After the Second World War, and in particular after the 1948 Presidential election, the Republican Party faced the dilemma of how to avoid becoming a permanent minority party without adopting many of the same ideas and programs of the Democratic Party. Naturally, the Republican Party, historically associated with business and wealth, viewed with considerable distaste, if not outright hostility, the prospect of having to adopt a watered-down version of the Democratic Party's domestic agenda. The solution eventually pursued by Republicans was to ally themselves with a naturally conservative group of people within the US government – the US military officer corps. The Republicans saw the politicization of the US military – an essentially permanent department within the US government – as providing an ongoing means by which to put the Democratic Party on the defensive, especially in regards to “communism” and – hopefully – other like political views.
The Republican effort solidified and attained significant momentum with the nomination of General Dwight Eisenhower to be their presidential candidate in the 1952 election. General Eisenhower, one of the few officers in the US military with 5 star rank, the commander of the Normandy invasion of France, and a West Point graduate, gave the Republicans unparalleled influence among the US military officer corps. Upon his election in 1952 to the presidency, Eisenhower became the first West Point graduate to be elected president since Ulysses Grant in 1868. The question naturally arises then: Was General Eisenhower a witting participant in this effort, or was he simply taken advantage of by unscrupulous and cynical politicians in the Republican Party? Examining Eisenhower's behavior during the 1952 election campaign and afterward, including the later period of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, suggests a surprising and disturbing answer.
In the course of the 1952 election campaign, a controversy developed regarding Eisenhower's toleration of criticism by right-wing politicians such as Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and Senator William Jenner of Indiana of General George Marshall, a leading military figure of WW2 and commonly considered Dwight Eisenhower's benefactor during the war, helping Eisenhower to rise from the rank of colonel to General and and attain the position of Commander of the Allied invasion of Normandy. The scurrilous attacks by McCarthy and Jenner of General Marshall at the time were heavily criticized, so much so that their was a natural expectation Dwight Eisenhower would defend General Marshall. As events proved, this was not to be. In fact, during the campaign Eisenhower openly associated with both McCarthy and Jenner, going so far as to pose for photographers with his hands upraised and clasped with Jenner's, a pose that was publicized across the country. This open show of support by Eisenhower of McCarthy and Jenner during the 1952 campaign created indignation in President Harry Truman. So much so Harry Truman commented Eisenhower had showed a “kind of moral blindness” that “brands the Republican candidate as unfit to be president of the United States.” This is truly an astounding statement for a sitting President to make, especially in light of the fact the object of the criticism was a man who shortly earlier held positions of great importance to the security of the United States! Truman further commented, “I had never thought the man who is now the Republican candidate would stoop so low.”
Why did Eisenhower do it? Why did he show support for McCarthy and Jenner? How could a military man such as Eisenhower so easily discard one of the fundamental principles of the military – loyalty – to a man who helped him attain his national – even international – stature? These are important questions that have never been satisfactorily answered.
In addition to, if not embracing, at least supporting the virulent Anti-Communists who had no scruples attacking General Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower showed support of the broadly strident Anti-Communism of the Republican Party. This was made abundantly clear by his selection as his Vice-Presidential running mate one of the most prominent Anti-Communists in the country, Richard Nixon, who said at one point the Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson, had a “Ph.D. From Dean Acheson's Cowardly College of Communist Containment.” Indeed, the 1952 Republican Party platform, which Dwight Eisenhower was obliged to support as the party's nominee, condemned the “negative, futile, and immoral policy of 'containment' that abandons countless human beings to a despotism and godless terrorism.” Strong words indeed, words Dwight Eisenhower would add his voice to in his first inaugural address when he said “Whatever defies them, they torture, especially the truth. Here, then, is joined no argument between slightly differing philosophies.... Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against dark.”
Yet, despite these strong words and open association with the likes of McCarthy and Jenner, Dwight Eisenhower and Republicans had a curious ambivalence about confronting Communism after Eisenhower became president. North Korea is one example. Rather than seek to “liberate” the people of North Korea from a “despotism and godless terrorism,” the Eisenhower Administration pursued the signing of an armistice agreement with North Korea as early as possible, re-instituting the pre-war border between the two Koreas. Hardly the behavior of a President who believed “Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against dark.” In addition, in “accepting the armistice, the United States broke faith with France. Years before, the Truman Administration had insisted that no Western power fighting the Communists negotiate a separate cease-fire. The rationale was that such an arrangement would increase the burden on those countries still fighting.... Accordingly, the United States had convinced France to break off talks with the Viet Minh. With the Korean armistice, the United States violated its own position.” [Source: p. 101, “The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and America's Intervention in Vietnam” by James Arnold]
Another notable example is the Eisenhower Administration's response to the French military crisis at Dien Bien Phu in North Vietnam in 1954. The Eisenhower Administration ultimately opposed unilateral American intervention to rescue the French forces at Dien Bien Phu after a thorough evaluation of various possible ways to provide assistance. The Eisenhower Administration, after a majority of the Joint Chiefs of Staff formally voted against recommending US intervention to assist the French, came to the conclusion that any intervention would be unwise without additional allies. In light of the aggressive rhetoric of the 1952 Republican campaign, this course of action was a rather timid one, or as Vice-President Nixon might call it, a “cowardly” one. Ironically, the French predicament was in part created by the Eisenhower Administration itself when it reached an armistice with North Korea for it allowed Communist forces to re-direct their resources to Vietnam. Admiral Arthur Radford, Commander of Pacific Forces, one of the more hawkish members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who voted in favor of intervention at Dien Bien Phu, stated later:
President Eisenhower, in my opinion, thoroughly agreed with the position taken by congressional leaders. In the Defense Department, I feel that a majority of senior officers familiar with the details of the Vietnam problem also agreed that it was preferable to have additional allies if we were to intervene militarily. [Source: p. 219, “The First Domino”]
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Some of the more interesting observations to result from the military's review of the different scenarios to aid the French force was General Matthew Ridgway's that American air and naval intervention in Vietnam would inevitably lead to a ground commitment. Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens noted any projection of American forces inland “would require constant local security at their every location.” These conclusions reached in 1954 would prove interesting given the recommendations later made to President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 by the US military and Dwight Eisenhower himself.
But the Eisenhower Administration's and Republican's reticence to come to the aid of peoples oppressed by “despotism and godless terrorism” wasn't limited to Asia alone. When the Soviet Union in 1956 invaded Hungary in Europe to suppress a domestic uprising, the Eisenhower Administration limited itself to condolences towards the Hungarian people and did nothing more. What was described by the Republican Party in the 1952 campaign as “immoral” – the containment of Communism – was clearly the Eisenhower Administration's policy toward Hungary when it acquiesced to the Soviets suppression of the Hungarian uprising. A shocking departure by Republicans from what they earlier declared, but maybe not so shocking in light of Dwight Eisenhower's behavior towards General George Marshall during the 1952 campaign.
It's interesting to note in passing General George Marshall was not a graduate of West Point as Eisenhower was but of the Virginia Military Institute. Did this contribute to Eisenhower's willingness to turn his back on his benefactor of WW2? Did Eisenhower's behavior reflect an institutional bias against those who were not West Point graduates in the US Army? If so, what does this imply about West Point graduates' attitude toward civilians and the world outside West Point?
We now move forward in time to 1965 and the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson when another decisive decision had to be made regarding American involvement in Vietnam. Increasingly loud calls were made, particularly by Conservatives, in 1965 that the Johnson Administration increase American involvement in Vietnam to thwart a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. What was the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? They unanimously recommended increased involvement to President Johnson. What was the opinion of former President Eisenhower when consulted by President Johnson at the time? He recommended increased involvement. Clark Clifford, a prominent Democrat who served as an advisor to Democratic presidents starting with Harry Truman and who eventually served as Secretary of Defense to Lyndon Johnson, says the following in his memoirs:
No connection between bombing the North and sending American ground troops was recognized and discussed before the bombing began.... In none of the decisions leading up to Rolling Thunder was the President told, either by the Joint Chiefs of Staff or his Secretary of Defense, that once bombing of the North began, the military would require, and demand, American combat troops, first to protect the American air bases from which the bombing was launched, and then, inevitably, to begin offensive operations against the enemy. It later became evident that at the time Rolling Thunder began, most senior military planners already believed that only American ground troops could avert Saigon's defeat; but, fearing that the President would be more hesitant to start sustained bombing of the North if he knew that American troops would also be required, they did not inform him of this essential fact.... An influential voice arguing for a tough response to Hanoi was former President Eisenhower, whom President Johnson consulted during this decisive period.... “As long as the enemy are putting men down there, do what you have to do!”
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As Clark Clifford's memoirs make starkly clear, there is a vast gulf between what the military advocated in 1954 and what they advocated in 1965. What was the most notable difference between those two time periods? In 1954 there was a Republican, West Point graduate as President and in 1965 there was a Democratic President with no prior military service.
And what of Dwight Eisenhower? His different responses are undeniably troubling. Clearly, during his presidency Dwight Eisenhower showed a deep reluctance to engage Communist forces in serious combat: He reached a quick armistice with North Korea after becoming president; he refused to assist the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954; and he tolerated the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Hardly the behavior one would expect of someone who characterized the confrontation between the Capitalistic world and the Communist world as “Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against dark.”
In this environment, the pressure on President Lyndon Johnson to increase American involvement was tremendous. As an official in the Department of State, George Ball, who was involved in the deliberations of the Johnson Administration wrote later, “To have stood against this monolithic advice would have required a man with almost fanatical self-assurance – and that was not Lyndon Johnson, who, as I saw him, was tortured by doubts.” Indeed, George Ball says Johnson “resented the whole idea of the war but was swept along by a momentum others had set in motion.”
But the most curious part of American involvement in Vietnam is Richard Nixon's continuation of the war after becoming president. Nixon's decision to continue a highly unpopular war considered by many, not only in the US but internationally, to be immoral, is baffling, even more so in light of the harm it did to Johnson's presidency. Why would a Republican president continue an unpopular war started by a president of the opposite party? From a rational perspective it doesn't make sense – unless Nixon was trying to protect certain people, people who were critical to the Republican's strategy of using the US military for domestic, partisan purposes. People who would have a lot to lose if Nixon did end the war immediately upon becoming president. Certainly, given the hard-line recommendation of the US military leadership to Lyndon Johnson, a decision by Nixon to immediately end the war would deal a serious blow to the military leadership's reputation and standing in Washington, DC. More importantly, though, it would deal an irreparable blow to the alliance between them and Republicans, thereby effectively ending Republicans decades long strategy to avoid becoming a permanent minority party. |
