History/Coldwar

America and the Cold War: The Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy Years, from Sage American History, is
available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. ©
2014, Henry J. Sage. UMGC has modified this work and it is available under the original license.

The Eisenhower Years

Dwight David Eisenhower was born in Texas in 1890, one of six brothers who grew up in Abilene, Kansas.
He entered West Point in 1911 and served in the Army during the 1920s and 30s under such illustrious
officers as George Patton and Douglas MacArthur. Recognized early for his powerful intelligence and
devotion to duty, he held important positions in the years preceding World War II and helped develop
doctrine for armored warfare. When World War II broke out, he was brought to Washington to work for
General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, serving as Chief of the War Plans Division.

In 1942 General Eisenhower went to Europe to take command of American forces for the invasion of
North Africa, Operation Torch, in 1942. He was subsequently named Supreme Commander Allied Forces
Europe and planned and oversaw Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June
6, 1944. As Supreme Commander, he dealt with many challenging personalities, including Winston
Churchill, French General Charles de Gaulle, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, senior Soviet
Russian officials and his military and civilian superiors in Washington.

A measure of Eisenhower’s character is revealed in a message he prepared in advance of the landings in
Normandy on D-Day:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have
withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best
information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty
could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

Fortunately, the general never had to release that message.

When World War II ended in Europe, General Eisenhower accepted the surrender of German leaders
and took steps to reveal the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. (He accurately predicted that at
some future time people would deny that the events called the Holocaust ever occurred. His quotation
about that prediction is inscribed on the rear wall of the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC.)

Following the war, General Eisenhower replaced George C. Marshall as Chief of Staff of the Army. Partly
as a reward for his service, and mostly because of his demonstrated leadership skills, Eisenhower held
several important positions following his retirement from active duty. In 1948 he became president of
New York’s Columbia University, a position which allowed him to be involved in high-level discussions of
American foreign policy. In the process, he made many useful contacts and learned more about the
workings of the American political system. (He once claimed to have been so little involved in politics
that he had never even voted.) Until President Harry Truman decided to run for reelection in 1948, the
Democrats had been considering Eisenhower for their candidate. In 1952 a movement began among
senior Republicans to nominate General Eisenhower as their candidate for president.

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Eisenhower faced a strong challenge from conservative Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, the front runner for
the nomination, who was known as “Mr. Republican.” Following a tough battle at the Republican
Convention, Eisenhower won the nomination on the first ballot. He selected California Senator Richard
Nixon for vice president. With his grandfatherly image and the slogan “I like Ike,” he comfortably
defeated Democratic candidate Democratic Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois with almost 58% of the
popular vote. Eisenhower thus became the first former general to enter the White House since Ulysses
S. Grant.

When Dwight D Eisenhower assumed the presidency on January 20, 1953, twenty years of Democratic
Party occupancy of the White House ended. President Eisenhower was the only former general to
occupy that office in the 20th century, and he was extremely well prepared for the position. What
served the former soldier well as he entered office when Cold War tensions threatened was his
experience in dealing with other world leaders during the Second World War. He dealt with future
adversaries such as top generals of the Russian Army, prickly allies like France’s Charles de Gaulle, and
powerful Allied leaders like Winston Churchill. As leader of the largest and most complex military
operation ever undertaken by Americans—the invasion of Europe and conquest of Nazi Germany—he
had management experience of the highest order.

President Eisenhower and the Cold War. President Eisenhower’s most significant challenges came in
the area of foreign-policy. Tensions had begun to arise between the Soviet Union and the West even
before World War II was over. The Soviets had recently developed a powerful nuclear arsenal, and the
death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 heightened the uncertainty of relations with the communist world. Thus,
by the time Eisenhower took office in January 1953, the Cold War, which had been underway for
practically a decade, had reached a dangerous level. Anti-Soviet feelings ran deep; the McCarthy era was
in full swing. Americans, enjoying products that had sprung from the technologies and events during
World War II and dealing with civil rights issues, were not completely focused on foreign affairs.

Those who have examined the political career of General Eisenhower (as he preferred to be called even
after becoming president) have generally agreed that he was a shrewd observer of the world scene. Yet
he was sometimes naïve in his understanding of American political practice. He seemed to some to be
working too hard to appease his political opponents, lacking the experience of having dealt with a “loyal
opposition.” At the same time, he guided American foreign affairs in a cautious, measured fashion.

No American politician could ignore the threat posed by the Soviet Union, especially as the nuclear arms
race had begun to produce weapons of stupefying power, thousands of times more powerful than the
bombs which had destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Assisting in the formulation of Eisenhower’s
foreign policy was Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who took a stern view of the Soviets. Dulles’s
brother, Allen Dulles, was Director of Central Intelligence (CIA) and contributed to the administration’s
harsh view of the Soviets.

Like all postwar presidents, including his predecessor, Harry Truman, President Eisenhower felt that the
greatest threat to America came from an expansive, monolithic communism centered in the Soviet
Union. He stated in his first inaugural address that, “Forces of good and evil are massed and armed and

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opposed as rarely before in history. Freedom is pitted against slavery, lightness against dark,” those
being reasons why he named John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State. The Eisenhower-Dulles foreign
policy was, at least in its rhetoric, harsher than that of President Truman; Dulles coined the phrase
“massive retaliation,” which was to be used if the Soviets became aggressors.

Eisenhower was comfortable allowing Secretary Dulles to heat up the rhetoric of the Cold War while he
himself worked more quietly behind the scenes to reduce international tension. The new president was
far more clever than his critics at the time realized. An avid golfer, Eisenhower had a putting green
installed on the south lawn of the White House, and a popular ditty had the president “putting along” as
the world around him seethed. In fact, the president was deeply engaged in monitoring foreign affairs
and was well aware of how dangerous the world had become.

When the Hungarians revolted against their Soviet oppressors in 1956, there were calls for the United
States to intervene to help the freedom fighters. Even if Eisenhower had been tempted to act, however,
getting aid to landlocked Hungary would have been a monumental undertaking. The Soviets quickly
repressed the revolt in any case. Yet the episode led some to believe that the United States under
President Eisenhower was slow to respond to calls from assistance by those beleaguered by
international communism.

In 1954 when the French Army found itself in a critical situation in Indochina, President Eisenhower
declined to support the French at Dien Bien Phu with military assistance. He did, however, offer military
and economic aid to South Vietnam. He defended his action by describing what became known as the
Domino theory—that if one nation fell to communism, other nations would certainly follow.

An additional crisis erupted in the Middle East in 1956. In 1955 the Soviet Union had begun arms
shipments to Egypt. In response, Israel strengthened its defenses and requested arms from the United
States, a request that president Eisenhower rejected, fearing a Middle East arms race. When United
States canceled a loan offer of $56 million to Egypt for construction of the Aswan Dam, Egyptian leader
Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had grown closer to the Soviet Union, took action to nationalize the Suez
canal and extract tolls from users. Israel responded by advancing troops toward the Suez Canal, and
Britain and France began airstrikes against Egypt. British and French leaders called for assistance from
the United States, but president Eisenhower refused on the grounds that he did not support the use of
force in the settlement of international conflicts.

Fearing that the Soviets would come to dominate the Middle East, Eisenhower and his Secretary of State
Dulles requested a resolution from Congress authorizing the president to extend economic and military
aid to Middle Eastern nations. He based his request on the following principle:

We have shown, so that none can doubt, our dedication to the principle that force shall not be
used internationally for any aggressive purpose and that the integrity and independence of the
nations of the Middle East should be inviolate. Seldom in history has a nation’s dedication to
principle been tested as severely as ours during recent weeks. …

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Let me refer again to the requested authority to employ the armed forces of the United States
to assist to defend the territorial integrity and the political independence of any nation in the
area against Communist armed aggression. Such authority would not be exercised except at the
desire of the nation attacked. Beyond this it is my profound hope that this authority would
never have to be exercised at all. (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Message to Congress, January 5,
1957.)

Congress responded by granting the president the authority to use force to protect nations threatened
by communism. This policy became known as the “Eisenhower Doctrine.” While deploring the use of
force, Eisenhower recognized that the threat of force could be a deterrent to its use. In response to a
request from the President of Lebanon, President Eisenhower sent 5,000 Marines into that country to
protect Lebanon’s territorial integrity. They remained there for three months.

Although criticized in some quarters for his inaction in the Suez Crisis, Eisenhower was as aware as
anyone on the planet of the horrors that could be unleashed by another widespread war, now made an
even more terrifying prospect because of the spread of nuclear weapons. With new and more powerful
hydrogen bombs being built, the Eisenhower administration followed a policy designed to use the threat
of nuclear war only as a deterrent to the Soviet Union in case vital United States interests should be
threatened. Eisenhower also rejected any possible use of atomic or nuclear weapons in defense of
French Indochina or Taiwan. In retrospect, Eisenhower’s cautious policy has been deemed wise and
prudent, given the volatility of international relations in the 1950s. The rhetoric of “massive retaliation”
was strong, but a first use of nuclear weapons probably never entered President Eisenhower’s
consciousness; like General MacArthur, he abhorred the use of atomic or nuclear weapons. His recent
biographer, Jim Newton describes Eisenhower in these words:

Shrewd and patient, moderate and confident, Ike guided America through some of the most
treacherous moments of the Cold War. He was urged to take advantage of America’s military
advantage in those early years—to finish the Korean War with nuclear weapons, to repel
Chinese aggression against Taiwan, to repulse the Soviets in Berlin, to rescue the French
garrison at Dien Bien Phu. … Eisenhower was not complacent, nor was he reckless or unhinged.
(See Jim Newton, Eisenhower: The White House Years(New York: Doubleday, 2011.)

Dwight Eisenhower might be considered a great American for things he did not do as well as for those
he did. Later in his life he reflected: “The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground in my
administration. We kept the peace. People ask how it happened—by God, it didn’t just happen, I’ll tell
you that.”

Sputnik: The Space Race Begins. In the years following World War II blustering Soviet propaganda had
provided ammunition for comedians who suggested that the Russians were all talk and no action. When
they exploded their first nuclear device in 1949, however, the jokes quickly fell flat. When the Soviet
Union launched the first Earth satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, the reaction among many Americans was close
to panic. Fears of the military use of space ran rampant, and the United States was placed on a crash
course to match the Soviet achievement. The American educational system came under severe criticism

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suggesting that “Ivan” was far better educated than “Johnny,” especially in math, science and
engineering.

With the knowledge that the missiles used by the Soviets to launch satellites into space could also be
used to rain warheads on the United States, Eisenhower authorized surveillance flights by U-2 aircraft
over the Soviet Union. The high flying spy planes were thought to be invulnerable to anti-air missiles,
but in 1959 a U-2 aircraft (left) piloted by Major Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet
Union. The administration initially issued denials, but when pictures of the U.S. airman and the downed
aircraft were shown on Soviet television, it was clear that the story was real. When President
Eisenhower refused to issue an apology, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev canceled a scheduled summit
meeting with the president, which further heightened tensions. Despite President Eisenhower’s caution,
the world was still a dangerous place.

Shortly before his departure from the White House, President Eisenhower, following the example first
set by George Washington, delivered a farewell address to the nation on radio and television, in which
he cautioned the American people of the forces that threatened to take over the direction of American
foreign policy. The speech has become known as his “Military-Industrial Complex Speech.” In the
course of his remarks he said:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. … We must never let the weight
of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. …

Today … the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery,
has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs
involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. … The
prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and
the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s
future, we—you and I, and our government—must avoid the impulse to live only for today,
plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot
mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political
and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to
become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.…

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must
learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.
Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities
in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and
the lingering sadness of war, as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this
civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years, I wish I could
say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.…

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