William hitchcock talks about the age of eisenhower in the 1950s. He sat down with White House Correspondent an compton for the conversation on the life and legacy of the nations 34th president. Our speaker tonight is dr. William hitchcock author of the age of eisenhower, america and the world in the 1950s. Dr. Hitchcock is a professor of history at the university of virginia where he focussed on International Diplomatic history in the 21st century, in particular the era of the world wars and cold war. Dr. Hitchcock is the author of the bitter road to freedom which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and was also a Financial Times best seller in the united kingdom. Following dr. Hitchcocks remarremar remarks ann compton will join dr. Hitchcock for a conversation on this great biography. Ann was the first woman to cover the white house for Network Television and was on the air for 41 years with abc news, she spanned seven president s of the United States. She anchored from the white house, from capitol hill and president ial travel that took her to all 50 states and since continents. Ann this is a very significant part of American History. Ann was actually with president george w. Bush on september 11, 2001 and was the only broadcast reporter allowed to remain on air force one. As you remember the president was not allowed to return to washington and was kept away during those hours following the chaotic terrorist attack on our country. She was on air force one on behalf of the entire press corps reporting back. She has become an important part of white house history. Shes also a very good friend of the White House Historical association. She will be moderating a series of lectures throughout the year. If you follow our website for future information on these lectures, its going to be a wonderful series. Please welcome dr. William hitchcock. [ applause ] thank you so much. What a treat this is. Its just a splendid setting in a beautiful room. So many distinguished guests in the audience. Im quite overwhelmed. Im thrilled to be able to talk about eisenhower with you tonight. I hope i do him justice, although hes a great man and i think we have to work hard to live up to his reputation. I just want to thanks stewart for inviting me and thank the White House HistoricalAssociation Staff for putting t together this event. A lot of work goes into these events. Juliette levine, i want to thank you for your excellent work. Im honored to share the stage with ann compton who is unparalleled and is an absolutely sparkling presence and someone i watched on tv for many years. Im a little star struck. I also want to acknowledge the presence here of the general who is working to hes a local hero. He is organizing and leading the Eisenhower Commission to get the great memorial built so finally washington, d. C. Will have an appropriate monument for the important general and the president. I ha [ applause ] i believe may 8, 2020 we will have a ribbon cutting. What a great day that will be. Thank you for your work. Lets get to it. I want to start with a president ial puzzle. Not really a quiz or anything. Just a puzzle. If you look at American History in the years from 1945 to 1961, the end of the Second World War up to the election of john kennedy, one figure stands out as the most dominant figure in that period. Dwight eisenhower was the most popular man, the most respected man of that period, 1945 to 1961. He served as president and garnered approval from the public having won two landslide elections. His average Approval Rating for eight years was 65 . The next is bill clinton and Ronald Reagan. From the moment he set out to run for president all the way through his eight years in the white house and until he died in 1969 eisenhower was consistently underrated as president. Thats the president ial puzzle. Senator robert taft scoffed at eisenhowers, get this, inexperience. Taft said you would never hire such a green horn who didnt have experience to be president. Governor stevenson from illinois mocked eisenhower as a light weight. He said he was a tool of the right wing cooperate figures. President harry truman campaigning for stevenson in 1952 said the voters should send ike back to the army where he belongs. Basically he was a general and he should stay there. A book in 1958 that came out while ike was in office was given the label it was titled a captive hero. Eisenhower in that view had been captured and he was sort of a ventriloquist dummy mouthing words of other people. That was the view of eisenhower who were commenting on him while he was president. Scholars agreed. Eisenhower after he left office, the harvard historian Arthur Schlessinger created a poll to ask historians to rate the president. Eisenhower in that poll in 1962 rating of the president s placed eisenhower 22nd out of 31. 22 out of 31. He was nestled between chester arthur, a figure who i dont know if well have a book talk on chester arthur. We might get there. Theres a lot of other guys you probably want to hear about. Chester arri chester arri arthur and lyndon johnson. During the kennedy years the camelot clan used eisenhower as a foil. After all this is harder than it looks. My students would all get this. Wouldnt you if you were kennedys advance man use ike as the counter point. In 1954 eisenhower playing scrabble that looks pleasant and lovely. They had to work with this guy. Naturally there was a sharp contrast. It looked against eisenhowers memory and against the impre impression given to the public. By the time of his death in 1969, the press seemed uninterested of ike. There was an obituary that said he was more of a figure head than a president. He was, quote, out of touch with his people. He was a great soldier but judged maybe as a failure as president. In the 1980s a great deal of classified information became available to scholar. If you work in the eisenhower library, you can read all kinds of wonderfully juicy details about the eisenhower period. This material showed quite a different eisenhower. It showed eisenhower was deeply involved in government and deeply involved in the day to day operations of his National Security council. He was deeply involved in the details of american National Security issues. The emphasis of the scholarship that had come out was to attack eisenhower as being an evil genius. He overthrew iran and guatemala and what about the congo and cuba. This is history for you. The pendulum is constantly swinging. If your head is swimming, im not surprised. Wheres the realize . Im a historian. Im not interested in making ike into a saint orville l villain. What impact did he have on the country . What impact did he have and also how should we understand his political appeal . Why was he so popular . People said i like ike. But why . What was it about him that they liked . Ill touch on two answers. First, i want to talk briefly about his policy achievements. The substance of his presidency was significant. If you want to know why ike was popular, look at what he did. Look at his accomplishments. Then i want to talk about the man and his character which was a huge part of his political success. Let me talk about the substance of his presidency and give you is gist of whats in the book. Theres much more there. I want to give you sink your teeth into what he really accomplished. Eisenhowers proudest accomplishment as president was that the United States didnt go to war for eight years while he was in office. He said this again and again. It didnt just happen. Ill tell you that. He probably said it more heatedly than that. He insisted he worked hard to keep the United States at peace for eight years. When he came into office, the korean war was raging. An unpopular war. Eisenhower was determined to stop it. Even before he was sworn in as president , he went to korea to see the front and found it was unwinnable. The only way it could have been won was to use nuclear weapons. He thought about it briefly. He got lucky in one respect. Joseph stalin dropped dead in 1955. The new soviet leadership said well not win this war. The moment of leadership here is that eisenhower said ill take that deal. Ill take the deal. Many in his own party, the republican party, criticized him for accepting something that was short of all out victory. Were still living in a time that that war hasnt been completed yet. Ike took the deal amidst criticism from his own party. It was an overwhelmingly popular decision. The americans were thrilled the war was over. Remember this french were fighting and trying to hang on to their colonial empire in endo china. The french, the generals and Prime Ministers came to eisenhower and said send american troops to vietnam, 1954. Rescue our colony. Eisenhower said no. He said no and he said it again. I cannot conceive of a greater tragedy for america he said, than to get heavily involved in an allout war in those regions. Many of his advisers, here are two of them, disagreed and privately coaxed eisenhower to aid the french, to send troops, to get involved in the fighting. The chairman of the joint chiefs and secretary of state, nobody liked to tell eisenhower things he didnt like to do. He said no. I cannot tell you how bitterly opposed i am to such a course of action. This war would dissolve our troops by gidivisions. Americans did not go to war in 1954. Eisenhower committed to help build the state of south viet m vietnam. We can have an argument that that led to future commitments in vietnam. Eisenhower had a choice to make. Despite some of his most important advisers he said were not going to engage in that war. Its the wrong war. In 1956 theres at the conflict over the canal in egypt. You think there would have been an argument for doing that. Eisenhower put pressure on the british and french to get out. Humiliating the british Prime Minister in the process. When the solve yviets put pressn berlin, eisenhower urged diplomacy. He invited them to come to the United States. That was the thing, resort to diplomacy first if you can to avoid war. Mind you, eisenhower was no dove on defense matters. He invested huge sums in building up our defense establishment. In the eisenhower years, this is a number take away with you, in the eisenhower years the United States spent on average 10 of its gdp on defense. 10 of gdp. Today were at about 3. 3 . The size of the economy is very different. A huge sum investing in defense. The man who did so much to alert us to the dangers of the military did a lot to build that complexion. The arsenal soared from a few hundred weapons to 20,000 war heads that could be delivered on a number of platforms. The b52 bombers, the under sea missile, all came online during eisenhowers terms. He nknew all about it. He was fascinated by the details. He was deeply engaged in pushing the agenda. Now the purpose of these weapons was to deter the communists. It was to keep the peace. This was the beginning and the formation of the peace through strength strategy that waged and won the cold war. Now, we can debate whether it was the right choice. Every president since has followed it. It was very much the strategy that helped to win the cold war. Ike is a paradox in this regard. He wanted to avoid war. He did avoid war. He invested hugely in the tools of war. Thats the nature of the choices he made. A second area where i want to talk about eisenhowers substance of his achievement was the economy. Heres a fact you might not have known. Eisenhower balanced three budgets out of eight. He came pretty close on the others except for the first one which was trumans deficit. He was a budget hawk. This is a record of fiscal discipline unmatched by any of his successors until bill clinton in the 1990s. I want to talk about a figure who is held up as a leading conservative figure if i can get us on to the i want to talk about Ronald Reagan who is held up as the conservative leader. Reagan added 1. 4 trillion to the national debt. The reason is reagan was more interested in cutting taxes. Here is a revealing difference between ike and reagan. Very different ideas about how to handle taxes. Eisenhower was very stern about taxes. He demanded that the u. S. Budget should be balanced before everyone got a tax cut. Boy, does that date him. What he said he said it repeatl repeated repeatedly. Heres the gist of it. The good america, the Good American is proud to carry his share of the national burden. Whew, i dont think that will be on the Bumper Sticker in 2020, whoever is out there. Its just a different world. This was simply his view. Paying your taxes was part of being an american and it was a patriotic duty. No wonder bill buckley his magazine was just coming out. They heaped abuse on ike throughout his time in office and contributed to some of the negativity around his legacy. Wasnt conservative enough for the conservatives. Ike thought of himself as a conservative. The fact is early on in his presidency he made his peace with the new deal. He expanded Social Security to include 10 million additional recipients. He raised the minimum wage. He founded the department of health, education and welfare. He invested in a big infrastructure program, the interstate highway system. He built thousands of miles of roads and it cost billions, but eisenhower came up with a clever way of doing it, a gas tax. Essentially a user fee which turned out to be an engine that fed itself. It didnt place a heavy burden on the treasury. That was the key genius of the plan. So strong on defense, but Even Stronger on diplomacy. Great on a budget hawk, but also progressive when it came to issues like Social Security and human welfare. Finally one substantive topic i want to touch on before i get to ikes character. Its an area not many of you realize what a significant legacy he had. Thats the field of civil rights. In the 1950s the Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum. Africanamericans were using the courts to challenge the segregation of Public Schools and Public Places across the country. The practice of jim crow was in place fully across the south and this was a practice that was coming at an increasing conflict and protest from africanamericans in the 50s. Through court challenges, busboy cots, sitins, black americans were demanding an end to racial segregation. Its one of the things that make it is 50s such an interesting decade. I was an astonishing time. Ike is a fascinating character to study on these issues. He didnt know much about black life in america. He didnt know much about the Civil Rights Movement and frankly he wasnt all that interested initially. He grew up in the segregated United States military. Most of his friends from the army were southerners or had southern connections. Where did he most like to go on vacation . Augusta national in georgia which was segregated by race and gender. Ike didnt really have a point of reference as to how to handle this growing crisis in the country. Heres what i think is interesting and worthy of note. He accumulated a significantly progressive record on civil rights. He and his attorney general worked quietly through the courts to weaken jim crow segregation. They appointed five reasonably progressi progressi progressive jurists to the Supreme Court. At not point to eisenhower seek to undermine or in any way question the authority of the Supreme Court to make rulings. He never would dream of doubting it publicly. He signed into law the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first civil Rights Action since the end of the civil war. He took an enormous risk, a real risk uncharacteristic of eisenhowers history when he ordered federal troops to surround Central High School in little rock, arkansas to ensure that courtordered desegregation of that school would proceed despite the hostility of the governor of arkansas. Eisenhower thought the federal government had the right to impose the law. Now he may have been a reluctant warrior on civil rights, but he was a determined defender of the u. S. Constitution. Its true ike didnt publicly or personally embrace the civil rights cause as his own. He didnt speak up about civil rights as a moral issue, an issue of justice and equality. He spoke about it only in the terms of law. The law is the following and we must enforce it. Historians and many critics have criticized eisenhower for not putting his shoulder to the wheel. You could also see the opposite. He wasnt prepared to deal with this crisis and president s face crises theyre not prepared to deal with a lot. I think he dealt with it well. Ladies and gentlemen, i could go on about his policy achievements. It probably wasnt his policy achievements that endeared him to americans in the 1950s. I want to reflect a little into his character. When americans looked at Dwight Eisenhower i love this picture of ike. This is 1946. Its after the war. Hes chief of staff. Hes in hawaii. Whats one word that comes to mind . Maybe there are many. Hes confident. Hes relaxed. The word that comes to mind is winner. This guy is a winner. Thats what americans saw when they looked at eisenhower. They saw a man playing football at army and then running the Second World War and winning, liberating europe. Being the first commander of nato. He never really looked like he was trying all that hard. The guy was a winner. People loved being around him. His optimism, his personal quality. One of the things that struck me was the reports about his personal physical charisma. He had enormous charisma. He was one of these guys that every head in the room turned and said there he is. Its total star power. He was very forward. Carried himself like the athlete he was. People loved his persona. Thats a big part of his early political magic, if you will. Another reason for his appeal surely was his authenticity. Ike knew where he came from and never forgot it. He used it, but he loved where he came from, abilene, kansas. He grew up in a family of six boys and eisenhower shared a bed, not just a bedroom, a bed with one of his brothers until he left to go to the army. They were poor. His father worked at the creamery down the street. They were one paycheck away from total destitution. They lived in a small house which i hope some of you have seen. If you go to abilene, you can see it. Its lovely and its tiny. Imagine raising six boys in this place. Im sure there was a lot of go play in the yard. At the same time heres the thing i want to emphasize. Eisenhower had a ton of glamour about him. Small town kansas boy, but he was a fivestar general. Who were his mentors . Douglas mcarthur. Who were his friends . Millions, titans of industry. He was at homewo working with churchill. He had been all around the world. He lived in the philippines. He was a global citizen. What an interesting contrast. The barefoot farm boy and the fivestar general. He wrapped up this wonderful story in his own political personality. Im an ordinary guy, but im not ordinary at all. Thats part of the magic. Now, let us not forget part of his appeal to the public was his wonderful wife maime eisenhower. She grew up in denver and met eisenhower in san antonio and they married in 1916. This is a photograph of her about the time they met. I think shes beautiful and i love this picture. I think it has a lot of style and personality. Maime and ike married in 1916. She devoted herself to eisenhowers career. She was charming, social, fashionable. In the white house she presided over the executive mansion, did everything from choosing menus and cutting coupons to talking with visiting heads of state. She had charm and personality and a person comfortable in any setting and able to make herself and her guests comfort able. Mrs. Eisenhower truly helped to shape the role of the modern first lady. Americans in the 50s adored her. She also had the sympathy of Many Americans because the public knew the eisenhowers suffered through the loss of a child, their first son who died of scarlet fever at the age of 3. Neither overcame the loss. Eisenhower called it the greatest disaster in my life, the one ive never been able to forget completely. It was just another element of their lives that made them feel that much closer to the public. Perhaps their sorrow, their sadness, their vulnerability linked them to the public. Americans also liked eisenhower for his religious faith, another element i bet not that many of you knew and youll learn about right now, a fascinating detail of his life. Eisenhower was raised by parents who were mennonites. They later became yjehovahs witnesses. After ike left home, he rarely went to church. It was in his mind and heart, but he didnt practice publicly his faith until he was elected president. Well, he had not been baptized as a child. He decided a few weeks after his inauguration he would join the Presbyterian Church in washington. In a private ceremony in february of 1953 president eisenhower was baptized. He remains the only president baptized while in office. Eisenhower made every effort while he was president to place religious faith in the public eye. Now the 50s was an era of religious revival in the country. Eisenhower was fine with that and he encouraged it. He started the National Prayer breakfast. He was the first president to bring the Young Billy Graham to the white house and he became Close Friends with him. Billy graham would serve many president s. He heartedly approved to place the words under god in our pledge and have the words in god we trust placed on our currency. Whatever you make of these forms of piety of the president , it squared with the values of his time and americans loved this about eisenhower, another aspect of his appeal. Then finally, ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of his character, we look back a lot of my students look back on ike as somebody from the stone age and, in fact, he was. He was the last president to have been born in the 19th century. So he is a man of some rather distant past. At the time he believed himself and wanted to be associated with innovation, with new technologies, with new ideas, with science and education. He was a great champion of those things. He was the first president to hold a press conference in front of a television camera. He used tv advertising effectively in his president ial campaigns. After the sputnik crisis, eisenhower championed Space Research and founded nasa and invested large sums into science education. On july 12, 1957 he became the first president to ride in a helicopter, something he loved to do and did regularly even with visiting dignitaries. This is why i think its a wonderful choose to have the White House Christmas ornament feature the helicopter. Ike would have absolutely loved that gesture. Eisenhower may have been the first man to reach the ripe old age of 70 while in the white house. Thats true. He saw himself as the future, cutting edge, innovative person eager to help encourage technological break through. Ladies and gentlemen, ive painted a pretty glowing portrait of ike. Im going to wrap up and go into q a. As a historian, im aware eisenhower has plenty of warts. Ill return to three topics we can turn to in the q a. I hear lots of oohs and ahhs. Ill just do this real quick. Im sure youll ask questions yourself and we can have a further discussion. The first question i have is why nixon . Now theres a political answer to why eisenhower chose nixon to be his running might in 1952. Actually eisenhower didnt choose nixon. Thomas dewee choose nixs nixon. I believe eisenhower accepted it as the dire of the party to have nixon on the ticket. I think it was a bad decision. I dont say that because of who nixon became later. Eisenhower didnt use his Vice President as an adviser, as a counselor. The two men didnt get along. They didnt have a relationship. In my opinion eisenhower didnt trust nixon. He didnt feel he was grown up enough. He hoped he would grow into the job. For eight years he tried, but nixon was so intimidated by eisenhower the two never meshed. In 1956 ike tried to bounce nixon off the ticket. He said dick, you need experience. You should go run the pentagon. He said i know what youre trying to do. Im okay. Eisenhower tried to order him to do it. Nixon wouldnt do it. So the two of them, they were ships passing in the night. Thats not a good way to use the office of vice presidency and its a question we should raise about his legacy. Second, joe mccarthy. Why didnt ike do more or say more and go to war with mccarthy . Joe mccarthy was reasonably popular in the United States in 1953 and 1954. Americans thought if 10 of what he was saying is true, its bad enough. There were communists who penetrated into the atomic research. There were communist sympathizers. Eisenhower didnt want to be the president that said i think its a lot of bologna and then have one found in the government. He approved of vetting people working in government, but he hated mccarthys tactics. Should he have gone to war with mccarthy and elevated him to an equal of the president . Eisenhower said no way. Im not getting in the gutter with that guy. I wont go toe to toe with him publicly. Many of his friends wrote to him and said, general his Close Friends called him general wont you Say Something about this awful man . Eisenhower said im trying. He worked very hard behind the scene s. A lot of information that went to the mccarthy hearings came from the white house. Ie eisenhower played an Important Role in back channelling and creating the dossier of material that hurt mccarthy. It was all out of public view. Many felt he never tangled with mccarthy, but behind the scenes he was doing that. The last thing is allan dulles. He was in charge of the Central Intelligence agency. President eisenhower significantly expanded the power and responsibilities of the cia and ordered it to conduct covert operations. Eisenhower did approve and help design the overthrow of the iranian government in 1953 and in guatemala the same in 1954. The cia aided rebels in indonesia and outlined assassination attempts of foreign leaders in the congo and in cuba. Some of these operations we learned about in the 1970s. Theyre still jaw droppingly zany. These are controversy today. Eisenhower delegated enormous power and resources to a secret agency and let them carry out quite violent operations against sovereign nations in the name of National Security. Now a spoiler alert, hes not the only president to have done this. This is part of the eisenhower legacy too. If were going to be fair to the past and to the documentation, we have to understand why eisenhower felt those decisions, those kinds of policies were in the national interest. He believed they were. He could make a good argument they were. Historians have criticized him for this. We need to understand how he viewed the wois to give allan ds free rein. Ladies and gentlemen, these conversations will continue. I hope they continue. Its good for eisenhowers legacy that we debate it and talk about it. It seems unlikely they ell mar eisenhowers legacy. A poll of president ial historians ranked eisenhower our fifth greatest president right after washington, lincoln, franklin and teddy roosevelt. Now this leap up the rankings, 22 and chester a. Arthur he left chester in the dust. This leap tells that eisenhowers style of modern governance combined with personal integrity, with character, with dignity is something today americans admire. Its up to us to make sure these values are placed at the heart of our political discourse. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. [ applause ] wow. So what do you think . Five is a pretty good ranking for eisenhower . Do any of you remember the eisenhower years . Most of you are much too young to remember. I was a kid back then. My parents sure remember Dwight Eisenhower and i always thought he was, you know, really one of the cool ones for my parents. Cool is not a word they often associate with him. Great, maybe. So were question and answer. The microphone will be coming around. I want to start out by asking you, eisenhowers son john said that the worst time in his presidency was late 1957. When weeks after he had sent federal troops into little rock, just two weeks later, sputnik was launched an then a few weeks after that eisenhower is in the oval office waiting to greet a king and he gets woozy, dizzy, cold and numb and cant call his secretary, hes having a stroke. His health at that moment, was after his big heart attack. It was. How how did Dwight David Eisenhower handle the multitasking things which today is considered part of the how did he as a person handle that kind of onslaught of unexpected crisis. Sure. Thats a great question. The multitasking of the president must be so exhausting. Its also hard to write about as a historian because if you just think about a day of what crosses the president s desk. Theres 10 or 20 crisis that all have to be dealt with immediately. Thats very hard to narrate, so you end up choosing one and all others disappear into the past. The trick is, imagine trying to look at it all as the president seeing it, it must be terribly overwhelming. In november 1956 israely invade budapest and what else is going on, oh, yeah, eisenhower is running for reelection. Theres a tenday period from late october to early november 1956, hes dealing with two internation International Crisis either could have led to a war with the soviet union and he is running for reelection. And i assure you the thing he spent the least amount of time was that. Le im sure he said to his son that guys licked lets go to the ball game. Hes like im not going campaigning, im going to the ball game. He and he did. Thats a great question. Sense of all of the things coming at him. Eisenhowers hed health suffered a lot in that ten day period, after his heart attack. The sputnik case is one of those moments we all recognize his political brilliance and soviets send up the satellite and everyone says russians are going to run the table on us and eisenhower has a press conference and says simmer down, were doing fine, whats the big deal. They got a lump of aluminum up there but were visibly way ahead of them on missiles and our bomber fleet. Besides that little radio, that toaster oven circulating the earth has no military value. Guess what, the press gave him the thumbs down on that press conference. They said, you see, he doesnt realize what a big crisis this is. Hes out of touch with his people. Classic case the press didnt hear what eisenhower was trying to say so he has to go back and recalibrate his message and he came up with, all right, ill grant you they had a break through. Guess what were going to do. Were going to put our foot to the gas and redouble our efforts to build out the missile deterrent, were going to get a satellite into orbit which it they would do january 1958, but im also going to create nasa, which he did, and get through the reorganization of the defense department, which he did. He figured out the old adage dont waste a crisis. Something bad is happening, im going to finally get control over the pentagon. He got a big bill reorganizing the powers of the pentagon giving the defense secretary much more power. Things like that revealed he understood washington. The idea ike was green, inexperienced and didnt get washington, he had spent his whole life if washington. He worked in washington from the 20s on. So he was prepared to deal with this issue very well. Okay. Questions. Ladies and gentlemen, handsu uu hands up. We got one back over here. Up hands up. We got one back over here. Second question, right over here. Yes, sir, welcome. Yes, hi. Thank you. I very much enjoyed your presentation. One thing you didnt mention was eisenhowers farewell address, one of the great speeches in president ial history. If you havent seen it go to youtube and listen it to it when you go home from this event. Hes one of his big messages in that speech was the warning about the military industrial complex. So what i wanted to ask you is how do you square his role as a cold warror admonition. I try to address it in the book. Its an interesting speech and i urge you all to listen to it. Its not just about the military industrial complex. He says if theres one thing im sorry about we didnt have better break throughs on arms control, peace with the soviets and to end the cold war. I would like to have a significant break through but i pushed forward and we didnt get it so as a result we have been compelled to build a military industrial complex. Thats the tell. What hes saying is to defend our country and way of life goodness the communist weve been compelled to build a military industrial complex. Were sorry about that but its keeping us safe now its on you, the citizens, to be careful, keep a watch on it, to make sure the brass doesnt have the run of the place. Who do you think that message might have been directed towards, january 1961, hes on the way out, the new guy is already in there measuring the drapes. I believe its a direct message to 43yearold lieutenant junior grade john kennedy who was coming in who has no experience managing the brass. No experience managing the multitasking and part of what he is saying is okay america you voted for john kennedy against my guy Richard Nixon but its on you to hold your leaders to the High Standard to make sure theyre doing the job of moni r monitoring the military industrial complex. Its a direct message to the public, make sure you keep tabs on the leaders and that they have your best interest at heart. Which is to say we built it. I did it. I own that. But at the same time i want you to be aware it comes with a burden responsibility he wants to place on the public so they will keep an eye on this inexperienced guy who is now in the white house. Question right here. Yes. And do we have another hand up over here. Okay. Well bring a mic in the green shirt and then ill come down here to you. Hi. Good evening. He took office seven years after the end of the world war ii and did bring in Senior Officers that worked with him in world war ii and afterwards. How successful were those appointments compared to the other appointments he made to secretarial positions . Well, ill just name two i think was pretty successful. Beetle smith was his chief of staff who had already run the cia, he would have liked to have him run the cia but couldnt for various reasons, i guess, maybe the state department, he was deputy state department, beetle was a wonderful advisor. Very effective. Robert cutler his first National Security advisor general. He had been schooled by George Marshall and i think Robert Cutler really invented the role of National Security advisor. He defined the purposes of the National Security council and indeed brought a military eveningos to othos to run the eoc. And in fact he said to john kennedy when they were meeting at the transition he said you have to understand the nsc this is where it all happens. Kennedy said whatever i got bobby im going to be fine. He didnt Pay Attention to the nsc and didnt use it same as eisenhower and it reflected military fashion and bobby cutler implemented it. Real quickly, George Marshall, the relationship. Thats a lecture in itself. But marshall made eisenhower. We owe eisenhower to general marshall. And its a story with some pathos it to it because of course marshall barack brought up ike, and run roosevelt said im going with ike. During the campaign of 1952, George Marshall had been criticized for many, many months by senator Joseph Mccarthy who said that marshall guy was in china when it went communist, there must be a connection. Maybe hes a trader. Believe it or not. Of all of the people. Well, you wouldnt think that marshalls greatest, most successful protoge who had the platform would have stood up to say anyone who says anything bad about marshall well settle it with me outside. He didnt say anything of the kind. Thats in part because he was new be in campaign politics. He listened to his advisors would made him cut a praiseworthy paragraph out of a speech he was going to deliver in wisconsin, mccarthys home state. So he gave the speech but the press had already received the advanced copy of the text so they knew he is going to praise marshall in the speech, hes going to finally break silence and Say Something about marshall and what he gave the speech the paragraph is missing. I seen the text. The actual speech was circulated on the campaign train. Theyre in there saying wisconsin boy saying this bad idea were going to cut this paragraph out and you can see it scrapped out. So he gave the speech and the press went crazy, they never relented, never forgave eisenhower for failing to support his mentor. There were correspondent between marshall and insurance ooh after this event. Marshall basically, between the lines, what i read is if you went into politics, ike, of course you were going to do something dumb every day. I just assume that. Once you left the army and went into politics, i expect knuckle headed things. Im not going to hold it general you. I subsequently learned mrs. Marshall never forgave eisenhower. Question right here. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Turning to the infrastructure. Can you share any insight as to eisenhowers inspiration for the interstate advocating for the interstate system or what he hopes the countrys goals would accomplish by advocating for it. Yeah. I dont know, you may know the answer. Sometimes there are people who are very knowledgeable on these top ibs and in audiences like this we have a lot of expert ease gathered here. Eisenhower said the famous trans continental convoy was in part inspiration, which is taking demobilized military equipment, after world war i he was assigned to get this material across the country so it could be moth balled and it took them three months to cross the United States, right in 1919, i think it was. And he ever after said this is ridiculous. You cant drive from one coast to the other of this country. We need somehow to knit it together. Its often said eisenhower used National Security imperative as an explanation for how to get this through congress and heed didnt do that, he claimed it would be a teshlg thing if there was a Nuclear Attack on the United States and everyone was stuck on route one at a Dunkin Donuts trying to get from boston to washington or wherever it was. Dunkin donuts trying to ge from boston to washington or wherever it was. So he said it was imperative that we have integrated system of highways and they had been trying to pass such a bill for a long time but hadnt figured out how to pay for it and it was the break through of the Eisenhower Administration to come up with the means to pay for it. Fascinating. Question here. Hi im ambassador Gill Robertson and was youngest appointee with eisenhower and had some interactions with him. [ applause ] great to see you, sir. One of the things that i think is not pointed out enough, and i had some personal experience with this, is eisenhowers integration of the white house five years or four or five years before, they got a lot of publicity by appointing a black assistant. What people dont know is that when he went into the white house, Sherman Adams, the governor of New Hampshire became the chief of staff and one of his two top assistants was a young black woman named lois lidman and she was very, very helpful in the white house in what she did. As some of you may know, the citizens for ize is one of the groups got him elected and lois was in there with the founders early on. And she became very, very significant in the white house. For example, one of the founders of citizens charles willis, the other was stanley rumbo jr. , became the chief of of new people coming in. And he said said with lois they developed a system that is still in use today in the white house. This is a fascinating thank you for raising this because you already talked about was eisenhower too timid . Did he think twice about not just the education but the broader issue . Its its legality me let me just put it this way, to dodge the question, historians disagree. There are those he was in front of civil right and those who felt he didnt do enough. Can i add to your helpful and useful story, pointing to another africanamerican in the white house named frederick morrow. Hes the one i referred to, came in almost four or five years later. Yeah. Morrow. Morrow was a fascinating man and he wrote repeatedly about his experiences in the white house. He wrote a memoir called black man in the white house. I highly recommend it to you. Its about his experiences there. Morrow tried very hard to get the Eisenhower Team and adams in particular to meet civil rights leaders oneonone and played a break through role in 1958 with Martin Luther king and other leaders of thora the era, came to the white house with a set of concerns and that took years to get done. He took a lot of pride in that. Hes an unsung hero in the administration. But it wasnt all a bed of roses. He acknowledged that. This is true of probably every staff member, my portfolio is not getting enough attention, but he had a good case. They talked a good game but didnt act on it aggressively enough. Thats his point of view. I didnt want to ignore hands over here. One down in front. Why dont we get the microphone right here and then well come over to you, sir. Thank you. Yes, please. Go ahead. I just wander if you could. I just wonder if you could make observations on Sherman Adams and his influence and how that came about. It became quite controversial and difficult for eisenhower. Sherman adams was his chief of staff. He was governor of New Hampshire. He came on the eisenhower Campaign Early and helped to organize the new orleans primary. Which eisenhower won. It was close. Taft was considered the guy. Theres eisenhower in nato. He didnt say he wanted to run so they needed a team on the ground to make sure he would be in the primaries and adams played a crucial role helping him win. Taft was campaigning and winning delegates. Taft went to the 1962 convention, they were dead locked. It was that clock. There was no guarantee that eisenhower was going to get the nomination in 1952. Can you believe that, given how successful he later became. Later attorney general played a very Important Role. But adams was known as the abominable noman in washington. Typical New Hampshire guy, im not taking guff, get out of my office, everyone thought he was a terror. He was very loyal to eisenhower. He too invented if many ways the contemporary role of chief of staff. Was called assistant to the president. Really he was the first full time chief of staff. Very important figure. Later had he to resign over claims gifts had been given to his wife, a persian carpet and a v ierks kr vikuna coat. Everyone remembers that. Taking a persian carpet from a rug dealer after all, doesnt seem like a resigning offense. So he stepped down in 1958 and went back to New Hampshire to live a happy life up there, which he did. A very important figure. P lets bring the mic to the front row. I want to ask about one other figure. We talk s we talked so little about congress who was the season at majority leader. Very Big Personality in an era full of big personalities. Linden johnson. You all heard of him. [ laughter ] and there was taft. And ike. When Democratic Party took control of the Senate Johnson became majority lead earnhardt the two of leader and the two of them couldnt have been more opposite. R the two of leader and the two of them couldnt have been more opposite. Its a fascinating study. A wonderful compliment toopposi. Its a fascinating study. A wonderful compliment to studying ike. One of the signature achievements, i mean, they really went at it, Linden Johnson was really trying to under cut eisenhower. Theres a fascinating story about getting the 1957 Civil Rights Act through. Johnson is a southerner and democrat and he had to deal with his faction of southern democrats who were very hostile to civil rights and desegregation and to warren and brount decision. Here comes eisenhower and says i want to strengthen the powers of the Justice Department so attorney general can investigate, go down in the south, say things like the emmitt till murder cannot happen, those guys walking free. Which is what happened. Johnson goes, well see who it goes what we can work up and over long negotiations, johnson watered down the bill, watered down the bill, hes come back and say mr. President i know youve given me four finks but i got to ask for one more and take this piece out. And by the end eisenhower wanted to veto his own legislation, he didnt recognize it. Johnson eviscerated it. Few things left in it. Eisenhower signed it and it became a important stepping stone for johnson to deliver a civil rights legislation in the senate. He said i showed in the bill i could control the southern democrats, got it so they wouldnt veto in committee. And it passed. The passage was more important than what was in the bill. The two of them, another example why the 50s were so amazing, young johnson, working his bones in the senate and eisenhowers like this guys really good. He wanted to work with him but eisenhower ran rings around him. Fascinating character study. One more question here, yes, sir. One thing interesting thing about that was the man eisenhower designated to push the next bill was nixon. Brownel is often given credit for vetting eisenhower or anothers on civil rights can you go into that. Brownel was going to pursued eisenhower to run. They spent quite a bit of time how it would happen. He was part of the liberal new york wing dewey team. They got along very well. I think when eisenhower realized this real pro coming from new york was telling him, we can make this work, he wasnt just a fan. He was the real machine guy. So brownel very important in getting ike to run and making the Campaign Work and getting him in. I dont know about betty nixon. That did come out vet vetting eisenhower. You didnt really vet eisenhower. Everyone knew he was absolutely political gold. It took him long time to say yes until his close buddy clay said got to do it or the country will go to hell. Youre the only person who can save the country. When enough people you admire tell you this again and again and hundreds did, thousands did, people begged him to run. He started saying, well maybe im the only one to save the country and he did run and never looked back. Well, i got to ask one last question on my own. There are such colorful moments and the personalities from that era, youre right, are just amazing and frankly wills book is so beautifully written, his almost pull pulitzer winner was described as like a novel, written with the art and elegance of a novel. Give us as your parting gift to us a little description of eisenhower and crushtov for the trip. What a comic scene. Someone should do a oneact play or short movie. First off, crush off arrives in 1959. Its the last year. Yeah berlin crisis had been going on. Sputnik already happened. Theres a lot of bad blood in the water. Its not clear if krush was a stalin figure or what he is. They met before in 1955 geneva but didnt know each only. So anyway krush decides to come eisenhower senses krush wants equality with america. He flies the biggest plane ever made to the United States in order to talk about arriving with a bang, its this gigantic jet that they cant land at the usual place. They have to extend the airway. Anyway, he steps down off this thing. Eisenhower is there. They drive back to washington. Its icy at first. Theyre not getting along. Krush says i got gifts for you, an era they exchange gifts, and he pulls out a mini flag, an oblis k, he said this is a replica of what we landed on the moon, its true, they managed to get this flag and plant it in the ground. It is a way to say your Space Program is a decade behind yours. Not a good way to begin. Eisenhower had a plan the two of them would sit and eat and get rid of everybody except the translators and say lets end the cold war. But krush is having none of it. No were going to have a cold war, we disagree with you, hes doing his usual thing and eisenhower cant get through to him. And he goes, i got an idea, lets go for a helicopter ride. And he takes him on a tour around washington, d. C. , rush hour, krushs like im not getting in that thing. This cant be right. They do it. Its wonderful. It starts to soften the ice and krush after a number of meetings then takes his own tour across the country. Famously goes to hollywood with delegation of soviet big wigs and they see Shirley Mcclain on set, she must have been 15, but anyway, i kid you not, they do a number, they do a song and dance number for the visiting digni dignitari dignitaries, the ending of which one of the dancers slides on his knees under the legs of one of the female dancers and he pops up out of her bloomers with a pair of red under pants in his hands. And thats the end of the number. Soviet delegation is watching this, just appalled. Disgraceful. Capitalist garbage. This is an insult. Theyre about to leave back to moscow. They go on the train to san francisco, its beautiful, they have a wonderful time. They come back to washington and make up, they hear a concert at the soviet embassy. Its a moment eisenhower takes krush to camp david and they talk and get to know one another. For a moment it looked like the cold war might soften, we might find a path to ease this thing called the cold war. It didnt happen. I blame dulles in part because of course the u2 crisis shoot down, so on. Separate story to read in the book. We missed p the chance to change the nature of the cold war because the diplomacy was so successful and wanted to do a deal with ike but after the u2 crisis it was impossible. Maybe ike needed a third term. Ladies and gentlemen, will hitchcock, this is real history. Thank you. Thank you. [ applause ] youre watching a special edition of American History tv, airing weekdays. Tonight beginning at 8 00 Eastern Program on the battle of okinawa, 75 years ago, 82 days it launched in the pacific and 2,000 attacks on americans. The fleet that came to stay was u. S. Navy film by hollywood Filmmaker Bud boneker, which looks at history through film. American history tv now and over the weekend on cspan 3. Before Dwight Eisenhower was president he was an army general. Up next, discussions with u. S. Chief of staff George Marshall in world war ii. The Kansas City Public Library hosted this event. Its just over an hour. Good evening. Im steve webber, Public Affairs staff here at Kansas City Public Library and thank you all for being here tonight. Its great to have you and to have david mills our speaker. Tonights program has been a longtime coming. David was originally scheduled to be here in february. But was grounded by bad Winter Weather and were so happy he hung with us and happy to have him here now. This happens to be a happy confluence of Kansas City Public Library programming