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FIRST 100 DAYS
Eisenhower: When Foreign Policy Was The Focus
Originally published Jan. 13, 2001
Republicans had high expectations in 1953, when their party assumed control at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Dwight D. Eisenhower was taking office as the first Republican President in 20 years following a momentous chain of events -- the Depression, the New Deal, World War II, and the start of the Cold War. It would have been logical for the new President and the GOP majorities on Capitol Hill to seek big changes.
"It was all just so wonderful," George Murphy, a Hollywood actor at the time who served during the 1960s as a Republican senator from California, recounted in Stephen E. Ambrose's biography Eisenhower. "It was like walking into bright sunshine after being in darkness for a long time."
But things didn't get off to as quick a start as Republicans might have liked. Eisenhower had no "First 100 Days" program. During the first two years of his presidency, he had no significant domestic achievements. But he is credited with using this period to outline two main goals of his presidency: improving efficiency in Washington, and introducing the new concepts of "deterrence" and "massive retaliation" to deal with Cold War threats in Europe and Asia.
During 1953 and 1954, the GOP just barely controlled Congress: The partisan breakdown at the start was 221-213 in the House and 48-47 in the Senate, with one independent in each body. And while Republicans were excited to regain the levers of power in Washington, they had no sense of party unity and paid little attention to agenda-setting.
Moreover, Ike's big victory in 1952 was largely a personal one. During the war, he had been supreme commander of Allied forces, but he lacked experience in civilian office. "If there was a mandate for Republicans (in the 1952 election), it was largely negative," wrote Gary Reichard in The Reaffirmation of Republicanism. "There is broad agreement that the victory was produced by three issues: Korea, Communism, and corruption. All three evils were popularly associated with the Truman Administration."
From the beginning, Eisenhower chiefly focused on foreign policy. His inaugural address outlined "the dangers of war and aggressive Communism," according to Ambrose. Two months before Eisenhower took office, he visited South Korea and decided to end the Korean War by signing an armistice. To the disappointment of many Republican partisans, the inaugural speech lacked raw meat: There was no attack on the New Deal or promise to cut taxes.
Early on, Eisenhower concentrated on building support for internationalism and "collective security." In his 1953 State of the Union message, he called for "a new, positive foreign policy" and for foreign aid spending of $5.8 billion. A tight-fisted Congress eventually approved $4.5 billion (in a $71 billion budget).
Still, Eisenhower faced obstacles among GOP isolationists. Most prominent were Sen. John W. Bricker, R-Ohio, whose hotly debated constitutional amendment to limit the President's treaty-signing power was defeated by a single vote in February 1954, and Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., who became an embarrassment to the White House and many Republicans as a Red-baiting demagogue.
On the domestic side, the first 100 days were something of a blur. "It took a while to establish an agenda," said Donald A. Ritchie, the Senate's associate historian. "Some Republicans wanted to roll back the New Deal. But Eisenhower didn't want turbulent change.... He wanted to quiet things down."
The logical architect of the domestic agenda was Sen. Robert A. Taft, R-Ohio, who nearly defeated Eisenhower for the GOP presidential nomination in 1952, and took over in January 1953 as Senate Majority Leader. Taft, a stalwart opponent of the New Deal whom many conservatives loved as "Mr. Republican," acted as the new President's "prime minister," wrote Taft biographer William S. White. But the relationship never fully developed: Taft died in July 1953 and his designated successor, Sen. William Knowland, R-Calif., was cool toward Eisenhower.
Although many congressional Republicans sought to raise domestic issues such as wasteful spending and "the Truman mess," referring to corruption allegations, Eisenhower doused their enthusiasm during his early months in office by refusing to support tax cuts or major program changes. In February 1953, Treasury Secretary George M. Humphrey warned against "precipitous action" after House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Daniel A. Reed, R-N.Y., called for terminating an 11 percent income tax surcharge.
Then, as now, the air was filled with talk of bipartisanship. In fact, during his eight years in office, Eisenhower sought what he called the "middle way" between New Deal and Republican ideology on issues such as housing and health, where he advocated a combination of federal and private initiatives. But his proposals were "ideologically ambiguous enough that they frequently brought on confusion and discord" among Republicans, Reichard wrote.
Only later in his presidency -- and after Democrats took control of Congress in 1955 -- did Eisenhower achieve his main domestic deeds, including the interstate highway program in 1956, and the 1957 civil rights law.