Why I LIke Ike

“Moderation shall rule in all things except exact sciences and morality”                         

 Dwight David Eisenhower

A friend recently asked me which President during my life was my favorite. Easy, I said, I like Ike. I usually get a blank stare when I say this and this time was no exception. Many of my contemporaries, Baby Boomers, have little memory of Eisenhower’s administration other than nostalgia – egg crèmes, tail fins, pastel colors, hoop skirts and the like. Those are my memories too. However, I love history and the 50’s provide some interesting perspectives.

Many people think of Ike as a “do nothing” President. By the end of his second term, he was old and ill having survived a heart attack while in office. Energetic and thriving, the WW II generation (“… born in this century…” as JFK put it) were anxious to move on. JFK’s “vigor” (or, “vigah” as he famously said it with his Boston accent) seemed like just the ticket. Ike’s image wasn’t helped by the televised White House tour hosted by Jackie Kennedy in 1962 in which she pointed out the damage to the Oval Office floor from Ike’s golf cleats. He apparently liked to practice his putting from time to time.

Do-nothing? Well, one thing he didn’t do is get us into Vietnam after the French were defeated by the Viet Cong in 1954. Also, he didn’t send troops to Hungary in 1956 to fight the Soviets as many conservatives wanted him to do.

Eisenhower was motivated to run for President because he wanted to ensure that international institutions created after WW II were preserved – NATO, the United Nations. The conservative wing of his party, led by Robert Taft, was "non-interventionist". I don’t know if there were rumors of black helicopters but the sentiment springs from the same well.

Here are some things that do-nothing Ike did. He ended the armed conflict in Korea. He initiated the development of the interstate highway system, joined the space race through the establishment of NASA, paid down the extensive debt from WW II and ran a balanced budget. He eschewed party politics, leaving that burden to his Vice President. Absent politics, how did he decide the best course? In his own words:

“I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?”

I had the extraordinary privilege of attending a dinner last week at which the guest speaker was US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. The event, arranged by good friend and colleague, Phil Bakes, and sponsored by The Strategic Forum was awe inspiring. Moreover, Justice Breyer gave us another reason to like Ike.

The Justice, who carries a copy of the US Constitution in his coat pocket, cited the Federalist Papers to provide context for the establishment of the Supreme Court. The framers were concerned about the court having too much power, it seems. They were finally persuaded that the Court represented no threat. After all, they had no power of the purse or to order military action.

The power of the Court was put to the test in 1830 when it found that the Cherokee Nation had rights to the land it occupied in Georgia. What did President Andrew Jackson do? He ignored the Court’s ruling and evicted the Cherokees anyway. Their journey west to Oklahoma along with other tribes, Creeks, Choctaw and Seminole, was called the Trail of Tears as roughly half the Native Americans didn’t survive the trip.

Now, I knew all that. What I didn’t know was that this was the first of many Court rulings that Presidents over the succeeding 125 years chose not to enforce. The Court having no military or financial authority was powerless. Until the 1954 Brown v. the Board of Education, that is.

The Court’s ruling led to the order to integrate the public schools in Little Rock. Governor Orval Faubus defied the Federal government. Southern congressman warned the President that if he sent in troops, he would have to “occupy” the entire South. Ike’s response? He sent in the 101st Airborne Division. Not only did he force the integration of schools, but he also firmly established the authority of the US Supreme Court by, finally, giving their rulings the force of law.

The Supreme Court is a lightning rod that attracts most of the electricity around emotional issues the Congress hasn’t the courage to address. Yet, that is the role envisioned by the framers. Someone needs to look at laws objectively with the objective of deciding if those laws comply with the intent of the Constitution. Eisenhower’s LEADERSHIP defied the politically expedient course.

Justice Breyer held the audience in the palm of his hand for about an hour. I think everyone took something different away from the evening. The history lesson for me was that it was Ike’s LEADERSHIP that gave the US Supreme Court the force of law.

Eisenhower was a conservative at heart. A reading of history informs us that he saw government’s role as limited to national security, assuring equal justice under the law and responsibility for the basic prosperity of our country. That said, he refused to follow the reactionary course encouraged by some members of his party. He, also, worked against fellow Republican, Joseph McCarthy.

And, that’s why I LIKE IKE.

Which modern President is your favorite? I would love to hear from you. Please scroll down to leave your comments.

Time to Call the Plumber?

Loose lips sink ships.


 Advice given to service men and women during WW II



It’s kind of amazing to think about it but prior to World War II, there were no rules provided to members of our military on what they could and couldn’t communicate to people outside their unit.  I assume it was a little easier to be a spy before that time.

Espionage has been around for centuries, of course. There is evidence that the ancient Egyptians used agents to assess enemy forces. And, the very quotable Sun Tzu said, “It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you…. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used”.

Leaking is different than spying. Pamphleteer, Thomas Paine, famously published (leaked?) information about a secret alliance between the Americans and the French, which was news to the British at the time. He was forced to resign as secretary to a committee of Congress.

French revolutionary, Joseph Fouche, is often credited with establishing the first government institutions dedicated to espionage. He was a popular guy by the time Napoleon began his campaign.

During the Civil War, the Confederacy developed an extensive network of spies who were managed from an office in Richmond down the hall from Jefferson Davis. One agent brought a copy of the Philadelphia Enquirer to General Robert E. Lee outlining troop movements by Union General McClellan. Lee cancelled his battle plans and moved his own forces to counter the moves.

The CIA is perhaps more famous for its failures than its successes. (How would we know about their successes?) There was the Bay of Pigs, of course. And, the CIA missed important developments leading to India getting the bomb in 1974, the collapse of the USSR and the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

While the Iraq war continues to have daily impact on the United States, those other events of the last 50 years are now part of history. It is unlikely that a Wikileaks event would have changed the outcome. There are inexorable forces at work that will affect our security long after this controversy becomes part of the history books. So, it strikes me that we need to take a long term view of Wikileaks.

It is important that we pay careful attention to the interests of Russia in Eastern Europe. During the Cold War, the Iron Curtain represented the western most boundary of the Russian sphere of influence in their entire history. Conversely, the current western border of Russia is set more to the east than it has ever been. Noting that Vladimir Putin is an “alpha dog” should surprise no one, least of all Vlad. What he might do next could surprise us all.

China’s economic growth rate is unsustainable in the long term. The cracks are already starting to show. Yet, they continue to be the single most important influencer in Asia. Are we prepared to deal with both the short term and long term developments?

The Arab world has been unstable for decades. Their only economic asset is oil. They have no middle class to speak of and the ongoing Jihad makes even our best allies suspect over the long term.

And, then there’s Korea……

Nothing that Wiki leaked will have a serious impact on these inexorable trends.

At the end of the day, it reminds me of when your high school teacher intercepted a note being passed around the class and read it out loud. A little bit of name calling and characterizations that are embarrassing to hear out in the open but no real harm done in the long term. (I suppose kids send text messages now. What’s a school teacher to do?)

There were two things that really struck me during the airing of all this gossip. When I was a young military officer, I had a Top Secret clearance. It was granted to me because I had access to encrypted messages. However, during my brief career in uniform, I never once saw any Top Secret information. Why? Because I didn’t have a “need to know”.

So, how is it that a private first class in the US Army had access to all this information? Did he really need to know what was being said between the Ambassador to Pakistan and the Secretary of State? What possible purpose could that serve?

My second observation has to do with LEADERSHIP. Despite our hyper partisan political environment, the opposition Republicans refrained from attacking the administration’s policies. It was a rare display of LEADERSHIP on their part.

“You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.”
                                          ----  Dwight D. Eisenhower