Eisenhower and the American Crusades

...175...

...It is a difficult question to what extent its successes were based on its own character and actions and to what extent it was merely lucky...

...Remember your children...

...foreign policy, to evaluate and analyze each of the last four presidents, to explain the development of contemporary international politics, and to examine the primary currents in American political life...

...On the other hand, its avoidance of war in Indochina, the Middle East, and the Formosa Straits seems to be due to its subtle and cautious handling of these crises...

...Phillip Abbott Luce tling for an armistice which left Korea divided and which Syngrnan Rhee actively tried to sabotage...

...Similarly, he did not share the desire to undo the gains t h a t labor unions had made in the course of the previous Democratic administrations...

...In domestic affairs, as well, Eisenhower disappointed those who hoped for a total reversal of direction...

...The oft-quoted warning, in Eisenhower's "Farewell Address," against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex" is balanced by an assertion of the necessity of "an immense military establishment and a large arms industry...

...As the President of the last center of hope in the world, Truman could hardly confess helplessness...

...In short, Diffusion of Power suffers from diffusion of focus...

...There are other criticisms that can be made of Professor Rostow's opus---criticisms that are more particular in nature, relating to content, and especially to his interpretation of various intents and circumstances...

...The major problems Truman has been grappling with are mainly inherited...

...On the one hand, the isolationist sentiment of the prewar years bridled at the collective security aspects of NATO, and fiscal conservatives warned against the high costs of foreign military and economic aid...

...Germany's defeat brought in its wake the communization of Eastern Europe...

...He criticizes President Kennedy for his failure to exert pressure on the Soviet Union to help enforce the Laos Accords of 1962, and notes that the President's failure to take proper measures at an early stage of the Vietnam crisis was "the greatest single error in American policy of the 1960s?' Rostow also informs us that he considered the war "unwinnable" (except at "prohibitive cost") unless infiltratien thr,;ugh South Vietnam's border was stoppod...

...As 20 The Alternative October 1973 Khrushchev was reported to have said of Dulles: "I admire his intelligence, his wide knowledge, his integrity and his courage...

...In addition to serving the specific political purpose of appealing to those normally Democratic voters whose ancestral homelands were behind the Iron Curtain, these attacks presented the appearance of taking the offensive against communism...

...We can stumble into a war and destroy a large part of what man has built on the face of the earth and a large part of the world's population...

...I applaud Mr...

...The fear of concentrations of power at home and the recognition of the need for exercising power abroad form a central dilemma of conservatism...

...He does a fine job of recreating the intellectual and political background of the struggle, and his discussion of the conduct of the war is must reading for any serious scholar interested in why the United States acted as it did...

...These policies, however, came under sharp attack from a vocal segment of the so-called Old Guard of the Republican Party...

...Otherwise, a generally conservative posture was acceptable to those who were just beginning to enjoy the fruits of the political action of the previous decades...

...The importance of Yalta probably stems from the fact t h a t it symbolizes the unsatisfactory result of the war in Europe...

...The inevitable result is that industrial polontial, military power and influence ,:n the world scene are being diffused and will continue to be diffused...

...Although Rostow's critique ~s consistently that of the realist ~chool, his discussion (read defense~ ,~ military "gradualism" in Vietnam is ;~,:,mewhat optimistic and less than convi acing...

...Compounding these frustrations was the American penchant for refighting old b a t t l e s - - i n this case, the attempt by the prewar isolationists to vindicate their opposition to American entry into the war against Nazi Germany...

...His major theme, the diffusion of power in the international arena, should have received more concentrated attention...

...On the other hand, the real costs of an all-out war with China made complete victory an inadvisable goal and led to the firing of the popular General MacArthur...

...It was in the field of civil rights and race relations t h a t the conservative posture of the Eisenhower Administration was most severely tested and it may well be t h a t it was in t h a t field t h a t it was least successful...

...The communist victory in China had closed the "Open Door" and the war in Korea was achieving only "containment," but a t a far greater cost...

...It was consequently no defense to say t h a t the Yalta agreement in fact provided for more autonomy for Poland than the Russians subsequently allowed...

...policy in Laos and Vietnam, Sino-American relations (Rostow reveals that JFK "canvassed cooly various routes, diplomatic and other, that might deny China a nuclear capability"), racial strife at home, and virtually every major public policy question of the last fifteen years...

...Continuing his address, Rostow compared our time to the era immediately following 1815...

...Nevertheless, breaching the $70 billion expenditure level, which he considered a necessity, disappointed the conservatives and prepared the scene for the embarrassing budget battle of 1957...

...My main concern now in regard to this matter, as evidenced by my willingness to respond to these two basically ignorant letters (ignorant of the central problems of sexuality, of the contemporary struggle by despised homosexuals to gain their full measure of equality and understanding, albeit superficially erudite in spots as to some details of some past eras), is in opening the discussion...

...Or, working constructively together, we can create the terms on which power will become diffused...

...Shortsightedness and political opportunism from such quarters threatened the viability of democratic, private-enterprise economies outside the Soviet sphere" (p...

...309...

...But one must also ask whether the caution that avoided war in Indochina and confrontation with Russia over Suez did not merely buy problems for the future...

...and it is occurring--or it will soon occur---in the whole southern half of the globe...

...For a free subscription send the name and address of your campus publication to: The Alternative Educational News Service, R.R...

...Against this, one must consider t h a t one version of the amendment was defeated in the Senate by only one vote: was Eisenhower shrewd or lucky...

...by skillfully exploiting his public image as a man "abeve politics," Eisenbower was able to preside over the calming down of the storm so as to help the process along...

...When Eisenhower tried to challenge some of these gains, as in the farm policies of Ezra Taft Benson, he was not particularly successful...

...But I wonder: how can a homosexual both be encouraged to come to accept himself without guilt, without shame, without self-loathing, and simultaneously not appear to be "proselytizing" just by virtue of his manifest self-confidence once he has succeeded in breaking out of his closet...

...Destroy the State...

...Consequently, the question we have raised goes to the adequacy of the American political culture to govern the country in the absence of vigorous leadership from the executive branch, a leadership which is willing and able to pursue policies which the mass of the people simply do not understand and whose support must be dispensed with or procured, to the extent possible, by means of slick management of the media...

...Despite its general excellence, the book may be criticized on grounds of both structure and content...

...As early as 1961 Rostow raised the possibility of "moving forces into North Vietnam itself," though, he cautions, "not in the area around Hanoi...

...According to our author, the decisive point in the decision to run was Senator Lodge's argument, on September 4, 1951, that Eisenhower must protect the Republican Party, and thereby the country, against the "prominence of Old Guarders and their indifference or even hostility to programs that had been created to fortify Western Europe against communist expansion...

...Let us not give our descendants a century hence yet another reason to shake their heads in wonderment as to our ignorance...

...Dulles invented brinksmanship but he would never step over the brink" (p...

...As economist and historian, and by political creed, Rostow is a member in good standing of the Establishment, sharing its belief in the domestic policies of FDR, HST, JFK and LBJ, and its strong predilection for the rationalist style in polities...

...ARE YOU LOOKING Address The Alternative October 1973 21 Eisenhower was probably more representative of the political values and ideas of the great mass of the American people (when they are not agitated by war or depression, and perhaps even then) than any other recent president...

...This belief colors the book throughout and leads, at times, to judgments which are questionable...

...In much the same way, Rostow prophesied, "the industrial revolution is h~king hold in China and Eastern Europe...

...Such values as economic individualism (crudely expressed in Secretary Wilson's preference for bird dogs over kennel dogs: "You know, one will get out and hunt for food rather than sit on his fanny and yell...

...At all times there are two sides to the coin...

...It is toward achieving this third alternative that Rostow has dedicated his considerable intellectual skills during the last few decades, and it is this theme which provides the title for Rostow's massive and sweeping Diffusion of Power...

...In fact Rostow probably should have done two books, one on domestic American political life and another on international relations...

...and certainly Truman's experience did not disprove the general rule t h a t "a democracy can only with great difficulty regulate the details of an important undertaking, persevere in a fixed design, and work out its execution in spite of serious obstacles...

...Hence, the attacks on "containment," in favor of "liberation" of communist-controlled countries in Eastern Europe...

...Abram N. Shulsky The Diffusion of Power by W. W. Rostow Macmillan $12.50 Outlining to the 1960 Pugwash conference what he felt was "the central historical fact of our time," Walt Whitman Rostow declared that "power is being rapidly diffused away from Moscow and Washington...

...I do insist t h a t we know what the historical record is, know what goes on now, and act like concerned, decent human beings and cease our continual, vicious maltreatment of homosexuals and other unfashionable minorities...

...Accordingly, Eisenhower followed the Truman policy in Korea, setHere Comes Immorality b y Jerome Tuccille Stein & Day $6.95 I read books/reviews and remember the New Left Children dead as my empty glass...

...Along the way we are treated to discussions and explanations of econom,cs, diplomacy, sociology, the Berlin crisis, the Bay of Pigs, the rise and fall of radicalism on the campus, the role and functioning of the press, U.S...

...He baldly states "the United States is not matching the scale of its unresolved problems with adequate resources...

...Unable either to reconcile or to ignore the forces in conflict, he has tried to stall them off hoping t h a t time would make decision unnecessary" (Future of American Politics, first ed., p. 22...

...First, Rostow has attempted to deal with so many diverse facets of existence that he has inadequately developed many of them...

...For eight years, it seemed as if the crucial decisions could be put off...

...ton, Indiana 47401...

...In conclusion, or rather, in termination (for no conclusion is possible), I should reiterate t h a t I do not urge anybody to '%e" homosexual, which would be as stupid an exercise as urging anybody to "be" heterosexual, given the likelihood t h a t children become "heterosexual" or "homosexual" as a direct result, and during the time span, of their early childhood, which time of life is (or should be, let us hope) the affair of the parents and not of the state or other interlopers...

...in fact, Eisenhower was more opposed to the amendment than Dulles himself...

...Yet, again, this did not become dogma--the centralization process was slowed but allowed to continue with respect to felt needs in the areas of school and highway construction...

...The harsher anticommunist tone of the Eisenhower Administration assuaged the frustrations of the years of communist advances in Europe and Asia without, however, forcing the country into any potentially dangerous confrontations...

...In fact, according to Parmet, his seeming naivet~ and detachment from many important and controversial issues was a deliberate strategy employed to conserve Ike's major political a s s e t - - h i s popular image as being "above politics," and hence unusually trustworthy...

...The most fully developed section of the book is Rostow's treatment of our involvement in Vietnam...

...Likewise the comparison to Latin American inflation is extremely labored...

...The post-Sputnik attacks on Eisenhower's frugality with respect to aerospace and missile research and development, culminating in the "missile gap" presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy, now seem to have been somewhat wide of the mark: the "missile gap" all but disappeared in the face of revised estimates of Soviet strength, and our winning the "race to the moon" seems to have had little effect on the strategic balance of power...

...Right-wing Anarchists Seeking space in New York Times Pictures next in Vogue/Playboy/Time Gentle men women people (Or some percentage thereof) Actions speak louder than praise for Chairman Mao or North America How nice to confront a NEW movement...

...In domestic affairs, the Eisenhower Administration presided over the consolidation of the economic gains made by the main components of the Roosevelt coalition...

...In this extremely interesting and informative work, Rostow attempts to discuss his role in shaping U.S...

...Unfortunately, Parmet does not evaluate Eisenhower's perspective as a whole, or decide whether it was adequate for governing the country in the 1950s...

...Faced with this fact, there are three choices open to the Soviet Union and the United States...

...One feels, at times, as if one is reading the old newspapers themselves...

...and, indeed, for most of the eight years, it seemed as if, both in foreign affairs and in the economy, the situation was righting itself without the need for major governmental breatkthroughs...

...Enthusiasm for a victory over corm'nunism had made it impossible to stop the northward advance of the UN troops at the thirty-eighth parallel in what would have been an impressive display of the ability of the United States to stop the armed advance of communism...

...Truman's policy, which demanded continual exertion without, however, promising or even pursuing an early total victory, was precisely the sort which, more than one hundred years earlier, Tocqueville had written t h a t a democracy could not follow...

...Even admitting that this states a problem beyond the possible scope of any book, one is bound to be disappointed in Parmet's conclusion: "To label [Eisenhower] a great or good or even a weak President misses the point...

...On the other, Truman's policy, bearing the impolitic title of "containment" offered no promise that action could be taken to remove Eastern Europe from Soviet influence and control...

...The burden of Parmet's book is t h a t the Eisenhower Administration saw the storm die down...

...His style is that of the chronicler...

...Eisenhower also shared the fear of the centralization of power which forms an important element of the American po...

...By making some suggestions about a "New Look" in military preparedness which would reduce governmental expenditures by "getting more ba~Ig for the buck," he played up to the fiscal conservatives...

...We can continue the Cold War until the diffusion of power removes the capacity to decide from Moscow and Washington...

...13, end...

...He embodied the values of "morality, democracy, decency, distrust of power, and the virtues of Americanism and duty" and in so doing retained his own standing with the people through a period which seems "placid" mainly by comparison with t h a t which was to come...

...As a result, he was able to give Senator Bricker the impression that Secretary Dulles was the source of his opposition to the amendment...

...Let us, instead, t r y to understand, t r y to improve our own attitudes, try to speak sense and not nonsense...

...The Eisenhower Administration is an interesting test of the feasibility of a nonideological conservatism based on traditional morality and tempered by the expediency and caution which usually go by the name of "statesmanship...

...With respect to Asia, Truman's situation was even worse...

...For example, Rostow's aversion to "the initial laissez-faire posture of the Nixon administration" leads him to claim that "by 1971 the United States was caught in a version of inflation long familiar in Latin America...

...He had the skill and personality to perpetuate the image of a man whose demeanor contrasted with the professional politicians who had preceded him...

...During the century following 1815, however, a numb~,r -f other countries, including the United States, Gvrmany, France, Japan, and Russia, also experienced industrialization and thus eventually rivalled Britain in power...

...Veal's steps in the right direction, as outlined in his penultimate paragraph...

...Indeed, what was called the "Great I Equation," the proper "trade-off" between budgetary frugality and military I and foreign expenditures, was a central concern of the Administration from start to finish...

...Rostow provides a strong defense of US...

...Enough on the medievals...

...His circumlocutions and lapses of syntax at press conferences, his frequent confessions of ignorance about specific situations were accompanied by an infectious grin that made it impossible for anyone to consider him a shrewd manipulator...

...Eisenhower and Dulles avoided the pitfalls of their predecessors' policies by changing the accompanying rhetoric...

...All are fearfully difficult, perhaps impossible of harmonious solution...

...Nevertheless, we must investigate the painful question of whether the solutions of the Eisenhower years were not merely resolutions of problems whose substance had already disappeared...

...The inevitable protracted nature of the engagement gradually eroded the initial basis of public support and left him and the nation particularly vulnerable to the confusions attendant upon the T~t offensive and its aftermath--confusions for which his administration and American journalism jointly bear responsibility...

...The State believes That it can survive...

...In explaining Eisenhower's apparent inactivity and tack of leadership during the fight over the Bricker amendment, a battle which he considered extremely important, Parmet cites his awareness that his "popularity was largely based on belief that his patriotism would overcome any interest in political warfare" (p...

...If nothing else, the sense of drift which affected the country in the late 1950s was in itself an important political effect whose causes may have to be sought in the Eisenhower style...

...By 1815, contended Rostow, Britain was the only country which had absorbed the industrial r~.v;dution, with the result that she wd.a the preeminent international power...

...Certainly, its problems in the field of foreign affairs were very much eased by the death of Stalin and the sudden willingness of the North Koreans to compromise on the POW issue...

...Striking the necessary balance is a task of statesmanship, and, in this respect, using hindsight, we may judge t h a t Eisenhower performed the task competently if not admirably...

...It cannot combine its measures with secret T or await their consequences with patience " (Democracy in America, I, ch...

...were still strongly held by the mass of the people, as they were by Eisenhower who was, in many ways, t h a t population's most accurate representative...

...Surely Nixon's economic policies could only be described as "laissez-faire" in an extremely relative way, and to ascribe responsibility to them for causing our economic ills is simply wrong...

...Eisenhower's cautious references to the school desegregation ruling and his support, in general, for the principle of states' rights did not obviate the need for him to make "the most repugnant move he ever had to make as President," the sending of federal troops to Little Rock...

...Again, Rostow's "belief in central planning causes him to lament Nixon's inability to comprehend "the wastages of talent and vitality that came with inequalities of opportunity in American society...

...11, Box 360, Blooming...

...542...

...On the specific issue of economy in government, Eisenhower was unable to reduce the federal budget to the extent the Old Guard Republicans had wished...

...That he has bitten off somewhat more than he can successfully chew does not detract from the worth of his important volume...

...His coverage of Eisenhower's second term occupies only four of the book's thirtynine chapters...

...But admitting Parmet's point about Eisenhower's personal ability and actual responsibility for the actions of his administration, we are only a t the very beginning of an attempt to assess the wisdom of those actions...

...TREAD CAREFULLY...

...His criticism of the press for its coverage of the war is excellent, and his quotes from various pundits and commentators, especially Daniel EllsI,,,~-g, should be read and savored...

...Rather, Eisenhower's conservatism represented an adherence to many of the political ideas and values t h a t dominated American life before the depression and which the New Deal had violated but not destroyed...

...I shall continue to assume, until educated to the contrary, t h a t medieval homosexuals lived lives of unspeakable terror (if they practiced t h e i r homosexuality) or of pathetic loneliness (if they didn't...

...In fact, Parmet indicates that the main motive behind Eisenhower's candidacy in 1952 was his desire to protect the policy of collective security through NATO and American military and economic support for Western Europe...

...Conversely, the heavy military expenditures of the Kennedy-Johnson years created economic difficulties which now threaten to weaken our strategic position...

...The Alternative October 1973 19 frustration to which it had given rise away from themselves, in part by actively directing those passions against their predecessors...

...for he was not in favor of dismantling the New Deal, nor was he prepared to absolve the government of responsibility for maintaining a high ]eve] of economic activity...

...He was merely necessary...

...Rostow is far too intelligent to be unaware of the costs of such a strategy, although he expresses his awareness in rather curious fashion: "Johnson's care to avoid a larger war in Asia had its cost...

...itical culture...

...and whether the foreign and domestic crise~ of the 1960s could not have been foresmiled by more vigorous leadership in the preceding decade...

...On the other hand, the arguments that the Eisenhower Administration was spending the country into bankruptcy, which surfaced from time to time in opposition to foreign military and economic aid, were certainly unfounded: the economy that Kennedy inherited in 1961 had plenty of slack in it...

...Eisenhower was probably uniquely equipped for the task of bringing stability and calm to a nation t h a t had undergone traumatic events in both domestic and foreign affairs, and was still reeling from the effects of those events as well as from its own reactions to them...

...His treatment of the Pentagon Papers, the T~,t offensive, and the "credibility gap" syndrome are also most useful...

...Conservatives are often taxed with the "contradiction" of wanting strong (and expensive) governmental action in foreign and military affairs while wanting weak (and inexpensive) government at home...

...Depending on the reader's attitude, this may cause impatience at the author's long-windedness, or a certain nostalgic pleasure in immersing oneself in the past, the l a t t e r attitude being punctuated, from time to time, by the making of a sudden and surprising discovery--one is totally unprepared, for example, for finding the name of Senator Kuchel in the list of Republican senators who opposed the censure of McCarthy...

...this satisfaction did not, however, run very deep, as the Democratic congressional landslide in the recession year of 1958 indicated...

...This fee]ing did not, however, t r a n s l a t e itself into a doctrine of laissez-faire, a sudden return to which would have been regarded as risky and anything but conservative...

...Eisenhower and the American Crusades by Herbert S. Parmet Macmillan $12.95 Writing in 1951, Samuel Lubell appraised Truman's term in office as follows: "There is much to be said, after all, for the mariner who, knowing t h a t he cannot quiet the storm, contrives somehow to stay afloat until the storm has died down of itself...

...Parmet's main analytic thrust is to dispute the common view of Eisenhower as a politically naive president who was led (or misled, depending on one's point of view) by his advisers and isolated by his "staff...

...In many areas of domestic policy, Eisenhower was a true conservative, but not in the sense in which the Old Guard understood the term...

...Certainly one of the lessons of the sixties should be the debunking of 22 The Alternative October 1973...

...Veal wishes to enjoin '%omosexual proselytization, direct and indirect," through "stringent" bans...

...Perhaps better than anyone else, he knew that the apparent ignorance, the denial of expertise was a source of political strength before an American public that was suspicious of experts and 'eggheads...

...policy in Southeast Asia, and subjects many myths of the war to harsh scrutiny...

...This rationalist style leads to a belief, bordering on faith, in the efficacy of central planning, or what one might call managerialism...

...In foreign policy, Truman had managed to take some major steps (the Marshall Plan and NATO among them) to reestablish the strength and prosperity of the Western European democracies, and to stabilize the positions of communist and non-communist influence roughly along the line reached by Russian troops a t the end of World War II...

...the real point was t h a t the war, and the "defeat Germany first" policy, resulted in the Russians being able to t r e a t Poland as they wished, Yalta or no Yalta...

...As a close adviser to President Kennedy, and an even more influential special assistant to President Johnson for national security affairs, Rostow has had a considerable impact on American foreign policy in general, and Southeast Asian policy in particular...

...In his last pages, Veal opens some worthwhile areas of discussion...

...Certainly "indirect" proselytization would include merely being---and letting one's friends and acquaintances and associates know the fact of b e i n g - - a happy homosexual, would it not...

...Eisenhower and Dulles in large measure continued the Truman policy, but were careful to deflect the anger and The Alternative Educational News Service is a hi-weekly publication which offers feature stories, book reviews, research and background material for student publications...

...Eisenhower, for one, was at least well aware of the problem...

...Relying on contemporary sources, mainly newspaper accounts, he gives a blowby-blow account of the important episodes of Eisenhower's candidacy and the early years of his presidency...