CAMPAIGN DOCUMENT

...Whether this book is-an effective campaign document is another matter...

...These are purely academic questions...

...Thus Donovan can report quite accurately and with a straight face, for example, in relation to Yalta, Potsdam, and the "twenty years of treason" charge, that the President "publicly counselled not only high officials of his own Administration but party chieftains like Leonard Hall not to engage in extreme partisanship...

...Donovan's book also casts light on one of the most puzzling phenomena of political history—that is, whatever happens, you can't blame Ike...

...No one can doubt, after reading Donovan's report, that he is fundamentally decent, sincere, and friendly, remarkably free from pettiness and animosity, thoroughly dedicated to peace and good will...

...The single overall impression left by the book is that we have just lived through the most unimaginative four years of national administrative policy since Chester Arthur...

...Even granting the pro-Eisenhower bias of many publishers, the answer to Eisenhower's immunity is not so simple as that...

...Thus, the author explains, Eisenhower approved of the idea but "neither specifically approved nor disapproved of the Attorney General's text...

...It is interesting to trace this in operation...

...You flew the flag!," or Humphrey's advice to Benson to "let nature take its course" on the farm problem...

...As the Committee and everyone else is aware, the book is frankly aimed at giving the '"inside story" of the Eisenhower Administration for election-year purposes...

...Donovan's book should scotch forever the picture of "the team," functioning with grim General Motors efficiency, grinding out major policy in brilliant exchanges of ideas...

...As this book shows, it is difficult to criticize Eisenhower, since under the present Executive organization it is almost impossible to locate where responsibility lies...

...Donovan has made out a far better case for the Eisenhower Administration than it has ever made for itself, but it seems doubtful if the "inside story" as recounted here will lure or alienate many votes...

...Eisenhower then reaffirms the principle, declares his faith in the subordinate (or, as in the Ladejinsky case, supports everybody, or as in several other cases, hasn't read the speech) and everybody is safe at every base...

...To write it Robert Donovan of the New York Herald Tribune was given a desk in the House, access to Administration files, and complete cooperation by Sherman Adams and the White House staff...

...Donovan, who has covered Washington for sixteen years, is an honest reporter and his book is not the expected whitewash...

...Later, to suggestions that he personally flatten the Senator, he angrily refuses "to get into the gutter with that guy...

...Here it is instructive to read Cain's story of his frustrated attempts to do just that...

...The focus of the book is bound to be on Eisenhower himself...

...With McCarthy riding high, creating tremendous damage at home and abroad, the President tells his advisers that the Senator is "the responsibility of the constituted leadership of Congress, not of the Executive...

...This fact has led the Senate Committee on Investigations to ask with some asperity why a reporter was given free rein to rove among files which are closed to Congress, and why the Herald Tribune, the Administration's Eastern house-organ, had exclusive rights to the information...

...At the same time we discover that he is sometimes apprehensive of change, and that despite his concept of the Presidency as positive leadership, his delegation of authority to men of contrasting philosophies sometimes nullifies his own program and has resulted in more backing and filling than any other Administration in recent history...

...Instead, Cabinet meetings sound much like club-car conversations on the morning commuters' special...

...Presented with a problem at a Cabinet meeting, the President makes a generalized statement of principle broad enough so that his subordinates may do exactly the opposite of its intent...

...Eisenhower told the Cabinet that the security program "should be conducted as openly as possible and not as a Star Chamber proceeding...

...Republicans can point with pride to this page and Democrats view that one with alarm, as usual, and independents are likely to be puzzled...

...We find that he is instinctively a good politician, for his direct, simple approach to issues is often sharper and more effective than the maneuverings of the professionals...

...However, the book is something of a surprise...

...The best example of the Eisenhower method and the one with the most serious implications of its shortcomings is of course the McCarthy case...

...Those of us who refused to believe the Cabinet's TV show owe an apology to Madison Avenue and Robert Montgomery...

...We are able to see clearly, in the chapters on Cabinet discussions, how the machinery operates, or, as the dust-jacket puts it, "how great decisions are reached...

...There are a number of interesting aspects to Donovan's account of three Eisenhower years...

...When Brownell, McLeod, and others took off running, the President supported Brownell, complimented the program, and, as Donovan reports, was visibly irked at Harry Cain's protests, feeling that Cain should have "discussed these issues privately...

...Incredibly enough, the meetings of high policy in the book have the same folksy, obfuscated, indecisive quality that the Cabinet had on TV, leaving the reader with the feeling that Nixon, whose "role in the Administration has always been political," and Adams, who has "an immense but unwritten authority," will get down to work after the meeting is over...

...In fact, the reader has the impression now and then that the author is pained at some of the balderdash he has to report and would have preferred to forget it—such as Wilson's glowing reference to the Inaugural Address, "It was wonderful...

...What we saw was true...

...You can draw a seine through Donovan's report without getting a single creative idea worth keeping...

...Donovan refrains from comment...

...Still later, when the McCarthy business is over and several decent people are climbing out of the gutter after the fray, Eisenhower remarks that there are times "when men finally see themselves compelled to speak out without regard for any technical limitations that stand in the way...

...We find also that his political thinking is naive, highly conventional, and less reactionary than one might suppose, that "dynamic conservatism" seems to be a blend of Theodore Roosevelt and a low-keyed New Deal...

...One must also admit to a grudging respect for Sherman Adams, who, we must remember, could have given the assignment to David Lawrence...

...After this what the high officials and party chieftains did is none of Eisenhower's business...

...Nor does Donovan's account hide the fact that Eisenhower's propensity to solve problems by platitude and to disperse responsibility sometimes creates confusion and misdirection...

...So how can you criticize Eisenhower for what Brownell said...

...In contrast to their attitude toward Roosevelt and Truman, the newspapers have treated an Eisenhower critic like a man caught in a bird sanctuary with a shotgun...

...Again, Donovan cites Eisenhower's refusal to "engage in personalities" and his intense wish "to stay out of controversies concerning the Truman Administration...

...For one, it is possible to generalize for the first time, from the information he provides, about the inner workings of an Administration that has been extremely chary of revealing information about itself...

...Yet, when Brownell came perilously close to calling Truman a traitor, we are told that it was done with "the President's general approval" and his awareness that the speech "would cause an uproar...

...The pattern runs something like this...

...At times he has to engage in a little fast footwork, and occasionally he has to pause to explain what Eisenhower really meant, but nevertheless the major fluffs and stupidities are there, just as you remember them, along with the achievements...

...True, in choosing excerpts from the masses of material at his disposal he probably exercised charitable restraint, yet you have the feeling that what he does choose is fairly representative of the tone and temper of the Eisenhower Administration...