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A Battle That Ike Lost

Dwight D. Eisenhower fought many battles in war and in peace, at home and abroad. They included battles over ideas and public policies, and he lost a number of them. He was never able to convince the leaders of the Soviet Union to move toward mutual disarmament. Ike was also unable to convince many Republicans in the isolationist wing of his own political party that America’s security depended on international alliances such as NATO. And he lost in nearly all of his efforts to reorganize the military services of the United States.

There was one other major battle that he lost, and the outcome, according to his biographer, Stephen E. Ambrose, “all but broke his heart.” This heartbreaking loss involved his effort to foster a United States of Europe.

Ike had begun thinking about the need for a unified Europe during the Second World War, when he experienced first hand a tragic conflict that European unity might have prevented. Five years after the end of the war, the Western European nations were still suffering from the terrible damages stemming from that conflict. Many of the European economies were in terrible shape. Morale was low and international distrust was high. The Marshall Plan to spur economic recovery was still in its early stages, and the Soviet Union, which already dominated Eastern Europe politically and militarily, was a frightening menace. Different languages, long-held prejudices, and — above all — a history of national struggles had combined to prevent Europe from developing a sense of purposeful unity on the western side of the Iron Curtain.

In 1949, fourteen Western European nations and the United States had created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance for mutual defense and economic cooperation. But in most respects it was a paper document without any force or effect. There was no money, no staff, and no military arm to defend Europe.

Alarmed at increasing Soviet belligerence toward Western Europe, President Truman asked Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was then serving as the President of Columbia University, to take off his academic robes and put on his uniform again. Truman asked Ike to go back to Europe with a new mission: to put teeth into the military defense provisions of the NATO treaty. On January 1, 1951, Ike arrived in Belgium to take up his new duties.

In his effort to form a NATO military headquarters in Brussels and to summon the troops and equipment to defend Western Europe, Ike made personal visits to each member country. He had private talks with their military commanders and heads of state. Few other American leaders of that era enjoyed the stature needed to convene such meetings and to achieve agreement about the practical means of making NATO a reality . Eisenhower was welcomed by all. As he worked his way through Europe, Ike became even more convinced that military security for the region could best be achieved through a genuine political and economic union of the member states. By the summer of 1951, Ike was ready to go public with a proposal for United States of Europe and to fight for its acceptance.

This was the subject of a *speech he gave to 1,200 top British leaders meeting at Grosvenor House in London on July 3, 1951. He began by reviewing the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States and emphasizing its strength. Then he described his vision of an integrated Western Europe, an integration that was hampered by “history, custom, language and prejudice….” More specifically, Eisenhower said, “Progress has been hobbled by a web of customs barriers interlaced with bilateral agreements, multilateral cartels, local shortages, and economic monstrosities. How tragic! Free men facing the specter of political bondage, are crippled by artificial bonds that they themselves have forged, and they alone can loosen!”

Ike looked to a different future: “Once united, the farms and factories of France and Belgium, the foundries of Germany, the rich farmlands of Holland and Denmark, the skilled labor of Italy, will provide miracles for the common good. In such unity is a secure future for these peoples.”

The speech was received with a lengthy standing ovation. It appeared in the major European newspapers the next day. Winston Churchill, a world-renowned speechmaker, told Eisenhower, “I am sure this is one of the greatest speeches delivered by any American in my lifetime.”

Later Eisenhower urged French Premier Pleven to call the NATO leaders together “to meet in an official constitutional convention to consider ways and means for promoting a closer union.” The French government, however, was every bit as afraid of a new German army as it was of a Soviet military invasion. So the French rejected the idea. After becoming President of the United States in 1953, Eisenhower sent his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, on a European trip to attempt once again to promote the idea among the Western European heads of state. But no response was forthcoming. The final blow to Eisenhower’s dream came in 1954 when the French Parliament voted down an early measure to begin the unification process.

Eisenhower had lost the battle, but not the war! Today there is a European Union of twenty-five independent states. There is a common currency, common passports, and a parliament buttressed by common agencies of government. All of this has happened during the current generation and few today remember the efforts of the prescient world statesman who, far ahead of his time, fought mightily to bring it about a unified Europe more than half a century ago..

*To read the full text of General Eisenhower’s famous speech of July 3, 1951 click here.

© Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, Washington, DC, 2004