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 family of Mennonites, fundamentalists in
Speaker 1: their Christian faith, were also pacifists. Here's Stephen Ambrose with
Speaker 1: the story of Dwight d.
Speaker 2: Eisenhow Dwight 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
Speaker 2: life and he loved people. To me, that's the heart
Speaker 2: of his character. From it flowed all the rest. In
Speaker 2: the fall of nineteen twelve, third class Cadet Dwight Eisenhower,
Speaker 2: twenty two years old, was walking down a hallway at
Speaker 2: West point when a plead running full tilt on some
Speaker 2: fool 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 Eisenher. 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, we forgot the prayer from his
Speaker 2: parents and from his experiences in Abilene, which is after all,
Speaker 2: almost exactly in the heart of America the lower forty eight.
Speaker 2: He absorbed such values as honesty and fair play and
Speaker 2: all dealings into the very marrow of his bones. He
Speaker 2: abhorred the idea of cheating or lying, and he never
Speaker 2: did either. He also absorbed a fervent attachment to democracy
Speaker 2: that amounted to a religious faith. This grew naturally in
Speaker 2: the soil of that little town out there on 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. Liehibibe 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: deal 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, and you know what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. They might not agree with his decisions,
Speaker 2: that they gave him their trust. Indeed, whenever his wartime
Speaker 2: associates described Eisenhower, whether they were superiors or subordinates, there
Speaker 2: was one word that almost every one of them used.
Speaker 2: It was trust. General Montgomery didn't think much of Eisenhower
Speaker 2: as a soldier, but he appreciated other qualities. His real
Speaker 2: strength lies in his human qualities. Montgomery that 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, and you trust him at once.
Speaker 2: Scrupulous honesty was an integral part of Eisenhower's character and
Speaker 2: a learned experience. He saw an experience the payoff for
Speaker 2: this trust. He knew that telling the truth was the
Speaker 2: only way to deal effectively with his problems. He also
Speaker 2: developed a technique to deliver his message. I refuse, he wrote,
Speaker 2: I refuse to put anything in diplomatic or suave terminology,
Speaker 2: and carefully cultivate the manner and reputation of complete bluntness
Speaker 2: and honesty. Just a man too simple minded to indulge
Speaker 2: in circumlocution. Thus did the Kansas farm boy approach Charles
Speaker 2: de gaulle, An Winston Kirchill, and Franklin Roosevelt and so
Speaker 2: many others, and it always worked. He was the general
Speaker 2: who hated war. Some like pat and gloried in it,
Speaker 2: but Eisenhower could not. He signed every letter of condolence
Speaker 2: coming out of Europe for three years, a very sobering experience.
Speaker 2: He was the one who ordered the bombing and shelling
Speaker 2: of German cities. He hated doing that too, hated having
Speaker 2: to destroy when he wanted to build, but he did
Speaker 2: his duty with all his skill and energy. In nineteen
Speaker 2: forty three, his older brother Arthur sent him a newspaper
Speaker 2: clipping that stressed his mother's pacifism and the irony of
Speaker 2: her son being a general. Eisenow wrote back to say
Speaker 2: of the pacifist, I doubt whether any of them detest
Speaker 2: war as I do. They probably have not seen bodies
Speaker 2: riding on the ground, or smelled the stench of decaying
Speaker 2: human flesh. Probably they have not visited a field hospital
Speaker 2: crowded with the desperately wounded. What separates me from the
Speaker 2: pacifist is that I hate the Nazis more than I
Speaker 2: hate war. He told Mamy in a wartime letter. I
Speaker 2: think that all these trials and tribulations must come upon
Speaker 2: the world because of some great wickedness. Yet one would
Speaker 2: feel that man's mere intelligence, to say nothing of his
Speaker 2: spiritual perceptions, would find some way of eliminating war. The
Speaker 2: contrast between Eisenhower and those generals who gloried in war
Speaker 2: could not have been greater. He had a very keen
Speaker 2: sense of family, of the way in which each casualty
Speaker 2: 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 Summersby 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
Speaker 2: it be responsive? He liked her enormously, probably had a
Speaker 2: crush 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 flaccied. 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 overwrote 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 permissioned to divorce
Speaker 2: his wife in order to marry Kay, which was always
Speaker 2: a ridiculous story to begin with, because he was a
Speaker 2: five star general. They don't ask anybody's permission to do anything.
Speaker 2: What he did ask Truman for was permission to have
Speaker 2: Mamie join him and occupied Germany throughout the war. When
Speaker 2: Kay was with him always, his love for Mamie was constant.
Speaker 2: His sustaining force was the thought that when the war
Speaker 2: was over, he and Mamie could live together again. He
Speaker 2: loved Mami for half a century, except when he was
Speaker 2: off at war. They slept in the same bed for
Speaker 2: 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 tenant 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 Patent,
Speaker 2: get your story. There. They're the ones that are winning
Speaker 2: this war for us. Sharing the credit for a success
Speaker 2: and taking the personal blame for what went wrong was
Speaker 2: Eisenhower's leadership style. In all the announcements of D Day,
Speaker 2: the operative words were the allies or we, and 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, was one of his favorite lines. A corollary
Speaker 2: to that sentiment was his willingness to sacrifice himself for
Speaker 2: the good of the whole. In early nineteen forty four,
Speaker 2: Eisenhower wanted to put the Allied bombers to work on
Speaker 2: transportation targets in France in order to isolate Normandy. The
Speaker 2: bomber commander said no, they wanted to continue the strategic
Speaker 2: bombing campaign inside Germany. Eisenhower felt so strongly about the
Speaker 2: issue that he told the combined chiefs of staff that
Speaker 2: either they gave him his transportation targets railroads and turntables
Speaker 2: and marshaling yards and bridges and the like in France,
Speaker 2: or I'm simply going to have to go home. In
Speaker 2: other words, Eisenhower was not ready to commit his forces
Speaker 2: to the attack until he was certain that he had
Speaker 2: utilized every asset he had to the uttermost. If he
Speaker 2: couldn't use the assets as he saw fit, he would
Speaker 2: resign his commission. When he made the threat, he was
Speaker 2: holding the most coveted command in the history of war warfare.
Speaker 2: He got his way, and the transportation plan was a
Speaker 2: big success. He later used the same threat in a
Speaker 2: knockdown dispute with Montgomery over strategy and command, and he
Speaker 2: again had his way. It was an integral part of him,
Speaker 2: this ability to know exactly when to use his personal asset,
Speaker 2: the power of his name, to make the ultimate threat.
Speaker 2: It showed a nice sense of balance about political factors
Speaker 2: and an accurate measurement of his own strength in a
Speaker 2: struggle over policy. He much preferred working with the team
Speaker 2: to having to act on his own. A stress on
Speaker 2: teamwork began when he was a child, showed again at
Speaker 2: West Point and was reinforced by his experiences as a
Speaker 2: football coach on various army bases in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2: By nineteen fifty two, the year Eisenhower entered into politics
Speaker 2: at age sixty two, his character is formed by heredity
Speaker 2: and experience, was set and cement. It included, as I
Speaker 2: have said, the qualities of love, honesty, faithfulness, responsibility, modesty, generosity, duty,
Speaker 2: and leadership, along with the hatred of war. These were
Speaker 2: bedrock or were they? This paragon of virtue I am
Speaker 2: describing had lived in the shelter of the army nearly
Speaker 2: all of his life. Character testing opportunities or temptations were
Speaker 2: almost unknown to him. It's easy to be virtuous when
Speaker 2: virtue is rewarded, and this will be a hard seldom
Speaker 2: any veterans in here, but it usually is in the army.
Speaker 2: It's not so easy to be virtuous when virtue is
Speaker 2: ignored and partisanship is rewarded, as in politics. He grew
Speaker 2: up in the army, and he swore like a sergeant,
Speaker 2: although the words used were never a secrule or had
Speaker 2: anything to do with anatomy. They were always christ and
Speaker 2: damned and goddamn and words like that. Once he was
Speaker 2: at a luncheon with some cabinet members during the fifty
Speaker 2: six reelection campaign, and someone said something about somebody proposing something,
Speaker 2: and Eisenhawers snorted, 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: character 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 Consul was preparing
Speaker 2: a paper calling for the use of atomic bombs to
Speaker 2: save the French at d 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 stories,
Speaker 1: and the story of Dwight D. Eisenhower is told by
Speaker 1: 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: do 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 Food 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 accept in your imagination. Another quality was patience. Make
Speaker 2: no 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 can still get away with it, he told them
Speaker 2: to be patient. But 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 aness,
Speaker 2: he pointed out, you and I our government must avoid
Speaker 2: plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources
Speaker 2: of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our
Speaker 2: grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and
Speaker 2: spiritual heritage. And then he uttered, what of 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 controlled
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 offlly.
Speaker 2: There was a four percent rise in real wages each
Speaker 2: year for blue collar workers. Indeed, by almost every standard
Speaker 2: GNP personal income and savings, home buying, auto purchases, capital investment,
Speaker 2: highway construction, and so forth, it was the best decade
Speaker 2: of the century. Shirley Eisenhower's fiscal policies, his refusal to
Speaker 2: cut taxes or increased defense spending, his insistence on a
Speaker 2: balanced budget, played some role in creating this happy situation.
Speaker 2: His special triumphs came in the field of foreign affairs
Speaker 2: and were directly directly related to his character. By making
Speaker 2: peace in Korea five months after taking office and avoiding
Speaker 2: war thereafter, and by holding down the cost of the
Speaker 2: arms race, he achieved greatness. No one knows how much
Speaker 2: money he saved the United States. No one knows how
Speaker 2: many lives he saved by ending the war in Korea
Speaker 2: and refusing to enter any others, despite a half dozen
Speaker 2: and more virtually unanimous recommendations to do so, Dn ben Fu,
Speaker 2: Kumoi Matsu, many others. But he made peace, and he
Speaker 2: kept the peace. Whether any other man could have led
Speaker 2: the country through that decade without going to war cannot
Speaker 2: be known. What we do know is that Eisenwer did it.
Speaker 2: Eisnower seldom boasted, but he did on this one. The
Speaker 2: United States never lost a soldier or a foot of
Speaker 2: ground in my administration. He said, we kept the peace.
Speaker 2: People ask how it happened. By God, it didn't just happen.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that his magnetic appeal to millions of
Speaker 2: his fellow citizens seemed to come about as a natural
Speaker 2: and effortless result of his sunny disposition. But he worked
Speaker 2: at his apparent artlessness. That big grin and bouncy step
Speaker 2: often masked depression, doubt, or utter weariness. He believed it
Speaker 2: was the critical duty of a leader to always exude optimism.
Speaker 2: He made it a habit to save all of his
Speaker 2: doubts for his pibble. For forty years, he changed smoked
Speaker 2: cigarettes four packs a day. At age fifty eight, he
Speaker 2: quit cold turkey, and he never again touched tobacco. Clearly
Speaker 2: he was a man of tremendous willpower, although at the
Speaker 2: Paris Summit, the abortive Paris Summit in nineteen sixty when
Speaker 2: Khrushoff was going on and on about Francis Gary powers
Speaker 2: and the YouTube and demanding an apology and pounding the
Speaker 2: table and saw an eyesower scribbled on the back of
Speaker 2: his minimal pad, God, I wish I had a cigarette.
Speaker 2: He used that tremendous willpower to conquer his own most
Speaker 2: negative characteristic, an awful temper. When he got mad, it
Speaker 2: just everybody knew immediately. His face just lit up, beat red,
Speaker 2: and and the tension in his body was a palpable
Speaker 2: thing that could be felt all through the room. His
Speaker 2: aides lived in terror of those moments of outbreak of
Speaker 2: his temper. Now anger that has contrived that is put
Speaker 2: on for show and a purpose. An actor's anger can
Speaker 2: be an effective tool leadership, It was one eyes now
Speaker 2: often used, but genuine anger, deep blind anger, is the
Speaker 2: 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 myself,
Speaker 2: what would I do? Sad to relate, I often come
Speaker 2: up short of his standards. My only consolation is that
Speaker 2: so do most of the men I know for whose
Speaker 2: 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 told by Stephen Ambrose here on our American Stories