#and tbh like. ironic given the kind of organization i work for. hypocrites but i kinda already knew that

[warsofasoiaf]

Any chance you'd be willing to follow that up Carter piece with an analysis of Eisenhower's presidency?

Thanks to Cold War-era documents which have aged out of their classification guidelines, we have a far better understanding of Eisenhower’s presidency than contemporary observers did. Despite never holding an elected office, Eisenhower had a wealth of experience, being the supreme commander of NATO and his stint on the Council of Foreign Relations, both of which gave him a wealth of political education at an incredibly rapid pace (though becoming a flag officer is a political process) Eisenhower was incredibly intelligent to pick up so much so quickly, and I consider him easily one of the most underrated presidents when it comes to intelligence, ability to read and manipulate people, and so on.

I say this a lot, but the 1952 election was fascinating, one of my all-time favorite elections that I’ve studied. Truman was deeply unpopular, believed to have no direction for the stalemated Korean War. McCarthyism was in full swing and Truman was believed to have held responsibility for losing China to communism. This had led to Truman’s early defeat in the primaries by fresher Democratic voices to include Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, and thus his early departure (he would claim that he had decided to withdraw before that primary - this is almost certainly a lie). Kefauver was quite popular among independents for his work chairing committees to combat organized crime, but he was unpopular among Democratic mayors and governors for the same reason. Kefauver uncovered a lot of links between organized crime and Democratic organizations and was viewed as untrustworthy. The politicians came together behind Adlai Stevenson, who did not wish to run, and at the Democratic Convention, drafted him despite his objections until he relented, accepting the nomination. The Democrats balanced the ticket with Alabama Senator John Sparkman in an attempt to secure the “Solid South,” to balance out the moderate Adlai Stevenson’s views and appeal to the base. The moderate Republicans and their champion Thomas Dewey supported Eisenhower, he believed that Eisenhower’s popularity as a war hero and his relative integrity would endear themselves well to the American people and be able to wrangle more partisan members of their party with a commanding showing (McCarthy being the big one here), and Eisenhower won a shocking write-in vote in the New Hampshire primary. The Republicans had not held the White House in 20 years, and Dewey believed a moderate platform would be more appealing than Taft’s stronger partisan movement. The battle was even, but Eisenhower eventually pulled ahead and secured the nomination, balancing his ticket with Richard Nixon. Nixon was seen as the perfect balancing item for Eisenhower, he was hard on communism but did not embrace the Republican ideas of dismantling the New Deal or Middle America’s contemporary suspicion of European affairs. Eisenhower campaigned on “Korea, Communism, and Corruption” as failures of the Truman administration and highlighting his independence from career politics. Stevenson portrayed himself as the vanguard of a revitalized Democratic party, linking himself to FDR and highlighting the Republicans as a disastrous party divided against itself with its conservative and moderate wings, and castigated the Republicans for their refusal to rein in or criticize McCarthy. Democrats also questioned Nixon’s suitability when they suggested he took $18,000 in undeclared gifts, a damning accusation especially since Nixon himself had been attacking Democratic politicians for financial corruption. Neither of these attacks stuck, few believed that Eisenhower would be soft on Communism given his war record, and Nixon gave the stirring “Checkers speech” which painted the Democrats as unprincipled hypocrites given Stevenson had used campaign funds to purchase Christmas presents. Eisenhower led all opinion polls and won handily, winning by about 11 percentage points or 7 million votes.

Eisenhower had an interesting relationship with the military. As a career military man himself, the generals believed they had a strong advocate in the White House. The generals did not like Truman, as he had overseen the peacetime drawdown after World War II. Eisenhower believed that nuclear deterrence via his New Look policy would be a budget-effective way to contain the Soviet Union and the expansion of communism, under the prevailing “domino theory” of Communism that drove much of the Cold War. Keen to the political games of flag officers, Eisenhower could not be maneuvered using inexperience the way Kennedy could. Eisenhower, however, did not have a good working relationship with the Joint Chiefs, and Charles Wilson, Eisenhower’s free-wheeling ex-CEO Secretary of Defense, had a difficult working relationship with them as well (facing war hero and military bureaucratic expert Eisenhower on one side along with World War II legends in their own right on the other, while he had largely directed GM’s domestic war efforts on the home front). The Joint Chiefs fought furiously with Eisenhower over the budget repeatedly, and often used the media in their feud in an attempt to get the public on their side. Eisenhower’s solution was to increase the joint working environment established under Truman with the National Security Act of 1947, with the hopes that it would decrease inter-service rivalry and lower the budget. The New Look was attacked by Henry Kissinger as overly-reliant on nuclear weapons and limited non-nuclear conflict was becoming increasingly difficult with his budgetary cuts. Ultimately, I come down on the side of Eisenhower, he was attempting to negotiate the peace-time economy and wanted a symbiotic building of defense budgets and domestic economies instead of a massive short-term fix that led to the bloat he warned about in his “Cross of Iron” speech.

In foreign policy, Eisenhower was an instinctive bluffer honed from his years playing cards, using disinformation to his advantage to press the Soviet Union and quickly adapting to circumstances as they arose. Instrumentally, Eisenhower formed SEATO while he was in office, though he had arguably more responsible for the establishment of NATO than Truman during Truman’s term in office, he largely left the building of NATO to the military. Eisenhower proposed things like “Open Skies” or “Atoms for Peace,” using the Soviet refusal to get John Foster Dulles to build pacts against the Communist country. He was able to use his war hero reputation and nuclear arsenal to intimidate the Chinese in Korea the way Truman wasn’t able to do, securing his objectives with minimal investment. Eisenhower was also not afraid of taking his own allies to task, as he did with France and Britain over the Suez Crisis, though he did support brutal friendly governments to contain communism that was a staple of the Cold War realpolitik. He partnered well against Khrushchev and was able to adapt quickly to black eyes like the U-2 incident.

Domestically, the economy was doing well, and Eisenhower worked to effect integration into the Armed Forces and passed two civil rights acts, the first of their kind in 80 years, as well as ordering the 101st to integrate Little Rock. Eisenhower also oversaw the establishment of the Interstate System to improve American logistics and interstate transport. That being said, Eisenhower does have a blemish in this regard, as homosexuality was treated as Communist infiltration (the “Lavender Scare” as it was known) and the status used to bar federal employment, despite the findings of the Crittenden Report.

As a leader, Eisenhower was classically military. He empowered his subordinates and expected them to settle issues of concern, only raising to a higher level what needed to go up the chain of command. He had a top-down communication style with Congress, sending subordinates which often rankled Congress, who resented being told what to do from staffers far junior to they. Similarly, he met with his cabinet weekly to discuss their issues and give clear, concise direction. Eisenhower believed in the “hidden hand” of leadership, setting direction and building support to meet those goals while minimizing overt moves. This fit with Eisenhower’s ability as a bluffer, using the unknowns to his advantage.

Ultimately, I think Eisenhower was an excellent and capable president for the era he was in.He was able to handle the demands of a budget and an increasingly complex geo-political world. He made mistakes, but ultimately, I think he was a fascinating president, underrated by most presidential historians who wrote him off as a folksy ‘aw-shucks’ guy, a surface-level read for an incredibly deep, intelligent mind.

Thanks for the question, TBH.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King