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American POTUS - How Ike Led with Susan Eisenhower

• Alan Lowe

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alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Welcome to American POTUS. I'm your host, Alan Lowe, and I thank you so much for joining us. I'm very excited to welcome our guest in this episode, Susan Eisenhower. The founder of the Eisenhower Group, a very successful D. C. based consulting company, Susan is sought after as a policy analyst, as an expert on strategic leadership, and as a commentator on outlets like CNN and Fox News. She's written extensively, appearing in publications like the Washington Post and the New York Times. And by the way, she's the granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower. Today we'll talk with Susan about her terrific study of her grandfather titled, How I Led. The principles behind Eisenhower's biggest decisions. Susan, thanks so much for joining us on American POTUS.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, Alan, it's a real pleasure to be with you. Thank you for the opportunity.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

So let's start with a bit about Eisenhower. Ike, if I may, as a grandfather. What was he like as a granddad?

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, you know, I get asked that a lot just because he always seemed, um, pretty cheerful publicly and he didn't believe that he had to be on television all the time, which was, uh, course, a new technology then. But he did have weekly press conferences. And many people remembered him from the war. So he was remembered, but I'm not so sure that people could imagine what his family life was like.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Um, I was raised in a, household. My father was actually his only surviving, uh, my grandparents only surviving child. He was their second son. The first one died at the age of three of scarlet fever. But my father then had four of us and. My grandparents really doted on us because I think this was the larger family they wish they'd had

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

hmm. Mm hmm. Ah. Ah.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

for, as a kid, please keep your relationship with your grandparents and your grandfather, especially separate from policy reputation and his career in general, because, you have no control over that and it won't make you happy. Um, but he really went. Extraordinarily out of his way to be a terrific grandfather. I rode his horses. So he would episodically turn up at my horse shows. And once one of the things I prized most, I won a little walk trot competition and received a little tiny cup, and a blue ribbon. He was not there for that show, but, uh, I didn't realize it, but the cup had disappeared. And about a month later, he presented me with a brown package. And I opened it up and it was my little cup, but he'd had it put on a pedestal. My little silver cup, and I still have it on my bookshelf behind me. It's kind of a inspiration about how small gestures can make somebody feel really important. he was kind. He was interested. I have lots of letters from him about My quote unquote, writing career and what I'm up to and even in the last years of his life he would check in with me about you know, how are you doing with this project that you're so interested in? He once asked me how was my diet going? Because I used to talk about it all the time. And I guess the way to sum it up too, is that he just loved kids. He loved kids. And he spent a lot of time learning new math so that he could talk to us on our own level about what we were being taught in school. Uh, so he was in that respect a really regular guy who managed to manage, to use those words twice, the kind of stress he'd been under because many of these gestures occurred while he was in the White House.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Just an amazing man all around. You know, many times I've been out to Abilene when I was at the presidential libraries and saw his boyhood home and all that. I wondered as I read this wonderful book, what in Ike's background as a youth, what do you think built the leader that you describe and how Ike led? Oh, I guess. Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

uh, what Eisenhower homestead in Abilene will do for your perspective of this man. The second house they own there, which is the one that, uh, Ike and his brothers grew up in, is actually a pretty tiny house. And I, I think they had maybe at most three bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. They had, uh, uncle, Oh, get this. We had a, uh, I had a uncle named Abraham Lincoln Eisenhower, literally uncle Abe slept in the room downstairs. And then all these as I said seven boys, six surviving boys, Upstairs. Well, you can just imagine what that must have been like. They also the house is on the wrong side of the railway tracks. You might say socially. And so this was an interesting family of Pennsylvania, Mennonite, extraction, I would say, I say extraction because they were part of a river brethren sect that was part of the Mennonite community. But anyway they went out to Kansas from Pennsylvania late 19th century. Now, why am I telling you all of this? that it was a very deeply religious, rather hardscrabble existence for them. And the boys were expected to grow their own vegetables and then sell them to their classmates families on the other side of the railway tracks. So early on he was forced into adopting a sense of humility about himself. Um, or two of the other brothers were more offended by the fact that they couldn't keep up with the neighbors on the other side of the tracks. But I think Ike for some reason, just came to appreciate hard work, and didn't mind selling his vegetables, the other, vegetables. Um, you know, the other families in Abilene, I think that the religious tradition of the Eisenhowers and their community there fit very nicely, ironically, with the West Point, uh, ethos, which is to serve something larger than yourself. Mind you, Alan, and I'll just say this quickly, is that the family was not too thrilled that he went to West Point and became a soldier because they were a pacifist religious sect.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Hmm. Interesting. And again, I do really encourage people to go to Abilene, to go to the home, to the Presidential Library Museum, uh, to the place of meditation, as it's called there on the property as well. And you really do get a much better sense of Ike's background and the man he was. I'm skipping way ahead in the story. And again, I encourage people to buy your book, How Ike Led, but let's skip up to D Day. And before we came on air today, we're talking about Normandy. I, I was finally able to go there a couple of years ago with my wife and, and it's kind of an overwhelming experience of realizing what sacrifice happened there for us. What principles do you think help explain Ike's handling of that day? It's so complex, so stressful. What helped him be successful and to handle all the stresses of D Day? Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

wasn't just the, uh, the stresses, of course, started well before then. I think in order to understand What he was really facing on that day, one would have to just, say briefly that, I'm going to say parentheses. This is my own theory, but I think we've really romanticized World War Two, and especially the European theater. And when I say romanticized, I mean, it was the scale and scope of it was horrific., the casualties, the loss of life, the Holocaust, all of it is just unthinkably terrible. But we romanticize how, the British American relationship at that time, the, the Brits said that they stood alone against Nazi power, but there were plenty of, the countries of, their empire, who also fought Canada and Australia being good examples and this is the context that often gets lost, is that the British still had its empire at that point, um, and had a different set of interests than ours were, in addition to the fact that they looked at strategy quite differently than Americans do, so this disagreement about when um, Um, the allies would cross the English Channel and attack German occupied Europe was a, uh, heated and sometimes extremely unpleasant debate that went on for some time before the actual date itself. And then I think you'd have to add very quickly, that It was probably very hard, and I shouldn't say probably, it was very hard for the British to accept the growing role of the United States in this European war and what that actually meant because we started a massive campaign to industrialize for the war. And by the time we get to D Day, there's about to be a massive shift. In the war effort itself between relying mostly on British resources to a shift of American superiority in this area. So it's Ike who gets the command and he has some subordinates who are really very uncomfortable and very unhappy about the fact that an American is leading this historic attack on the Normandy shores. Eisenhower looks at this plan and says, there's not enough firepower here. And if you want me to keep this job, we're going to have to add two beaches in an airborne operation. Because you have to Attack with overwhelming force, or it would be quite, um, imaginable that you would be thrown back into the

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Um, so all of that that whole plan under Eisenhower's instructions after he gets the nod to be the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces. That whole shift in even the strategy for the D Day launch itself, uh, occurs in the months just going into the invasion, in June. and then, of course, there was a shortage of resources, shortage of, uh, landing craft, uh, he had to be bargaining, with the folks in Washington about where some of these resources were going to go because we were also fighting in the Far East.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

so all of these are huge pressures and then disagreements around various parts of the plan. And finally, the, what I pointed out in my book. is different than, well, it was a little bit more detailed than another, recounting of this launch was the very difficult decision about using airborne forces. Um, and at the very end, uh, the Germans move a division into the area that looks like it threatens the viability of the airborne drop, Eisenhower decides that he has to use those airborne troops anyway. So then you get, combine that with a very controversial weather forecast. And of course, you know, in order for airborne troops to be successful, they have to, it sure helps to know where they're dropping, right?

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm. Yeah.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

And I think that the combination of those things, what he'd realized is that even though the predictions that the airborne forces would be wiped out, he had to use them because they were the linchpin of the operation. And if they couldn't clear certain parts of the Normandy coast, especially the causeways off of the beaches that the GIs coming on shore could be thrown back into the sea.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

So, how did he manage that tension? And I'm sorry to give you such a long answer to all this, but is one of the extraordinary times in his career. He managed it, I think, with a sense of acceptance. Um, he keeps saying in his diaries and other places. He's going to do everything he can. He's going to do his absolute best and he can't do anything more than his absolute best. And, you know, a lot of people can't to terms with that, I think. But it turns out that that operation was successful and it was not the end of the war by any means, but it was a game changer.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

I know many of us have seen those photos of Ike with those paratroopers before they take out. Personal visit he made with them. Mm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

as an analyst rather than a family member, because I, I still am very much compartmentalized., Mom and dad, but I'm very moved by that. So, you know, these were the airborne troops that he'd been told by his commander, We're gonna be eviscerated and recommended that they not be used. But despite that, he went out and he looked these young men in the eyes,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

and I don't know how many commanders do that these days when they in their own minds that they are sending possibly an extraordinarily large proportion of these young men to their deaths.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Um, I, I just don't know where he got that internal strength, except that it was his duty to make this decision and he did it to the best of his ability he was prepared to live with the consequences and to take full and sole responsibility should it end in failure.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

And I'm sure that our listeners know the, the in case of failure, note story that he had prepared that day on D Day just in case it didn't happen. And then the, the took the responsibility upon himself if that had happened.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, yes. And, and let's, okay. So just to put it in starkest terms, he was actually taking full responsibility for the weather forecast. I mean, he was Also accepting the fact that he might have made the wrong judgment about whether to deploy the troops that day or not. There aren't many people who want to have their career determined by what the weather forecast is. And to know that if the weather forecast isn't what it was predicted to be, that you are going to accept the fact that you deserve to be sent down from your job. I should say one thing about the weather forecast, too, is that not everybody on the weather team agreed with the forecast. So that made another one of those variables know, a source of, enormous concern.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah. Just incredible stress. And so let's skip forward a bit. Um, post war, he initially said he was not going to run for the presidency. And, but then of course he does make a successful run in 1952. What was behind that change? From the earlier determination to his eventual running and winning.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, if you think about it, there's a fair distance of time between the end of the war in 1945 and running in 1952. And he was under a lot of pressure, even as early as 1944, to run for, president because he'd already commanded successful operations in North Africa and Italy, et cetera. I mean, I should say in Sicily and he thought it was absurd for anybody to suggest a, he run for president and be the, he would even consider, well, you know, the war hadn't even been won. Well, he at least says in his diary that he doesn't think being a soldier, even at the very top of the chain of command is necessarily a qualification for the presidency. And the other thing is, I think it's worth noting is that of the, military officers, they didn't vote in elections. The tradition was you served your country and you didn't vote. Yeah. So one of the reasons he was under so much pressure after the war is the Democrats and Republicans couldn't figure out what political party he was associated with.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Right.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

So they both came calling, both parties did, and in one very interesting exchange, and I'm sure given your extensive experience, the presidential archives, piece of this, Harry Truman's letter to Dwight Eisenhower of volunteering to step down for the presidency to make way for Dwight Eisenhower is, it's an extraordinary letter. Of course, Eisenhower, at that in 48, uh, declined to do that and didn't even want to do it in 1952, particularly when Truman again made that offer for the second time. Um, But I think one of the reasons Eisenhower and Truman didn't get along so well later is that Truman was upset that when Eisenhower was finally persuaded to do it, that he ran as a Republican and not a Democrat.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

hmm. Well, we know he, he did run as a Republican successfully. And as you looked at those two terms as president what did you take away as lessons learned from his way of making decisions or planning as the chief executive?

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, I think the thing that stands out most for most people as the years went on. Is that there was a lot of feeling that he'd spent a lot of time on the golf course and wasn't paying attention to what was going on. it's worth saying that he had some illnesses during his presidency. He had a heart attack, for instance, and that made people wonder whether he was really on the job. I will say, and we discovered certainly when he ran again in 1956, he still had all of his marbles. So this was a setback and he wasn't sure he was going to run for a second term, but he did. And a lot of very big and transformational decisions were made in his, second term, far as the principles are concerned. He was a strategist and, Alan, what I was hoping to do in this book was to underscore the fact that Dwight Eisenhower, the general and Dwight Eisenhower, the president was the same person,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

he'd just taken the stars off his shoulders and, um, relinquished his designation as a, general, he became a civilian. But he thought about political problems the same way he thought about military strategy in a way.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm. Well,

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

you know, if you're holding classified information and your opposition is acting like you don't know what you're doing. Tough luck. You know, there was also the way he treated people. He had many, many devoted associates and he liked to surround himself with people who had differing ideas. So he loved the pushback. he loved hearing, all sides of the argument because he thought that that helped him fill in some strategic gaps in his own thinking. And he used to say to his cabinet members, get this, they used to have a cabinet meeting once a week and, and the president had a press conference once a week, too, he would say to them, make your case, make your case to me. And this is very similar to, how he fulfilled his responsibilities during World War II. with, by the way a group of commanders who were only too ready to tell him what they thought.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

that shows a real strength of character to be able to hear those differing opinions and not just want to hear your opinion pared it back to you.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, look, in his view, there was too much at stake.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

This wasn't about ego. This is about making the best decision um, with an array of unattractive, you know, alternatives. By the time decisions get up to that level, and you know this from your extraordinary work, Um, all, all of the tough ones are left for the top.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

If it was easy to sort out, it was done at lower levels long ago. And so you're faced with usually, uh, an array of decisions that are all complicated, uh, have long histories. And as a matter of fact, I say to people today, you have to understand the context of our times in order to make the right decision. Because just because we don't remember something doesn't mean that another country. has forgotten it too. Yes,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

that knowledge of history, and we were talking a bit about that before we went on the air here that, uh, That we sometimes lose in this country, I'm afraid, but we are the American poters are trying our best to help with, of having that background of understanding, uh, that context and that perspective, I think is invaluable and absolutely important.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

it is.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

So, Ike wrote that quote, only the promises of the extreme right and extreme left, he feared that only those would be heard in public places. So how did he take on the challenge of those extremes, those extreme voices with what was called his middle way?

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Right, he loved that concept of the middle way, and he also made the point that crafting the middle way was a harder job than being an extremist on either side of the political spectrum. Because it required, um, conciliation. It required personal diplomacy. It required finding common ground. It, required making compromise. Because his view was that middle way was where the progress was going to be made, not on the extremes because the extremes were out for kind of maximalist victory. And, we look back on that time. Many people tell me, oh, that was such a placid, wonderful time. Well, actually,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Right. Mm hmm. Wow. Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

was just a different set of objectives that he was going to find the middle. So one thing that I thought was really interesting is that out of an eight year presidency, six of those years, Congress was controlled by the other party. And despite that, he got 80 percent of his legislative agenda through Congress. And there was a lot of hard work in that. That meant that the speaker and the majority leader, that was Sam Rayburn, of course, and Lyndon Johnson, uh, were invited to the White House regularly for a scotch on Friday evening to shoot the breeze. And, uh, he was constantly inviting Democrats and Republicans to have lunch and breakfast with him. And if they called the White House, they got put straight through. And, you know, there's a lot of work involved in all of this. And I think we've sort of taken to social media these days as a way to, of the energy and the commitment it takes to actually forming real relationships.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

That, uh, that is so vitally important. For several years, I worked with Senator Howard Baker, and he had that same kind of comment that in his time in the Senate, it was so important, those personal relationships, not just meetings, but things like softball games or, or having a drink and being able to affect good public policy in that way. And yeah,

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

It's, and I understood this is that it's very easy to demonize people,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

especially if you haven't met their wives and children.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

so, my grandmother used to say when she had a state dinner or some kind of big official reception, she made it very clear from the beginning, she didn't want to know what political party anybody came from. And there was going to be no inviting to the White House of, campaign supporters singled out as being somebody special. This was going to be you know, a mix of Washington. Also, Ike had so called Stag dinners, of course, you would never call it that these days, but because of where we were in our history, there were not a lot of women. He had a couple of cabinet who are women, but generally speaking, these were people from around the country and he would select them, Democrats and Republicans, industrialists and everybody else to come to the White House for a dinner and, Tell them how life looked to them. Um, he gained a lot from, you know, just understanding other people's views. I'd like to say one more time that that's exactly what he did during the war. He used to go out to GI encampments and go into the kitchens to find out what they were eating and to check the pots and pans and to make sure. You know, uh, that their living accommodations were decent. He thought all those things were equally important in the campaign for, um, to that war to an end. And you might say that was part of his strategy for making progress in America.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Now, as you said, that the 1950s were most definitely not placid. There were so many things going on, and one of those was facing Senator Joseph McCarthy and his allegations, uh, the present in the past has faced some criticism for not taking him on perhaps more vigorously, but that analysis has certainly been undergoing revision. How did you find that? I, in his own way, effectively countered the extremism of McCarthy.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, you know, I think this is a wonderful example of Ike style of leadership. because first of all. was awkward. Um, Senator McCarthy was a member of his own party.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

he, took to accusing everybody, uh, being a communist pretty much. All kinds of great public figures that we know about, um, from that period of history, like Ralph Bunche, and other great figures were all accused by Senator McCarthy of something, and I believe that, uh, McCarthy never had a Full litigated success. He was a demagogue that for his day was the equivalent of a social media superstar. And Ike suspected that what he wanted more than anything else, Joseph McCarthy, was attention. So Ike's theory about that is that if you're opposing somebody or if you're in a battle what you try to do is deprive the quote unquote enemy. Of what they want. Um, and if McCarthy wanted attention, Dwight Eisenhower is not going to give it to him. there were plenty of people in the White House who said, you know, you're making a mistake, you've got a bully pulpit, you need to get up on the bully pulpit and, put this guy in his place and Eisenhower told him they were nuts. Um, he said I'm not going to get into the gutter with that guy. I'm not going to let him start a controversial debate with the president of the United States because that's the level at which he wishes to work. So he used his time and energy on McCarthy instead by trying to persuade his own party to censure, Senator McCarthy, who, you know, Of course, the, uh, the White House couldn't censure McCarthy. It would have to be his own contemporaries in the Senate.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Um, I, I wonder if you'd just let me read something,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Please. Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

about McCarthy, it's rather funny. Ike writes, only a short sighted or completely inexperienced individual would urge the use of the office of the presidency to give an opponent the publicity he so avidly desires. Um, so the thing is, is that by Refusing to give McCarthy, the proper standing that McCarthy wanted.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yes.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

you know, the thing finally just sort of faded away. I would say that McCarthy's mistake was probably to accuse members of the military, people who'd

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

during World War II, to accuse them of being communists. and then, they really ramped it up and Eisenhower finally through back channels, convinced, his own political party to censure McCarthy in. was the end of it. But what a chapter.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah. Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

principle of don't give them what they want. And by the way, um, attention is very very potent. So you get in an argument with a guy like this and the news media loves it because it's controversial. a human interest story. And before you know it, you, you can't control the events that follow from that.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah. Well, that, that clearhead strategic view of things that Ike showed there, how did his actions reflect that? In the SUEZ crisis? Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

I think this is a really interesting story, the Suez Crisis, because it, uh, happens in 1956, just going into, the re election campaign, and, uh, Eisenhower already had a big enough decision to make, which was related to his own health. Whether or not he was going to run for a second term because he had suffered but recovered from a heart attack. and he decided to run again and we don't have time to get into that decision, but it was not. long after that decision that things begin to turn into a crisis in the Middle East again, the context for this story is our larger events, which, be summed up in a simple sentence that. After World War II the British were beginning to lose their hold on the empire, and, uh, as we know in India things had already shaken loose, and then coming into the 1950s the Egyptian president Nasser comes to power, and there are struggles around what's left of the empire and one of, of course, the most pointed areas is the Suez Canal, actually, this has incredible resonance for today in an interesting way. The British we're claiming, ownership. Or at least, uh, some standing to remain in charge of the Suez Canal. And Nasser pushed very hard. He pushed so hard, by the way, he even recognized communist China and other things. So there were feelings by some in the West that, he was part of the communist movement. But the Eisenhower administration did an assessment and according to international law, Certainly, Great Britain and other colonial powers managed the canal, but they didn't own it, and that the canal actually belonged to Egypt. And this is what creates the crisis, or the beginning of the crisis. For me, what was interesting about this whole story was simply that our wartime allies in World War II ganged on the United States of America, secretly, including Israel, that had just been founded. and those three countries decided, that they were going to overthrow Nasser and they paid lip service to Eisenhower's ideas about, trying to moderate and take care of this crisis diplomatically because the president did not want the Soviet Union to intervene. Okay. Well, anyway, to make a rather colorful story This is all going on literally in the last days of the campaign. As a matter of fact, Eisenhower didn't even get to campaign headquarters, until the party was practically over because he was on the phone still working on the Suez crisis. Uh, he did not campaign during that time. I mean this wasn't a basement strategy. This was, he was on the phone. Threatening

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

his former wartime allies with repudiating what they were doing once their duplicity

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm-hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

evident. Um, so the principle of that one is, which I think is, interesting and deserves greater debate within the United States of America. he, I'm going to paraphrase this, but he basically said. As long as we have one rule for our friends and our allies one rule for everyone else. will never be peace. In other words, he believed in, uh, rule of law, and you couldn't have international law and then make special exceptions for your

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

I see. Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

And, You know, actually his speech to the nation on the Suez crisis is one of the great classics. but, um, has been a rule that has been very, very hard for us to accept. So I would just close this question by saying. After World War II, I mean, everybody who was involved at his level, and even the people who bravely and heroically fought, nobody wanted to see war again, number one. Number two, nuclear weapons, including the hydrogen bomb, changed everything, so the world couldn't afford to have another war.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm-hmm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

that ends up being the overriding principle that then, you know, reveals to the world that he recognizes that you can't have rule for one group and one rule for everyone else, that there won't be peace unless we have one world under, the United Nations, where it came to these kinds of issues.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, let's turn to the domestic scene from that. So there are principles that he applied domestically as well, including in his approach to civil rights. So what were those principles? Uh, that guided him, including his decision, very important decision, to send troops to Little Rock to enforce the Supreme Court's ruling on school desegregation.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah, well, I think this is one area to your point, Alan, earlier about, scholars are re evaluating this area.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

scholars didn't look very hard in the past, if you want my personal opinion, because he's got it written all over his early speeches, both in his inaugural address and also in his State of the Union addresses, that his strategy for civil rights was to desegregate everything the federal government controlled. And that's what he did by the end of his presidency. Uh, he desegregated, Washington, D. C. He put Supreme Court judges on the bench who were anti segregation and brought about Brown versus Board of Education, which was the Supreme Court finding that called for the integration of schools, et cetera. And he also desegregated the armed forces, uh, even after the Truman presidential degree, not much progress had been made on that. I think I mentioned that he desegregated Washington, D. C. The point is, is that he had a strategy all right, but I, I liken this strategy to the D Day strategy, that is his chief objective was to make sure that his troops didn't get thrown back into the sea. That he established a beachhead and in civil rights, that's what he did. He established a beachhead. If the federal government desegregates everything it controls, then this isn't something that can be overturned. The rest of it, which obviously was much more complicated as we saw in the late fifties and then into the sixties and onwards. Was the attitude of the state governments governor Faubus from Arkansas was talking out of both sides of his mouth about complying with a Brown versus board of education. He had obligations to send forward a plan on desegregation of the schools in Arkansas and said he was going to do it and he didn't do it. And I didn't like that at

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Um, and was going to enforce the law of the land in the United States. So often people say to me, was Dwight Eisenhower serious about, civil rights? And I, I like to say, do you know who we sent to usher those kids into their class, those nine American students into their classrooms at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, the 101st Airborne Division. And you know who they were? They did D Day.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Day. Uh, this was a serious thing. He didn't believe that you do anything in a quiet, half hearted way, because if you do it, people question your sincerity. So that was, um, make no mistake about it kind of a move. There was a lot of work still to be done, but it's also interesting that he supported Kennedy's civil rights legislation and made it clear to a number of Republicans that if they didn't support Lyndon Johnson's civil rights measures, uh, that he would be voting for Johnson.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

I think many people also don't understand, I should just throw that in there that he passed the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction in 1957. So it's quite a record, actually. I think the fact is, again, didn't use a bully pulpit in a way that frustrated some people. And part of the reason was, is that he had to find language that made it impossible for the South to disagree. he argued for civil rights around rule of law.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

And it was a less satisfying way to argue it, but the South had no rebuttal to it. Had it gotten a lot more personal about, uh, how immoral you are or how outrageous it is, it would have only stiffened their spine. That was his theory.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

I'm glad our eyes are opening to that as well, and seeing better the moves he made during the administration that were so positive that, uh, That often we haven't heard about in the past and that includes in civil rights, but I want to turn now to something I think about a lot every day because of my day job, I run a couple of science museums in Tennessee and, and, uh, we, we talk a lot about Sputnik launched by the Soviets and in 1957, when you looked at, uh, at the president's reaction to the launch of Sputnik. What did that reveal to you about his character and about his goals?

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

And I'm just smiling here because I, I read that the Chinese, um, revelation that they could produce an AI tool that was cheaper and every bit as powerful as what we've produced. Uh, causes panic, a panic in our system, and they call it now, this is our Sputnik moment. Well, you know, it didn't actually quite unfold quite

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah, right, right.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

in the 1950s. The thing is, is that we knew the Soviet Union was going to be launching, uh, artificial satellites into space. And why do we know that? Because we had an agreement with the Soviet Union that both the United States and the Soviet Union would be launching such satellites in 1957. The 1957. As part of international geophysical year, which was a scientific year for exploration. And so what was a little disingenuous about the panic around Sputnik was that the Soviet scientists were actually in Washington, D. C. days before Sputnik was launched, talking to their counterparts, American counterparts, about the launching of Sputnik. Sputnik. and it was on the front page of the New York Times and other things which I, of course, quote in my book and, um, as soon as it happened, actually people went, Oh, my, isn't that something? But it was really tempting going into a midterm election.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Really, really tempting to say, you know, the United States was caught by surprise. Now the question probably remains, was it a good idea that the United States let the Soviet Union go first? Because we did have a way to create rocket technology that would have beat the Soviets had we opted to do that. But now know from the archives and, and other things that it was a decision of the administration. let them go first simply because they would accidentally establish the legal precedent of free access to space.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

In jet overflights. We have the sovereignty of our airspace, right? But, uh, there had been no legal precedent about low earth orbit or anything beyond that. And this established that principle. Had we been first, the Soviet Union might well have said, Oh my gosh, this is an act of war. Uh, that's what they did over the U 2 program which were overflights over the Soviet Union. it's a little more complicated, but here's the bottom line. It's intriguing, for me as an analyst and a foreign policy type, intriguing that, strategy required, Um, standing back and demonstrating a kind of restraint, even political restraint, understanding that the benefit would be way better later. So in the meantime, we're developing reconnaissance satellites that were ready to go. And, we ended up being the lucky ones in all of this.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Real strength and integrity on display under a lot of stress. He took up painting, though, while he was in the White House. Did he take that up because of the stress? What, what led him to that hobby? Yeah.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

it's interesting. Winston Churchill, uh, was a painter, and Winston Churchill was very excited about painting landscapes he talked about his painting a lot. As a matter of fact, I remember as a kid, Grandad had just been given a painting by Winston Churchill, and Ike said, Well, I'm going to have to ask Winston how he gets his water to look like that. so it's very cute, but I mean, during the war, a lot of people did paint for relaxation. So after the war general Eisenhower at this point now, uh, president of Columbia university, took up painting because his own portrait painter encouraged him, to do it as a way to kind of relax and enjoy. something that is completely unrelated to world events. So Grandad started actually just after the war and he got to be pretty good. For your listeners there, they might really enjoy Googling Eisenhower's painting of Winston Churchill, which is really quite an extraordinary piece of work. And, the other interesting one is Dwight Eisenhower's painting of, Field Marshal Montgomery, um, you know, one of his subordinates who was a very challenging figure.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Shall we say, uh, but he did paint the portraits of most of his wartime subordinates. I mean at the Shafe level and Shafe being headquarters, Supreme Allied Headquarters. And then he took to painting portraits for people like Princess Anne of Princess Royal today, who is, uh, King Charles the Third's sister and he gave them to Queen Elizabeth the Second, who he had known since she was a young girl, um, so he used it as a way to um, say thank you and to let people know that he had spent a lot of time thinking about them.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

And, as I was telling you before we started taping, I was director of the George W. Bush library and he took up painting as well, George W. Bush did, and, uh, he also painted portraits, a lot of them, a lot of them foreign leaders as well that we put on display there. I must admit for President Eisenhower, I've seen his landscapes, but never his portraits. So I'm going to look those up as well, uh, right after this.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Alan, I think his portraits were better and I think that's because he was more interested in people than landscapes. But there, there's another thing here too, is that, he didn't feel the same way Winston Churchill did about his paintings. He says, oh, these are daubs and I'm only doing it to relax and look at a scene in a different way, but he did a lot of those landscapes from postcards. And this wasn't paint by numbers. He actually painted them, but he didn't think they were any big deal. Once when there was an exhibition in New York of his paintings, he said to somebody who said, Now why did you paint it this way? And he says, listen, this stuff is just, you know, this is my hobby. It wouldn't even be hanging on the walls if I hadn't been president of the United States.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, yeah, I, I still think you had a great talent. I always, uh, President Bush would get mad. He would say, people can do this if you try. I cannot. And, uh, when I left,

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

club here.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

right, right, right. Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

did give him relaxation and in the research for this book, I just love the fact that he says to his secretary, Anne Whitman, he says, look out over, he's sitting in the oval office and he instructs her to look out the window and he says, how many shades of green do you see in that scene? And what an interesting metaphor for the president of the United States, you know, and he was painting, by the way, during his presidency, um, to, uh, that's a metaphor for, think of how many shades of complexity there are to this issue,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yes. Yes.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

anyway, I did not get any part of that DNA, none, so, I've been ridiculed by my children, by the way, for my lack of talent, so,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Oh, no. We have talents in other ways, Susan. That's

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

well, I hope so.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

right. So how I glad you talk about so many amazing character traits, principles that guide it President Eisenhower, which of those do you most wish that all of our future American leaders would possess?

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

well, um, maybe if I'm allowed to, I would say, first of all, the restraint makes it possible to do a deeper analysis of why people do what they do. I remember, uh, there are a certain number of dinner table lessons that, we were subject to, whether we wanted to hear them or not.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

uh, one of them was how do you think it looks to the other guy? Now, this sometimes is called strategic empathy, but it's not always about empathy. I mean, you can't be making decisions, in a war like the European theater in World War II, or even in the Far East. without a really careful assessment of what the preconceived ideas are of the other side.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Mm

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Um, it's just that you can't really do much in life that relates to getting results without thinking through methodically what's going to work and how do you know what's going to work unless you know how it looks to your counterparts,

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

hmm. Mm hmm.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

and so I wish we did more of that because, uh, I've been in the foreign policy field pretty much my whole career. I hear people say all the time, I don't know why they did that. And I want to say, I do, uh, look at it from their point of view. And that doesn't mean that you have to give into it. just that you might be very surprised by what they do next. If you haven't done an analysis of that kind, on the personal level. There's a wonderful scene in the book where this little boy is on stage with General Eisenhower and he's receiving some award and his little knees are knocking and Ike goes over to him and says to the little boy, he said, would you hold my hand? He, this is General

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Oh,

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

well, my hand, I'm nervous and the little boy looked up and he said, are you nervous? I'm nervous too.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

That's amazing.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Yeah, well, I'm just saying that it's one of those principles, right, that I think would be helpful. And I would just say, in conclusion that we're all neighbors and we're all members of this one big, wonderful country. And if we started looking at each other like neighbors again, uh, it might do a lot too. Reduce tensions that seem to have overtaken us.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

I have faith that we will, um,

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Me too.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

well, what's next for you, Susan? What are you working on right now? Well,

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

uh, another book idea. I've got about half of one in the can, but I don't think the timing's quite right. And get this, it's going to require, yes, more source notes. I must say there are days when I think, you know, a trashy novel is in my future, but to be quite frank about this I'm afraid I'm too serious to even know how to do that. So. this'll be maybe something, slightly different, but, I found long ago that if you talk about the next project it's sure that it'll never happen.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

when it does happen, we'd love to have you back on American POTUS. A real pleasure and honor to speak with you today.

susan-eisenhower_1_01-31-2025_150441:

no, it was my, my pleasure and honor. And thank you for all you have, you know, done, uh, these valuable museums, because I really, really recommend to everybody a chance to go see these presidential libraries and science museums and everything else. They are among the very greatest assets this country has.

alan-lowe_1_01-31-2025_150441:

Well, thank you for that, Susan. Thank you so much. And I want to thank everyone for listening and for your support of American POTUS. You know, we are a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to providing educational and civil discussions of the presidents and the presidency. So we thank everyone for your support. And I encourage you also to check out American FLOTUS. The podcast American POTUS is producing in partnership with the First Ladies Association for Research and Education, or FLAIR. You can find American FLOTUS episodes at AmericanPOTUS. org, FLAIR net. org, or on your favorite podcast platform. So thanks so much, and I'll see you next time on American POTUS.