratroopers should be canceled because the germans had reinforced a position and he thought it was dangerous and between 50 and 70 percent of paratroopers and glider troops would be lost in this exercise. So ike went into a room for two hours and decided against that recommendation because of paratroopers were central for opening a number of pathways off utah and omaha beach. And i think whats moving about this picture is having made that decision only earlier and having whitman note, a response that says the landings failed, the responsibility is mine and mine alone. He goes out and he looks these paratroopers and i really thinking in his mind that his technical experts said between 50 and 70 percent of these boys not coming home. Another thing i think that you detail is the fact that the original dday plans when he got his hands on them, he changed them and he doubled the size of his invasion and added this plan about paratroopers landing. And fortunately, the advisor did decide, it was four percent of god and 10 percent wounded or Something Like that. Not at all and they succeeded and everyone assumed that without that the overall, it could have been an overall disaster. The paratroopers were the linchpin of the operation. I can tell you a much what i eisenhower was saying at that point because we know that that is at the hundred first airborne, we know its because a number of them came back and told us what was the area and he was asking them about home. He wasnt giving them a peptalk about getting on a plane and dropping behind lines in normandy, he was telling them about home and i once asked my father whywould you. And my father military officer says they knew they were what they were about to go do they were probably scared half to death so imagine that smile and a man who came out and have the courage to look them in the eye before they took off. And then said dont worry general, and you know, the Great Exchange really. Very moving, lots of moving tales in your story. Of your grandfather. So i think the next picture is, thats him at 80 day from remembrance years later. You know about how old . Ill tell you, he would have been 75. It was the day across 20 years, that picturewas taken. He gave an interview to waltercronkite that they drove all through the normandy coast line. And of course, this is the American Cemetery before it had been completelyfinished. It was a long process to put the cemetery together but thiswas the first time he had come back. During the presidency 10th anniversary of dday occurred in 1955 when he was president and he did not want to politicize the whats really a grand. So he sent a gift to the people of normandy and spent the day in seclusion. But here he comes back and is talking to Walter Cronkite area but the pain in his face. All of those kids who didnt make it. And he was responsible for the decisions that may have cost some of those people theirlives. So then Walter Cronkite says what do you think when you see here . And im very moved by this, he said he gave us another chance. And he said the questionis what are we going to do with that chance. And i ike in a way thinks we are at a crossroads today we have to ask ourselves what are we going to do with the chance we have by the time we move beyond this crisis, are we going to be a more United Country or are we going to allow our traditions to separate us as a people. Thats really a great segue. We have actually audio of president eisenhower. He spoke of the commonwealth here 50 years ago. And as you know, i have a little clip, maybe about three minutes long. Where everybody can hear his voice read i know a lot of people are not aware or is commonly heard as president kennedys voice for example but the way he says what he says is almost as important as what he says and i think its very relevant for today as you were saying. So as soon as it gets started we will listen to it. But i find fascinating as you were saying earlier that a generation of men. My father was in the war. The drop off in north africa, went through italy and sicily. Is it ready are way. Im glad to be here this evening to sustain your perfect score as every president of the United States since this club was foundedsince the beginning of the century. [applause] sorry we dont have live audio right now. I see no reason to abandon the process. Would my wisdom born out of experience the organizers of this club would be advised for their new creation a noble and necessary purpose. Better government. This energizing thought was the belief that and i take these words from the sustenance of thetimes , california suffers because the best governance of the population failed to cooperate for the common good as effectively as balance cooperate for evil purposes. The dedication of that group and the unwitting efforts of its membership to pursue a course of justice have remained undue for the six decades of the clubs existence. The work commonwealth signifies a duty united by common interests. But equally, this is the fact that in the political realm, a commonwealth as Mister Webster defined it has come to mean generally if not always an association based upon free choice. Tonight i shall try to apply to some aspects of the world of International Affairs the founding principles of this nation, but to failure because of the failure of some elements to cooperate as effectively for good. No group, no matter how well intentioned can cooperate fully unless there is first a firm basis ofcommon understanding. This the founders of your club recognize. I know you have born great difficulty with groups in california did not know each other. They were separated at that time by wide areas and they also distrusted each other. Just as the california 1903, the year your club was founded was a far cry from thecommonwealth of california today , so as we turned into the 20th century theres scarcely recognizable as the one we know in 1960. And the sameissues are here. Can people cooperate . One of the big issues that you talked about in the book in several places is that your grandfather was not either a democrat or republican. He was a moderate. And you worked together quite often he had democrats that used to be republicans and it seems to me he was worried about the extremists. At both ends. And those extremists at the time either on the right with the john birch society, there was mccarthy anticommunist on the left, there were the communists and the people who were trying to help the soviet union to succeed and other groups at work extreme. And he tried to run through the middle. And he was of course criticized for not moving fast enough by one group and criticized for going to best buy the other. He definitely went right up the middle and ive often thought its interesting because its almost like the democrats and republicans shot themselves in their own feet by gerrymandering all the congressional districts. They did it not to cause what happenedback in the 80s but they did in order to ensure that they all got reelected. That it wasnt made the primary election the actual election because their group was always going to win, as a result of which it pushed for the extreme because the primaries one for excuse and we canundo that process. And both parties it seems to me to be interested in that but they dont get interested init , we could use another president eisenhower said what about getting the democrats are moderate and republicans that are moderate to Work Together and do that instead. Because people and i think about 60 percent of the voters it seems from the polling areright about that situation. Its very interesting and i think thats a nice framework for all the different issues he covered. We have a couple of questions here. Theres plenty of things we need to cover that mean so many issues that you did but lets ask the questions that were asked, jerry landsman asks what was ikes strategy to preventa flareup of the korean conflict. There was a stalemate on korea. And he came in as a general and a lot of people but the way the war for us but thats not how you went about doing it. Because you very realistic about that the iron curtain countries and maybe you can talk about how he got with that. Of course, its a long story. They always are what i think if you were to look at his well, let me start by saying that after he was elected president , he went to korea as he promised during the campaign. And he actually took a helicopter ride over the terrain. He got this close to the front as a matter of fact. Not quite on the front which i would have thought was very dangerous for a newly elected president but he wanted to see the terrain. He wanted to see the way the land firsthand. I think the terrain already worried him a lot. Especially given the positions of both sides area and he thought that this was just not a winnable war. Unless it becomes a big war and the weapons are used. He just didnt think it was going to see and he was very much against worse without an. It was believed not just as human lives but it was believed the economy, it would lead energy and attention and he said about working out the associations that led to the armistice but it became a great point of contention as you know between those who were in favor of making the world safe for america to engage in small wars versus eisenhowers view that small wars start small and. They can get big fast, with your adversary is losing area and then in this particular case of course , the adversary was the soviet union that would have weapons to mass match our own including a bomb that had been developed before i came to the presidency. So yes, it turned out that there was, it wasnt just the United States that was worldweary, but there was civility that seem to be present among our enemies in that fight. So i often, its still in place and i guess thats the last chapter of the corian situation. What are we going to do are we going to stay in korea or are we ever going to be able to negotiate some kind of proper end to that war . Was one of the things, another big issue he dealt with after the war was how to deal with germany. We wont go into a lot of detail about that because theres so many things to cover but he did Say Something interesting, i will consider our policy for germany successful in 60 years later its a thriving democracy. And in 1995 which was 50 years after he said that at the end of the war it was only a couple of years after germany had reunited as all one country and certainlyis a thriving democracy. Though whatever his remains in europe, that one worked, its right on point. Chinese were told the chinese at 100 years, the russians these things but we have had president that have done. And you cant keep the policies in place if somebody takes them away but they cant accept the policies in a way that they make no sense if people continue them and i think a lot of us were done. I just want to say that i think course, he wasnt a strategic he was a strategic leader during the war as president and i think it was always looking for attainable strategy. And i like the idea of a sustainable strategy because its a good strategy. If it stays in place and meets the needs of a lot of very determinate time, so many of the things with the strategies today like a one track halflife. And then we have to or, you can go on for longer than that of course but then course corrections have to be made and i think that actually ikes accomplishments hold up pretty well over the decades area and was playing the long game anyway. He liberated that concentration camp and was horrified, horrified by what he saw. Its chose shocked, he said he still kind find work for how this held and he was very articulate as a writer. His first reaction is what are people going tosay in 50 years. Are they going to say the holocaust never happened . Unless we chronicle it now so he said everybody including my father and those camps to photographic, that was all on his orders. The other elements that we were talking about about trust. It seems to me you have a problem in trying to come to an agreement with each other today. Everybody has their own point of view which has always been true. Getting his democracy is everybody gets to have their point of view. Some people are very mad at the educated elite for trying to run things on principles and so on and so forth. It gets the way they would want to do it so you need to have a persuasive argument about in addition to that you take all the groups and you say what is it that we have in common and one of the things weve learned over the years is that its all right if we accept women, not going todemand of society and our society is better. Itsmore productive. Its not bad, we have all kinds of people, everybody should be educated although anybody who doesnt want to be educated, thats another argument. They dont want to, thats fine but you have a certain element of what it is that we can have in common area we say if thats our goal, then we all agree, not all like 70 percent agree on those goals, then we can trust each other if we just stick to those goals this is what were going to work on together the rest of it, politics want to promisebut theyre going to accomplish. And nobody can accomplish what theyre going to accomplish. At absolutely true. Eisenhower once said, i think it was at the beginning of his administration when he was describing a problem he said he described as the fear in the hearts of men. I think he understood that what underlies a lot of this lack of trust is here just your point. So its the role of the responsible leader to put into perspective the fears we may have. Versus how dire things really are. And weve gotten to the point in this country now where everything is a threat. Im sorry but not all threats are equal. Some are more important than others. And i think this is one thing i hope readers get from this book is the way a true strategist thinks about the thing is to understand what the fundamental questions are. A big scary thing from our childhood as you certainly remember and there was still the confidence that we can meet our problems and overcome them because we overcame bigger problems in world war ii so why cant we do these . I think the amount of fear that has been generated since 9 11 about this thing and the next thing in the next thing, even though there were plenty of terrorism in the 70s and 80s but it didnt scare people as much. Theres a certain amount of political exploitation. Some people in washington say that if you want to get anything done on capitol hill or at the white house you have to face a National Security threat and i have one very good friend who calls a threat marketing. Whatever the case is the early beginnings of that was in the story i have written and certainly we should be vigilant and alert at all times though we also have to understand that the state of our economy, the moral authority we have is a country both domestically and internationally all these things i tell in the book are critical to our National Security and military capability sure but that wasnt the only thing that was part of our National Security. Right and because i dont think human nature will change too much eye except politicians will use this threat marketing in order to get ahead but what i would hope for is they would at least like john kennedy did. Once he won he said well actually its not as bad as we said bringing it back down again. I understand its like a game like trash talking at a basketball game. They are not at the top of their games we win the game. In a way it shows a lack of confidence that you can win a game without it but we wont talk about that because thats not how all games of the play. Itd be nice if the politicians would say now that im here and i have found out all the information its not as bad as i said so we can all go back to feeling a little bit more comfortable because that level of fear is really the thing that dissolves society. Theres another fear there to which is probably part of social media and a whole bunch of cultural factors but people are very afraid of being seen as weak or as a winner or a loser. These are, dont think my grandfather would understand that at all. He really believed in Second Chances and if you believe in Second Chances then you dont believe in the whole winner loser accusations that are hurled that people but these are attacks on peoples motives and their personalities and i dont think it helps at all. It doesnt help the cause people might make illinformed decisions just so that they seem to be doing something when in fact spending more time studying the issue and looking at the background and thinking about the longterm consequences would be more productive. Your grandpa certainly embodied that. In my writing i say everyone is a loser. Winners are just losers with more patience. I like that. We have one last question here if we have time for it. How did he find it different to be a leader in the military versus leading in the world of politics and government . Which one was more difficult for him . Do you address that in your book and i thought it was very interesting. Well im so happy for that question because there is no question Dwight Eisenhower had a learning curve when he got into fullblown retail politics. First of all one of the big differences is when youre a fivestar general you outrank everybody, right . And the military is organized in a way to follow orders and i would say, and i think its pretty evident in the book that is a fivestar general you know he was remarkably flexible and he was not like his former boss general Douglas Macarthur who you know was tough on troops and addict did to the attention he received. He wanted to be macarthur i think. In any case, but in any case i think you described it during the chief of staff years where he says that the biggest job in the military as commander or Supreme Commander is to think through how he really views things and what his strategies would be him than to bring others along and to lead people. Then he says but i noticed from being in washington making up your own mind on something is only just the beginning of the problem. And then he outlined all of the various problems there are. You dont know who is connected to who and who has a grudge against two and this is actually a very funny passage. I think its particularly funny because he wrote it in his diary which he never felt would be published for all of us to read and enjoy. You saw some early hiccups in the Campaign Later like well mostly in the campaign. He picked up the algorithm of it pretty quickly and i can just say if we dont understand some of those pickups like his staff releasing his speech during the mccarthy encounter in minnesota than we are missing the adjustment he had to make. I think probably any time any leaks or any staff did not do what they were told to do, this was a big problem with him because it isnt what youd do in the military so he ran a tight ship at the white house and believe it or not his associates were tremendously respectful of it. I knew many of his associates and they like the fact that they were given a lot of leeway. He was a very good person at delegating but they understood that they had to be personally responsible for the decisions they were making too. I should add to that of course eisenhower had pretty good sense of who needed the short ranks and who he could give more latitude to. Thank you so much for asking that question because we tend to study eisenhower the present or restudy eisenhower the general but we dont really put the two of them together as much as we should he cause this adjustment with the real one starting with his chief of staff of the army and going on from there. So many different kinds of generals including the big egos they had to deal with and patton and Douglas Macarthur who used to be his boss. Thats one thing but for politicians you have to have a whole new set to push to understand these people. What drives them certainly not trying to win a war and to win an election yes but i thought you did a wonderful job of showing both sides of that. A great book for those of you and in much more detail. Get it and enjoy it and im sorry that you are all at home and have time to read it but there it is a great idea for anybody who wants to go back to that period of time. Thank you very much susan are explaining your book and a great pictures of your grandfather and of yourself from your childhood. So ends another event at the Commonwealth Club its 118th year of enlightened discussions. Thank you george