National Affairs: Ike in the West

Ike’s tour of the West was something of a triumph. Early in the morning or late at night, huge crowds turned out at the depots to hear him; in the cities there were showers of tape, and people sometimes lined five deep along the curbs. Newsmen on the Eisenhower Special (who stood 24 for Adlai, 7 for Ike in a recent poll) conceded they had seen nothing like it since Franklin Roosevelt’s greatest days.

Eisenhower’s words seemed to echo the enthusiasm of the crowds. With the difficult political maneuvering through “Taft territory” behind him, Ike sounded more at ease than he had since the campaign began.

He worked hard, going through half a dozen speech drafts with his advisers before he was satisfied. He tried to get to bed by 10:30 or 11, but his aides were getting used to having him knock on their doors at 2 a.m. when he had just thought of something that he wanted to thrash out at once.

Eisenhower was angry at Truman’s attacks (see above). He jeered at Stevenson for leaving the dirty work to Harry. (“You used to read in your newspapers about a mysterious character called ‘the White House spokesman’ . . . Now it is the Administration’s candidate who has the White House spokesman.”) He specifically answered Truman on three issues:

Resources. Truman, whom Ike referred to as an “expert in political demagoguery,” had conducted the people “through an underworld of imaginary devils,” charging that the Republicans wanted to wreck development of natural resources, irrigation and power projects. Nonsense, said Eisenhower. Many of these projects had been started by the Republican 80th Congress, which Truman calls the “worst.” The Republicans, said Ike, want to safeguard a measure of local control over the projects instead of surrendering all to “whole-hog Federal Government.”

Korea. Truman had tried to pin on Eisenhower, then Army Chief of Staff, the blame for the 1947 recommendation to withdraw troops from Korea. Any opinions rendered by the Chiefs of Staff, said Ike, were military. The U.S. decision to withdraw was political. “There were some things back there in 1947 that I didn’t foresee would happen,” said Ike. Among them: that the Secretary of State would make public to a potential enemy the decision that Korea was not in the U.S.’s vital defense perimeter.

Russia. Truman had taxed Eisenhower with a 1945 statement hoping for peace and collaboration with Russia. “And that charge,” said Ike in Eugene, Ore., “came from the very same man who only three years later, remember, in 1948, came to this town [and said]: ‘I like old Uncle Joe Stalin. Joe is a decent fellow. But the people who run the government won’t let him be as decent as he would like to be.’ “

Party Unity. Criticized by some of his own followers for endorsing all Republican senatorial and congressional candidates (including Indiana’s Jenner and Wisconsin’s Joe McCarthy), Eisenhower spoke earnestly on the subject of party unity. In a speech in Portland, where 20,000 lined the streets while 6,000 jammed into an auditorium that normally holds 5,000, Eisenhower described the system of splinter parties in continental countries, like France, where politicians’ “differences are nursed so tightly to the breast, their mutual hatreds are so valuable to them that they cannot act. Now that must not happen in America . . . This crusade . . . must have people of many diverse beliefs … so long as we have certain ideals, aspirations and purposes which we commonly support.”

At Salem police lost control of the crowd: hundreds swarmed over Eisenhower’s car. But this was only a warmup for Ike’s two days in California, where he campaigned hard for the state’s 32 electoral votes. At Sacramento Governor Earl Warren—who had not overexerted himself campaigning for Eisenhower and Nixon—was on hand, warmly welcomed Ike.

At Martinez (pop. 8,300) Ike said: “I like America and America is its people. I see a lot of signs around, and most of them say ‘I like Ike.’ I wish a lot of them could be written to say ‘Ike likes me.’ That is the reason I come here.” At the Oakland station the crowd was small. But at the city hall, where Eisenhower spoke, the crowd was so large that he rose on tiptoe to see it all, whistled at its size. Then Eisenhower drove across the great Bay Bridge into San Francisco, where an estimated 100,000 turned out to greet him. On California and Montgomery Streets the shower of paper was so heavy that reporters a block away could scarcely see the candidate. Although Ike’s speech was on TV, 20,000 San Franciscans jammed the Cow Palace (seating capacity: 18,000) to see & hear him. Speech highlights:

Asia. “Without weakening the security of the free world, I pledge full dedication to the job of finding an intelligent and honorable way to end the tragic toll of American casualties in Korea. No one can pledge you more … I shall never say, as the present Administration says: because the problem is tough the problem cannot be solved . . . Without such determination and dedication there can be no victory, but only a stalemate, only a road uphill paved with excuse and evasion . . .”

Cold War. “Our aim … is not conquest of territory or subjugation by force. Our aim is more subtle, more pervasive, more complete. We are trying to get the world by peaceful means to believe the truth . . . The means we shall employ . . . are often called ‘psychological.’ Don’t be afraid of that term just because it’s a five-dollar, five-syllable word. ‘Psychological warfare’ is the struggle for the minds and wills of men. Many people think [it] means just the use of propaganda . . . But [that] is not the most important part in this struggle. The present Administration has never yet been able to grasp the full import of a psychological effort put forth on a national scale. What would such a … national strategy mean? . . . The selection of broad, national purposes . . . Every significant act of Government should be so timed . . . so related to other governmental actions that it will produce the maximum effect . . . We shall no longer have a Department of State that deals with foreign policy in an aloof cloister, a defense establishment that makes military appraisals in a vacuum . . . We must bring the dozens of agencies and bureaus into concerted action under an overall scheme of strategy …”

Leaving San Francisco, Ike transferred from train to plane. (Mamie, who does not stand altitude well, went on by rail, did some whistle-stopping of her own.) At Long Beach he tried a “prop stop.” It worked well: more than 4,000 turned up at the airport. Said Ike: “The so-called professional politicians . . . told me there was one thing you could not do—go to an airport and address a group of American citizens. I was told they simply wouldn’t come. So I find out today that . . . those political friends of mine were wrong, and I am delighted.”

At Los Angeles, Ike drew another big crowd. Speech highlights:

Big Government. “We have been called the party of special privilege, but … of all the special privileges that are dangerous in this country, the most dangerous is the special privilege of big government.”

Civil Rights. “We must make equality of opportunity a living fact for every American, regardless of race, color or creed . . . There can be no second-class Americans . . . For 20 years, leaders of the Administration have been making promises . . . And yet after those 20 years, racial segregation still exists in our nation’s capital.”

Social Security. “We must improve and extend it . . .” More old-age pensions. No “government medicine” but more voluntary private health insurance; federal loans when other means fail; federal aid to education only when state funds are insufficient.

“Don’t Let Them Take It Away.” “Don’t let anyone tell you that America’s destiny is now reduced down to keeping what we’ve got … that the great hymn of America’s future is ‘Don’t let them take it away.’ It is not in America’s character to respond to standstill and mark-time music . . .”

After swinging through Arizona and New Mexico into Utah, Ike made a speech on “The Middle Way” at Salt Lake City. Highlights:

Labor. “Radicals hail American workers as their neglected brothers—and hope to climb to political power on their backs. Reactionary extremists attack American unions as unnecessary or greedy—and hope to climb to wealth on their broken backs.” Instead, Eisenhower pledged “a government that would give fair and just hearing to all labor’s needs and problems.” Communism & McCarthyism. “The first [extreme] attacks the danger with a zeal that takes no account of our civil liberties. It wounds the innocent as well as the guilty. It is a parody of righteous justice. That extreme I have firmly and explicitly renounced . . . The opposite extreme, is no less repugnant to me. [It] talks in the slick vocabulary of ‘red herring’ and ‘phantoms’ … It rejects the idea that you and I, in order to sustain our individual liberties, must remain helpless in the face of Communist conspiracy . . . Freedom can defend itself without destroying itself . . .”

America. “Let no one out of great fear and little faith say that America is finished; that the days of our pioneering are ended. I believe that if the great leader [Brigham Young] who brought you here were to stand today and look down on America as he once looked down on your valley, he would say again ‘This is the place.’ And I believe he would add: ‘This is the time.’ “