EISENHOWER. - Review - book reviews

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1999 by Fred I. Greenstein

EISENHOWER by Geoffery Perret Random House, $35

DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER is the least well understood of the modern presidents: enormously popular with the American public from his time as supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II through his death in 1969, but long held by analysts of American politics to have been a non-performing president.

A poll of specialists on the presidency conducted the year after Eisenhower stepped down relegated him to the rank of 19th century nonentities like Chester Arthur. Within two decades, however, a transformation of Eisenhower's reputation had begun in the scholarly literature. As the inner records of his presidency came into the public domain, an Eisenhower emerged who was far removed from the image he cast as figurehead president--giving the lie to the 1950s joke that it would be terrible if Eisenhower died and Vice President Nixon became president, but infinitely worse if Sherman Adams (Ike's stony-faced chief of staff) died and Eisenhower became president.

How interesting to discover, in the declassified record, that Eisenhower really was president--a skilled political operator with an interesting and complex personality who engaged in the kinds of politicking that many believed he left to subordinates. But he politicked in a nonstandard manner, with an indirect approach that preserved his popularity by leaving it to his subordinates to carry out his administration's most controversial policies.

With the 2000 campaign underway, the time is right for a biography that yields insight on this insufficiently understood leader, and gives a benchmark against which to measure the candidates--not to mention giving them food for thought about how to approach the presidency.

Unfortunately, Geoffrey Perret's Eisenhower is ill-suited for those purposes. It falls short of the standard set by Stephen Ambrose's two-volume life, published in the early 1980s and updated in 1992. Ambrose's perspective is clearer and more explicit than Perret's, which is incomplete in its coverage and use of sources, choppy in its narrative, and dogmatic in its interpretations.

A related deficiency is Perret's tendency to pronounce on what Eisenhower was thinking when the record is silent on the matter. In one such instance, Perret goes so far as to read his subject's unconscious mind, declaring that Eisenhower regretted that he was constitutionally ineligible for a third term in 1960. This bit of clairvoyance is suspect: Eisenhower, after all, had refused to seek the presidency in 1948 despite diligent attempts to persuade him, ran reluctantly in 1952 and gave serious thought to not seeking reelection in 1956. Given that he had suffered a heart attack, a stroke, and a severe gastrointestinal disorder during his time in the White House and turned 70 in October 1960, it is extremely unlikely that he harbored a secret desire to run again.

Despite its flaws, however, Perret's Eisenhower is a serious effort to make sense of an important figure. It benefits from sources that have become available since Ambrose wrote on Eisenhower. And it stimulates thought about several lessons that might be derived from the man and his methods:

Leadership style. Eisenhower's oblique style would be hard for modern presidents to emulate. Behind-the-scenes leadership works better for a deeply trusted national figure who earned the nation's confidence in a non-political role than for a leader whose public support depends on day-to-day results. It does not serve less conservative presidents with more ambitious domestic aims. It also is less likely to succeed in the goldfish bowl of contemporary Washington. Still, Eisenhower's practice of downplaying the divisive side of presidential leadership and accentuating the president's ecumenical responsibilities can be politically rewardin even today; if appropriately adapted.

Organization of the presidency. No other chief executive entered the White House with the organizational experience of the commander of the Normandy invasion, and none has put comparable effort into making his White House work: For example, Eisenhower's process for national security policy planning. Eisenhower initiated a procedure in which the top planners of each of the agencies represented in the National Security Council met regularly to flush out policy disagreements, which were spelled out in option papers, sometimes in parallel columns, and debated and resolved at the NSC's weekly meetings. Eisenhower himself made decisions in the presence of small groups of aides in the Oval Office, not in NSC meetings.

Public communication. When it comes to use of the bully pulpit, Eisenhower is a negative role model. His pre-existing public support made it unnecessary for him to sell himself, his hidden-hand leadership style reduced his interest in public persuasion, and, to top it off, he was an earnest, but uninspiring, speaker. Eisenhower's shortcomings as a public communicator proved costly in the tempest of allegations that his administration had allowed a "missile gap" to develop favoring the Soviet Union. Eisenhower's lack of success in refuting that charge brought Kennedy into the White House pledging to remedy a non-existent deficiency and pressing on with a massive increase in the nation's nuclear arsenal.