Historical Series: Military as President
Part 7: MacArthur and Eisenhower in 1952
History has done much to vindicate much of what happened in Harry Truman’s second term but while it was going on Truman was excoriated by Americans. Some of this was self-inflicted — as I wrote in an earlier article Truman’s rhetoric towards Congressional Republicans during his whistle-stop campaign made many of them angry at the time and they were less inclined to be favorable when he won — but some of it did seem be based in ineptitude. And one of the biggest problems of his second term was the Korean War.
After North Korea invading South Korea the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended MacArthur to lead the UNC forces in South Korea. Initially he was successful. By July of 1950 he was planning an amphibious operation of the type that the year before Omar Bradley predicted would never happen again. That September, despite lingering concerns he did just that and outflanked North Korea and recapture Seoul.
Pleased by this Truman issued an order for forces for an advance beyond the 38th parallel into North Korea. This decision was made entirely by the Truman and his senior advisors and was met with controversy because the orders of the resolution meant only to restoration of South Korea below that parallel. MacArthur was hesitant but eventually it was greenlit by the UN. MacArthur planned another amphibious assault on Wonsan but it fell to South Korean troops. Truman and MacArthur would meet at Wake Island where he awarded him his fifth Distinguished Service Medal. Asked briefly about the Chinese threat MacArthur dismissed it.
A month later things changed. At Unsan Chinese soldiers entered the war and most MacArthur and American intelligence miscalculated nearly fivefold the number of Chinese military in Korea. Many would believe that because of MacArthur’s rhetoric Mao chose to enter the war but in fact he’d been planning ever since the troops landed in South Korea.
In November the Eighth Army was attacked by the Chinese and soon the UN Forces were in retreat. After the offensive MacArthur’s luster was badly tarnished and his credibility suffered, particularly after he had to retreat from North Korea. After the fall of Seoul in January of 1951, Truman and MacArthur were forced to contemplate abandoning Korea entirely. MacArthur had been public in believing that he wanted to drop atomic bombs on Korea. This rhetoric made Europe fear the Soviet entry into the war and that World War III might result.
Seoul was recaptured in March of that year. Truman wanted to offer a negotiated peace. But on March 24th MacArthur called upon China to admit defeat, challenging both the Chinese and his own superiors. That same month MacArthur began to rally support from Congress to support his position on conducting the war and was secretly informing Spanish and Portuguese diplomats in Tokyo that he was thinking of ‘disposing of the Chinese Communist Question once and for all.”
An enraged Truman consulted with his cabinet and military leaders and they believed MacArthur should be relieved of his command. This decision was the most unpopular of his Presidency and it made MacArthur a hero by the nation. As a result by the end of February 1952 Truman’s approval rating sat at 22 percent, still the lowest approval rating in the history of Gallup polls. The 22nd Amendment which limited a President to 2 terms had been made law in 1951 but Truman was grandfathered in. However because of his unpopularity, he chose not to run for reelection.
Many wanted MacArthur to run and he spent many of the months after his firing giving the appearance of a political candidate. But the majesty that worked for him in a uniform did not carry over to the stump and the huge crowds he initially drew became smaller over time. MacArthur did want the Presidency but just as in 1948 he wanted the Republicans to him for it. And this time around neither the party nor the public wanted him as much. After 20 years out of power it would not have been healthy for democracy not to elect a Republican in 1952. The nominee seems almost certain of victory even before he was chosen.
With Thomas Dewey having lost twice before no one seriously considered him in 1952. But many of the same men who’d been considered serious contenders four years earlier were still willing to hunt for it. Among them the heavy favorite was Dewey’s great rival for the nomination during the decade and who had narrowly lost to him four years earlier at Philadelphia: Senator Robert Taft of Ohio.
In many ways Taft was the model of conservatives that were to come in the second half of the twentieth century: adamantly opposed to the New Deal and organized labor, rabid Anti-Communist (he was one of Joe McCarthy biggest early supporters) and an adamant foe of the Eastern establishment. However unlike the major of the Midwestern bloc he remained firmly an isolationist. While other major members of that group including Arthur Vandenberg had moved towards an internationalist tone, Taft stubbornly remained opposed to the US part in a post-World War II world. He had opposed almost every aspect of the post-war policy: entry into the United Nations, resistant to the Marshall Plan, stubbornly refusing to vote for NATO. And it was that last position that would start the path of Eisenhower towards seeking the Presidency for real.
Eisenhower had become President of Columbia in June of 1948. However he tired of it quickly and in February of 1949 served as informal chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff. In October of 1950 President Truman offered Eisenhower the position of Supreme Commander. The following January he made an exploratory trip of Europe visiting every Western European nation in the new alliance. At the end of the month, he returned to DC and urged a joint session of Congress to give bipartisan support.
He prepared a meeting with Taft and drafted a statement which he planned to issue if the Ohio senator endorsed NATO he was going to make it very clear he had no intention of seeking the Presidency in 1952. But when Taft came to his office and Eisenhower hinted at that fact Taft still refused to commit to the alliance. After he left Eisenhower called his assistants to the office removed the statement from his pocket and tore it up. Taft was one of only thirteen Senators to vote against the treaty but his determination to run for the Presidency in 1952 began to push Eisenhower more towards declaring his candidacy.
The East Coast Republicans, prominent led by Dewey, Henry Cabot Lodge and his old friend Lucius Clay began to nudge him. However he equivocated on a decision so without his approval Lodge entered Eisenhower in the New Hampshire primary. It took until February for him to formally commit.
In what was the first real primary campaign for the Presidency in history Eisenhower began his campaign by sweeping to victory over Taft in New Hampshire with more than fifty percent of the vote and taking all 14 delegates. The rest of the campaign, however, was a back and forth between the two men with some shocks.
A week later Harold Stassen attempted to revive his hopes for the Republican nomination in Minnesota. However he only narrowly defeated Eisenhower with 44 percent to the general’s 37. He received 24 delegates. On April 1st Taft won the beauty contest primary in Nebraska and more impressive swept to victory in Wisconsin with 41 percent of the vote. When Stassen finished a distant third, he was essentially finished as a contender: Eisenhower had finished second.
The two men would exchange back and forth throughout the year. Taft won in Illinois, Eisenhower New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Taft took his home state of Ohio and swept to victory in West Virginia. Eisenhower won in Oregon but Taft narrowly beat him in South Dakota. Both stayed out of California where favorite son and dark horse Earl Warren easily won.
Overall Taft had done better in the popular vote that nearly 2.8 million votes to Eisenhower’s 2 million. But when it came to delegates both men were neck and neck. Taft had a small lead and claimed 525 delegates. Eisenhower had around 500. 604 were needed to clinch the nomination.
When the convention met in Chicago on July 6th the struggle was going to come down to three states that both candidates contested: Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Combined 70 votes were in play. The credential committee of the convention was controlled by Taft’s supporters and they voted to seat Taft’s delegates. Eisenhower’s forces challenged the decision.
Herbert Brownell, Dewey’s former campaign manager and now part of Eisenhower’s team , proposed what was called a ‘fair play amendment’ that would force a floor vote on the seating of the delegation. A win for Taft would assure him nearly all of the votes from those states. If Eisenhower won, momentum shifted in his direction.
Waiting this out was Earl Warren. Warren had 90 delegates in play so his strategy was to hope the Taft-Eisenhower forces would deadlock and that after enough ballots, the Republicans would turn to him. This was hardly unprecedented; just twelve years earlier a deadlock between Taft and Dewey had led to the conditions that led Wendell Wilkie to emerge and receive the GOP nomination on the sixth ballot. Considering that four years earlier it had taken three ballots to finally nominate Dewey in part because neither Taft nor Stassen could compromise.
What Warren didn’t know but would quickly learn was that a member of his own delegation was more ambitious then him. Richard Nixon was a rising star in politics at 39 and already known as one of the dirtiest and most polarizing figures in either party. He and Warren had never gotten along and almost from the start of Warren’s campaign he had been working to undermine his candidacy, secretly polling California Republicans as to who their second choice for President was, then sharing the results with an LA reporter.
Without his knowledge Eisenhower’s team had been courting Nixon. They were unsure whether Warren intended to stay in past the first ballot (delegates were only loyal to their candidate for that one) and they worried the senior senator from California William Knowland, a strong supporter of Taft, would deliver delegates to him on the second ballot. They believed Nixon’s support could fend off a challenge. They also believed he would balance the ticket as Vice President to Eisenhower. Nixon was 39 to Ike’s 61, a tough campaigner and could very well carry California which had gone to the Democrats for every presidential election since FDR’s first run.
Nixon began to maneuver behind the scenes from the start, urging them to vote for Eisenhower on the first ballot
Before the Fair Play amendment was voted on supporters of both Taft and Eisenhower sought out Warren and the delegation was divided: Knowland urged them to split their vote; Nixon to vote in a unit. Warren was opposed to Knowland’s position and as a result, the resolution was narrowly supported.
Before the balloting took place Taft approached Warren and off3ered him the cabinet position of his choice if he released his delegates to him on the first ballot. Warren refused, as much because of his personal dislike of Taft, which had escalated during the primary and more importantly ideologically. The two men had a warm meeting and Warren left speaking favorably of him but his delegates remained for him.
When the first ballot occurred Eisenhower finished with 594 votes to Taft’s 505. However before the roll call could begin for a second ballot the Minnesota delegation, pledged to support favorite son Harold Stassen, released its delegates to put Eisenhower over the top.
Strangely enough Eisenhower was detached and aloof during this tense convention, with his campaign managers making the decision for him. Indeed when Brownell raised the discussion of his vice president, he actually seemed amazed it was his decision to make. When they told him they wanted Nixon he agreed, later saying that he was tired and wanted to go home.
The next month the Democrats met to decide their new standard bearer. Estes Kefauver had won the majority of the primaries but few were eager for him to lead. There were many attractive candidates — Oklahoma’s Robert Kerr, Vice President Alben Barkley — but after giving the welcoming speech the delegates began to embrace the governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson. Though he claimed he was not a candidate, the convention delegates warmed to him and he was nominated on the third ballot (the last time it has taken more than one ballot to nominate a President for either party)
Eisenhower campaigned actively and was the first candidate of either party to extensive use television to campaign. Still he did have issues, particularly with most zealous anti-Communists of the party, McCarthy and William Jenner of Indiana. Both men had condemned George Marshall, Ike’s old boss and mentor as being ‘a fence men for traitors’. In his first remarks to this he told columnist Murray Kempton that there was never a more patriotic citizen then Marshall.” But when Jenner wanted to campaign with him, it led to difficulty. He shared the stage with him but never mentioned him by name and the minute he got off stage he said: “I felt dirty at the touch of the man.”
However he was less bold when campaigning with McCarthy. Campaigning in Wisconsin, he inserted a paragraph in which he went out of his way to defend Marshall and indirectly attack McCarthy. But the governor of Wisconsin red his remarks in advance and urged him to delete them to risk losing the state. Eisenhower not only did so but made a McCarthy like speech discussing ‘the Communist infiltration’ of Truman’s government. Truman never respected Eisenhower again and Ike himself later regretted his decision.
Perhaps the most famous moment of Ike’s campaign occurred in October when, in response to the stalemate in the Korean War said to a crowd: “I shall go to Korea” in a nationally televised speech. His poll numbers which were already high spiked.
The result was a landslide for Eisenhower in November. He carried 39 of 48 states and 442 electoral votes to Adlai Stevenson’s 89 and won 55 percent of the popular vote, the greatest majority since FDR’s first reelection campaign. He also made inroads in the Democratic South, carrying Florida, Texas, Virginia and Louisiana. No Republican had carried the first three states since Herbert Hoover in 1928; no Republican had carried Louisiana since Reconstruction. In addition Eisenhower had managed to make gains in the South while making significant progress with the African-American vote, which had been drifted towards the Democrats since FDR’s first term, carrying between 33 and 35 percent.
But despite Eisenhower’s claims that his victory was for the kind of Republican government he stood for, the results in Congress told a far different story. While the Republican did regain the House with 221 seats to the Democrats 213, the Democrats actually came out slightly ahead in the popular vote nationwide, mainly because of the overwhelming majorities in the Solid South. (Republicans did gain Congressional seats in Virginia and North Carolina for the first time since Hoover.). Furthermore Republicans only managed to gain two Seats in the Senate, losing seats, Washington Missouri and Montana that they had gained in 1946. All three Senators elected — Henry Jackson, Stuart Symington and Mike Mansfield would hold their seats for decades to come.
The majority in the Senate didn’t even survive Eisenhower’s election. Because of Eisenhower’s choice to put Nixon on the ticket and his refusal to repudiate McCarthy, Wayne Morse of Oregon, first elected as a Republican in 1944, declared he would be an Independent. During Ike’s first session nine Senators would die, including Robert Taft just months after becoming majority leader. In the 1954 midterms the Democrats gained two seats and when Wayne Morse agreed to caucus with them (he officially became a Democrat in 1955) the Democrats regained control of the Senate and would not relinquish until 1980. During that same year the Democrats regained control of the House and would hold the majority in that body until 1994.
Eisenhower would defeat Stevenson by an even larger landslide in 1956, this time taking 41 states and 457 electoral votes, the largest amount any Republican President had received to that point. He would increase his support among Democrats, mid-western white Ethnic groups and the South and also win nearly 37 percent of the black vote. He also added Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia to his electoral count. And yet despite this landslide both Houses of Congress essentially remained unchanged, with the Democrats actually gaining seats in the House while the Senate remained exactly the same. Eisenhower only had a Congress of both parties for the first two years of his first term; after that he faced a divided government.
Despite this Eisenhower has been ranked among the greatest Presidents in U.S. history consistently over the last half century, ranking as high as eighth in the most recent poll of historians. His Presidency did indeed have much to admire: the slow move towards integration, led by Earl Warren on the Supreme Court (Eisenhower later said his appointment was the biggest mistake he ever made), the building of the interstate highway, the beginnings of the U.S. space race and the first Civil Rights Bill since Reconstruction. He also scored many triumphs internationally, brining about an armistice in the Korean War, resolving both the Suez Crisis and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in the fall of 1956 and establishing the Eisenhower Doctrine, effectively solidifying America’s post World War II foreign policy.
As for Douglas MacArthur he had been present in the Republican convention as well. Not long after his health began to deteriorate. In June of 1960 he was decorated by the Japanese government with the Order of the Rising Sun, the highest Japanese order conferred on an individual who is not a head of state. He would consul Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. He would urged Kennedy to avoid a military buildup in Vietnam and advised him to deal use the blockade strategy during the Cuban missile Crisis. Kennedy heavily trusted MacArthur because whenever he was urged to increase involvement in Laos or Vietnam by practically anyone he would tell them: “Well, you gentlemen, you go back and convince MacArthur, then I’ll be convinced. Perhaps Lyndon Johnson would have taken the same advice but MacArthur never got a chance to give it. He died on April 5 1964, four months before the Gulf of Tonkin.
I will conclude the series with how the military’s diminishing role in Presidential candidates.