As we continue our celebration of our 2015 celebration of the 125th anniversary of dwight david eisenhower. We are grateful for the cosponsorship of this series made possible by the wt temper foundation and the eisenhower president ial Library Museum and boyhood home. The associate director is here with us tonight. He will be speaking in the library october 13, tuesday at the central library. About the significance of the front tier. President e day before eisenhowers birthday october 14 where he will be giving his talk at the Eisenhower Library in abilene. There is a party. You are invited to the party on the 14th as well. We are extremely happy to have professor yanek mieczkowsk here tonight to talk about ike and. Net. One of my first memories is of 1956rents watching the Republican Convention on tv and my mother arguing with my father that since he was point to vote for eisenhower you should register as republican. Which he was not at that point. Not everybody liked ike at that time. Joe mccarthy. The John Birch Society said he was a communist. Russell kirk said ike is not a communist. He is the golfer. That image of ike on the golf course, not accomplishing very much. Then things likes but the missile gap have affected our historically, which is corrected in his letter sputnik moment. His carefults in and measured book, and astute 1961, asisenhower, by president kennedy took office we had a huge lead in satellites and the technology of space and missiles. The quality of what we were doing made a greater difference in the history of the cold war than putting a man on the moon or a flag on the moon as the russians did, which were in essence stunts. He built more roads, schools, and houses during this time that any previous president had. Yanek mieczkowsk is a historian who believes in the right stuff among president s. He has written about president eisenhower. Esident on president fords 90th birthday he wrote a piece about him. How especially attractive thing about president ford was his integrity. That kindok you find of right stuff was present in president eisenhower as well. He wasne point said looking for a broader and better type of civilization. Hardwaretues, not the of history. You may remember in his famous speech at the end of his presidency he warned us against the militaryindustrial complex and the scientific and technical elite. He was not one to rush, be rushed by experts or the media, or advisors or anything that he found without merit. It is the virtues of his book and his history that that is what we find out about president eisenhower. Artin dempsey yanek mieczkowsk he has written a couple of books on the presidency including the Routledge Atlas of the presidency and has won many awards and fellowships and is a very fine historian. It is a pleasure to welcome professor yanek mieczkowsk. [applause] marilynne yanek thank you. Thank you to the Kansas City Public Library for having me tonight. Thank you for coming. Many of you mustve had a choice to not because it is the first home game of the chiefs. Library talk, chiefs game . You decide on the library talk. I appreciate it. The chiefs might not but thank you for coming. I wanted to start my talk and practice it by paying tribute to somebody who helped me a lot, enormously as a research and wrote my book on eisenhower. Somebody who inform my thinking on eisenhower, told me stories, some of which i will share with you tonight. That person is dr. William e walt. He passed away this march will one of the last surviving members of the Eisenhower Administration. You may be familiar with his legacy with an on eisenhower. He worked during the Eisenhower Administration as a speechwriter for fred seaton and as you see in the lower righthand corner, he helped former president eisenhower write his memoirs. Then he wrote his own books on whichowers presidency, came out in 1981 and is still one of the classics on the eisenhower presidency. I was lucky to know bill and live close to him. He lived in greenwich connecticut. I would love to see him and interview him. He was my go to guy whenever i had a question. When i was going through documents or literature. I could go and see how and he would answer my questions. He helps me to know and understand eisenhower. When of the most rewarding and challenging parts of writing about any historical figure, especially one who is no longer around, is the ability or the chance to decipher that person. Bill helped me to do that to some extent. He helped me to know and understand eisenhower. I entitled my talk, understanding ike. I found a number of eisenhower traits that stood out and shaped his response to sputnik and the space race, and characterized his presidency as a whole. I thought i would concentrate on four. I am violating a rule of good lectures and human learning. The human brain is wellsuited to grouping things in 3. That is why there are three numbers and area codes, three supporting paragraphs and conclusion. , if i stuckng that to three, you would have a good acronym to member the talk by. You can consider the fourth trade as a bonus. What i want to do is go through each trait and give examples of them, show how they related to eisenhower, the space race, and his presidency as a whole. The most personal, his temper. I chose this for his entertainment value, the most colorful of the trade. He was a cradletograve kind of thing. He invented as a young boy into his retirement. When he was 10 years old one halloween his parents prohibited him from going trickortreating. He beat his fists against the tree outside his home until his knuckles were bloody. In retirement when you would think he would mellow out, he still showed flashes of the temper. His physician during his he got at, one evening call from the eisenhower residence. He had been experiencing heart pain. That is nothing to trifle with. He suffered a heart attack in 1955, and a mini stroke. A month after sputnik. The doctrine physician rushed over to the home examined him, he seemed to be ok. They asked him about what activities he had done that day. Nothing extraordinary. Then he asked them what did you have for dinner tonight. Eisenhower said pigs knuckles and sauerkraut. Oh my goodness. General eisenhower. You are on a restricted diet. You cant be eating things like that. He goes why did you eat such a thing . He glared and he goes because i damn it. There was a meaning behind him getting angry. I wanted to show a couple of examples of eisenhower getting angry. In july of 1961, president john f. Kennedy was planning to host the president of pakistan. He was going to have a big event. The first state dinner outside of the white house. There would be a bonfire, the marine corps band. Eisenhower was fear hes. He lost his temper. And hannitytator was hosting him at the home of eisenhowers idol, george washington. Eisenhower cursed him out. This sacrilegious stunt as he called it. There is a deeper implication. Early in kennedys term eisenhower took a dim view of this young president. He called him little boy blue, the young whippersnapper. He borrowed a phrase from his First Defense secretary, the former president of general motors. His flywheel is too big for his engine. [laughter]. His disdain was mutual he once said i have a minimum of high regard for him. After the interviews with Jackie Kennedy were published, they are available and you can listen to them. He was the historian and kennedy aides. You could hear arthur asked jeske jackie, what did your president think of eisenhower. She responds, not much. It was mutual. Eisenhower, this sacrilegious stunt of kennedys made him think even less of the new president. Two months before this incident there was another that made eisenhower question kennedys judgment. In 1951 he appeared before congress and gave an unusual second state of the Union Address. He gave a state of the Union Address in january. Now he called a joint session of congress and gave a second state of the Union Address. He uttered lines that became immortal. The challenge the nation to land men on them moon before the decade was out. Eisenhower was appalled. He thought it was a grave mistake. I will let eisenhowers words explain it. Ins is a letter he wrote 1965. It was personal and confidential at the time. I will direct your attention to the second page in which he writes in 1961, the president of the United States announced this nation challenge the russians to a race to the moon implying the prestige would be riding on the issue. This i thought unwise. It took one single project or experiment out of a planned and continuing Program Involving communications and meteorology and military benefits, and gave the highest priority to a drastically, and eisenhower goes on to arrange the bad effects of kennedys challenge. Clashas a significant between a sitting president and a former president. Eisenhower respected the presidency too much to dive his feelings publicly. Now today we know the historical record and know how he felt. Kennedys called challenge of putting a man on the moon nuts, almost hysterical, and a stunt. Atn eisenhower got angry kennedy, or the opposite, it was not just personal or political, it sometimes reflected real policy differences. Eisenhower did not want to send men to the moon and kennedy did. Eisenhower thought that much less of kennedy because kennedy did. I will mention another incident of eisenhower losing his temper that pertains to the space race. This story comes from Arthur Larson. The soviet Union Launched Sputnik in 1957. It marked the beginning of the space age, october 4, 1957. And on november 5, 1957, almost a month after sputnik, Arthur Larson is in the oval office. Eisenhower specifically asked Arthur Larson to come to the was theuse larson director of the u. S. Information agency and eisenhower made made larson the special assistant to the president to help him write speeches to but the sputnik achievement in proper perspective. Eisenhower was on the phone with his new defense secretary, neil mcelroy. Directorned creating a of Missile Development to give Top Priorities to americas Missile Development for defense. But mcelroy was not buying this. Finally, eisenhower lost his temper, he cursed, slammed on to phone, and according larson, he said, give him all the power he needs. This shows two important aspects of eisenhowers leadership after sputnik. First, who was this guy . This was james killian, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of technology, whom eisenhower had just reported appointed as a science advisor. Some americans feared that the u. S. Trailed the soviet union in silence and Technology Science and technology. After world war ii, science became incredibly important everyday life. Tists had developed jet engines, developed the transistor. Eisenhower realized that he needed an advisor in science. Most president s do not come from a science background. They majored in history, for example, eisenhower majored in history in college. John f. Kennedy, george w. Bush. Or theytion it majored in political science, like barack obama, or economics, like reagan and george h. W. Bush. Only two president s came from science or technical backgrounds hoover and carter. Science is vitally important. A president needs an advisor to get him counsel on how to promote science in public policy. After sputnik, eisenhower decided to appoint the first ever science advisor to the president. Special assistant to the president for science and technology. The media often called it the missile czar. Killian, an james interesting guy. He had no phd in the science field, he had no medical degree. His background was in administration. He had accumulated enough honorary doctorates to where people called him dr. Killian turco dr. Killian. Eisenhower created the 18 person president ial science advisory committee, consisting of 18 scientists, many of them nobel Prize Winners and fut ure nobel Prize Winners, who would meet with the president and give him advice on science. A strongerestablish link between the president and the scientific community. Something badly needed and increasingly science oriented in an increasingly science oriented and technical world. He respected the scientists immensely, calling them my cientists. Ed,enhower was hospitaliz dying of heart disease. Billion visited him will stop during that chilean visited him. Eon visited him. Eisenhower. Lot to today, the president still has a science advisor. Won, ant obama has physicist by training. You dont often hear about him. He flies under the radar. But this is the legacy of eisenhowers response to sputnik, creating the position of a science advisor. In thatore, you saw outburst, eisenhower trusted killian enough that he toyed with this idea of getting him hisgh power to circumvent own defense when it came to rockets and Missiles Development when he felt that mcelroy was not cooperating. There is a second aspect of that outburst when he was talking to neil mcelroy, that i think is important. One of the reasons that americas rocket and Missile Program moved slowly after world war ii was that it had no real direction. Its home was in the pentagon. There was no nasa yet in this time period. Missiles were housed in the pentagon. In the pentagon, the services fought one another on who should controlling and rocket and Missile Development. The army versus the navy. In fact, the very first nasa administrator said he worked with an air force officer and maybe admiral navy admiral, and said it was like watching two little boys argue over whose father would beat up the other. Thats how bad it was. Eisenhower was furious over these rivalries. Parochial. They were he used that word so often to criticize these rivalries that wouldrs thought people think he was mixing church and state. When he mentioned this idea of a director of missile and mcelroy, heto hemmed and hot. Hawed. That thenot believe services would let parochialism in the waywar stand of rocket Missile Development. These rivalries also created a sense of chaos and disorder in this field. They contributed to a sense of disorder and confusion. That brings me to the second eisenhower case that i wanted to look at. Eisenhower was very disciplined in his approach to everything. You would expect that from a career army officer. He brought discipline and order to the presidency. He created positions, like a science advisor post. Orders, likeecial psac. Who developedwer the position of white house chief and staff, to develop order for the sheer volume of paperwork that comes to the white house every day. Away carter tried to do with the position of a chief of staff after the abuses of n found it so critical that carter eventually named jordan his chief of staff. Eisenhowersn see sense of order in his punctuality. He ran his white house like clockwork. He began his meetings on time. His workdays would begin at 8 00 and end at 5 00, a fairly long workday. Of hiser editors biography would work into the evening, often until midnight. One morning, another editor walked into eisenhowers office at 8 03. Eisenhower looked up at them, and he goes, you boys may work late, but you get up late too. That might not seem as bad as it is. If you look at the first half of it, you boys may work late, billy told me that was the greatest problem that he had ever gotten. Eisenhower was not one who said thank you a lot or complement of people, or complemented people am a but that was eisenhower acknowledging for one how hard everybody was working on the memoir. But the second part of the sentence was the approach. I asked hill, did you ever show up late again, he said, oh no. Three minutes late was not good enough for eisenhower. It violated his sense of punctuality and order. See eisenhowers sense of order in the space race. After sputnik, there were concerteda more effort in science and space. There were many senators who called for a level a Cabinet Department of science. He thought it would add another level of bureaucracy and thought the most important space endeavors were not for science, but for National Security. Eisenhower thought the pentagon was the National Natural home for space endeavors. Eisenhower began to support the idea of a separate space agency. One of the reasons he changed his mind was it appealed to his sense of order. s approach to space was very asked to bring us and lacked an orderly, planned out approach. After sputnik, space was becoming increasingly important. Orderlyer wanted a more approach to space efforts, and a new agency specifically devoted to space could do that. Eisenhower also thought that a civilian space agency was important. It would emphasize the peaceful nature of American Space efforts. That would speak volumes about this country during the cold war. It would contrast this country with the soviet union, which used military rockets to launch satellites, but it was launched by a military rocket, the soviet r7. So all of the scientists came together to make eisenhower support a civilian space agency, nasa. He later signed a bill committing the national creating the National Aeronautics and space at ministration. This was less than a year after spot next launch. Nasa was a tribute to eisenhowers ability to work quickly with congress on a matter of national urgency. It was a tribute to being flexible enough to changing his mind. And it was also a tribute to his sense of order, his desire to an orderly approach to americas space effort. Eisenhowerioned that thought that americas most important space project would be related to National Security. That idea gives me a segue to the next eisenhower trait that i want to look at, his focus