America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (20 page)

Nixon delivering the Checkers Speech

That Fall, the election went as expected. Eisenhower employed one of the simplest yet effective political slogans in American history, “I Like Ike”, and indeed Americans did. Eisenhower defeated the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, in a landslide, securing 442 electoral votes and over 55% of the popular vote. 

Ending the Korean War

Eisenhower's campaign had focused on opposition to the Korea War, and Ike personally insisted that his military background gave him special authority on the issue. As President, he intended to act.

Throughout the final Truman years, the Korea War devolved into an intransigent stalemate, with either side shifting or moving.  Eisenhower thought this set up was unsustainable.  On July 27
^th
, 1953, just months after assuming office, Eisenhower signed the Korean Armistice Agreement, ending American
active
engagement on the Korean Peninsula. The Armistice, however, did not end all American involvement with the Koreans.  Quite the opposite: it created a permanent base for American troops.  The Armistice importantly increased the United States' military presence across Asia, and solidified its place as a truly global power – not just a powerful force in European affairs.  At the same time, the U.S. began signing a series of mutual defense protection pacts with South Korea, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and other countries in Southeast Asia. One of them was South Vietnam.  With that, America’s commitment to limiting the expansion of communism in Asia was codified.

On foreign affairs, particularly in Asia, Eisenhower sought a more active approach than what was previously championed.  In Southeast Asia, the French were involved in a war in Indochina, and Truman had previously offered some assistance.  Eisenhower sent his Secretary of State to a Geneva Conference that ended the war on the peninsula and created two new countries: a North Vietnam and a South Vietnam.  The U.S., however, opposed the creation of a northern communist state in Vietnam, though at the time it took no immediate action.

Brown v. Board of Education

Though he ran and won on the strength of his military record, Eisenhower's first term was not dominated by foreign policy.  On the home front, the African-American Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy. 

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court released one of the shortest and most important decisions in history. In 1951, a class of plaintiffs, with Oliver Brown as the named plaintiff, had sued a school board in Topeka, Kansas on behalf of their children. They asserted that the segregated school system was not equal, as mandated by
Plessy v. Ferguson
, and that segregation was harming their children. In the late 19
^th
century, the notorious
Plessy v. Ferguson
decision had legalized separate but equal segregation, but over 50 years later, the Supreme Court reversed that ruling. The Supreme Court’s decision in
Brown v. Board of Education
was unanimous and simple, concluding that “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

Though Eisenhower was personally committed to integration and worked vigorously to more fully integrate the armed forces and desegregate Washington, he and his administration seemed unprepared to handle the enormous social upheaval dictated by the
Brown
decision.

Among the most important moments of the Civil Rights battle during the Eisenhower Administration was the Little Rock Crisis, which began in Eisenhower's second term.  The situation, however, had been steadily brewing since the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision. In 1957, the Governor of Arkansas utilized the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African-Americans from enrolling in white schools in Little Rock.  This was, of course, in direct defiance of federal law.  It presented one of the biggest sectional and legal crises since the dawn of the Civil War.

In response, Eisenhower felt the need to assert federal law in a powerful way.  He immediately removed the Arkansas National Guard from the command of Governor Orval Faubus and took it into his own hands.  In addition, he sent in troops that were stationed in nearby states in Kentucky and Alabama. With that, Faubus was silenced, and unable to hold federal law in contempt.  Eisenhower, however, further weakened his support in the South, though this move came after his reelection, so it was essentially a moot point. 
Brown
, however, did not help Eisenhower recruit much support in the South during his reelection in 1956.

The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in
Brown v. Board of Education
is often considered the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, yet the Civil Rights Movement wouldn’t reach its pinnacle until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a full 10 years after the Supreme Court’s decision. It’s often forgotten (perhaps out of political expedience and convenience) that the Supreme Court’s order wasn’t obeyed overnight.

President Andrew Jackson is often (and wrongly) quoted as remarking about an adverse Supreme Court decision, “Let [them] enforce it.” Though Jackson didn’t say it, the truth is that the Court’s order in
Brown v. Board of Education
could only be meaningful if enforced by the government. Cooperation was hardly forthcoming from the Solid South; in the “Southern Manifesto,” 101 Southern politicians vowed to fight the decision, arguing it was “contrary to the Constitution.” Aware of its own limitations, in a second opinion known as
Brown II
, the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of schools “with all deliberate speed.” Obviously, the South would ignore that dictate as well, and the desegregation of schools moved at a snail’s pace during the Eisenhower Administration.

The Civil Rights Movement would not pick up steam until the following decade.

The Suez Canal Crisis

The ball bounced between foreign and domestic policy repeatedly during Eisenhower's Presidency.  Just prior to Eisenhower's reelection day in 1956, Great Britain, France and Israel all declared war on Egypt, which had recently nationalized the Suez Canal, a critical link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Eisenhower had particularly pressed Britain not to invade and initiate a military action against Egypt over the matter.  He thought such a move would be unwise by permanently damaging relations with the country, which was strategically positioned to affect the canal one way or another. Britain did not heed the advice, and nor did France and Israel.  In response, Eisenhower was forced to push the United States to oppose its Western European allies, a rare move in recent American history.  More importantly, the move put the country on the side of its primary enemy, the Soviet Union, which also opposed the military operation in and around the Suez Canal because the Arab nations were vital Soviet allies in the Middle East.

To convince France, Britain and Israel, Eisenhower resorted to economics.  Eisenhower's positions on Israel were particularly unorthodox; his demand of a total withdrawal from Egypt was not widely supported within the United States.  He wanted to take things a step further, and impose U.N. sanctions on Israel to force the country to withdraw.  It represented a rare departure from the standard pro-Israel bend of American foreign policy that began with Truman’s near instant recognition of Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948.  Little of it was realized, however, because of the Democratic-controlled Congress, which would not cooperate with Eisenhower's demands.

The combined threats of Eisenhower and other European nations, however, was sufficient to force France and Britain to withdraw.  The extensive economic aid given to the two nations through the Marshall Plan gave the United States significant leverage over the two nations on diplomatic matters.  The U.S. denied oil aid to Britain through the International Monetary Fund as a way of pressuring the country.  At the height of the crisis, there was even talk of ejecting France and Britain from NATO, though that never formally came to anything.

Britain was the first to throw in the towel, signing an armistice on November 6
^th
, 1956.  All French and English forces withdrew by the end of the year.  Israeli forces, however, remained in Egypt until March of 1957.  It was a great humiliation for the three powers and symbolically marked the end of the British Empire. If it was not already clear that the torch had been passed from Britain across the Atlantic to the United States as the leader of the West and the free world, Eisenhower’s actions during the Suez Canal Crisis removed all doubt.

Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways

The one accomplishment of Eisenhower’s presidency that is probably the best known is the creation of the nation’s interstate highway system, which Eisenhower began to implement in the middle of his presidency by declaring the highway system an issue of national security in 1956. Eisenhower was intimately aware of the difficulties of crossing the country as a result of his excursion in 1919, and he viewed the inability to transport resources and military aid quickly across the country as problematic in the event of war.

Thus, the former general urged the creation of an Interstate Highway System like the Autobahn that would connect the lower 48 states, claiming it might be necessary for transporting the military in case of war. On June 29, 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Despite its official name, the legislation was known as the “National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956.”

Given the enormity of the United States, however, the creation of a nationwide highway system would be a grand undertaking. Eisenhower was a conservative in the fiscal sense and did not want to spend excessively on the highway system.  To finance the project, Eisenhower proposed a Highway Trust, which would consist of a federal gasoline tax.  It was modeled partly on the Social Security Trust, because it was an exclusive account that did not draw from general tax funds. Eisenhower was able to leverage his popularity into action, helping to establish funding for the highway a few years before construction began.

The bulk of the Federal Highway Act of 1956, however, focused on creating the Eisenhower Interstate System, which more effectively connected the 48 continental states through high-speed roads, or highways.  To pay for the project, 90% of the initial costs came from the Federal government, with the remaining 10% covered by the states.  Ongoing rehabilitation after initial creation would be funded by the Highway Trust.

One of the best known aspects of the Interstate Highway System is a prevailing myth that refuses to die. Many Americans have wrongly learned and continue to believe that the highway system, since it was justified as a defense measure, was designed for airplanes to land on them. It is often claimed that highways make flat runways in stretches every few miles so that planes can make emergency landings or transport military supplies in case of an invasion or emergency. While these highways have made evacuations possible a countless number of times, creating runways was not part of the design. In fact, in 1944, Congress considered legislation that would build a series of emergency airstrips that never went into effect.

The Highway Act was widely popular, encountering little opposition from either political party.  Eisenhower was pleased with the bill, considering it one of his most important accomplishments. Indeed, it has had far-reaching, and somewhat unintended consequences. The Interstate Highway System made interstate travel far easier, but the new highways made commuting to work possible, leading to the “urban flight” phenomenon. American demographics were completely reshaped after millions moved out of the city away from their jobs and into the more spacious suburbs. Moreover, most of the people leaving the cities were white, creating de facto segregation. The migration to the suburbs has had several negative consequences for the cities, causing a drain of money and manpower. Some cities have never fully recovered from urban flight, even while their suburbs continue to prosper.

The highway system has also had national consequences. Millions of Americans continue to rely on Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System everyday, meaning cars and gas prices are constantly among the most important segments of the American economy. In particular, the reliance on gas has had monumental political consequences for the country because the world’s largest oil reserves reside in the oil rich Middle East.  

Reflection and Cold War Developments

With the Highway Act, the end of the Korean War, and the Suez Crisis behind him, Eisenhower had stayed quite busy during his reelection season.  His opponent in 1956 was a familiar one: the Democrats renominated Adlai Stevenson, the same candidate they had put up in 1952.

The only major issue in the way of Eisenhower's reelection was his health.  He had suffered a heart attack in 1955, and there was some speculation that he would not seek reelection. Indeed, Eisenhower would suffer further health problems that required surgery during the middle of the Suez Crisis in 1956, and he suffered a mild stroke in 1957. Nevertheless, Eisenhower squashed concerns about his health and ran on his successful record from his first term.  Voters signaled that they were pleased with his record.  On Election Day, Eisenhower won by an even wider margin than he had in 1952, winning nearly 58% of the vote, and 41 out of 48 states.  He picked up more electoral votes than he had four years earlier.  Importantly, he lost the South again, but increased his margins due to black voters, who were happy with his assertive actions in support of
Brown v. Board of Education.