Matthew
Breitenstine
Political Science
3322
Professor Dennis
Simon
12/3/96
On my honor, I
have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this work.
Presidents are judged by a number of factors
for their overall effectiveness. In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower took public
office for the first time. During his first term as President he was confronted
with many different situations that taxed his leadership abilities.
During the nineteen fifties, America was in a
period of enormous change. The United States had just ended World War II, and
the conflict in Korea had reached a stalemate. With the splitting of the atom
came the Atomic Age, a new era of responsibility that the United States
hadn't
fully come to understand and realize. Also, in this time the Cold War, that was
started by the Truman administration, was beginning to escalate. When Dwight D.
Eisenhower became the thirty-fourth president of the United States he was
immediately confronted with several major events left to him by the previous
administration. First, the Cold War with
the Soviet Union was escalating, and second, the war in Korea was quickly
becoming an unpopular war of attrition in which thousands of lives had already
been lost. During the Eisenhower administration, the president would be
confronted with a plethora of events both domestic and international. Shortly
after Eisenhower's inauguration, Joseph Stalin (the Soviet Première) died of a
stroke on March 5, 1953, leaving the United States questioning who would rise
to power in Russia and continue the Cold War against the US. Meanwhile, in the
United States, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was created on
March 12, 1953. On December 8, 1953, Eisenhower gave his "Atoms for
Peace" speech calling for the cooperation of both the United States and
the Soviet Union to help develop a program for the peaceful development of
atomic power.
Another event that took place during the
administration was the fall and surrender of the French garrison at Dien Bien
Phu to the Viet Minh on May 7, 1954. In domestic issues the administration was
further confronted by Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled
that segregated schools are inherently unequal. In 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk
developed a polio vaccine. During the month of July of the same year, President
Eisenhower attended the Geneva Four Power Conference and proposed his
"Open Skies" program that would allow mutual air reconnaissance over
military installations. On December 5, 1955, Martin Luther King began a boycott
of Montgomery Alabama city busses. In June of 1956, the federal highway bill
authorizing funds for the interstate highway system was signed. Israel invaded
the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula while the British and French attacked
Egyptian forces around the Suez Canal during the months of October and November
1956. Also the administration had to face both the rising expectations of the colonial
world and the issue of civil rights in the United States. These two challenges
along with Korea, Senator McCarthy, and the Bricker Amendment, proved to be
some of the greatest problems of the Eisenhower administration.
On
September 18, the first scandal of the administration took place even before
the Eisenhower/Nixon ticket was elected. The New York Post revealed that Nixon
had received $18,000 as the governor of California from several millionaires.
This finding opened him up to enormous criticism especially because his
campaign was supposed to be against government immorality. Eisenhower
immediately began to consider dropping Nixon from the ticket. The only chance
that Nixon had was to show that he was "as clean as a hound's tooth"1
as it was put by Eisenhower. To do this the Senator made an address on national
television that was viewed by approximately 55 million American viewers. The
soap opera, as the Republican critics called it, amounted to the story of
Richard's life. The address began with him telling how as a poor boy he worked
in a grocery store and then moved to his involvement in the South Pacific
during the second World War. He also told about how his wife Pat didn't own a
mink coat but owned "a respectable Republican cloth coat."2 Nixon
even went so far as to tell the American public about his daughters' little dog
Checkers that they had received from a supporter. "And you know the kids,
like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this right now, that
regardless of what they say about it, we're going to keep it."3 The result
of this performance not only kept Nixon on the "Ike" ticket but it
also gave a huge lift to the nation's approval of Nixon. When Nixon and
Eisenhower met in "Wheeling, West Virginia, Eisenhower, with tears in his
eyes, extended his hand and said: 'Dick, you're my boy.'"4
In January of 1952, Dwight Eisenhower, an Army
general was serving as Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe. A bid for
the Republican presidential nomination came from Senator Taft and his platform
of the Korean War being an "unnecessary war" or a "Truman
war" but few thought that he could win the presidency. Even though Taft
was supported by the majority of the G.O.P. delegation in Congress, he was
hindered in his campaign by his record of isolationism. In the past both
political parties had actively sought Eisenhower to run in the previous
Presidential elections with little success. Seeking a potential candidate
Republican party members asked Eisenhower again to join their party and run in
the 1952 Presidency race. Eisenhower was desirable as a candidate because he
was considered a national hero by many and he had never sought political
office. The Republican party was not the only party interested in Eisenhower;
the Democratic party also tried to persuade him to run on their ticket.
"On January 6, 1952, after flying to Paris to confer with the General,
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge told a crowded press conference in Washington that
Eisenhower was in the race 'to the finish.'"5 At the outcome of the New
Hampshire primary, Eisenhower, who was still in Europe and had not been able to
campaign in the United States because of his duties, defeated Senator Taft by
10,000 votes.
The first campaign speech made by Eisenhower
was in his home town of Abilene, Kansas. This first speech proved disappointing
because he lacked an issue to reinforce his image as a candidate of the people
running against the organized political system. By the time of the Republican
convention the popularity of "Ike" was overwhelming to his opponent,
Senator Taft. Eisenhower easily won the nomination in the first ballot.
"For its vice presidential nominee the convention chose 39-year-old
Senator Richard M. Nixon of California, a decision which recognized both the importance
of the Pacific Coast and the vote-getting potential of the communist
issue."6 On the Democratic ticket was Adlai E. Stevenson who at the time
was the governor of Illinois. Along with his governship, Stevenson also had a
long and varied career in the government and his grandfather had been the Vice
President in Cleveland's second term. Stevenson campaigned with
"truth" being his main issue. In his acceptance speech Stevenson said
"The ordeal of the Twentieth Century- the bloodiest, most turbulent era of
the Christian age-is far from over."7 "Let's face it. Let's talk
sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that their are no
gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions..."8
Stevenson continued to tell the American voters the "truth." At one
campaign stop he told members of "the American Legion that a veteran was
someone who owed America more than the nation owed him."9 Unfortunately
his policy of hard truths only gained the support of the intellectuals and not
the majority of the population.
In contrast, the Eisenhower campaign was making
great strides. With the endorsement of Taft, Eisenhower was able to heal the
wounds of a split party that the convention had caused. In conjunction with
Taft, Eisenhower developed a manifesto that stated his conservative view of
domestic affairs. In this manifesto, Eisenhower stated that the greatest threat
that faced the nation was the unchecked growth of the government. From this
evolved one of the main issues of the campaign, the "creeping
socialization" of the United States government. This issue sought to curb
the spending on social programs that had increased during the Roosevelt and
Truman administrations. Another issue of the campaign was the idea that
Democrats were soft on communism. The vice presidential nominee, Richard Nixon,
went so far as to say that "Adlai the appeaser... who got a Ph.D. from
Dean Acheson's College of Cowardly Communist Containment."10
From
this point on, the main issues of the campaign could best be summed up by
Senator Karl Mundt's words, "K1C2--Korea, corruption and
Communism."11 The biggest of the issues was Korea. Since 1951, the United
States and Korea had been dragging their feet on the signing of an armistice.
The United States also continued its attempts to regain insignificant amounts
of territory lost to the North Koreans, such as Heartbreak Hill, at the expense
of thousands of American lives. Even though the war had created a boom in the
United States economy, the boom was seen as guilt for the Democrats. This was
because the boom was paid for by American bloodshed. It was on this issue that
General Eisenhower delivered his "I shall go to Korea" speech. In
this speech, "Ike" promised that he could end the war and still retain
a peace that was both honorable and prestigious for the United States.
Once all of the election results were in and
the dust settled, Eisenhower had won the election of 1952 by a land slide. The
total 33,936,000 votes for Eisenhower amounted to 55.14% of the votes. These
votes turned into 442 electoral votes that constituted the landslide victory
when compared to Stevenson's total of 89. In Congress the G.O.P. gained
control. In the House, the Republicans achieved a majority over the Democrats
by eight seats. In the Senate the Democrat and Republican seats were split
50/50, but since the Republicans won the presidency, a tie vote could be
defeated by the addition of one vote cast by the Vice President, Richard Nixon.
Before his election, President Eisenhower had
relatively strong political support. Members of both parties favored him
because of his "middle of the road policy," since politically he was
considered a liberal Republican with conservative domestic views and was
liberal in foreign policy. In the midterm elections of 1954, the Republican
party lost control of both the House and Senate to the Democrats. Still, after
his party had lost the Congress, he continued to maintain his political support
from both Republicans and Democrats alike.
After Dwight Eisenhower was elected, his next
priority was to establish an agenda or policy goals that he wanted his
administration to achieve. Since President Eisenhower wanted to reflect the
American people, the policy initiatives he designed did not seek "sharp
departures from existing policies."12 Eisenhower also desired to limit the
changes in domestic policy and was very active in doing so. One of the main
reasons for him being elected was because during his campaign he portrayed the
image of doing the best for the American people. In the State of the Union
address of 1954, President Eisenhower stated a number of the initiatives that
he intended to propose to Congress. In foreign policy he hoped to continue
military and technological assistance to foreign countries while reducing the
amount of economic assistance granted. The President went further by saying
that these economic cuts would not effect "our economic programs in Korea
and in a few other places in the world that are especially important,"13
and would ask Congress that they continue. The Atomic Energy Proposal was also
introduced in the address. This proposal was designed to create a program that
would offer alternatives to nuclear war and to find peaceful applications of
the technology within the United Nations. The new President continued to try to
initiate joint construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway that had been promoted
by previous administrations with the Canadians.
Another of the initiatives that Eisenhower took was the "New
Look" defense program. In this program the budget of the United States
Army would be cut back. The funds that were cut would be given to the Air Force
and to the Navy to be spent on developing a larger nuclear arsenal and air
power to deliver the weapons. This plan was justified because in the eyes of
the President the bulk of the United States' military power lied in its ability
to use these high yield weapons of destruction not in the ground forces. Also,
"New Look weighed defense costs against the goal of avoiding burdening the
economy with taxes or deficits."14 This initiative became known as the
"more bang for the buck" policy that helped America defend itself in
the Cold War. Another initiative of the administration was the National
Highways program. In this piece of legislation, Eisenhower hoped to improve the
countries' highways. This proposal called for the continuation of the current
gasoline tax. One of the largest initiatives that the President called for was
a plan for stabilizing agriculture. The idea of this plan was that the nations'
farmers needed to be protected and that as our standard of living increases,
"we must be sure that the farmer fairly shares in that increase."15
Also during the Eisenhower administration, the Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare was created on March 12, 1953, giving it Cabinet status.
During the Eisenhower administration many of
the events or crises that occurred tested the abilities of the Eisenhower
presidency. On July 27, 1953, one of the issues that the Eisenhower
administration inherited was finished. The key challenge at the beginning of
the administration had been how to end the Korean War without the loss of honor
or prestige. One of the major points that the US./Korean negotiations hinged on
was how to develop a system to return the prisoners of war to their respective
countries. Once this was achieved, the administration concluded that since all
the goals the United Nations had set were met the United States was able to end
the war and still retain honor and prestige. Once the armistice was signed,
over 3,700 American prisoners of war returned home. The ending of the Korean
War contributed greatly to the feeling of tranquillity that enveloped the
United States and the Eisenhower administration. Even though the Eisenhower presidency
looked calm on the outside there was a great amount of activism on the inside.
Within the White House the Cold War continued.
Throughout the 1953-54 years, Senator Joseph
McCarthy, chairman of the Senate Permanent Investigation Committee, conducted
hearings that looked into the Communist infiltration of America and the Armed
Forces. Even before Eisenhower was still considering whether or not to seek the
presidency in the 1952 election, he and Senator McCarthy began to have
problems. In Eisenhower's diary, "a March 13, 1951, entry that commented
on the daily news summary he received from the United States, he indicated his
annoyance that the media continued to view him as a political contender and
referred to reports by Drew Pearson that `Senator McCarthy is digging up
alleged dirt with which to smear me if I run for President.'"16 A few
months later, Senator McCarthy blasted "Eisenhower for not taking Berlin
at the close of World War II."17 After Eisenhower resigned from his post
in NATO to run for the presidency, he realized that in order for him to win he
must be able to separate himself from McCarthy "while at the same time
trying to unify a party riven by a bitter nominating convention."18 After
Eisenhower was elected the relationship between McCarthy and the President
continued to be a source of conflict that grew to become a scandal within the
administration. As McCarthy's reputation as the nation's number one
Communist-hater grew, Eisenhower refused to lower himself to McCarthy's level.
The quotation "'I'm not going to get down in the gutter with that guy,'
summed it up."19 One of the reasons why Eisenhower did little to remove
the power from McCarthy was because he "knew that when a member of the
Senate came under direct attack from the Executive, however repulsive to his
colleagues that Senator might be, the senatorial club invariably closed ranks
about its threatened member to ward off
the common enemy-the President."20 Instead, Eisenhower decided to let the
Senate take care of McCarthy, and over time it did. Until the time McCarthy
left, President Eisenhower restrained his actions and retaliations against him.
During this time the issue of civil rights was
gaining more attention. With all the other events arising, "somehow no one
gave much thought to the special problems of the Negro, and practically nothing
was done about this politically sensitive matter."21 The leadership style
of Eisenhower contributed to the fact that civil rights received very little
attention. Eisenhower wanted to deal with problems as they arose into the
political scene. The subject of civil rights was seen by the President "as
a special category of political affairs."22 When the subject was brought
to the attention of President Eisenhower at a press conference by Associated
Negro Press reporter Alice Dunnigan, the President began to realize the
importance of civil rights. Later a telegram was sent to the President by Adam
Powell, Jr., a black Representative in Congress. "The telegram began: 'The
hour has arrived for you to decisively assert your integrity. You cannot
continue to stand between two opposite moral poles.'"23 At this time the
Democrats began to exploit the fact that the
administration overlooked this subject. To counter this, a policy of
desegregation was initiated in the military and in particular the Navy ship
yards. These actions only quelled the call for desegregation for the time being
and would arise again in his second term because of the "quick fix"
approach that was given to civil rights.
The greatest test of the Eisenhower White House
was the Bricker Amendment. This amendment was first seen by the President in
January of 1953. The amendment's purpose was to protect the American people
from "the possibility that a President, aided by an unwary Senate, would
impose on the country through a treaty legal obligations which would deprive
the people of Constitutional rights or would invade the domain of power
reserved for the states."24 The reasons for the amendment were varied.
Executive agreements such as in Yalta, threatened the Constitution and American
sovereignty. Another reason was that of the United Nations. Many people felt
that the United States involvement in the organization would eventually lead to
international agreements that would infringe or deny the American people their
fundamental rights. At first look the President sympathized with the general
idea of the proposal but disliked the specifics of the plan that limited the
President's ability to make treaties and executive agreements. Upon further
study of the document, Cabinet member
John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, said "the Bricker amendment would
seriously curtail executive authority and make it impossible to conduct foreign
affairs effectively."25 Dulles went further and indicated that the
conflict caused by this amendment would be detrimental to both the Republican
party and to the White House itself. Dulles suggested that head-on fighting
should be avoided at all costs. Eisenhower knew that many Senate chairmanships
were at stake in the midterm elections of 1954, less than a year and a half
away. He also knew that a "good Republican record would be essential to
keep them from being lost."26
Soon the President and Dulles met with Bricker
to bargain or work out a settlement that would be agreeable both to the
administration and to Bricker himself. During the talks it came to surface that
the original intent of the Senator from Ohio was to "enact some amendment
to this general purpose, and which bore his name."27 Dulles was still
concerned over what impact even an apparently harmless, watered down amendment might still produce. Dulles also
knew that there is not a history of treaties having ill effects in the domestic
realm. Eisenhower summed it up by saying that "giving Congress control
over treaties would jeopardize the permanence of the treaties because one
Congress could nullify the action of a preceding Congress."28 As the
administration became more entrenched in the battle over the amendment,
Eisenhower became more strongly opposed to it. Because of his background in
NATO, he began to see the amendment as being against NATO. At present time, the
Senate could not ratify the NATO agreement because of separation of powers. The
Bricker amendment would grant this power to the Senate, a granting of power he
greatly disliked. As the opposition in the White House grew, the Senate began
to provide strong support to the amendment. It was quickly beginning to look as
if a compromise would not be possible. Several times over the next few months,
Bricker revised or redrafted his proposed amendment, each time the Eisenhower
administration rejected it for the same reasons. During this time the
Eisenhower administration wrestled with their options.
From the President's perspective, a "good
deal of 'salesmanship' would be needed to bring the Senate around to the
administration's viewpoint."29 One of the first attempts at a compromise,
suggested by the Attorney General, was to create a commission headed by Bricker
to find a suitable alternative to the amendment. This attempt at a compromise
fell through because it was feared that this option would widen the division
that was already forming in the party. The administration decided that it would
be best for both the White House and the party to continue to work together
towards a solution. The solution was announced on July 22 by Senator Knowland.
The principle of this new amendment was that any executive agreement or treaty
that infringed on the Constitution would be void. It went further by stating
that a treaty could only be ratified by a recorded vote. Finally a compromise
had been reached that was greatly supported by both the Senate and the
President. Unfortunately the issue was not dead.
When Congress reconvened the next year, Bricker
had enormous support, and allied himself with various lobbying groups such as
the AMA, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. One of the new found
allies of Bricker was a "volunteer organization of housewives and mothers
of boys overseas,"30 who presented the Senate with a petition that
contained 500,000 signatures in favor of the Bricker amendment. A heated debate
in the Senate followed. In this debate the Presidency was on one side and the
Senate was on the other side. The president was forced to sit through endless
debates, but when the subject of ending the debates came up, Eisenhower felt
that the defense of the power of the President to conduct foreign affairs was
more important. The debates raged on. On February 26, it came down to the final
vote. There were sixty votes for the amendment (sixty-one is the two thirds
needed to amend the Constitution) and thirty against. The final vote that
killed the Bricker amendment was cast by the Vice President. The total, sixty
for and thirty-one against.
Eisenhower made frequent use of prime time
speeches to bring issues to the public. By the end of 1953, the White House was
moving away from the use of the press corps because of the inability to control
the corps. The administration shifted to the use of news conferences where the
President could issue a prepared statement and thus exert more control over the
information given. In the first applications of the news conference, press
Secretary Jim Hagerty imposed a rule that there were to be no quotations. Soon
after the initiation of the news conference this rule was lifted because all
conferences were being recorded. After Eisenhower learned the art of answering
the questions of reporters with "sound bites," the control over the
press by the President was complete. "Eisenhower's single most significant
media advancement was putting the Presidential news conference on television.
Remembered as a breakthrough in TV news, it was actually created as a means of
circumventing press interpretations. 'To Hell with the slanted reporters,'
Press Secretary Jim Hagerty said. 'We'll go directly to the people...'"31
On June 26, 1953, the President made public the signing of the armistice with
Korea and the end of the Korean War. Also that summer the President went on
national television to "introduce his new Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare and its first Secretary, Oveta Culp Hobby, the second woman ever
named to a cabinet post."32 The President that the public saw was
geared for the image that he wanted to portray. The "positive, issue-free
image of an apolitical president,"33 was carefully cultured by the
administration. One such example of the apolitical President would be the
putting green on the South lawn of the White House that he had installed. Often
he was shown trying to rid the green of the squirrels that live there. The
American public was shown an image of the President chasing squirrels or
devising ways to rid his course of them. This public image covered the
"hidden-hand Presidency" that was operating in the background.
Eisenhower constantly tried to have the American public relate to him. During
the campaign, he frequently used radio and television to reach the greatest
audience possible. Even before the Presidency, he had carefully cultivated his
public image when he was the President of Colombia University. "Many of
Eisenhower's presidential utterances directly play on the public image of the
military hero who is a soldier of peace."34 This image of the
"soldier of peace" was reinforced by his use of metaphors. With the
example of nuclear war, the President would compare the weapons of the first
World War with the second World War "in order to dramatize the overriding
urgency of avoiding nuclear war."35 He also used this style to reassure
the American people by stating that the government was "doing our
best"36 with the connection that this is "what the ordinary American
family does."37 By using this plain style of speaking the President came
across as being warm and confident. This style allowed him to effortlessly win
the public's admiration, confidence and support. Eisenhower knew the importance
of popularity. He said, "one man can do a lot... he can especially do a
lot at any particular given moment, if at that moment he happens to be ranking
high in public estimation. By this I mean he is dwelling in the ivory tower and
not in the dog house."38
The public support that President Eisenhower
was able to maintain was very high. The majority of Americans believed that he
was doing a good job and that he was doing what the United States needed.
Throughout the administration, Eisenhower was able to average a 69% approval
rating in "Dr. Gallup's monthly sounding of how Americans rate the
President's performance, exceeding all of the post-World War II presidents
except Kennedy, who did not live to face the cost of such policies as his
administration's increasing military involvement in Vietnam."39 In his
first term, "Ike" averaged an approval rating of 68%. In the next
year Eisenhower's support dropped marginally to 65% public approval. This drop
in the President's approval could be attributed to the problems that McCarthy
caused for the White House. In 1955, the President raised his Gallup approval
rating to 71%. In the final year of his first term, Eisenhower achieved an
approval rating of 72%. The public response to the major policy initiatives of
the President was relatively consistent over his first term in office. Over his
entire first term Eisenhower never fell below a 57% approval rating. 40
In Congress, one of the problems that faced the
newly elected President was that many of the members of Congress had supported
Senator Taft in his bid for the Presidency. These members were resentful of
Eisenhower because he not only did not follow political protocol and work his
way up to the presidency, they were also resentful of his defeat of Taft. The
President used several tactics to circumnavigate these problems and to
establish a friendly working relationship. During the beginning of the
administration he held lunches to create a friendly atmosphere among him and
the Congressional leaders. These lunches were purely for social reasons. With
the Republican party leaders, President Eisenhower established weekly meetings
in which the leadership discussed the legislation that was being considered.
These meetings allowed the President to establish an early warning system that
would help the administration see in advance any potential problems that might
occur. Even with these measures in place conflict did arise. In 1953,
Republican Congressional members were slowing the passing of pending
legislation that the President wanted to pass quickly. To overcome this the
President threatened that he would take the issue to the public if the
Republican party members did not help in the passing of the bill. The party
members quickly complied with the President's wishes in order to avoid a public
fight with the popular President. In the President's record of dealing with
Congress he used his power to veto a bill 14 times. Of these 14 times, there
were only two attempts to o
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