Ike and a Bygone Pre-Partisan Times

Good morning. It’s March 28. President Dwight Eisenhower died on this day in 1969. And “Ike,” as he was affectionately known, can still teach us things.

The National Press Club is doing its part by screening a documentary about him, with a Q & A to follow. The film, “Eisenhower’s Secret War,” reveals how the 34th president of the United States talked peace with the Soviet Union while quietly overseeing the building of an arsenal so vast it would dissuade the Russians from ever considering war. Produced by historian George Colburn, the film is narrated by Eisenhower biographer Evan Thomas.

The 1950s were not really the sleepy, saccharine era of our memories: It was the decade of the Korean War, the Cuban Revolution, Hungarian Revolution, the Suez Crisis, the Red Scare, the National Guard in Little Rock, Sputnik, the start of rock ‘n’ roll, statehood for Hawaii and Alaska, and construction of NORAD.

Part of the reason for our nostalgia is that the decade that followed was so much more tumultuous. Another is that the American president for most of the 1950s guided his nation with a steady hand – and did so with the moral authority that came from his military service.

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can,” Ike once said, “only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” And so, he kept us out of war – but only while he was president.

By the time Eisenhower died at Walter Reed Army Hospital on March 28, 1969, the Vietnam War had shortened Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, and engulfed the political life of this nation. The man who preferred the honorific “General” after he left the White House was buried in his World War II uniform complete with the “Ike jacket” he made famous.

The array of medals Eisenhower had been awarded in his career didn’t fit easily on it, but no matter: as he lay in repose, first in Washington National Cathedral and then at the Capitol Rotunda, the only decorations pinned to his chest were the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal with three oak leaf clusters; a Navy Distinguished Service Medal, and the Legion of Merit.

The eulogy was delivered by Richard Nixon, and it was a good one. He described Eisenhower as a shrewd and decisive leader who always kept his head. “No matter how heated the arguments were,” Eisenhower’s former vice president recalled, “he was always then the coolest man in the room."

Looking back on it, it’s almost painful to think that if Nixon had listened to himself a little more closely that day – if he had endeavored to govern more like Ike – his own time in the White House would have ended more happily.

“In the political world, strong passions are the norm and all too often these turn toward personal vindictiveness,” Nixon noted. “People often disagreed with Dwight Eisenhower, but almost nobody ever hated him. And this, I think, was because he, himself, was a man who did not know how to hate.”

It’s hard to imagine now in our highly polarized political environment, but when Gen. Eisenhower was reporting to George C. Marshall during World War II - with Franklin Roosevelt as commander-in-chief – most Americans simply assumed Ike to be a New Dealer who, if he ever entered politics, would do so as a Democrat. Among those laboring under this misapprehension was Harry Truman.

It was an easy mistake to make, for Ike was not at heart an ideological or partisan man. And, like the everyday heroes in Barack Obama’s 2004 convention speech, he reflected the country he came from. In 1945, shortly after VE-Day, Eisenhower spoke in Guildhall, where grateful London officials honored him with the keys to the city.

In his address that day, Eisenhower deflected the personal acclaim with a simple declaration. "I come," he said, "from the heart of America.”