Eisenhower Doctrine--Back to the future
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I was only 3 when his last term ended, but still vaguely remember the Eisenhower Era. For me, it was living next door to President Eisenhower’s son John on Oakcrest Drive in Alexandria. The Eisenhowers were fun.
The Secret Service would wave to us as we went in and out of the grocery store, and at Christmas they helped Dad string long lights around the perimeter of the house. They joined us as we played with the Eisenhower children running between our yards. My older siblings got to go to the White House for birthday parties and Mother and Dad were included in dinners in the family quarters there. Mother always insisted her best recipes were from Mamie.
All I knew was living next to the Eisenhowers made us special: I liked Ike.
Later on I understood Ike in the context of history and American politics. The era brought the beginning of the Space Race, robust execution of Truman’s Marshall Plan, the winding down of the Korean War, and the unqualified reliance on NATO as an effective body through which to negotiate the Cold War.
Elected on his military background, Ike had a knack for transcending it. He galvanized political will for a civil defense plan into an economy-changing interstate highway system. He was practical, optimistic and mostly realistic. He signed the country’s first civil rights bills, and ordered the integration of the public schools in Washington, D.C. as a model for the nation. Playing against type, the General President warned of the dangers of a military industrial complex that might prefer profits to peace. Like any good grandfather he was a good steward, investing today to make lives better for the next generation.
A couple of weeks ago in McLean, I was reunited with one of Ike’s grandchildren. Susan Eisenhower was in Northern Virginia to speak on behalf of Barack Obama at a gathering of mostly independent and Republican women. Susan has spent her life modeling her grandfather’s public service. She is an internationally respected expert on foreign policy and nuclear non-proliferation issues, has served the National Academy of Sciences, the NASA Advisory Council, and many other government boards and commissions. She has written about her proud family heritage, Islam and the threat of terrorism, and all manner of national security issues.
But to me, she is still Susan Eisenhower, the girl from the magical family next door. We had both come a long way since playing in the yard - before television and blackberries, adjustable rate mortgages and derivatives. Before 9/11 and shopping malls before doctrines of pre-emption and shock and awe, before Abu Graib and Guantanamo, before hanging chads and intelligent design.
Our paths have been different, but started the same. When I got out of college, I identified with the Republican Party Susan describes as the one she grew up with:
“In my grandparents’ time, the thrust of the party was rooted in: a respect for the constitution; the defense of civil liberties; a commitment to fiscal responsibility; the pursuit and stewardship of America’s interests abroad; the use of multilateral international engagement and 'soft power'; the advancement of civil rights; investment in infrastructure; environmental stewardship; the promotion of science and its discoveries; and a philosophical approach focused squarely on the future.”
In 1979, a college graduate still looking for my first job, I worked as a volunteer to help Howard Baker win the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. I saw in his candidacy and in the leadership of Sen. Charles Mathias of Maryland, Sen. Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, in Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island—in so many of the Republican leaders at that time, the values Susan described.
But over the years, as many of these fine leaders retired or were voted out of service, I saw a shift. My support went from Republican, to Independent to mostly Democratic. The years had gone by, and lo and behold, Susan this year has made a similar transformation.
This summer, after endorsing Barack Obama for President, Susan Eisenhower announced she had changed her registration from Republican to Independent. She explains it in a historical context: “Hijacked by a relatively small few, the GOP of today bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower’s party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after.”
One can read between the lines that she laments the budget deficits, the unilateral international approach, the lack of investment in infrastructure, the blind eye to the environment and an inclination to put science behind ideology.
Standing at the podium on a pretty afternoon in McLean, she looked much like her mother, a more glamorous version of a 1950s June Cleaver. It took me back to the days on Oakcrest. Drive. A time that lived up to every cliché of the Eisenhower Era. You could mistake it for simplicity, but it was rather, clarity. We were the leaders of the Free World. We had obligations that went along with that. We thought the future would be Space Age, and we were supposed to sacrifice for it.
Susan and I felt at home in that world. We were.
Megan Beyer is a Democratic commentator and panelist on the PBS news analysis program To the Contrary.
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