<--PREV Doc #22  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #24 Document #23; February 7, 1953 Diary Series: EM, Diaries The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953 Chapter 1: Developing a spirit of teamwork   Early experiences with the Congress have led me to some strange and unexpected conclusions. Surface indications to date are that the individuals from whom I had expected the greatest amount of opposition and with whom I would find cooperation to be difficult have shown a contrary attitude. Senator Taft1 has been the model of cheerful and effective cooperation--so has Senator Bridges, Capehart, Dirksen and others of this general group.2 In the House Joe Martin, Charlie Halleck and John Tabor have been most helpful, and while these men have not been classed in the public mind as the extreme conservatives, neither have they been known as members of the more liberal wing of the party.3 At the same time, I have found in the Senate that some of my best friends have either been extremely sensitive or have become rather temperamental. Frank Carlson4 so dislikes a particular individual that I want to give an important post in government to that I have to withhold the name of one of the men who could do one of our toughest jobs in admirable fashion, Saltonstall has been very fearful and ineffective in handling cases of cases of men who have to dispose of large amounts of stock in order to qualify for office.5 While in every case the men I have named have been quite willing to comply with the provisions of the law6 (and I am referring to interpretations given by some eminent men such as John W. Davis)7 I have found that some of our senatorial friends are so politically fearful that they carry the meaning and intent of the law far beyond anything that could be considered reasonable. The result is that sooner or later we will be unable to get anybody to take jobs in Washington except business failures, college professors, and New Deal lawyers.8 All of these would jump at the chance to get a job that a successful businessman has to sacrifice very much to take. Reasonable sacrifices are, of course, to be expected; in fact the government can scarcely afford to allow anyone to occupy an important post unless he did have to sacrifice very materially in order to take it. But it is the carrying of the practice to the extreme that will eventually damage us badly, unless we get some logical breaks in the Senate in the handling of these cases. All of my early Cabinet meetings have revealed the existence of a spirit of teamwork and of friendship that augers well for the future. Everybody is working hard and doing it with a will. At the moment my two slight worries involve Weeks of Commerce and Durkin of Labor.9 The former seems so completely conservative in his views that at times he seems to be illogical. I hope that I am mistaken or if not, that he will soon become a little bit more aware of the world as it is today. Mr. Durkin seems to me to carry a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Whenever he presents anything in the Cabinet meetings, it is with an attitude that seems to be just a bit jeering. Again I hope I am mistaken. Naturally, in both cases I shall do the best I can in personal conversations to eliminate what I think I see in the two of them. It is the kind of problem I have often had before, and I am by no means discouraged. It is merely that I want this team to function better than any I have ever had around me before. All other members of the Cabinet, including Lodge, Stassen, Dodge and Mrs. Hobby,10 are performing exactly as I expected and I am delighted with them. The White House and Executive staff is rounding into shape rapidly and I believe is going to function exceedingly well. Most of the members are individuals who have been together for a long time,11 and it should be a much easier task for them to develop a real team than it is for the Cabinet. In certain positions of government it has been difficult to find the right people to take over the responsibilities. Arthur Flemming, President of Ohio Wesleyan University, is the only man I know that could fulfill the responsibilities devolving upon the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission12--at least the responsibilities that I intend to place on that officer. Yet there are a few people on the Hill that have a curious notion that Arthur Flemming is a bit of a New Dealer. Actually I find him a very distinct middle-of-the-roader--as well as a brilliant and devoted man. But I have had to come to the conclusion that I cannot use him except in posts where no Senate confirmation is required. I had the same experience in my hope of sending Val Peterson to India as Ambassador, when one Senator defeated the idea.13 This difficulty springs from the fact that the Republicans have been so long in opposition to the Executive, Republican Senators are having a hard time getting through their heads that they now belong to a team that includes rather than opposes the White House. Senator Taft has grasped this fact more quickly and more definitely than have any of the others and I repeat that--to date--he has been a model team mate. 1 See no. 2. 2 H. Styles Bridges, of New Hampshire (M.A. Dartmouth), elected Senate president pro tempore in January, chaired the Appropriations Committee and sat on the Armed Services Committee; Homer E. Capehart, of Indiana, chaired the Banking and Currency Committee and served on the Committee for Interstate and Foreign Commerce; Everett McKinley Dirksen, of Illinois, sat on the Appropriations, Government Operations, and Judiciary committees. Dirksen had been a strong Taft supporter before the 1952 Republican convention. Neither he, Bridges, nor Capehart was known as an internationalist, but these and other members of the party's Old Guard often supported the Eisenhower Administration on foreign policy (see Reichard, Reaffirmation of Republicanism, pp. 92-96). 3 Joseph William Martin, Jr., a Massachusetts Republican, had served in Congress since 1924, chaired the Republican National Committee between 1940 and 1942, and had been House minority leader before his election as speaker. The preceding December Martin had been involved in Eisenhower's planning for governmental reorganization (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 1020). Charles Abraham Halleck, an Indiana Republican congressman, had first won election to the House in 1935, had supported Taft early in the 1952 presidential campaign, and then had been a director of the party's Speakers' Bureau (ibid., no. 908); he served as Republican majority leader in the 83d Congress. John Taber, of New York (B.A. Yale 1902), chaired the Appropriations Committee and sat on the Joint Committee on Reduction of Nonessential Federal Expenditures. 4 Frank Carlson, a Kansas Republican senator, was one of Eisenhower's earliest political supporters and an active campaign adviser (Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, nos. 409, 667, 922). 5 For background on Leverett Saltonstall (LL.B. Harvard 1917), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, see ibid., nos. 509 and 1021. In January Saltonstall had presided at hearings on Charles E. Wilson's confirmation as Defense Secretary, and not until Wilson agreed to divest himself of 39,470 shares of General Motors stock (with a market value of about $2.5 million) did the committee approve, and the Senate confirm, his nomination. Wilson had complained that selling his stock would entail paying high capital-gains taxes; and his wife kept her own shares in the auto company (see Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, pp. 110-12; and New York Times, Jan. 23, 24, 27, 1953). Under pressure from members of Saltonstall's committee, Secretary of the Army-designate Robert T. Stevens and Eisenhower's choice to head the Department of the Air Force, Harold E. Talbott, also sold stock in companies with defense ties. The Senate confirmed Stevens on February 2 and Talbott two days later (New York Times, Jan. 30, Feb. 3, 5, 1953). 6 Seven federal statutes covered the conduct of public officials in this period: 18 United States Code (1979), 99, 216, 281, 283, 284, 434, 1914. For another evaluation of these laws see David A. Frier, Conflict of Interest in the Eisenhower Administration, 2d ed. (Baltimore, 1970), p. 4. 7 Davis (LL.B. Washington and Lee 1895), an eminent attorney who had served as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain after World War I and been the 1924 Democratic presidential nominee, was well known for his role in the steel-seizure case of May 1952. Arguing in the Supreme Court (with General Motors Chairman Wilson lending his fervent support), Davis had delivered a devastating attack on President Truman's takeover of the industry (William H. Harbaugh, Lawyer's Lawyer: The Life of John W. Davis [New York, 1973], p. 474). 8 Revising a draft of this entry, Eisenhower inserted the word "likely" before "result" and wrote "political hacks" in place of "college professors." 9 On Weeks and Durkin see no. 2. Durkin's loyalty to the labor movement had made his appointment to the Cabinet problematical (Senator Taft described it as "incredible"). Interviewing Durkin before his appointment, Eisenhower had told him that as a Cabinet member he would be expected to represent labor's position strongly, "to voice his own convictions honestly and forthrightly," but also that he "would no longer owe personal allegiance to labor, only to the nation." Durkin would "have to accept and abide by" the President's decisions (Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, pp. 90-91; see also Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 1006). 10 Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Eisenhower's campaign manager, had led the Eisenhower transition team and agreed to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (see ibid., passim). On Mutual Security Director Harold Stassen see no. 8. For background on Joseph M. Dodge, Eisenhower's Director of the Budget, see ibid., nos. 978 and 980. In April Federal Security Administrator Hobby would assume Cabinet rank as head of the newly created Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (see no. 64). 11 Chief of Staff Sherman Adams (see no. 3), Robert Cutler (see no. 8), Gabriel Hauge (see no. 20), Emmet Hughes (see no. 16), C. D. Jackson (see no. 8), and Thomas E. Stephens (see no. 9) all had served on Eisenhower's campaign staff, as had Press Secretary James C. Hagerty, Assistant Staff Secretary L. Arthur Minnich, Jr., and the President's personal secretary, Ann Cook Whitman (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, nos. 924, 971, 974, 1024, 1049). Major General Wilton Burton "Jerry" Persons, special assistant to the President and congressional liaison; Colonel Paul Thomas Carroll, acting staff secretary; and Lieutenant Colonel Robert Ludwig Schulz, the President's military aide, were Army officers who had served with Eisenhower at SHAPE (ibid., nos. 2, 29, 53, 157, 897). 12 On Arthur Sherwood Flemming see no. 52. For the President's decision on the Civil Service Commission see no. 34, n. 4. 13 Frederick Valdemar Erastus Peterson had been an Army air force officer in the Burma-India theater during World War II and Nebraska Governor from 1947 to 1952, when he declined to run for another term and lost a Republican primary bid for the Senate. In mid-January Eisenhower announced plans to name Peterson U.S. Ambassador to India, replacing Chester Bowles, but the Nebraska senators opposed him as personally objectionable. Later in the month Eisenhower named Peterson Administrative Assistant to the President, to work under Sherman Adams as White House liaison with government departments and agencies. Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Diary, 7 February 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 23. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/23.cfm <--PREV Doc #22  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #24

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