I Like Ike.
This phrase is the well-known 1952 slogan of the campaign to “draft” General Eisenhower (nicknamed Ike) into the Presidency of the United States. The play on this phrase however makes the point that I myself have always liked Ike, and so did every Soviet leader since... Stalin!
General Dwight David Eisenhower (“Ike”) was the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe from 1944 to 1945, and after the end of World War II was appointed Military Governor of the American Occupation Zone in Germany (May-November 1945), followed by his appointment as the US Army Chief of Staff. His political position toward the USSR was favorable to the Russians. Convinced that they did not want another war and that a policy of friendship and partnership with Moscow was in American interest, he was however overruled by President Truman, and, with the introduction of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, he was obliged to toe the line. In 1948 he basically retired from active military service and became President of Columbia University (1948-1953), the position he retained even during his one-year stint (from April 1951 to May 1952) as the first Supreme Commander of NATO.
It was then, in late spring of 1952, that the Republican Party, out of office for twenty years, and out of glory since Teddy Roosevelt, found itself successful against the Democrats in their mutual bids to draft the likable “Ike” as the number one on their presidential ticket for the November 1952 national election. With Truman removing himself from contention, it was a landslide for Eisenhower whose running mate on the Republican ticket happened to be none other than Richard Nixon.
(In this civilian age, especially after the General Alexander Haig 1981 power scare and until fairly recently, one could have been surprised how eagerly a war general had been sought by both parties. Today, of course, after a series of never-serving (and even draft-dodging) American Presidents and Vice Presidents, there is a renewed nostalgia for a military man at the helm (expressed in an apparently unsuccessful attempt to “draft” General Petraeus to run for high public office, and thus the enthusiasm over General Ike ought not to cause too much surprise.)
General Eisenhower had previously never held an elected political office, but he was a very likable man and bona fide war hero in the age when all capable men had served in the military in World War II, and military service was an immediate badge of honor. No wonder then that Ike won a convincing victory. JFK after him would also count his heroic military service to his credit against Richard M. Nixon, who was of course also a WWII veteran (Lieutenant Commander), but whose exploits had been far less spectacular, and besides, he was not as likable as JFK. (Still Nixon lost by a very thin margin.)
Despite Vice President Nixon’s cold war belligerence (but look what happened to his anti-Sovietism when he had been elected president!) and the prevailing Zeitgeist of interventionism, “pactism,” and the practice of George Kennan’s containment in general, President Eisenhower was eager to continue his old course on better American-Soviet relations. In 1955, he attended the Geneva Summit of the Big Four (USA, USSR, UK and France), the purpose of which was “reduction of international tensions,” or détente, to use the more familiar word. In 1959, no doubt helped by the 1957 shock of the Sputnik launch, US-Soviet relations were well on the road to regular summitry with a prospect of a long-term constructive relationship thick in the air. In July of that year an American National Exhibition came to Moscow on a friendly display mission, headed by Vice President Nixon and culminating in the historic “Kitchen Debate.” Later that year, in September of 1959, Eisenhower had Nikita Khrushchev in America for a state visit, with the expectation of a return visit of the American President to Moscow.
Many good things might have been accomplished then and there, had President Eisenhower… not taken the personal responsibility, with a good soldier’s stubborn honesty, for the routine flight of an American U2 spy plane over the Soviet territory on May 1, 1960. The irony was that it was not the first such flight, but it was the first one which Soviet air defenses could finally shoot down after the introduction of the new surface-to-air missile capable of doing it. The American pilot Colonel Francis Gary Powers was no hero, he bailed out of the plane and was captured alive. The drama of the incident was about to evolve into a most unwelcome international scandal, since Khrushchev had intended to use it for propaganda only, expecting the president to deny any personal knowledge, not to mention personal involvement. When Eisenhower did the opposite, Khrushchev was furious that now he had no way of sweeping the whole unpleasantness under the rug, and his much sought prospect of better relationship with the United States had to wait until the next incumbent. Khrushchev indeed liked Ike, and desperately wanted to do personal summit business with him, so it was an enormous blow to him and to his best-laid plans.
Despite this unfortunate foreign policy setback, the Russians have always treated Eisenhower with greatest respect, and the U2 affair, with Eisenhower taking responsibility for it, may have slowed down the progress of US-Soviet relations, but, on the balance, had enhanced Ike’s positive image in Moscow, both at the time and in the historical perspective.
Aside from his persistent and honest efforts to improve U.S.-Soviet relations, in an unhealthy atmosphere of early cold war paranoia, bomb shelters and all, and to establish regular summitry with the worthy purpose of avoiding, or at least managing present and future superpower conflicts, President Eisenhower’s two-terms in office were marked by several other remarkable achievements. Perhaps the most significant, and surely, the most enduring among them was his authorization of the Interstate Highway System, under the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Seldom had so much federal money been allocated for so worthy a cause. Ironically, Ike justified the colossal expenditure making clever use of the cold war demons, arguing that in the event of a superpower war, where major American cities would be at risk, elaborate means of citizen evacuation had to be available, and the Interstate Highway System was therefore an indispensable national priority.
Despite the highly negative propaganda connotation of the term the Eisenhower Doctrine in the USSR, this negativity oddly never transferred to the person of Ike. On the contrary, Eisenhower was actually applauded for his historic warning regarding the American “military-industrial complex,” as quoted from his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961. If one can talk of Ike’s greatest legacy to America and the world (in the minds of the Russians), this is it, hands down.---
“…A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction... This conjunction of an immense military establishment and large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence--- economic, political, even spiritual--- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government.
“We recognize the imperative need for the development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Having revisited this iconic passage from President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the American nation, we can now move on to his numerous aphoristic statements which, put together, paint a wonderful picture of a great American patriot, a peace-loving soldier, a sharp excellent mind, and, above all, an admirable man. I am placing these selected quotes in several categories explicitly identified by their titles.---
A Soldier about War.
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
“Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.”
“If men can develop weapons which are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man’s intelligence and his comprehension would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.”
“Pessimism never won any battle.”
“There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.”
“War settles nothing.”
“When people speak to you about a preventive war,--- you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, “I have come to hate war.”
A Statesman About Peace.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
“How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”
“I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem--- and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?”
“I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”
“The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in, and give it to them.”
“If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.”
“In most communities it is illegal to cry “fire” in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered a serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?”
“This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”
“Although force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration, and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.”
“Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”
An Honest Man About Himself.
“Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.”
“I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.”
“I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency.”
“The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.”
A Free Man About Freedom.
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”
“If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care, and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.”
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
“Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.”
“We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.”
“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” (!!!)
A Philosophizer About Everything.
“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”
“Don’t join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.”
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”
“It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.”
“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
“Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.”
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”
“The best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.”
An American About America.
“An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame-Southern Methodist University game and doesn’t care who wins.”
“Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.”
“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
“I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.”
“I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory of America is that we did not know it then.”
“The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.”
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
“Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.”
And now this:
“Only Americans can hurt America.”
With these profound and inspiring words of Ike I conclude this entry.
This phrase is the well-known 1952 slogan of the campaign to “draft” General Eisenhower (nicknamed Ike) into the Presidency of the United States. The play on this phrase however makes the point that I myself have always liked Ike, and so did every Soviet leader since... Stalin!
General Dwight David Eisenhower (“Ike”) was the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe from 1944 to 1945, and after the end of World War II was appointed Military Governor of the American Occupation Zone in Germany (May-November 1945), followed by his appointment as the US Army Chief of Staff. His political position toward the USSR was favorable to the Russians. Convinced that they did not want another war and that a policy of friendship and partnership with Moscow was in American interest, he was however overruled by President Truman, and, with the introduction of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, he was obliged to toe the line. In 1948 he basically retired from active military service and became President of Columbia University (1948-1953), the position he retained even during his one-year stint (from April 1951 to May 1952) as the first Supreme Commander of NATO.
It was then, in late spring of 1952, that the Republican Party, out of office for twenty years, and out of glory since Teddy Roosevelt, found itself successful against the Democrats in their mutual bids to draft the likable “Ike” as the number one on their presidential ticket for the November 1952 national election. With Truman removing himself from contention, it was a landslide for Eisenhower whose running mate on the Republican ticket happened to be none other than Richard Nixon.
(In this civilian age, especially after the General Alexander Haig 1981 power scare and until fairly recently, one could have been surprised how eagerly a war general had been sought by both parties. Today, of course, after a series of never-serving (and even draft-dodging) American Presidents and Vice Presidents, there is a renewed nostalgia for a military man at the helm (expressed in an apparently unsuccessful attempt to “draft” General Petraeus to run for high public office, and thus the enthusiasm over General Ike ought not to cause too much surprise.)
General Eisenhower had previously never held an elected political office, but he was a very likable man and bona fide war hero in the age when all capable men had served in the military in World War II, and military service was an immediate badge of honor. No wonder then that Ike won a convincing victory. JFK after him would also count his heroic military service to his credit against Richard M. Nixon, who was of course also a WWII veteran (Lieutenant Commander), but whose exploits had been far less spectacular, and besides, he was not as likable as JFK. (Still Nixon lost by a very thin margin.)
Despite Vice President Nixon’s cold war belligerence (but look what happened to his anti-Sovietism when he had been elected president!) and the prevailing Zeitgeist of interventionism, “pactism,” and the practice of George Kennan’s containment in general, President Eisenhower was eager to continue his old course on better American-Soviet relations. In 1955, he attended the Geneva Summit of the Big Four (USA, USSR, UK and France), the purpose of which was “reduction of international tensions,” or détente, to use the more familiar word. In 1959, no doubt helped by the 1957 shock of the Sputnik launch, US-Soviet relations were well on the road to regular summitry with a prospect of a long-term constructive relationship thick in the air. In July of that year an American National Exhibition came to Moscow on a friendly display mission, headed by Vice President Nixon and culminating in the historic “Kitchen Debate.” Later that year, in September of 1959, Eisenhower had Nikita Khrushchev in America for a state visit, with the expectation of a return visit of the American President to Moscow.
Many good things might have been accomplished then and there, had President Eisenhower… not taken the personal responsibility, with a good soldier’s stubborn honesty, for the routine flight of an American U2 spy plane over the Soviet territory on May 1, 1960. The irony was that it was not the first such flight, but it was the first one which Soviet air defenses could finally shoot down after the introduction of the new surface-to-air missile capable of doing it. The American pilot Colonel Francis Gary Powers was no hero, he bailed out of the plane and was captured alive. The drama of the incident was about to evolve into a most unwelcome international scandal, since Khrushchev had intended to use it for propaganda only, expecting the president to deny any personal knowledge, not to mention personal involvement. When Eisenhower did the opposite, Khrushchev was furious that now he had no way of sweeping the whole unpleasantness under the rug, and his much sought prospect of better relationship with the United States had to wait until the next incumbent. Khrushchev indeed liked Ike, and desperately wanted to do personal summit business with him, so it was an enormous blow to him and to his best-laid plans.
Despite this unfortunate foreign policy setback, the Russians have always treated Eisenhower with greatest respect, and the U2 affair, with Eisenhower taking responsibility for it, may have slowed down the progress of US-Soviet relations, but, on the balance, had enhanced Ike’s positive image in Moscow, both at the time and in the historical perspective.
Aside from his persistent and honest efforts to improve U.S.-Soviet relations, in an unhealthy atmosphere of early cold war paranoia, bomb shelters and all, and to establish regular summitry with the worthy purpose of avoiding, or at least managing present and future superpower conflicts, President Eisenhower’s two-terms in office were marked by several other remarkable achievements. Perhaps the most significant, and surely, the most enduring among them was his authorization of the Interstate Highway System, under the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Seldom had so much federal money been allocated for so worthy a cause. Ironically, Ike justified the colossal expenditure making clever use of the cold war demons, arguing that in the event of a superpower war, where major American cities would be at risk, elaborate means of citizen evacuation had to be available, and the Interstate Highway System was therefore an indispensable national priority.
Despite the highly negative propaganda connotation of the term the Eisenhower Doctrine in the USSR, this negativity oddly never transferred to the person of Ike. On the contrary, Eisenhower was actually applauded for his historic warning regarding the American “military-industrial complex,” as quoted from his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961. If one can talk of Ike’s greatest legacy to America and the world (in the minds of the Russians), this is it, hands down.---
“…A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction... This conjunction of an immense military establishment and large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence--- economic, political, even spiritual--- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government.
“We recognize the imperative need for the development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Having revisited this iconic passage from President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the American nation, we can now move on to his numerous aphoristic statements which, put together, paint a wonderful picture of a great American patriot, a peace-loving soldier, a sharp excellent mind, and, above all, an admirable man. I am placing these selected quotes in several categories explicitly identified by their titles.---
A Soldier about War.
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
“Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.”
“If men can develop weapons which are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man’s intelligence and his comprehension would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.”
“Pessimism never won any battle.”
“There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.”
“War settles nothing.”
“When people speak to you about a preventive war,--- you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, “I have come to hate war.”
A Statesman About Peace.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
“How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”
“I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem--- and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?”
“I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”
“The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in, and give it to them.”
“If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.”
“In most communities it is illegal to cry “fire” in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered a serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?”
“This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”
“Although force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration, and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.”
“Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”
An Honest Man About Himself.
“Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.”
“I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.”
“I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency.”
“The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.”
A Free Man About Freedom.
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”
“If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care, and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.”
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
“Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.”
“We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom.”
“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” (!!!)
A Philosophizer About Everything.
“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”
“Don’t join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.”
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”
“It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.”
“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
“Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.”
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”
“The best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.”
An American About America.
“An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame-Southern Methodist University game and doesn’t care who wins.”
“Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.”
“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
“I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.”
“I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory of America is that we did not know it then.”
“The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.”
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
“Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.”
And now this:
“Only Americans can hurt America.”
With these profound and inspiring words of Ike I conclude this entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment