Excellent article by Michael Hirsh:
Oct. 4, 2006 – He was a Republican president from Texas at a time of great peril for America, a moment in history when the conservative base of his party was dominated by radical thinking about how to take on the nation’s mortal enemy. It was an election year, and the GOP was making political hay by mocking Democratic weakness. Among the most radical Republican critics was one of the president’s own top cabinet officers, who called for pre-emptive war.
But Dwight D. Eisenhower said no to that. In some of the most important yet little appreciated decisions ever made by any U.S. president, Ike faced down both his own advisers and his base in the early to mid-’50s and embraced the containment policies of the other party. And he did it for a simple reason: he knew they were right. His only litmus test was competence.
Um, just one thing. President Eisenhower was born in Texas but he actually was from Abilene, Kansas.
Thus Ike is about as Texan as George W. Bush is a Connecticutian (born in New Haven, Connecticut). But of course it makes for a surprise opening to read “Republican president from Texas” in an article about great leadership…
Darn right that Ike was right, and damn wrong that Ike was a ‘Texan’. It just happened that his Kansas parents were in Texas at the time of his birth looking for work and they were on their way back to Kansas when Ike was born. He spent all his boyhood in Abiline, KANSAS and always was nostalgic even sentimental about his Kansas heritage.
Never do I recall Ike saying one benevolent thing about Texas. That he never retired to Kansas is more of a reflection of his wife, Maime, than it is to Ike.
Note that the Eisenhower Presidential Library is in what state??
And a fine libarary it is, too. I like the following quote on your site. Do you know when/where exactly he said it?
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician and businessman from other areas. Their number is negilible and they are stupid.”
-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954
Ah, found it:
http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1147.cfm
Document #1147; November 8, 1954
To Edgar Newton Eisenhower
Hmmm, I just noticed a missing section from your quote:
Reads a little different if you put Hunt’s name back in, eh? Hunt certainly was an odd duck, but Ike’s point seems to be that moderation and careful consideration (“rule of reason”) should always be preferred to the small-numbered by obnoxiously loud extremes. He also wrote in that letter:
Well, at least he tried. Too bad he backed the wrong horse by violently overthrowing Mossadegh and thus radicalizing Iran into the grips of the Shah. He would have done better to reduce US dependence on foreign oil and then use a better bargaining position to strengthen relations with Iran diplomatically as necessary.
And some background context on H. L. Hunt is available here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908960,00.html