Partners Parting

...Steve Neal, who drew from archival and printed sources in writing this book, engagingly details how two giants of the 20th century worked together for victory in 1945, and then to contain the Soviet Union during the early postwar years...

...That was a blunder he regretted for the rest of his life, and an act Truman regarded with contempt...

...Nevertheless, Truman placed him at the military head of the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization as commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in April of 1951...

...Neal reminds us of the harmony between the two men in Cold War planning...

...MacArthur may have forgotten them...

...His selftaught specialty came to the surface again when Ike appeared to be dissembling...

...Because of this belief I shall not do so...

...Tragedy was to bring them together once more when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and this time tensions seemed to ease a bit...

...role in rebuilding Europe...

...He always admired courage...

...The hope seemed reasonable, he added, for word back in Kansas long ago was that Ike was a Democrat...

...Indeed, Eisenhower did everything he could to establish his new Republican credentials...

...I'm very fond of him," the President said, "but I fear very much he is going to find himself in a very embarrassing position before he is through with this Republican propaganda move...

...Now, I do not feel that I have any duty to seek a political nomination, in spite of the fact that many have urged to the contrary...

...Instead, in announcing his Republicanism and White House ambitions to the world in 1952, the military hero of World War II was at his foxiest...

...Marshall, whom Truman had called "the greatest living American," was having his loyalty and patriotism questioned by Senator Joseph McCarthy, the junior Senator from Wisconsin...

...Their final joint appearance came at a United Nations luncheon in Kansas City in 1966...

...I think it would be unwise and result in confusion in the public mind if I were to attend the meeting in the White House to which you have invited me," wrote the disaffected general...

...Photos of Jenner raising the general's arm in triumph ran everywhere...

...To learn more about what he was implying, Truman told reporters, they should consult the biographical sketch of Scott in the DAB— which, as he very well knew, showed Polk clearly inimical "to anything that might advance Scott's political prestige...

...Late the same month Ike had assured Truman in longhand: "There has never been any change in my personal desires and aspirations, publicly and privately expressed, over the past six years or so...

...Considering Eisenhower's well-known distaste for MacArthur, the comment understated his true feelings...

...Truman, who had always been candid with the general, deserved better...

...Eisenhower, Neal observes, was "less than forthright in his response...

...I felt dirty from the touch of the man," Ike later told speechwriter Emmet John Hughes...

...Reviewed by Herbert Parmet Author, "Eisenhower and the American Crusades," "George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee" THIS BOOK focuses on one of the most significant yet often unappreciated internal American relationships...

...They met again for the first time in 1961 when both traveled to Bonham, Texas, to attend the funeral of House Speaker Sam Rayburn...

...He had dealt with the general in a manner he felt was consistent with the best interests of the country...

...In a dissent recalled when General Colin L. Powell opposed President Bill Clinton's advocacy of an open policy for gays in the military, Eisenhower, two months after stepping down as chief of staff in 1948, testified before Congress that desegregating the Armed Forces would constitute an extreme measure potentially productive of serious problems...

...Not only did he announce his undiscriminating support of GOP candidates "from top to bottom," but he agreed to share a public stage with Senator William E. Jenner of Indiana, a Right-winger who embodied all that Ike seemed determined to keep from taking over the nation...

...Truman suggested there might be "parallels" between Eisenhower's situation and mat of "Old Fuss andFeathers," General Winf ield Scott...

...You know when you put on a uniform, you impose certain restrictions on yourself," he told an aide...

...An implicit tribute to both men, Harry and Ike also laments the price of blind surrender to partisan politics...

...Despite Ike's own association with and respect for his longtime colleague, he capitulated to those who did not want him to appear critical of McCarthy...

...But, Truman goes on to pointedly observe, "Old Zach kept him out...

...His supposed political naivete was so deceptive, he led others to believe he really expected both parties to close ranks behind him as a sort of "national unity" candidate...

...Truman had reason to feel deceived...

...In 1950, Harry rescued Ike from his discomfort as president of Columbia University (an unfortunate diversion described in Travis Beai Jacobs' new book, Eisenhower at Columbia), by recalling him to the Army to organize NATO's forces...

...Ike's footwork sparked Harry's selfrighteousness...

...Together, they helped to overcome resistance to unifying the Armed Forces...

...But in a race for the White House where even the Democratic candidate—whom Truman had sold on accepting the nomination—found it expedient to declare his independence from the increasingly unpopular incumbent, Eisenhower spurned all advances from the President, including a hospitable offer of a briefing...

...At this stage Ike and Harry's relationship hit bottom...

...A hero of the Mexican War, he served as commanding general of the Army under Presidents James K.PolkandZachary Taylor...

...Stevenson would become the Democratic candidatele wouldhave abandoned thoughts of a political career...

...The President had been encouraged by his working experiences with the man he appointed to succeed General George C. Marshall as Army chief of staff...

...Neal tells us, too, that Truman helped turn Ike into a wealthy man by making possible a very favorable tax ruling for the earnings from his World War II book, Crusade in Europe (1948...

...Maintaining his bipartisan aura even to his own son, Eisenhower saidthat had he knownAdlaiE...

...I can't have any use for a man who treats Marshall that way," the President told his aides...

...He appreciated Ike's political as well as military talents...

...Ike also fully supported the President when he formulated the Truman Doctrine to counter the crisis in Greece and Turkey, even favoring the inclusion of additional countries, and worked to promote the U.S...

...Eisenhower the rigid Republican candidate was a new man...

...Journalist-historian Steve Neal—author of The Eisenhowers: The Reluctant Dynasty and biographer of Wendell L. Willkie— offers a dual portrait showing how President Harry S. Truman and General Dwight D. Eisenhower were close collaborators during those critical years immediately after World War II, but then became opponents in the domestic political conflicts at the beginning of the 1950s...

...The previous December he had written to Ike and explained why it was important for him to know what the general's political intentions were...

...When Scott did finally get the Whig nomination in 1852, he ran head on into the Democratic favorite, Franklin Pierce...

...Calling it the party of plutocrats and elitists, he sounded like a Kansas populist...

...Truman was more than a little miffed by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.'s announcement the first Sunday in January '52 that Eisenhower's name would be on the Republican Presidential primary ballot...

...Although Truman infuriated the Republican opposition on the Hill by relieving General Douglas MacArthur of his Korean command on April 10,1951, the act certainly met with Ike's approval...

...As Neal reports, Truman was offended not so much by Eisenhower's new direction, which hardly could have seemed peculiar to the contentious Truman, but by his blatant surrender to the GOP's isolationist Right...

...While Neal doesn't mention it, an unsent letter to Dean Acheson published in Robert H. Ferrell's Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (1980) states quite clearly that Scott "was as anxious as Grant and Ike to be President...

...Both, for example, backed an illfated effort to institute universal military training...

...he was able to pocket $476,250 of a $635,000 advance...

...Pressed about whether he was aware that Eisenhower had thought of seeking the Republican candidacy, Truman (being Truman) answered that he had "always hoped [Ike] would turn out to be a Democrat...

...Truman's decision was no doubt informed by his justly celebrated knowledge of this country's history and the role of the Chief Executive...

...In a scene that revolted Ike admirers, the crude isolationist embraced Eisenhower on the platform...

...He assumed Ike was a Cincinnatus, a citizen-soldier eager to return to the plow...

...By then, the two exPresidents had resumed an officially formal relationship...

...As a young man in 1909, before leaving Abilene for West Point, he had publicly castigated the GOP...

...Far more damaging to Eisenhower, in the long run, was his surrender to cautious aides who advised against praising General Marshall during a campaign speech in Wisconsin...

...At a White House news conference shortly afterward he spoke his mind, saying the general had chosen the wrong party...

...In the guise of a "captive hero" of the Republican Party, as liberal journalist Marquis Childs would describe him, Ike could not have become more despicable to Truman...

...Truman, by contrast, netted $37,000 from the $600,000 advance he received for his memoirs...

...In their long association," Neal writes, "Eisenhower had always responded in the affirmative when summoned by Truman...

...How many White House staffs would even have thought of giving their boss the multivolume Dictionaiy of American Biography for Christmas, as his did in 1951...