Dead Presidents
By Anthony Bergen
E-Mail: bergen.anthony@gmail.com
Anonymous Asks:
deadpresidents Said:
I think that Eisenhower and Reagan probably would have been tempted to seek a third term, if possible. They both had health problems during their Presidencies, but I could see Eisenhower seeking a third term anyway. He had a difficult time stepping away, which is one reason why he waited so long to give Richard Nixon a solid endorsement in 1960. It wasn’t necessarily a lack of confidence in Nixon’s abilities, but partly because Ike felt that he (Ike) was still the best man for the job.
Reagan, like Clinton, loved being President, too. But when Reagan left office in 1989, he was about two weeks away from his 78th birthday and, according to his official biographer, Edmund Morris, there were signs that he may have been facing the early stages of his Alzheimer’s in the last few weeks of his Administration. Since President Reagan looked relatively healthy and definitely looked fit for his age, it’s difficult for people to realize that he was almost a full eight years older than Eisenhower (70) was when Ike left office. Even if Eisenhower had served another term, Ike still would have been four years younger than Reagan at the end of that third term. I think Reagan’s age and deteriorating health would have prevented him from a third term if it was Constitutionally possible. As closely as his public image was protected by Nancy Reagan, there is no way she would have stood by while he hung on for another term and publicly started to suffer from serious Alzheimer’s symptoms.
An interesting thing is that, if they had the opportunity to run for a third term and their health allowed it, I think Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton all would have been easily elected to another term. I think George W. Bush would have had a much more difficult time with seeking a third term, if possible. However, I don’t think Bush would have run again even if he was Constitutionally eligible. In those last few months of 2008, President Bush looked SO ready to get back to Texas. Even if his chances of being re-elected were positive, I still think he would have chosen retirement instead of a third term.
As for the second part of your question, I think that Truman would have stepped away in 1952, no matter what. All Truman ever wanted to do was remain a U.S. Senator. When he was suggested as a potential Vice Presidential candidate, he was not interested, and when others reminded him that President Franklin D. Roosevelt likely wouldn’t survive the term, Truman declared that he didn’t want to be President either. Of course, he was elected Vice President and as in the case of almost every VP who succeeds to the Presidency, once Truman got to the White House he wanted to be elected to a term in his own right. Still, before Eisenhower declared that he was a Republican, Truman was suggesting that he (Truman) would be happy to step aside and be Eisenhower’s running mate if Ike wanted to run for President as a Democrat. So, Harry Truman did not mind retiring home to Missouri in 1952, and I think he would have done so, no matter what.
LBJ’s case was different. The fact that he was very nearly upset in the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic Primary by Eugene McCarthy really shook President Johnson up and showed that he was vulnerable. If there wasn’t a serious challenge from within his own party — first from McCarthy and then from RFK — LBJ would have stayed in that race in 1968. Despite his withdrawal from the race, deep down LBJ still had a flicker of hope that the Democratic National Convention would be deadlocked, turn to the outgoing LBJ, draft him into the race, nominate him, and he’d be the conquering hero, vanquishing Nixon and bringing the Vietnam War to an end.
LBJ was also a man of contradictions, though. Throughout his life, he always said that he would die young because all of the men in his family died by the time they were 64 or 65. As much as Johnson was addicted to power and craved the love of the American people (something that he never received like JFK did, which “broke his heart” according to Richard Nixon), he was also deeply worried that another four years in the White House would kill him. Worse yet, he would suffer an incapacitating stroke like Woodrow Wilson. LBJ often had a nightmare where he fell ill like Wilson and was an invalid — a shell of a once-powerful man bedridden or feebly being rolled through the White House in a wheelchair. It was an macabre thing to think about, but it was something that frequently haunted President Johnson, especially because he had suffered a near-fatal massive heart attack in 1955 when he was Senate Majority Leader. The confident, arrogant, impetuous, strong-willed LBJ wanted to take on Nixon and serve four more years in the White House. The sensitive, insecure, depressed LBJ considered resigning, didn’t think he’d live through the next term (1969-1973), and often had to receive a pep talk from Lady Bird to get his act together and go to work. So, with LBJ, it would actually depend on which LBJ you got on decision day when it comes to whether he would have sought a third term if not for the disastrous results of the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic Primary.
By the way, Lyndon Johnson died on January 22, 1973. If he had served a third term, it would have ended on January 20, 1973, just two days prior to the day that he actually died.
Interesting commentary by David Ignatius which suggests that President Obama should look to General Eisenhower and two really good recent books on Eisenhower’s Administration — Jean Edward Smith’s Eisenhower In War and Peace (BOOK•KINDLE) and Evan Thomas’s Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle To Save the World (BOOK•KINDLE) — for examples on how Ike delicately handled several crises in foreign relations and attempted to reign in potential excesses by the very American military that he had spent his entire career serving.
On October 28, 1962 — exactly fifty years ago today — people around were able to breathe sighs of relief as a peaceful conclusion brought the tense, thirteen-day-long Cuban Missile Crisis to a close with no nuclear weapons being launched, no World War III, and no destruction of the the planet’s two superpowers along with many other citizens around the globe.
In the new book Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy (BOOK•KINDLE), editor Ted Widmer chose some really fascinating audio from President Kennedy’s White House taping system to include on the two CDs that come with the book. It’s pretty cool to eavesdrop on some of these important meetings and phone calls of President Kennedy.
The audio file posted here is a phone call that took place exactly a half-century ago today featuring not one, but TWO Presidents as President Kennedy calls his immediate predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to update the retired General on the apparent resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy edited by Ted Widmer is out now from Hyperion and includes two CDs worth of audio from President Kennedy’s White House taping system. The Kindle version of Listening In features enhanced audio and video.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, on critics who took shots at him for not being on the front lines on D-Day
(I don’t think I’ve ever seen this quote. I just came across it while reading, and had to stop and share it.)
futuristic-linguistics Asks:
deadpresidents Said:
Yes, I think I’ve probably mentioned it on a few different occasions, but here’s the mention from my essay on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, “We Remember”:
When Democrat Lyndon Johnson was the Senate Majority Leader and Republican Dwight Eisenhower was President of the United States, LBJ — one of the most intense, passionate political animals in our history — never attacked President Eisenhower. It wasn’t because LBJ agreed with Eisenhower’s policies. It wasn’t because LBJ was scared. It was because, as LBJ explained in 1953 in a comment that has an unfortunately haunting connection to 9/11, “If you’re in an airplane, and you’re flying somewhere, you don’t run up to the cockpit and attack the pilot. Mr. Eisenhower is the only President we’ve got.”
LBJ revisited the idea behind those comments during Richard Nixon’s Presidency, as well, but with somewhat different language. Johnson said that Nixon was a son of a bitch, “But he’s the only son of a bitch President that we’ve got.”
Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis: Suez and the Brink of War
David A. Nichols
Paperback. 346 pp.
February 2012. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.
A few years ago, I ordered the The Presidents Collection DVD box set from PBS’s awesome American Experience series. This particular set included documentaries about 10 of the most important and influential Presidents of the 20th Century: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy (in “The Kennedys” featuring the story of the entire political family), Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. For someone like me, 35 hours worth of documentaries about our Presidents is basically my personal definition of heaven and I have never had any complaints about my purchase. However, I’ve always been surprised that one of the 20th Century Presidents left out of this particular set of DVDs is the 34th President, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
For some reason, Dwight D. Eisenhower as President is often overlooked or overshadowed. The mid-20th Century featured large personalities immediately preceding and succeeding Eisenhower in the Presidency — FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon — and the eight years that Eisenhower served were relatively calm, peaceful, and prosperous in comparison to the events that took place during the Administrations of FDR (Great Depression/World War II), Truman (End of World War II/Atomic bombing of Japan/Korean War), JFK (Bay of Pigs/Cuban Missile Crisis), LBJ (Civil Rights Movement/Vietnam), and Nixon (Vietnam/Watergate). Then there’s the fact that Eisenhower’s greatest fame came before he entered the world of politics, first as one of the leading Generals and then the Supreme Allied Commander in World War II, where he planned and oversaw the successful D-Day invasion of Europe. In a way, President Eisenhower has always been overshadowed by General Eisenhower, and Eisenhower’s performance as President continues to be underrated, although more Americans are beginning to understand Ike’s greatness during his two terms in the White House.
The world didn’t stop being a dangerous place from 1953-1961. A famous Eisenhower quote inscribed on a wall at the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas notes that the peace and prosperity that the United States enjoyed during his Administration wasn’t the result of good luck: “The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground during my Administration. We kept the peace. People ask how it happened — by God, it didn’t just happen.” Eisenhower spent almost his entire adult life prior to entering politics as a warrior, but as President, the old soldier committed himself and his nation towards, in one of his favorite phrases, “waging peace”.
Even before Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn into office in January 1953, he took steps to end the fighting in the Korean War, which had become a stalemate under President Truman. During the transition between Eisenhower’s election and inauguration, the President-elect followed through on a campaign pledge and traveled to Korea to revive peace talks and help guide the parties to an Armistice. When he took office, Eisenhower hit the ground running and Americans had immense faith in their new President because of the leadership skills that helped the Allies win World War II. The peace and prosperity that Americans enjoyed during Eisenhower’s first term virtually guaranteed that Ike could be easily re-elected in 1956.
David A. Nichols begins his remarkable look at the most difficult year of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Presidency, Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis: Suez and the Brink of War (Paperback, 2012, Simon & Schuster), with President Eisenhower enjoying a nice vacation at the Colorado home of his mother-in-law. However, early in the morning of September 24, 1955, the President, who was less than a month away from his 65th birthday, suffered a massive heart attack. The quick reaction of Eisenhower’s wife, Mamie, may have saved the President’s life, but a little over a year away from the 1956 election, Eisenhower’s ability to seek re-election, or even continue in the Presidency, was in serious question.
Nichols follows President Eisenhower’s recovery into 1956 as Ike slowly but surely regains his strength and becomes convinced that he is not only capable of seeking re-election, but that his country needs him to remain at the helm. The President’s heart attack is the beginning of several crises that make Eisenhower 1956 a gripping account as the political calendar flips closer and closer to Election Day, and as one international crisis after another plunge the world to the brink of yet another World War and seemingly blend together to make every move that the Eisenhower Administration makes potentially dangerous and crucial to the survival of peace.
In Eisenhower 1956, David A. Nichols uncovers incredible details from recently declassified documents, personal diaries, diplomatic cables, and more in order to prove that Dwight D. Eisenhower was not merely a popular, genial, caretaker in the White House. Instead, Eisenhower was a hands-on leader who may have come from a military background but who had perhaps better political instincts than any American politician of his time. Eisenhower was clever and cunning, in national politics and international diplomacy. Despite running for a second term and another serious setback to his health, Eisenhower stays engaged at a top-level and, in many instances, the President’s perspective on foreign relations and his vision for the big picture rivals that of his ever-present Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and any of the other longtime political or diplomatic veterans in Eisenhower’s Cabinet or inner circle. For those readers who were previously aware of Eisenhower’s surprising political skills, Eisenhower 1956 will add to your appreciation of Ike’s capabilities. For those who might have thought of the old General as a hands-off delegator with a famous smile who won the Presidency as something akin to a lifetime achievement award — and there are many Americans who have thought of Eisenhower the President in that way over the past half-century — this book by Nichols is perhaps the best revelation yet about Eisenhower’s immense skills and how he transformed the Presidency.
The main conflict in Eisenhower 1956 is the Suez Crisis, an event that continues to have consequences today in an area of the world which remains a flashpoint. Since the Suez Crisis took place in 1956, some historians have looked at it one of the last gasps of European colonialism in the wake of World War II. Throughout Eisenhower 1956, the deep research done by David A. Nichols reveals incredible details about how the Suez Crisis escalated and what could have happened if not for the restraint and stunning diplomatic footwork of President Eisenhower and the Eisenhower Administration. One of the most incredible aspects of the Suez Crisis is how, just a decade following the end of World War II, two of America’s wartime Allies that owed perhaps more gratitude than anyone else to Dwight D. Eisenhower — Great Britain and France — secretly plotted with Israel to double-cross President Eisenhower and the United States in order to attack Egypt after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. It is a tremendous story, told with incredible detail by Dr. Nichols, which not only takes you back to 1956, but makes you feel as if you were in charge of President Eisenhower’s daily calendar throughout the crisis.
Most unbelievable of all is that President Eisenhower’s bid for re-election, the most heated moments of the Suez Crisis, and Eisenhower’s precarious health are issues that don’t simply share the same year — 1956 — but, in many cases, take place simultaneously. And, as President Eisenhower considers how to handle the Suez Crisis — including the unthinkable possibility of American forces combating the aggression against Egypt by responding militarily against our seemingly inseparable Allies, Britain, France, and Israel — the Soviet Union puts down a popular revolt in Hungary with 200,000 Russian troops and threatens to funnel weapons and funding, if not direct military support, in the Middle East.
Eisenhower 1956 is a compelling, phenomenal history of one of our great, underrated Presidents, at the top of his game as a world leader and visionary of modern global relations, responding to a hurricane of dangerous international crises with political skills that few leaders — Presidents, diplomats, politicians, or soldiers — have ever possessed. Dr. Nichols has crafted a masterpiece that does justice to the gravity of the events portrayed in his book while giving President Eisenhower the just due that he so richly deserves. This is an important work for the study of Eisenhower, the American Presidency, the Cold War, and the always-evolving status of American relations in the Middle East.
Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis: Suez and the Brink of War by David A. Nichols is available now in hardcover and paperback from Simon & Schuster. You can order the book from Amazon, or download it instantly for your Kindle. Dr. Nichols previously authored another title about the 34th President, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (BOOK•KINDLE). For more information on Dr. Nichols, be sure to check out his author page at the Simon & Schuster website.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
34th President of the United States (1953-1961)
Full Name: Dwight David Eisenhower (Born David Dwight Eisenhower)
Born: October 14, 1890, Denison, Texas
Term: January 20, 1953-January 20, 1961
Political Party: Republican
Vice President: Richard Nixon
Died: March 28, 1969, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
Buried: Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Abilene, Kansas
Ulysses S. Grant is on American currency because of his successes as a Union General during the Civil War, not because of anything he did as President of the United States. For decades, the first thing that Dwight D. Eisenhower has been remembered for is his leadership as the Allied Commander during World War II. Perhaps that will never change, and maybe it shouldn’t, but as the years pass and we are able to compare him to others, it is clear that Eisenhower was a great President. Eisenhower was an incredibly clever and able politician, and he modernized the way the Executive Branch works and is organized. Eisenhower brought the military-type of chief of staff position to the White House and it changed the way that Presidential power was used and protected. The eight years of the Eisenhower Administration were prosperous and peaceful, and despite his age and his supposed “inexperience” with politics, Eisenhower was hands-on and directed every aspect of his Presidency. That made for a strong Presidency and a country that was steered into the 1960’s by President, not General, Eisenhower.
PREVIOUS RANKINGS:
1948: Schlesinger Sr./Life Magazine: Not Ranked
1962: Schlesinger Sr./New York Times Magazine: 22 of 31
1982: Neal/Chicago Tribune Magazine: 9 of 38
1990: Siena Institute: 12 of 40
1996: Schlesinger Jr./New York Times Magazine: 10 of 39
2000: C-SPAN Survey of Historians: 9 of 41
2000: C-SPAN Public Opinion Poll: 8 of 41
2005: Wall Street Journal/Presidential Leadership: 8 of 40
2009: C-SPAN Survey of Historians: 8 of 42
2010: Siena Institute: 10 of 43
2011: University of London’s U.S. Presidency Centre: 10 of 40
“We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th President of the United States (1953-1961), Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1957
1952 Dwight Eisenhower campaign ad (via The Living Room Candidate)
Oh man, this ad is 19 seconds of awesome, unintentional hilarity. I mean, it’s an ad FOR General Eisenhower, yet in a matter of seconds he comes across as a menacing curmudgeon. I half expected him to respond to the black guy with, “What the hell? You can’t vote!”. I’m also wondering how the black dude was able to make words come out of his mouth without moving a single muscle in his face.
Again, I must thank redcloud for pointing me towards the Living Room Candidate website. As terrible as modern political advertising is, it is comforting to know that old-school television spots were not only just as awful but could easily pass for an SNL sketch.
The names “Truman” and “Eisenhower” would became two of the most important and admired of the 20th Century. Harry Truman succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt when FDR died in 1945 and helped guide the nation through the last days of World War II. Dwight Eisenhower was the commanding general of that war, and went on to serve as President from 1953-1961 after Truman declined to run for another term in 1952. Truman and Eisenhower had a close relationship at first, became antagonistic towards each other for several years, and reconciled in 1963 when they shared a vehicle during President Kennedy’s funeral. No matter what their personal relationship, though, Truman and Eisenhower made their mark on the world and by the end of the 20th Century, they were both revered as American heroes.
If you had mentioned that to a couple of young businessmen sharing a room in a Kansas City, Missouri boardinghouse at the beginning of the 20th Century, they probably would have thought you were insane. After all, roommates Vivian Truman (Harry’s younger brother) and Arthur Eisenhower (Dwight’s older brother) were far more successful at the time than their brothers who would later change the world.
General Eisenhower fires up the troops on D-Day.
“The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower (October 14, 1890-March 28, 1969) as President (1953-1961)
Anonymous Asks:
deadpresidents Said:
Probably not. LBJ was from the South, and there was still a stigma with Southern candidates for the Presidency that carried over from the Civil War and wouldn’t be lifted until LBJ’s 1964 election — a path that was paved due to LBJ’s ascension to the White House following JFK’s assassination.
In 1956, Stevenson only won 7 states and they were the Southern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as Missouri, which is South-ish (if I can create a word). LBJ probably would have won those states, although Missouri is questionable. There’s a chance LBJ could have won Texas (which Eisenhower won in 1956), but Eisenhower had some Texas ties, too (he was born there, Mamie’s family had a winter home in San Antonio, and Ike was stationed there after he graduated from West Point).
Like you said, Eisenhower was unbeatable in 1956, and there’s no way LBJ would have ever challenged him. LBJ was Senate Majority Leader during most of Eisenhower’s Presidency and he barely challenged the Eisenhower Administration’s agenda during that time. LBJ had a ton of respect for Eisenhower, and they had a good relationship throughout Ike’s Presidency and LBJ’s Presidency, too.
Anonymous Asks:
deadpresidents Said:
Eisenhower was a good President. He was popular with the American people and the nation under Eisenhower experienced relative peace and prosperity. Ike was underrated in his political abilities. Because Eisenhower was plain-spoken, a career soldier, and an older man who was kind of grandfatherly, many people think of him as a political novice. Instead, Eisenhower was a very clever political operator, not just as President but also as he rose through the ranks of the U.S. Army.
In fact, Eisenhower organized the Executive Office of the President in a different manner than it had previously been organized. Eisenhower brought that military-style organization into the White House and the model that he created for governing is pretty closely followed today. Eisenhower was the first President to appoint a White House Chief of Staff. Other Presidents had private secretaries that played a similar role, but Eisenhower (who had been Chief of Staff to several Generals prior to World War II) not only created that position to assist the Commander-in-Chief, but even carried over the name of the Chief of Staff position from the Army to the White House. Since Eisenhower’s Presidency, the influence of the White House Chief of Staff has continued to grow to the point where, in many instances, the Chief of Staff is one of the most powerful people in the United States. Eisenhower’s vision for how the Executive Branch should be organized in order for it to be as efficient as possible was really visionary for someone who happened to be the last President born in the 19th Century.
Now, no President is perfect and that goes for Eisenhower, too. I wish he would have openly opposed Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy during McCarthy’s disgusting witch-hunt that ruined the lives of so many people. I think President Eisenhower could have brought an end to the McCarthy hearings if he had used the power of his office and personality to stand up to McCarthy. We know now that Eisenhower worked in the background to destroy McCarthy, but I feel that what he helped eventually accomplish behind-the-scenes could have happened sooner if Eisenhower — the most popular and trusted person in the United States, if not the world in the 1950s — had used the force of his personality to bring McCarthy down. A lot of innocent people were ruined by McCarthy’s attacks and by Eisenhower’s reluctance to publicly take McCarthy on.
Overall, though, Eisenhower was a good President and good for our country.
