Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
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Speaker 1: Stephen Ambrose was one of America's leading historians. Stephen Ambrose
Speaker 1: passed in two thousand and two, but his storytelling accounts
Speaker 1: can now be heard here at Our American Stories, thanks
Speaker 1: to those who run his estate. Ambrose wrote the definitive
Speaker 1: biography of Dwight Eisenhower. Ike was born in eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: in a rented shack near the railroad tracks in Dennison, Texas.
Speaker 1: He was raised in a fan of Mennonites, fundamentalists in
Speaker 1: their Christian faith were also pacifists. Here's Stephen Ambrose with
Speaker 1: the story of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Speaker 2: Drog David Eisenhower was a great and a good man.
Speaker 2: These two qualities don't always or even often go together.
Speaker 2: But they did with him. Obviously, that is an assertion
Speaker 2: that needs proof. Let me begin with some definitions. In
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty four, President Eisenhower wrote his childhood friend Sweet
Speaker 2: Hazlet on the subject of greatness. He thought greatness depended
Speaker 2: either on achieving pre eminence in some broad field of
Speaker 2: human thought or endeavor, or on assuming some position of
Speaker 2: great responsibility, and then so discharging his duties as to
Speaker 2: have left a marked and favorable imprint upon the future.
Speaker 2: The qualities of goodness in a man I believe include
Speaker 2: a broad sympathy for the human condition, that is, an
Speaker 2: awareness of human weaknesses and shortcomings, and a willingness to
Speaker 2: be forgiving of them. A sense of responsibility toward others,
Speaker 2: a genuine modesty combined with justified self confidence, a sense
Speaker 2: of humor, and most of all, a love of life
Speaker 2: and of people. That last is the key. Eisenhower loved life,
Speaker 2: and he loved people. To me, that's the heart of
Speaker 2: his character. From it flowed all the rest. In the
Speaker 2: fall of nineteen twelve, third class Cadet Dwight Eisenhower, twenty
Speaker 2: two years old, was walking down a hallway at West
Speaker 2: Point when a plead running full tilt on some fool
Speaker 2: errand for an upperclassman, ran into him knocked him over.
Speaker 2: Reacting with what he called a bellow of astonishment and
Speaker 2: mock indignation, Eisenhower scornfully demanded, mister dumguard a generic term
Speaker 2: for a pleb, what was your PCs previous condition of servitude?
Speaker 2: What did you do before you became a cadet? And
Speaker 2: then Eisenhower added, sarcastically, you look like a barber. I
Speaker 2: was a barber, sir. It was Eisenhower's turn to go
Speaker 2: red with embarrassment. Without a word, he returned to his room,
Speaker 2: where he told his roommate, I'm never gonna haze another
Speaker 2: pleab as long as I'm at this place. As a
Speaker 2: matter of fact, they'll have to run over and knock
Speaker 2: me out of the company street before I'll make any
Speaker 2: attempt again. I've just done something that was stupid and unforgivable.
Speaker 2: I managed to make a man ashamed of what he
Speaker 2: did to earn a living. He never hazed again, and
Speaker 2: as an adult, he never shamed a man. Respect for others,
Speaker 2: honesty in his dealings, love of life. These were some
Speaker 2: of the basic parts of his character. From whence did
Speaker 2: they come. Nurture and nature played their respective roles in
Speaker 2: shaping Dwight Eisenhaer. Physically, he inherited a strong, tough, big
Speaker 2: athletic body and extremely good looks with a quite fabulous grin,
Speaker 2: along with keen intelligence. He also inherited a strong competitive
Speaker 2: streak from his parents, plus a bad temper, along with
Speaker 2: unquestioning love, stern discipline, ambition, and religion. They made him study.
Speaker 2: His parents did read the Bible aloud, do chores, hold jobs.
Speaker 2: As soon as he was old enough, they instilled in
Speaker 2: him a series of controls over his emotions, his temper.
Speaker 2: Most of all, they gave him a solid Victorian outlook
Speaker 2: on the relations between the sexes and on proper conduct.
Speaker 2: All his life he would blush if he slipped and
Speaker 2: said a hell or a dam in front of a lady.
Speaker 2: Thus he grew up in a strong Christian atmosphere, not
Speaker 2: a sectarian atmosphere. He said once as president that this
Speaker 2: country has to be founded on a strong religious faith,
Speaker 2: and I don't care what it is. What he meant
Speaker 2: was he didn't care if it was Baptist or Methodist,
Speaker 2: or Presbyterian or River Brethren. He wants to find an
Speaker 2: atheist as someone who could watch Southern Methodists play Notre
Speaker 2: Dame and not care who won. As president, he began
Speaker 2: attending church regularly because he felt it was important to
Speaker 2: set an example. It wasn't something that he had done
Speaker 2: earlier in his life, but the religion was always very
Speaker 2: deeply there. He began his first inaugural address with a prayer,
Speaker 2: and it went over so well he decided to begin
Speaker 2: all of his cabinet meetings with prayers. About a year
Speaker 2: after he'd been in office, he was a half hour
Speaker 2: into a cabinet meeting when he slapped himself on the
Speaker 2: head and said, God, do we forgot the prayer from
Speaker 2: his parents and from his experiences in Abilene, which is
Speaker 2: after all, almost exactly in the heart of America the
Speaker 2: Glower forty eight. He absorbed such values as honesty and
Speaker 2: fair play and all dealings into the very marrow of
Speaker 2: his bones. He abhorred the idea of cheating or lying,
Speaker 2: and he never did either. He also absorbed a fervent
Speaker 2: attachment to democracy that amounted to a religious faith. This
Speaker 2: grew naturally in the soil of that little town out there,
Speaker 2: the Kansas Prairie.
Speaker 1: And you've been listening to Stephen Ambrose tell the story
Speaker 1: of Dwight D. Eisenhower. More of this remarkable story here
Speaker 1: on Our American Stories. Liehbibe here the host of our
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Speaker 1: our American Stories, and with the story of Dwight D.
Speaker 1: Eisenhower told by the person who wrote the best book
Speaker 1: on Ike and we're talking about Stephen Ambrose. Let's return
Speaker 1: to Ambrose with more of this remarkable story.
Speaker 2: At West Point and in his first twenty five years
Speaker 2: in the army, Eisenhower satisfied few of his ambitions. He
Speaker 2: didn't get to war in the First War, the Great War,
Speaker 2: and he was still a lieutenant colonel when the Second
Speaker 2: World War began and about to be forcibly retired, but
Speaker 2: he had learned his profession, and he had demonstrated another
Speaker 2: characteristic trait, patience, and it was rewarded. After Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 2: his star arose, and soon he was in Washington making
Speaker 2: war plans for Chief of Staff George Marshall, and then
Speaker 2: on to London to take command of the American forces
Speaker 2: in the European theater of operations. This threw him into
Speaker 2: the middle of the great decision making process of the
Speaker 2: Allies at the very highest level in London, dealing daily
Speaker 2: with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He proved to be an
Speaker 2: outstanding diplomat and politician, not only with Churchill, but with
Speaker 2: de gaul and other French leaders as well. He was
Speaker 2: successful because he was true to his character. The situation
Speaker 2: in North Africa following the invasion in the fall of
Speaker 2: nineteen forty two was exceedingly complicated, with a lot of
Speaker 2: false promises coming from the British, the Americans, to the
Speaker 2: various French factions, but not from Eisner. I know only
Speaker 2: one method of operation, he wrote in his diary, to
Speaker 2: be as honest with others as I am with myself.
Speaker 2: When President Franklin Roosevelt pressured him to get tough with
Speaker 2: the local French. Eisenhower refused, explaining, my whole strength and
Speaker 2: dealing with the French has been based upon my refusal
Speaker 2: to quibble or to stoop to any kind of subterfuge
Speaker 2: or double dealing. The French responded to this, De Gaulle
Speaker 2: told him, as long as you say that, I believe it.
Speaker 2: He was equally successful with his sometimes difficult British subordinates
Speaker 2: and his sometimes egotistical American subordinates. And he'd only mentioned
Speaker 2: the names of Montgomery and Patent. You know what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about. They might not agree with his decisions, but
Speaker 2: they gave him their trust. Indeed, whenever his wartime associates
Speaker 2: described Eisenhower, whether they were superiors or subordinates, there was
Speaker 2: one word that almost every one of them used. It
Speaker 2: was trust. General Montgomery didn't think much of Eisenhower as
Speaker 2: a soldier, but he appreciated other qualities. His real strength
Speaker 2: lies in his human qualities, Montgomery, he said, he has
Speaker 2: the power of drawing the hearts of men towards him,
Speaker 2: as the magnet attracts the bit of metal. He merely
Speaker 2: has to smile at you when you trust him. At
Speaker 2: once scrupulous honesty was an integral part of Eisenhower's character
Speaker 2: and a learned experience. He saw an experienced the payoff
Speaker 2: for this trust. He knew that telling the truth was
Speaker 2: the only way to deal effectively with his problems. He
Speaker 2: also developed a technique to deliver his message. I refuse,
Speaker 2: he wrote, I refuse to put anything in diplomatic or
Speaker 2: suave terminology, and carefully cultivate the manner and reputation of
Speaker 2: complete bluntness and honesty. Just a man too simple minded
Speaker 2: to indulge in circumlocution. Thus did the Kansas farm boy
Speaker 2: approach Charles de Gaulle, Ann Winston, Kerchiam and Franklin Roosevelt
Speaker 2: and so many others, and it always worked. He was
Speaker 2: the general who hated war. Some like pat and gloried
Speaker 2: in it, but Eisenhower could not. He signed every letter
Speaker 2: of condolence coming out of Europe for three years, a
Speaker 2: very sobering experience. He was the one who ordered the
Speaker 2: bombing and shelling of German cities. He hated doing that too,
Speaker 2: hated having to destroy when he wanted to build, But
Speaker 2: he did his duty with all his skill and energy.
Speaker 2: In nineteen forty three, his older brother, Arthur, sent him
Speaker 2: a newspaper clipping that stressed his mother's pacifism and the
Speaker 2: irony of her son being a general. Eisenower wrote back
Speaker 2: to say, the pacifist I doubt whether any of them
Speaker 2: detest war as I do. They probably have not seen
Speaker 2: bodies riding on the ground, or smelled the stinch of
Speaker 2: decaying human flesh. Probably they have not visited a field
Speaker 2: hospital crowded with the desperately wounded. What separates me from
Speaker 2: the pacifist is that I hate the Nazis more than
Speaker 2: I hate war. He told Mamy in a wartime letter.
Speaker 2: I think that all these trials and tribulations must come
Speaker 2: upon the world because of some great wickedness. Yet one
Speaker 2: would feel that man's mere intelligence, to say nothing of
Speaker 2: his spiritual perceptions, would find some way of eliminating war.
Speaker 2: The contrast between Eisenhower and those generals who gloried in
Speaker 2: war could not have been greater. He had a very
Speaker 2: keen sense of family, of the way in which each
Speaker 2: casualty meant a grieving family back home. In nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 2: when he was filming with Walter Cronkite a television special
Speaker 2: entitled D Day Plus twenty years Cronkite sitting on that
Speaker 2: stone wall that looks onto that magnificent cemetery at Omaha.
Speaker 2: Conkie asked him what he thought about when he returned
Speaker 2: to Normandy. In reply, he spoke not of the things
Speaker 2: that other generals would have brought up. He didn't speak
Speaker 2: about the tanks or the guns, or the planes or
Speaker 2: the ships, or the personalities of the commanders of their opponents,
Speaker 2: or how he fooled the Germans or of the victory. Instead,
Speaker 2: he spoke of the families of the men buried in
Speaker 2: the American cemetery. He said he could never come to
Speaker 2: this spot without thinking of how blessed he and Mami
Speaker 2: were to have grandchildren, and how much it saddened him
Speaker 2: to think of all the couples in America who had
Speaker 2: never had that blessing because their only son was buried here.
Speaker 2: So far, he looks like a saint, But he was
Speaker 2: a healthy, vigorous man in his early fifties during the war,
Speaker 2: and men at war are notoriously receptive to female charm
Speaker 2: when they are far from home and close to danger.
Speaker 2: For many people, the test of character is the marriage vow.
Speaker 2: In other words, what about Kay Sommersby. Kay was Ike's
Speaker 2: personal secretary and sometime driver. She was young enough to
Speaker 2: be his daughter, very attractive, with a bubbly personality The
Speaker 2: Churchill and almost everyone else found charming. She had lost
Speaker 2: her fiance in North Africa and had fallen in love
Speaker 2: with her boss. For his part, how could he help it?
Speaker 2: Be responsive? He liked her enormously, probably had a crush
Speaker 2: on her. They were always together, but almost never alone.
Speaker 2: Decades later, in a book published after her death, Kay
Speaker 2: claimed that they had fallen in love and that both
Speaker 2: had realized it. In January nineteen forty four, when he
Speaker 2: returned to England from a short visit to Washington, they
Speaker 2: had their only evening together alone. There was a fireplace.
Speaker 2: They sat on the floor. His kisses absolutely unrattled me,
Speaker 2: Kay wrote. According to her account, it was a passionate
Speaker 2: but unconsummated experience, because after they took off each other's clothes,
Speaker 2: Eisenhower was flastened. This may have been because, as one
Speaker 2: aid put it, in a grand understatement, he had a
Speaker 2: lot on his mind. More likely, it seems to me
Speaker 2: his stern sense of morality, character and honesty overrote his passion.
Speaker 2: He was incapable of cheating on his wife, or maybe
Speaker 2: if the incident never happened, that it was merely an
Speaker 2: old woman's fantasy. No one will ever know. What is
Speaker 2: important to note is that not even Kay ever claimed
Speaker 2: that they had a genuine love affair. Nor is it
Speaker 2: true that Eisenhower asked President Harry Truman for permission to
Speaker 2: divorce his wife in order to marry Kay, which was
Speaker 2: always a ridiculous story to begin with, because he was
Speaker 2: a five star general. They don't ask anybody's permission to
Speaker 2: do anything. What he did ask Truman for was permission
Speaker 2: to have Mamie join him and occupied Germany throughout the war.
Speaker 2: When Kay was with him always, his love for Mamie
Speaker 2: was constant. His sustaining force was the thought that when
Speaker 2: the war was over, he and Mamie could live together again.
Speaker 2: He loved Mamie for half a century, except when he
Speaker 2: was off at war. They slept in the same bed
Speaker 2: for fifty years.
Speaker 1: And you've been listening to the voice of Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 1: The story of Dwight D. Eisenhower continues here on our
Speaker 1: American stories, And we continue with our American stories, and
Speaker 1: with the story of Dwight d. Eisenhower is told by
Speaker 1: Stephen Ambrose, let's return to the story.
Speaker 2: Loving Mamy did not necessarily preclude loving Kay, or at
Speaker 2: least loving her under the special situation in which they
Speaker 2: lived from the summer of nineteen forty two to the
Speaker 2: spring of nineteen forty five. He was lucky to have
Speaker 2: her around, and the Allies were lucky she was there.
Speaker 2: The best advice in attempting to pass any judgment on
Speaker 2: the Eisenhower Summersby relationship was given by one of Eisenhower's
Speaker 2: staff officers to an office gossip back in nineteen forty three.
Speaker 2: Leave Kay and Ike alone. She's helping him win the war.
Speaker 2: In nineteen thirty nine, when it looked like he might
Speaker 2: be forcibly retired as a lieutenant colonel, his son John
Speaker 2: had asked him if he regretted having spent his career
Speaker 2: in the army. Not at all, he is now replied.
Speaker 2: He said, he had found his life in the army
Speaker 2: wonderfully interesting. It brought me into contact with men of ability, honor,
Speaker 2: and a sense of high dedication to their country. The
Speaker 2: real satisfaction for a man is to do the best
Speaker 2: he can. My ambition in the army was to make
Speaker 2: everybody I worked for regretful when I was ordered to
Speaker 2: other duty. Leadership was another part of his character. He
Speaker 2: was born to lead, and he was trained to lead.
Speaker 2: He told John once that leadership was the one art
Speaker 2: that could be learned. But of course only the born
Speaker 2: leader can say that. Eisenhower reinforced his natural talent. He
Speaker 2: studied the subject of leadership intensely, and he wrote some
Speaker 2: of his best analytical material on the subject. An important
Speaker 2: part of leadership for Eisenhower rested on certain matters of character.
Speaker 2: These included modesty and a genuine eagerness to share the applause. Thus,
Speaker 2: through the war, he never forgot how much he was
Speaker 2: dependent on others. Thus, through the war, when reporters came
Speaker 2: to him, he would say, go see Bradley, go see Patton.
Speaker 2: Get your story there. And they're the ones that are
Speaker 2: winning this war for us. Sharing the credit for a
Speaker 2: success and taking the personal blame for what went wrong
Speaker 2: was Eisenhower's leadership style. In all the announcements of D Day,
Speaker 2: the operative words were the Allies or we. In the
Speaker 2: announcement Eisenhower wrote by hand to release to the press
Speaker 2: in the event of failure, The operative word was I,
Speaker 2: as in, it's all my fault. Always take your job seriously,
Speaker 2: never yourself. One of his favorite lines. A corollary to
Speaker 2: that sentiment was his willingness to sacrifice himself for the
Speaker 2: good of the whole. In early nineteen forty four, Eisenhower
Speaker 2: wanted to put the Allied bombers to work on transportation
Speaker 2: targets in France in order to isolate Normandy. The bomber
Speaker 2: commander said no, they wanted to continue the strategic bombing
Speaker 2: campaign inside Germany. Eisenhower felt so strongly about the issue
Speaker 2: that he told the combined chiefs of Staff that either
Speaker 2: they gave him his transportation targets railroads and turntables and
Speaker 2: marshaling yards and bridges and the like in France, or
Speaker 2: I'm simply going to have to go home. In other words,
Speaker 2: Eisenhower was not ready to commit his forces to the
Speaker 2: attack until he was certain that he had utilized every
Speaker 2: asset he had to the uttermost. If he couldn't use
Speaker 2: the assets as he saw fit, he would resign his commission.
Speaker 2: When he made the threat, he was holding the most
Speaker 2: coveted command in the history of warfare. He got his way,
Speaker 2: and the transportation plan was a big success. He later
Speaker 2: used the same threat and a knockdown dispute with Montgomery
Speaker 2: over strategy and command, and he again had his way.
Speaker 2: It was an integral part of him, this ability to
Speaker 2: know exactly when to use his personal asset, the power
Speaker 2: of his name, to make the ultimate threat. It showed
Speaker 2: a nice sense of balance about political factors and an
Speaker 2: accurate measurement of his own strength in a struggle over policy.
Speaker 2: He much preferred working with the team to having to
Speaker 2: act on his own. A stress on teamwork began when
Speaker 2: he was a child, showed again at West Point and
Speaker 2: was reinforced by his experiences as a football coach on
Speaker 2: various army bases in the nineteen twenties. By nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 2: the year Eisenhower entered into politics at age sixty two,
Speaker 2: his character is formed by heredity and experience, was set
Speaker 2: and cement. It included, as I have said, the qualities
Speaker 2: of love, honesty, faithfulness, responsibility, modesty, generosity, duty, and leadership,
Speaker 2: along with the hatred of war. These were bedrock or
Speaker 2: were they? This paragon of virtue I am describing had
Speaker 2: lived in the shelter of the army nearly all of
Speaker 2: his life, character testing opportunities or temptations were almost unknown
Speaker 2: to him. It's easy to be virtuous when virtue is rewarded,
Speaker 2: and this will be a hard sell of many veterans
Speaker 2: in here, but it usually is in the army. It's
Speaker 2: not so easy to be virtuous when virtue is ignored
Speaker 2: and partisanship is rewarded, as in politics. He grew up
Speaker 2: in the army, and he swore like a sergeant, although
Speaker 2: the words he used were never a secrual or had
Speaker 2: anything to do with anatomy. They were always christ and
Speaker 2: damn and goddamn words like that. Once he was at
Speaker 2: a luncheon with some cabinet members during the fifty six
Speaker 2: reelection campaign, and someone said something about somebody proposing something,
Speaker 2: and Eisenharers snored these damned amateurs. He said, you know,
Speaker 2: there's only in all the world, there's only two places
Speaker 2: where amateurs think that they're better than the professionals, military
Speaker 2: strategy and prostitution. Now, this was an all male luncheon,
Speaker 2: and having said that, he blushed and confessed a bit shamefacedly.
Speaker 2: That's the only off color story I know where his
Speaker 2: characters showed most decisively was on questions of war and
Speaker 2: more specific a first strike against the Soviet Union or
Speaker 2: in Asia. He was president during the worst decade of
Speaker 2: the Cold War. He was the only president to have
Speaker 2: a decisive lead over the Soviets and nuclear weapons, a
Speaker 2: lead so decisive that he could have ordered a preventative
Speaker 2: war which would have destroyed the Soviet Union as a
Speaker 2: military power, and they would have been unable to retaliate.
Speaker 2: Given the amounts of money the United States was spending
Speaker 2: in the arms race and the fear it engendered, and
Speaker 2: the fact that the Soviets would soon be able to
Speaker 2: retaliate and eventually might pull even in nuclear weaponry, the
Speaker 2: temptation to use the bomb while we still had the
Speaker 2: lead was tremendous at the time of the nbn FU
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty four, during the various crises over the
Speaker 2: Chinese offshore islands in the mid fifties, and regularly with
Speaker 2: regard to the Soviet Union, some of Eisenhower's principal advisers
Speaker 2: gave into that temptation. These included his joint chiefs of Staff,
Speaker 2: his vice president, his Secretary of State, members of his
Speaker 2: National Security Council, and many pundits told on May one,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty four, that the National Security Council was preparing
Speaker 2: a paper calling for the use of atomic bombs to
Speaker 2: save the French at the NBN. Foo Eyes now responded,
Speaker 2: I certainly do not think that the Adam bomb can
Speaker 2: be used by the United States unilaterally. He then went
Speaker 2: on to get to the heart of the matter. You
Speaker 2: boys must be crazy. We can't use those awful things
Speaker 2: against Asians. For the second time in less than ten years.
Speaker 1: My God, And you're listening to Steven Ambrose recounting many
Speaker 1: of the stories he told in his Definitive biography of
Speaker 1: Dwight D. Eisenhower. And I love a few of the
Speaker 1: things he said about Ike's leadership style, and this the
Speaker 1: most important. Sharing the credit for success and taking the
Speaker 1: blame for what went wrong was his leadership style. And
Speaker 1: this quote perhaps best states his character. Always take your
Speaker 1: job seriously, not yourself. When we come back, more of
Speaker 1: this remarkable story with one of the great storytellers in
Speaker 1: American history telling the story of one of the great
Speaker 1: military leaders in American history. Ambrose on Eisenhower. Here on
Speaker 1: our American stories, and we continue here with our American
Speaker 1: stories and the story of Twight d. Eisenhower is told
Speaker 1: by Stephen Ambrose, let's return to the story.
Speaker 2: It was characteristic of him always to ask what happens next?
Speaker 2: If we do suck and soul, what are the likely consequences?
Speaker 2: Suppose we do pull it off, then what and what
Speaker 2: did the other players do? It was an attempt to
Speaker 2: look into the future, and it stood him in good
Speaker 2: stead as president. After DNB and Foo fell, the Joint
Speaker 2: Chiefs recommended a preventative attack against the Soviet Union. Eisenhower
Speaker 2: asked them to think about what they were proposing. I
Speaker 2: want you to carry this question home with you. Gain
Speaker 2: such a victory, and what are you going to do
Speaker 2: with it? Here would be a great area from the
Speaker 2: Elba River all the way to vladis Vostok, just torn
Speaker 2: up and destroyed, without government, without its communications, just an
Speaker 2: area of starvation disaster. I ask you, what would the
Speaker 2: civilized world do about it? I repeat, there is no
Speaker 2: victory accepting your imagination. Another quality was patience. Make no
Speaker 2: mistakes in a hurry was a favorite axiom of his.
Speaker 2: When advisors urged him to destroy the Soviet Union while
Speaker 2: you could still get away with it, he told them
Speaker 2: to be patient. That in the end, the Soviet system
Speaker 2: would implode because it was rotten at its core. That
Speaker 2: this would take a long time, maybe as long as
Speaker 2: fifty years, but they would have to educate their own
Speaker 2: people in order to stay up with modern technology, and
Speaker 2: when they did, they would sow the seeds of their
Speaker 2: own undoing. He was a good steward. His farewell adess.
Speaker 2: He pointed out, we you and I our government must
Speaker 2: avoid plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious
Speaker 2: resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of
Speaker 2: our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political
Speaker 2: and spiritual heritage. And then he uttered, what all his
Speaker 2: lines is my all time favorite? He said, we want
Speaker 2: democracy survive for all ages to come. That faith in
Speaker 2: democracy was total, even after five years of dealing with Congress.
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty seven, he told Swede, each congressman thinks
Speaker 2: of himself as intensely patriotic, but it does not take
Speaker 2: the average member long to conclude that his first duty
Speaker 2: to his country is to get himself re elected. This
Speaker 2: leads to a capacity for rationalization that is beyond belief.
Speaker 2: It was characteristic of him to seek compromise extremes to
Speaker 2: the right and to the left of any political dispute
Speaker 2: are always wrong. He liked to say. The Democrats controld
Speaker 2: Congress for six of his eight years in office. He
Speaker 2: got on with them smoothly. A brief assessment of his
Speaker 2: accomplishments as president reveals something more of the man and
Speaker 2: his character. First and foremost, he presided over eight years
Speaker 2: of prosperity, marred only by two minor recessions. By later standards,
Speaker 2: it was a period of nearly full employment. The average
Speaker 2: unemployment rate in the fifties was four percent and no inflation.
Speaker 2: The average inflation rate in the nineteen fifties was one
Speaker 2: and a half percent a year, about which he worried
Speaker 2: offy there was a four percent rise in real wages
Speaker 2: each year for blue collar workers. Indeed, by almost every
Speaker 2: standard GNP personal income and savings, home buying, auto purchases,
Speaker 2: capital investment, highway construction, and so forth, it was the
Speaker 2: best decade of the century. Shirley Eisenhower's fiscal policies, his
Speaker 2: refusal to cut taxes or increased defense spending, his insistence
Speaker 2: on a balanced budget, played some role in creating this
Speaker 2: happy situation. His special triumphs came in the field of
Speaker 2: foreign affairs and were directed directly related to his character.
Speaker 2: By making peace in Korea five months after taking office
Speaker 2: and avoiding war thereafter, and by holding down the cost
Speaker 2: of the arms race, he achieved greatness. No one knows
Speaker 2: how much money he saved the United States. No one
Speaker 2: knows how many lives he saved by ending the war
Speaker 2: in Korea and refusing to enter any others, despite a
Speaker 2: half dozen and more virtually unanimous recommendations to do so,
Speaker 2: Dn Benfu, Kumoi Matsu, many others. But he made peace,
Speaker 2: and he kept the peace. Whether any other man could
Speaker 2: have led the country through that decade without going to
Speaker 2: war cannot be known. What we do know is that
Speaker 2: Eisenwer did it. Eisnower seldom boasted, but he did on
Speaker 2: this one. The United States never lost a soldier or
Speaker 2: a foot of ground in my administration. He said, we
Speaker 2: kept the peace. People ask how it happened. By God,
Speaker 2: it didn't just happen. I'll tell you that his magnetic
Speaker 2: appeal to millions of his fellow citizens seemed to come
Speaker 2: about as a natural and effortless result of his sunny disposition.
Speaker 2: But he worked at his apparent artlessness, that big grin
Speaker 2: and bouncy step often masked depression, doubt, or utter weariness.
Speaker 2: He believed it was the critical duty of a leader
Speaker 2: to always exude optimism. He made it a habit to
Speaker 2: save all of his doubts for his pillow. For forty years,
Speaker 2: he changed smoked cigarettes four packs a day. At age
Speaker 2: fifty eight, he quit cold turkey, and he never again
Speaker 2: touched tobacco. Clearly he was a man in tremendous willpower.
Speaker 2: Although at the Paris Summit, the abortive Paris Summit in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty, when Khrushoff was going on and on about
Speaker 2: Francis Gary powers and YouTube and demanding an apology and
Speaker 2: pounding the table and saw an eyeshower scribbled on the
Speaker 2: back of his Mimo pad. God, I wish I had
Speaker 2: a cigarette. He used that tremendous willpower to conquer his
Speaker 2: own most negative characteristic, an awful temper. When he got mad,
Speaker 2: it just everybody knew immediately. His face just lit up,
Speaker 2: beat red, and and the tension in his body was
Speaker 2: a palpable thing that could be felt all through the room.
Speaker 2: His aides lived in terror of those moments of outbreak
Speaker 2: of his temper. Now anger that has contrived, that is
Speaker 2: put on for show and a purpose. An actor's anger
Speaker 2: can be an effective tool leadership. It was one eyes
Speaker 2: Now often used, but genuine anger, deep blind anger, is
Speaker 2: the enemy of leadership. Eyes Noower often felt it with Montgomery,
Speaker 2: with McCarthy, with others, but he never acted on it.
Speaker 2: One way he controlled his anger was to do his
Speaker 2: best to follow his own rule, never question another man's motives.
Speaker 2: His wisdom, yes, but not his motives. He also tried
Speaker 2: to always assume the best about others until shown otherwise.
Speaker 2: He could do so consistently, even in a world full
Speaker 2: of high powered men whose motives were often self serving
Speaker 2: or base. Because of this most outstanding personal characteristic of
Speaker 2: his love for life and for people. No one ever
Speaker 2: caught this better than Richard Nixon, who observed on the
Speaker 2: day Eisenhower died in nineteen sixty nine that everybody loved
Speaker 2: ike because I c lobbed everybody. Nixon went on to
Speaker 2: confess that he could scarcely believe such a thing was possible,
Speaker 2: because he said, in my experience, most politicians are men
Speaker 2: with very strong hatreds. But Lord knows that Nixon was
Speaker 2: a man full of such feelings and a man who
Speaker 2: always questioned the other guy's motives. But as Verisenhower, the
Speaker 2: only man he ever really hated was Adolf Hitler. He
Speaker 2: was the general who hated war, but who hated the
Speaker 2: Nazis more. He was old fashioned, a Victorian who came
Speaker 2: to power in the mid twentieth century. His virtues were
Speaker 2: those of the nineteenth century. Honesty, integrity, and religious devotion
Speaker 2: and conviction were some of them. To my knowledge. He
Speaker 2: never lied in his private life, not once. And his
Speaker 2: public responsibilities he lied twice, once in nineteen forty four
Speaker 2: to Hitler about where he was going to invade, and
Speaker 2: once again on May Day, nineteen sixty to Khrushoff about
Speaker 2: what Francis gary Powers was doing in that U two
Speaker 2: over the Soviet Union. In my own life, when I'm
Speaker 2: faced with a moral question, or a dilemma, or a
Speaker 2: personal problem of choice, I'm in the habit of asking
Speaker 2: myself what would I do? Sad to relate, I often
Speaker 2: come up short of his standards. My only consolation is
Speaker 2: that so do most of the men I know for
Speaker 2: whose lives I have studied.
Speaker 1: And you've been listening to Steven Ambrose and what storytelling.
Speaker 1: A special thanks to the estate, also to Greg Hangler
Speaker 1: for pulling that all together. The story of Dwight D.
Speaker 1: Eisenhower hold by Stephen Ambrose. Here on our American Stories