Operation candor: Fear, faith, and flexibility

Diplomatic History

Volumn 29, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 779-809

  Chernus, Ira ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 28044461515     PISSN: 01452096     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2005.00518.x     Document Type: Article

References (190)

1. Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT, 1987), 12-16;
2. Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954 (New York, 1998), x.
3. Warren Kimball, defining ideology as simply "basic assumptions... beliefs about the nature of humankind and society," called the study of basic assumptions "the most challenging and yet rewarding task that faces historians of American foreign policy": The Juggler: Franklin D. Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, NJ, 1991), 4, 185.
4. Frank Costigliola, "Reading for Meaning: Theory, Language, and Metaphor," in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 2d ed., eds. Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson (Cambridge, England, 2004), 289-90.
5. Frank Ninkovich, The Wilsonian Century: U.S. Foreign Policy since 1900 (Chicago, 1999), 2-9.
6. See also Michael H. Hunt, "Ideology," in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, eds. Hogan and Paterson.
7. David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, 2d ed. (Minneapolis, 1998).
8. McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York, 1988), 288.
9. Report by the Panel of Consultants, 1/53, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-54, (cited hereafter as FRUS), 2.2:1068.
10. When Oppenheimer presented some of his panel's basic thoughts to the public, he summed up the new reality in the image of "two scorpions in a bottle": J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Atomic Weapons and American Policy," Foreign Affairs 31 (July 1953): 525-35.
11. Report by the Panel of Consultants, 1/53, FRUS, 2.2:1066-68, 1071;
12. Bundy, Danger and Survival, 289.
13. I have used the version of the report in FRUS, 2.2:1056-91.
14. Bundy (674, n. 119) notes that this version is sanitized, but it is more complete than the version he published in International Security 7 (Fall 1982): 3-27.
15. Here I summarize the fuller discussion in Ira Chernus, Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace (College Station, TX, 2002), 15-24.
16. For useful background on the Oppenheimer Panel, see also Gregg Herken, Counsels of War (New York 1985), 60-68,
17. and Richard J. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission (Berkeley, CA, 1989), 42-43. The panel included, in addition to its chairman, scientist Vannevar Bush, President John Dickey of Dartmouth College, head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Joseph E. Johnson, and soon-to-be CIA chief Allen Dulles.
18. Report by the Panel of Consultants, 1/53, FRUS, 2.2:1086, 1062. The report suggested a future world in which national security policy would aim primarily to obtain and preserve "a strange stability" by restraining "rash action ... every time." In a private preliminary summary, the panel added a chilling comment (which was omitted in the final report): "Life in such conditions would be inevitably shadowed by fear and anguish compared to which our present troubles would seem light indeed";
19. A Draft Summary of the Line of Argument Agreed on November 15th [1952] at a Partial Meeting of the Panel in NYC, 11/15/52, FRUS, 2.2:1039.
20. Report by the Panel of Consultants, 1/53, FRUS, 2.2:1067, 1071, 1081, 1086, 1087. In his public presentation, Oppenheimer emphasized that "we need the freedom of action necessary - and we do not have it today - to be able to negotiate, should an opportunity for that at some future time appear"; "Atomic Weapons and American Policy," 530.
21. "Atomic Weapons and American Policy," 530.
22. Report by the Panel of Consultants, 1/53, FRUS, 2.2:1079, 1080. Bundy wrote many years later that Oppenheimer, in particular, was "oppressed by the difficulty of arousing his fellow citizens to a danger that he could not fully describe in public"; Danger and Survival, 289. Although this may have been Oppenheimer's principal motivation for urging candor, it was not the principal motive for candor in the final document his panel produced.
23. Danger and Survival, 289. Although this may have been Oppenheimer's principal motivation for urging candor, it was not the principal motive for candor in the final document his panel produced.
24. Guy Oakes, The Imaginary War (New York, 1994). See especially pp. 47-50, showing that efforts at "emotion management" were well under way before the Oppenheimer Panel's work. The crucial link between the unpredictable future and the need to manage public attitudes is the point that historians such as Hewlett and Holl, Bowie and Immerman, Bundy, and Herken have missed in studying the Oppenheimer Panel.
25. Ibid., 46.
26. Robert A. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy (New York, 1998), 224.
27. Daniel T. Rodgers, Contested Truths: Keywords in American Politics since Independence (New York, 1987), 5.
28. On discourse as Eisenhower's primary concern before becoming president, see the many examples and the overall argument in Ira Chernus, General Eisenhower: Ideology and Discourse (Fast Lansing, MI, 2002).
29. On his faith in words as president, see also Robert A. Divine, Eisenhower and the Cold War (New York, 1981), 7;
30. Robert Griffith, "Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Corporate Commonwealth," American Historical Review 87 (February 1982): 93-94;
31. Martin J. Medhurst, Dwight D. Eisenhower: Strategic Communicator (Westport, CT, 1993), 72.
32. Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (New York, 1982), 20.
33. Greenstein (69 n.) finds Eisenhower following "an unspoken axiom that public language was to be adapted to the circumstances at hand and toward the best possible consequences." See also Fred I. Greenstein, "Eisenhower's Leadership Style," in Eisenhower: A Centenary Assessment, eds. Stephen E. Ambrose and Gunter Bischof (Baton Rouge, LA, 1995).
34. Eisenhower to Edward Meade Earle, 9/2/52, The Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, 21 vols. (Baltimore, 1978-2001; cited hereafter as PDDE, by volume and page number), 13:1346;
35. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York, 1982), 155.
36. The following discussion of Eisenhower's ideological and religious commitments is based on Chernus, General Eisenhower (for the prepresidential years); Chernus, Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace, and my study, now in preparation, of national security discourse and policy during Eisenhower's presidential years. For a preliminary overview of the latter, see Ira Chernus, "The Word 'Peace' as a Weapon of (Cold) War," Peace Review 10, no. 4 (December 1998).
37. For a recent study that takes Eisenhower's concern for religion seriously, see Seth Jacobs, "'Our System Demands the Supreme Being': The U.S. Religious Revival and the 'Diem Experiment,' 1954-55," Diplomatic History 25 (Fall 2001).
38. For other studies of Eisenhower and religion, see sources cited in Jacobs's article and in the chapter on Eisenhower in Richard V. Pierard and Robert D. Linder, Civil Religion and the Presidency (Grand Rapids, MI, 1988).
39. The most insightful comments by a contemporary of Eisenhower are collected in William Lee Miller, Piety along the Potomac (Boston, 1964).
40. For discussion of the role of religion in the study of diplomatic history, see Andrew J. Rotter, "Christians, Muslims, and Hindus: Religion and U.S.-South Asian Relations, 1947-1954," Diplomatic History 24 (Fall 2000), and the commentaries on that article by Robert Buzzanco and Patricia R. Hill.
41. William Robinson to Helen Rogers Reid, 6/21/48, William Robinson Papers, Box 6, "Diary - WER and DDE" (unless otherwise noted, all unpublished documents cited in this article are held in the Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas);
42. Diary, 11/12/46, in The Eisenhower Diaries, ed. Robert H. Ferrell (New York, 1981), 139. As army chief of staff, Eisenhower approved an official policy statement urging more public information on international events, and he recommended giving the public more information about nuclear weapons; PDDE, 7:1106, n. 1; PDDE, 11:800, n. 3. To be sure, as a general and as president he also often withheld information from the public, when he found secrecy helpful to promoting his policies.
43. Oakes, Imaginary War, 36, 37;
44. New York Times, 6/6/52, 10.
45. On "the middle way" in Eisenhower's prepresidential discourse, see Chernus, General Eisenhower, especially 226-27, 300, 302.
46. "Eisenhower Reveals Europe's Plight," U.S. News & World Report, 9/7/ 51, 83.
47. See, for example, Eisenhower to Errett Scrivner, 6/3/053, PDDE, 14:341;
48. Blanche Wiesen Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower: A Divided Legacy (Garden City, NY, 1981), 164;
49. Robert Ferrell, ed., The Diary of James C. Hagerty (Bloomington, IN, 1983), 69.
50. Diary, 2/9/53, PDDE, 14:34-36;
51. Diary, 7/2/53, PDDE, 14:358-60.
52. Eisenhower in meeting with legislative leaders, cited in Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, 107. Fear of inflation and "national bankruptcy" due to excessive military spending was a basic element in Eisenhower's thinking from the outset of his presidency.
53. For expressions from his first few months in office, see, for example, Memorandum of Conversation, Meeting of the National Security Council (cited hereafter as NSC), 3/25/53, FRUS, 2.1:260;
54. Eisenhower to Alfred Gruenther, 5/4/53, PDDE, 14:203;
55. Eisenhower to Frank Caffey, 7/27/53, PDDE, 14:429;
56. Cutler Memorandum, 7/16/53, FRUS, 2.1:397;
57. NSC, 3/25/53, FRUS, 2.1:261;
58. Eisenhower to Gruenther, 2/19/53, PDDE, 14:60;
59. Eisenhower to George Whitney, 6/24/53, PDDE, 14:324.
60. Minnich, Notes on Legislative Leaders Meeting, 5/19/53, cited in Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. 2: The President (New York, 1984), 89.
61. See also, for example, Emmet J. Hughes diary, 5/13/53, cited in n. 43, below. Early in his presidency, Eisenhower warned the NSC that the United States was in greater peril than at any time in its history and "we could eventually lose our existence as a free nation"; Carlton Savage to NSC, 2/10/53, FRUS, 2.1:232.
62. See Chernus, Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace, index, sv "apocalypse management."
63. Memorandum by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 7/16/53, FRUS, 2.1:397;
64. Eisenhower to Margaret Patterson, 6/15/53, PDDE, 14:293 (drafted but never sent);
65. NSC, 5/27/53, FRUS, 2.2:1174.
66. Memorandum of Discussion, Meeting of the NSC, 2/25/53, FRUS, 2.2:1111. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Gordon Dean suggested that the main purpose of more candor was to make sure that the Russians were "aware of our very great atomic strength." But Eisenhower saw little merit in this role for candor, and the discussion remained focused on informing the U.S. public;
67. FRUS, 2.2:1113.
68. See Martin J. Medhurst, "Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' Speech: A Case Study in the Strategic Use of Language," in Cold War Rhetoric: Strategy, Metaphor, and Ideology, 2d ed., eds. Martin J. Medhurst, Robert L. Ivie, Philip Wander, and Robert L. Scott (East Lansing, MI, 1997).
69. Summary of Meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on Armaments and American Policy and the Senior Staff of the National Security Council, 3/16/53, FRUS, 2.2:1136. It is surely possible that Bush was the only panel member invited precisely because the administration found his particular views most congenial. His focus on public apathy was an accurate assessment of the prevailing mood concerning nuclear weapons; when Eisenhower became president, there were few visible nuclear worries on the home front. See Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 144-57.
70. NSC, 151, 5/8/53, FRUS, 2.2:1152-54.
71. Summary of Meeting, 3/16/53, FRUS, 2.2:1136;
72. NSC, 151, 5/8/53, FRUS, 2.2:1152-54, 1160.
73. NSC, 6/23/54, FRUS, 2.2:1470;
74. NSC, 3/31/53, FRUS, 15.1:827.
75. See also diary entry, 9/28/53, cited in Peter Lyon, Eisenhower: Portrait of the Hero (Boston, 1974), 613.
76. Before becoming president, Eisenhower had said publicly: "Every invention of mankind has been capable of two uses, good and evil. It is up to the moral fiber of mankind to decide to which use an invention is put"; Speech to Moles Dinner, 2/9/50, New York Times, 2/10/50, 9.
77. Memorandum of Conference, 6/16/59, Ann Whitman file (cited hereafter as AWF), DDE Diaries Series, Box 41, "Staff Notes June 16-30 (2)." For Eisenhower's views on communism before he became president, see Chernus, General Eisenhower, index sv "Eisenhower, Dwight D.: communism, views on."
78. NSC, 5/27/53, FRUS, 2.2:1172, 1173;
79. Remarks at the Governors' Conference, Seattle, Washington, 8/4/53, Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower (cited hereafter as PPP), 1953, 539.
80. Perhaps Eisenhower was influenced by a recent civil defense study, analyzing "the serious potentialities of panic, demoralization, and national paralysis" in a nuclear attack; see Oakes, Imaginary War, 39-41.
81. Ambrose, Eisenhower, 135, citing the diary of William Robinson.
82. Eisenhower approved the Candor campaign only after Oppenheimer reassured him that no technical information would be released; NSC, 5/27/53, FRUS, 2.2:1170-72. He told Robert Cutler that "most scientists concerned with atomic problems had no real grasp of the security issue and were generally anxious to reveal what they knew to any and all of their fellow scientists"; Eisenhower to Cutler, 5/25/53, PDDE, 14:251. As Atomic Energy Commission historians Hewlett and Holl point out, the president had convinced himself that he could be more candid without revealing any details about weapons capabilities or stockpiles, Atoms for Peace and War, 61-62.
83. Eisenhower to Cutler, 5/25/53, PDDE, 14:251.
84. As Atomic Energy Commission historians Hewlett and Holl point out, the president had convinced himself that he could be more candid without revealing any details about weapons capabilities or stockpiles, Atoms for Peace and War, 61-62.
85. Dulles to Lodge, 6/4/53, FRUS, 2.2:1175. Dulles added that, "because of the pressure of international public and governmental opinion," the United States should continue in the disarmament talks; the benefit was "primarily to explore the weakness of the Soviet disarmament position and to determine how far the USSR will go, at least in public utterances, toward support of a sound disarmament program." See also Caroline Pruden, Conditional Partners: Eisenhower, the United Nations, and the Search for a Permanent Peace (Baton Rouge, LA, 1998), 145, 146. Dulles was implementing the recommendations of the Executive Committee on Regulation of Armaments, in Policy Guidance Governing United States Activities in the United Nations Disarmament Commission for the Period May through September 1953, 5/26/53, FRUS, 2.2:1163-69. At the time, though, the administration had no specific idea of what its own version of a "sound" program would look like. It knew only that its program would have to entail significant Soviet concessions, to allow the United States to consolidate its "free world" alliance.
86. Dulles added that, "because of the pressure of international public and governmental opinion," the United States should continue in the disarmament talks; the benefit was "primarily to explore the weakness of the Soviet disarmament position and to determine how far the USSR will go, at least in public utterances, toward support of a sound disarmament program." See also Caroline Pruden, Conditional Partners: Eisenhower, the United Nations, and the Search for a Permanent Peace (Baton Rouge, LA, 1998), 145, 146.
87. Dulles was implementing the recommendations of the Executive Committee on Regulation of Armaments, in Policy Guidance Governing United States Activities in the United Nations Disarmament Commission for the Period May through September 1953, 5/26/53, FRUS, 2.2:1163-69. At the time, though, the administration had no specific idea of what its own version of a "sound" program would look like. It knew only that its program would have to entail significant Soviet concessions, to allow the United States to consolidate its "free world" alliance.
88. Two influential historians who have advanced this claim are Ambrose (Eisenhower, vol. 2, 132)
89. and Bundy (Danger and Survival, 287). Bundy notes correctly that "his public papers reflect a passionate concern for the issue," but he fails to note the absence of corroborating evidence in nonpublic documents. Lewis Strauss said in his memoirs that, on the day he was inaugurated as chairman of the AEC (July 2), Eisenhower told him privately: "My chief concern and your first assignment is to find some new approach to the disarming of atomic energy." The president wanted "a new proposal that will be safe for the free world and attractive to the Russians, before it gets too late for any plan to work. Meanwhile we have to continue to keep our lead in weapons development";
90. Lewis L. Strauss, Men and Decisions (Garden City, NY, 1962), 336, 337.
91. Robert Donovan asserts that, during the spring months, Eisenhower often expressed to Strauss his strong desire for progress on nuclear disarmament. This was presumably based on his interviews with Strauss, but he offers no documentation; Robert J. Donovan, Eisenhower: The Inside Story (New York, 1956), 184. If Eisenhower did speak this way to Strauss, it stands out as a rare expression of strong concern about disarmament. Perhaps Eisenhower, knowing Strauss to be a strong proponent of a massive nuclear buildup, was simply signaling his own desire to put some limits on spending for nuclear weapons.
92. On the AEC budget issue, see Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 20, 47.
93. I base this claim on my own study of the extant primary sources and on the most recent secondary studies; Andrew P. N. Erdmann, "'War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever': Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Thermonuclear Revolution," in Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb, ed. John Lewis Gaddis (Oxford, 1999);
94. Kenneth Osgood, "Total Cold War: United States Propaganda in the 'Free World,' 1953-1960" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2001);
95. David Tal, "Eisenhower's Disarmament Dilemma: From Chance for Peace to Open Skies Proposal," Diplomacy & Statecraft 12 (June 2001): 175-96.
96. Tal's forthcoming book on the subject should make an important contribution. For earlier studies of Eisenhower and disarmament, see Charles A. Appleby, Jr., "Eisenhower and Arms Control, 1953-1961" (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1987);
97. Coit D. Blacker, Reluctant Warriors: The United States, the Soviet Union, and Arms Control (New York, 1987);
98. Bundy, Danger and Survival;
99. Hewlett and Holl, Atoms for Peace and War;
100. Robert A. Strong, "Eisenhower and Arms Control," in Reevaluating Eisenhower: American Foreign Policy in the 1950s, eds. Richard A. Melanson and David Mayers (Urbana, IL and Chicago, 1987).
101. NSC, 151, 5/8/53, FRUS, 2.2:1160;
102. NSC, 5/27/53, FRUS, 2.2:1173, 1174.
103. Radio Address to the American People, 5/19/53, PPP, 1953, 307-14;
104. Emmet J. Hughes Diary, 5/13/53, Emmet J. Hughes Papers, Box 1, Seeley Mudd Library, Princeton University. Eisenhower told legislative leaders, "We're not in a moment of danger. We're in an age of danger";
105. Arthur Minnich, Notes on Legislative Leaders Meeting, 5/19/53, cited in Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. 2, 89.
106. For the "Alarmist Ike" sobriquet, see Eisenhower to Alfred Gruenther, 2/24/42, PDDE, 1:131;
107. Merle Miller, Ike the Soldier: As They Knew Him (New York, 1987), 310.
108. Press reports on the radio address echoed Eisenhower's call of alarm. See, for example, New York Times, 5/20/53, 1;
109. Christian Science Monitor, 5/20/53, 1;
110. Newsweek, 5/25/53, 27.
111. Washburn to Hauge, 5/20/53, C. D. Jackson Records, Box 7, "Wasburn, Abbott."
112. Lambie to Cutler, 5/20/53, James Lambie Papers, Box 3, "Chron. File: May-June 1953 (2)." Jackson later told the NSC that the Lambie and Jackson/Washburn efforts had begun independently and were only "married" in early August: NSC, 9/17/53, AWF, NSC Series, Box 4, "162nd meeting, September 17, 1953."
113. Jackson to Repplier, 6/4/53, White House Central Files, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 12, "Candor and United Nations Speech (1)." Repplier became directly involved in the project and met with Jackson, Lambie, and other top aides on the project, including at least one meeting with Eisenhower's chief of staff, Sherman Adams. Abbott Washburn was skeptical about the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. "This is a job for Administration leadership, not for Young & Rubicam scareheads," he warned. However, Washburn did propose a series of speeches by "the president and his official family" and a public relations campaign aimed at "top opinion molders"; Washburn to Jackson, 6/4/53, C. D. Jackson Records, Box 7, "Washburn, Abbott.".
114. Washburn to Jackson, 6/4/53, C. D. Jackson Records, Box 7, "Washburn, Abbott.".
115. As a professional advertising executive, Lambie understood the power of images as well as words. A separate study could profitably be devoted to the Eisenhower administration's use of visual imagery. In the context of Atoms for Peace, one thinks immediately of the very successful image of "our friend, the atom."
116. Lambie Memo, 7/6/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 13, "Candor and United Nations Speech (16)." When Lambie solicited help from George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and other eminent pollsters, he told them that the public must recognize "the new and to all intents permanent normalcy" of "an age of peril... the fight for freedom or the struggle for existence (call it what you will) in which we are engaged... [and] the enormity of the threat"; Lambie to Roper et al., 6/9/53, James Lambie Papers, Box 3, "Chron. File: May-June 1953 (1)." The pollsters were sympathetic to the goals, but in the end nothing substantial came of this proposed collaboration.
117. "Memorandum from 'Operation Candor' to President Eisenhower, July 8, 1953," in The Eisenhower Administration, 1953-1961: A Documentary History, eds. Robert L. Branyan and Lawrence H. Larsen (New York, 1971), 189. This document is identified as "the Lambie/Advertising Council memorandum" in "Agenda for Meeting of Candor Committee," 9/9/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 13, "Candor and United Nations Speech (16)."
118. Proposal for Operation Edify, 7/21/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 13, "Candor and United Nations Speech (15)." Lambie hoped to change the name of the project from Candor to Edify, but that proposal never caught on.
119. Lambie to Adams, 8/5/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 13, "Candor and United Nations Speech (13)";
120. Lambie to Washburn, 7/25/53, James Lambie Papers, Box 3, "Chron. File: July-August (2)";
121. Lambie to Cutler, 7/29/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 12, "Candor and United Nations Speech (1)." In the latter document, Lambie wrote that the ultimate goal of the project was "world peace," while the more immediate goal was "avoidance of a war with Russia or amelioration of its effects." He quoted William James's essay, "The Moral Equivalent of War": "So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way... This we must not have." This was the only reference to peace in all the staff documents on Operation Candor.
122. Project "Candor," 7/22/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 13, "Candor and United Nations Speech (13)." This document indicated that the plan "was jointly developed by White House staff and Advertising Council representatives."
123. On the importance of metaphor and other linguistic tropes, see, for example, Frank Costigliola, "Language and Power in the Western Alliance," in The United States and the European Alliance since 1945, eds. Kathleen Burk and Melvyn Stokes (Oxford and New York, 1999). Historians interested in language might do well to blend the study of tropes and word choice with the study of ideology, as exemplified in the works of Hunt, Hogan, Costigliola, and Ninkovich cited in nn. 1-3, above.
124. Address to Young Republicans, 6/11/53, PPP, 1953, 402; Press Conference, 4/23/53, PPP, 1953, 53-54; Special Message to Congress on the Mutual Security Program, 5/5/53, PPP, 1953, 257, 259; Radio Report to the American People, 8/6/53, PPP, 1953, 555; Address to New England "Forward to '54" Dinner, 9/25/53, PPP, 1953, 598, 599.
125. Press Conference, 4/23/53, PPP, 1953, 53-54;
126. Special Message to Congress on the Mutual Security Program, 5/5/53, PPP, 1953, 257, 259;
127. Radio Report to the American People, 8/6/53, PPP, 1953, 555;
128. Address to New England "Forward to '54" Dinner, 9/25/53, PPP, 1953, 598, 599.
129. The United States was waging a "total struggle," Eisenhower said, which "calls for total defense." But an "'all-out' military theory" would bring "all the grim paraphernalia of the garrison state." The only way to survive was to maintain a "sound dollar" and "free world unity," that is, a network of alliances in which other countries could be counted on to share the military burden; Television Report to the American People, 6/3/ 53, PPP, 1953, 364, 376; Address to National Junior Chamber of Commerce, 6/10/53, PPP, 1953, 389.
130. Television Report to the American People, 6/3/53, PPP, 1953, 364, 376;
131. Address to National Junior Chamber of Commerce, 6/10/53, PPP, 1953, 389.
132. See also Meena Bose, Shaping and Signaling Presidential Policy: The National Security Decision Making of Eisenhower and Kennedy (College Station, TX, 1998), 81-82.
133. Address to National Junior Chamber of Commerce, 6/10/53, PPP, 1953, 389-90;
134. Remarks at National Governors' Conference, 8/4/53, PPP, 1953, 541.
135. A year later, Eisenhower would call Indochina a place where the Soviet Union "leans against [the] dike" of the "free world" most dangerously, promoting "unrest and anarchy"; H. W. Brands, Jr., Cold Warriors: Eisenhower's Generation and American Foreign Policy (New York, 1988), 197.
136. He hoped to "put a finger in [the] leaky dike," he told the NSC, rather than "let the whole structure be washed away"; NSC, 1/8/54, FRUS, 13.1:952.
137. Remarks at the House of Burgesses, 5/15/53, PPP, 1953, 297; Press Conference, 6/17/53, PPP, 1953, 440; Address to Pan-American Union, 4/12/ 53, PPP, 1953, 175; Address at Dartmouth College, 6/14/53, PPP, 1953, 415; Message to National Conference of Christians and Jews, 7/9/53, PPP, 1953, 490.
138. Press Conference, 6/17/53, PPP, 1953, 440;
139. Address to Pan-American Union, 4/12/53, PPP, 1953, 175;
140. Address at Dartmouth College, 6/14/53, PPP, 1953, 415;
141. Message to National Conference of Christians and Jews, 7/9/53, PPP, 1953, 490.
142. John Lear, "Ike and the Peaceful Atom," The Reporter, 1/12/56, 11-12. "It was thought that the second, bigger BANG would be somewhat reassuring," Lear commented. Many historians have noted Jackson's struggle to find a way to reveal the true magnitude of the nuclear revolution without "scaring the country to death." All of these accounts seem to be based on Lear's article, which was apparently based on interviews with Jackson and others. After it appeared, Jackson told The Reporter's editor that it was "a very straightforward and complete piece, certainly the most complete story that has appeared thus far";
143. Jackson to Max Ascoli, 1/6/56, C. D. Jackson Papers, Box 29, "Atoms for Peace - Evolution (1)." But Jackson may have endorsed the article simply because it provided a public image that he desired.
144. Draft Presidential Speech on Atomic Energy (Sixth Draft), 7/23/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 13, "Candor and United Nations Speech (14)." Only at the end of this draft was a desire for peace briefly mentioned.
145. Lear, "Ike and the Peaceful Atom," 11, 12; Cutler to Jackson, 7/28/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 13, "Candor and United Nations Speech (14)."
146. Cutler to Jackson, 7/28/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 13, "Candor and United Nations Speech (14)."
147. NSC, 7/30/53, FRUS, 2.2:1185;
148. Strauss, Men and Decisions, 356;
149. Draft Presidential Speech on Atomic Energy, AWF, Administration Series, Box 9, "Operation Candor (2)"; DDE, 3rd Draft, 8/24/53, AWF, Administration Series, Box 9, "Operation Candor (1)." Recognizing that his objections were in vain, Strauss ceased attacking Candor directly, but he attacked it indirectly by attacking Oppenheimer. The lasting significance of Strauss's objections to Candor was the impetus they gave to the investigation of Oppenheimer's loyalty.
150. Report to the National Security Council by the NSC Planning Board, 9/1/ 53, FRUS, 2.2:1192-97; the Secretary of the State to the United States Mission at the United Nations, 9/4/53, FRUS, 2.2:1206; Memorandum of Conversation, 9/1/53, FRUS, 2.2:1189; NSC, 9/9/53, FRUS, 2.2:1210-12. The Planning Board report advised that "our political position would suffer at this time by any indication that the United States lacks interest in disarmament."
151. the Secretary of the State to the United States Mission at the United Nations, 9/4/53, FRUS, 2.2:1206;
152. Memorandum of Conversation, 9/1/53, FRUS, 2.2:1189;
153. NSC, 9/9/53, FRUS, 2.2:1210-12. The Planning Board report advised that "our political position would suffer at this time by any indication that the United States lacks interest in disarmament."
154. On the problems raised by the New Look, see Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, 183-87;
155. Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton, NJ, 1999), 146-52.
156. Dulles to Eisenhower, 9/6/53, FRUS, 2.1:457-60; Eisenhower to Dulles, 9/ 8/53, FRUS, 2.1:460. Dulles's plan was unlikely to be accepted, because it included "satellites politically freed" and "end 'world revolution' mission of Soviet Communist Party." But if it were, he told the president, it would yield "an increase rather than a decline of U.S. influence and without risk of our being isolated." So it would reap advantages regardless of the Soviet response, making that response a matter of little concern.
157. Eisenhower to Dulles, 9/8/53, FRUS, 2.1:460. Dulles's plan was unlikely to be accepted, because it included "satellites politically freed" and "end 'world revolution' mission of Soviet Communist Party." But if it were, he told the president, it would yield "an increase rather than a decline of U.S. influence and without risk of our being isolated." So it would reap advantages regardless of the Soviet response, making that response a matter of little concern.
158. Bundy, Danger and Survival, 291.
159. Eisenhower's response to Dulles, 9/8/53, is in FRUS, 2.1:460-63.
160. Cutler to Eisenhower, 10/19/53, FRUS, 2.2:1233. On the effort to avoid nuclear disarmament, see n. 39 above.
161. Gaddis (Strategies of Containment, 149 n.) offers these words as evidence that Eisenhower "considered the idea of preventive war." Lyon (Eisenhower, 612) seems to agree. Bundy (Danger and Survival, 251-52) sees the same words as evidence that he considered preventive war but never "came near to a decision accepting the concept." Bowie and Immerman (Waging Peace, 164, 205) argue that Eisenhower was not suggesting preventive war but was challenging Dulles's assumption of impending NATO disunity. If this were his point, one wonders why he did not take issue with Dulles directly.
162. Lyon (Eisenhower, 612) seems to agree.
163. Bundy (Danger and Survival, 251-52) sees the same words as evidence that he considered preventive war but never "came near to a decision accepting the concept."
164. Bowie and Immerman (Waging Peace, 164, 205) argue that Eisenhower was not suggesting preventive war but was challenging Dulles's assumption of impending NATO disunity. If this were his point, one wonders why he did not take issue with Dulles directly.
165. See Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ, 1991), 103-7 and Cutler to Jackson, 9/3/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 12, "Candor and United Nations Speech (9)."
166. and Cutler to Jackson, 9/3/53, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 12, "Candor and United Nations Speech (9)."
167. Cutler to Eisenhower, 10/19/53, FRUS, 2.2:1233;
168. Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 5th ed. (New York, 1985), 155.
169. Eisenhower to Dulles, 9/8/53, FRUS, 2.1:462. Eisenhower knew that the United States would offer only the image, not the reality, of serious proposals for disarming and easing tensions. He did not demur when Dulles stated, "We do not intend to let ourselves be drawn into separate negotiations with the Soviets on the elimination or control of nuclear weapons.... Everyone present was of the opinion that no effective agreement could be reached with the Soviets on the control of nuclear weapons at this time";
170. Summary of Meeting at the White House, 1/16/54, FRUS, 2.2:1342;
171. see Medhurst, "Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' Speech." As Raymond Garthoff says, "The Soviet position was assumed in any case to be dedicated to a maximum contest short of war, with reciprocal hostility axiomatic";
172. Raymond Garthoff, Assessing the Adversary (Washington, DC, 1991), 8.
173. See Memorandum for the President, 5/12/54, John Foster Dulles Papers, White House Memorandum Series, "White House Conversations, 1954 (3)." Eisenhower proposed the idea of a pool of fissionable material to C. D. Jackson and Lewis Strauss just three days after his talk with Dulles;
174. Cutler to Jackson and Strauss, 9/10/53, FRUS, 2.2:1213. Eisenhower knew from the outset that his proposal was likely to be rejected;
175. Diary, 12/10/53, PDDE, 14:748;
176. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (Garden City, NY, 1963), 254.
177. For a full study of the development of "Atoms for Peace," as well as more detail on Operation Candor, see Chernus, Atoms for Peace.
178. Address to United Church Women, 10/6/53, PPP, 1953, 634-37; draft, 10/3/ 53, AWF, Speech Series, Box 5, "United Churchwomen, 10/6/53 (2)." Eisenhower would soon sound the same themes to other audiences: America is "a peace-loving nation, living in the fear of God, but in the fear of God only"; Address in New Orleans, 10/17/ 53, PPP, 686. "Keeping our Nation secure and the world at peace will remain the predominant, overshadowing problem... until we have devised a way to turn man's major effort from his own destruction to his own betterment and salvation"; Address at the Annual Convention of Future Farmers of America, 10/15/53, PPP, 1953, 676.
179. draft, 10/3/53, AWF, Speech Series, Box 5, "United Churchwomen, 10/ 6/53 (2)." Eisenhower would soon sound the same themes to other audiences: America is "a peace-loving nation, living in the fear of God, but in the fear of God only";
180. Address in New Orleans, 10/17/53, PPP, 686. "Keeping our Nation
181. Address at the Annual Convention of Future Farmers of America, 10/15/53, PPP, 1953, 676.
182. James Reston, "Candor or Confusion?" New York Times, 10/7/53, 7.
183. Newsweek captured the ambivalent message in two headlines on two consecutive pages: "How to End a World: The Truth about the Bomb" and "Ike Sets the Record Straight: Don't Get Panicky," Newsweek, 10/19/53, 33, 34.
184. C. D. Jackson, "The U.S. Public - A Matter of Orchestration," August 1955, White House Central File, Confidential File, Subject Series, Box 61, "Rockefeller, Nelson (5)."
185. George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, 9/20/01;
186. Dick Cheney, interview on "Meet the Press," 9/16/01;
187. Bob Woodward, "CIA Told to Do Whatever Necessary to Kill Bin Laden," Washington Post, 10/21/2001.
188. According to the Washington Post (11/22/01), "White House officials said that in the seventh week of a war that could take years, Bush was anxious to persuade the nation to resist complacency": http:// www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A814-2001Nov21.html.
189. George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, 9/11/01;
190. George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, 9/20/01.