The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

University of Virginia history professor, William Hitchcock has a written a very sympathetic, and I think accurate, history of the Eisenhower era of 1944 – 1961. I grew up as a child of the era in a middle class neighborhood in Queens. To us the 1950’s was not an era of blandness and racism as liberals would describe it, but rather it was one of hope and optimism. It was truly a time of a broadly shared prosperity. We were well aware of Jim Crow in the South, but every day Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers we cheered him on and knew that the world was becoming a better place.Eisenhower’s opening acts were to make peace in Korea and to stay out of France’s war in Indochina. To be sure his time represented the heyday of the CIA with successful coups in Guatemala and Iran. Further he deftly dealt with Senator Joe McCarthy watching him burn out.Just before the election of 1956 Eisenhower faced the dual crises of the Hungarian Revolution along with the Anglo-French/Israeli invasion of Egypt during the Suez crisis. Hitchcock calls Eisenhower a realist in failing to intervene in Hungary after the Soviets invade. I am not so sure, The U.S. could have done more. As to the Suez crisis he completely ignored the reason for Israel’s participation. Namely it was a reaction to the Egyptian sponsored fedeyeen raids from the Sinai into Israel attacking civilians. He is too casual in lumping Israel in with Britain and France with respect to motivation.The Russian launching of their Sputnik satellite in 1957 triggered a major crisis in the administration and led to calls of a missile gap. Although there may have been one in 1957, by 1960 the U.S. had clear military superiority over the Russians with the development of the Atlas, Titan, Minuteman and Polaris missiles. The missile gap that JFK talked of in 1960 was a myth.Throughout his administration Eisenhower concentrated his efforts on building up U.S. strategic forces and trying to reach a modus vivendi with the Soviets. He tried with a Summit meeting in 1954 and tried again with the planned summit meeting in 1960. That summit blew up when Eisenhower was caught lying about the failed U-2 over-flight mission over the Soviet Union. Here Hitchcock is particularly acute in going through the “tick-tock” of the entire episode.One of the heroes of the book is Attorney General Herbert Brownell who was leading the charge on civil rights. It is here where Hitchcock differs from Caro in his telling of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. According to Caro Johnson was the prime mover, but according to Hitchcock it is Johnson who so waters down the bill to make it far less relevant. Remember the Senate was voting on the Eisenhower Administration’s bill. It is also here that Hitchcock makes an error in recounting that it took 60% of the Senate to over-ride a filibuster. That is true today, but in 1957 it took 67%.Although many historians are critical of Eisenhower’s slow walking civil rights in the 1950s. Hitchcock rightly notes that Eisenhower used federal troops to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957 and was vilified throughout the south. Kennedy was no different as he also slow walked civil rights until 1963.Hitchcock notes that Eisenhower leaves Kennedy with crises in Laos and Cuba where a CIA sponsored invasion is on the offing. Unfortunately Kennedy got caught up in the momentum of the moment with disastrous results. But that all takes place prior to Eisenhower’s farewell address where he warns of the power accumulating in the military-industrial complex he largely created.All told William Hitchcock has offered a terrific history of the era and foreign policy of the Eisenhower Administration. I highly recommend it for both lay and professional readers.

Finally, we have a book that does justice to the years that Eisenhower was president. Most books on his presidency handle him as the guy between Truman and Kennedy (who were to these writers obviously more important presidents, but not to me). And, not to this author - he starts the book by referencing a recent poll of 100 historians that ranked Eisenhower as our fifth best president (after Lincoln, Washington, Franklin Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt). He then laid out the case, based upon facts, that Eisenhower was in fact that great - both in international and domestic affairs. Truman and Kennedy were reactive presidents whose approaches resulted in the Korean War and the closest that we came to a nuclear war (Cuban Missile Crisis). Eisenhower met with National Security Advisers on an ongoing basis and listened to him, but he made the decision (unlike the unfair criticism heaped on him by his critics). Domestically, the economy hummed as individual wages increased and unemployment was low (in spite of two minor recessions). There are more positive facts, that show that Eisenhower was a great president and deserves these accolades. If you want to learn the truth regarding this great president, the greatest of my lifetime, I recommend reading this book. You won't be disappointed.

Very readable, no confusion, doesn't get lost in dates and names, political opinions or policy commentary. I was surprised how much I didn't know or of which I had too simplified of knowledge. As a teenager this history was ongoing for me so it was not a part of my American history curriculum. I am much clearer on USA domestic and international history because of this book. It is a page turner, informs but doesn't dwell. The age of Eisenhower was not a bland, boring, did-nothing era - not the happy days that is the general description of those years between 1952-1960. Last chapter is interesting about the transition to JFK, from a 70 year old to a 43 year old. This book was not a biography or memoir, it was the historical events, backgrounds, actions, and consequences; at least to me a lot of inside or otherwise not generally disclosed information. After reading this book, you'll change your opinion that Eisenhower spent most of his time on the golf course or playing bridge. I would recommend to any history buff, it is not one-sided nor a propaganda piece. A lot of what occurred or was done/not done would have been more transparent and publicly debated in today's world. After WW2 people wanted peace and calm, but in fact that was not the case behind the scenes of this historical time.

A good policy history, one especially strong on foreign relations, for America in the 1950s and very early '60s as influenced or directed by Dwight Eisenhower.While Professor Hitchcock points out several flaws and failures in leadership (such as being weak on the moral issue of institutional racism or the errors in handling the U-2 spy plane crisis), Eisenhower is positively portrayed here as more active, thoughtful, and effective than often credited with at the time or over the decades immediately following his departure from the White House. He made many good calls and ran a fundamentally honest administration.Much happened in the time when Eisenhower was making the big decisions during the Cold War and the decolonization of the Third World; a book such as this helps one appreciate that it was not just TV westerns, lemonade, and baseball immediately prior to the agitated and rebellious 1960s.

That's what a poll of historians decided in 2017. Hitchcock's well-written book provides support for this rating. A remarkable comeback for a President whose reputation was in decline when he left office. Ike felt Nixon's defeat to Kennedy in 1960 was also a verdict on the Eisenhower years and himself. Castigated by opponents as a do-nothing President, old, sickly and out of touch. Long past his sell-by date and leading his nation only into decline. Such was the campaign waged by Kennedy which forced Nixon onto the back foot in having to defend a 1950's legacy which seemed at best defensive and at worst bumbling.The Cold War and Anti-Communism dominated these years. Having 'lost' China to the Reds in 1949, America's policy of Containment became the central if rather ill-defined response to the 'spread of Communism'. But what yardsticks existed to decide what exactly constituted a Communist threat or 'subversion' - or whether the US had successfully neutralised such threats? The answer is none. Eisenhower had to rise to this challenge as the world's two new superpowers squared up to each other with their increasing nuclear arsenals. Dangerous times indeed.Ike's detractors said he had not done enough. Ending the Korean War in 1953 still left Communists holding the North. The same with North Vietnam. Many said something more should have been done to help Hungary in their 1956 Uprising. Then came the Sputnik Scare in 1957 and the spectre of a 'missile gap' leaving the US exposed to a Soviet strike. Then 'losing' Cuba in 1959 and finally the U-2 debacle in 1960. Eisenhower seemed reactive rather than proactive. By 1960 both Republican Rightists like Goldwater and Democrat Liberals like JFK were each talking the language of 'rollback' rather than mere containment. Defence of Freedom and Democracy required the US to flex its muscles in some vigorous but always ill-defined way. Such was Ike's immediate legacy in 1960-1.The problem for both Ike and Nixon was that their secret intelligence reports showed the US had a clear lead over the USSR in all areas of new technology. The Reds may have put a beeping satellite up in 1957 but after 1959 the US had its Corona spy satellites collecting photographic evidence of Soviet capabilities. Only declassified in the 1990's. By 1960 the U-2 spy plane cat was out of the bag but its downing by a Soviet missile seemed more of a defeat than an affirmation of US ingenuity. Any US President of this era had to show he was being tough enough in combating the Communist menace. The problem was how. Such pressure led JFK into the Bay of Pigs and LBJ into Vietnam.Hitchcock performs a useful service in showing us that Ike was Cold War Warrior Number One. In one of his pre-inaugural talks with JFK, Ike revealed plans underway to oust Castro and to send troops to Laos if the Communist threat intensified. We are left feeling a little sorry for the young JFK on whose inexperienced shoulders was placed the expectation that something must be done about Cuba. Different times have different dynamics. Ike steered clear of land wars in the 1950's but there is no guarantee he would have done this in the 1960's.Ike's military career made him particularly well-qualified to be President in the 1950's. He had vast experience in both the organisation of war and the politics of statesmanship. He understood the capabilities and limitations of military action but had to work out the new exigencies of nuclear weapons for himself. He showed great wisdom and restraint in steering his country and the world through the crises which erupted. In particular, he never stopped looking for a peaceful accommodation with the USSR. He repeatedly drew attention to the money being wasted on arms which could be put to better purposes.Irony haunts history. Ike was a small-state, fiscal conservative who managed to balance budgets and left the USA a creditor nation. By 1970 it had become a debtor and was forced off the gold standard. Yet Ike also presided over the mushroom growth of a military-industrial complex which he warned about in 1961. He disliked New Deal and Fair Deal big government which he thought sapped the American spirit. And yet social security expanded under his watch. He sent paratroopers to enforce desegregation in Little Rock although he publicly stated that 'laws cannot change the hearts of men'. Ike built the new Interstate Highway System. Federal government had never been bigger than under Ike. The Presidency had indeed become 'Imperial'. He invoked executive privilege 44 times during 1955-60 in order to protect his presidency from the prying eyes of Congress. Hitchcock omits to mention that Ike was the first president to receive a pension and bodyguard upon retiring.Ike believed very much in self-discipline and the work ethic. Golf was his recuperation from a punishing work schedule. Yet the amazing rise in American living standards under his watch brought new anxiety about Christian spirituality being undermined by excessive materialism. The first ever President baptised in office, Ike resurrected the homespun religiosity he had experienced as a boy and genuinely thought that God made men free in a way that atheistic Communism did not. And yet as their President became more religious in old age many Americans seemed to be turning from God to Mammon.Hitchcock deplores the disastrous effects of Ike's covert CIA activities in the Third World. US paranoia about 'losing' states to Communism meant that millions of newly-independent Third World people were denied the chance of social justice. Land redistribution, nationalisation of foreign-held assets, sovereign assertion of the right to control the indigenous economy all smacked of Communism. The result was CIA-backed coups or attempted coups in Guatemala, Iran, Indonesia, Congo and Cuba. Thuggish, murdering right-wing dictators held sway for decades over much of the Third World with US support and blessing. The Mobutus and Somozas.This, of course, was both Irony and Hypocrisy writ large. The great anti-Imperialist USA now developed its own indirect form of imperialism. Having wrested independence from European colonial powers, Third World countries now became beholden to the USA as to what type of government they could have. Mere pawns in the new Titanic struggle between the superpowers. In fighting for Freedom and Democracy, the USA only succeeded in crushing both in many countries. Assassinations, coups, economic pressure, media manipulation. No holds barred.The author does not go into much detail about the role of corporations in American domestic and foreign politics during this period. He does mention the corporate bosses who became Ike's buddies and hosts. The interests of corporate America and the USA itself had in fact become synonymous. American Fruit Company profits gained from exploiting cheap labour in Guatemala had to be protected from leftist reformers. Castro in Cuba threw up the same nightmare scenario. Geopolitics is an unholy mix of Profit and Power.Ike was a pragmatist and a moderate conservative but he was also a Warrior. He built up America's arsenal as a necessity and then warned about it's threat to American democracy. He may have agreed with General Smedley Butler (died 1940) that 'War is a racket'. I do believe that Ike was pacifically inclined. But his main life experience from 1941 to 1961 was two decades of war, hot and cold. The price of peace is eternal vigilance.The author suggests that the realities of power forced leading lights in the Kennedy Administration to believe they were merely copying Ike rather than achieving a fresh start. Only in giving a moral leadership with civil rights did JFK distance himself from Ike. But different times, different dynamics. Hitchcock tries to deflect criticism of Ike's record in this matter by suggesting that many leading Negroes were satisfied with his actions. Such matters are difficult to quantify. Did LBJ really water down the 1957 Civil Rights Act ?Ike's reputation has improved because of changing perspectives. Vietnam War, debtor status, deindustrialisation, unsatisfactory wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have combined to make the the 1950's appear as halcyon days - on both sides of the Atlantic. The French have their Trente Glorieuses, the Brits their 'You've never had it so good.' The Yanks now apparently have their Age of Eisenhower.An excellent overview. Highly recommended.

The British parliament requires someone of Ike’s stature at the moment who listens to all.

O livro aborda a época do talvez presidente americano mais forte, com as instituições mais sólidas e mais confiáveis até Nixon.Desenha toda a política externa do país, as grandes transformações da década de 1950, uma decênio que viu mais nações do que se tinha visto em qualquer época da humanidade, é discutido o movimento terceiro-mundista, as disputas coloniais, os golpes e contra-golpes e toda a redimensão da geopolítica internacional.Dentro dos Estados Unidos é comentado a Primavera McCarthy, a ascensão do movimentos dos direitos civis dos negros, o estado de bem estar e toda a propaganda da vida americana.O autor não endeusa o biografado, enxerga seus erros e seus acertos, em suma, um excelente livro.