Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower

A Documentary History

T. Walch

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137334091
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Bringing together core selections from and analysis of material documenting the uneasy collaboration between Herbert and Eisenhower, this collection incisively uses primary sources to illuminate the 1952 Republican nomination fight, the second Hoover Commission, and other key episodes during the Eisenhower presidency.

C H A P T E R 1

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Getting to Know One Another, 1945–1948

Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower were not strangers when they first exchanged written communications. In fact, it is likely that the two men were introduced by General Douglas MacArthur, who was chief of staff of the U.S. Army during the Hoover administration. Eisenhower was MacArthur’s aide and was often charged with the responsibility for preparing reports and communications with the president. It is logical, therefore, to assume that Eisenhower had had a number of formal conversations and briefings with his commander in chief between 1929 and 1933. That likelihood having been acknowledged, there is no record of any written contact between Hoover and Eisenhower during those years.

The first documentary evidence of communication between the two men comes at the end of World War II when Hoover wrote to Eisenhower about a matter very close to Hoover’s heart. Hoover had been an active and avid collector of archival documentation on war, revolution, and peace since the years after the First World War. It was his belief that knowledge would help prevent nations from repeatedly making the same mistakes.

In fact, to further research on these issues, Hoover opened a special “war library” at Stanford University. Established in 1919, the war library eventually grew into the Hoover Institution for War Revolution and Peace with its own distinctive tower in the middle of the Stanford campus. With the end of the Second World War in 1945, Hoover took the initiative to smooth the way for his representatives to travel in Europe and gather vital documents. Hoover knew that Eisenhower’s cooperation was vital and this led to an initial request for help in 1945 and the flurry of communications the following year.

Collecting documents was not the only issue that brought the two men together, however. Food relief for Europe also was a common concern and Hoover took a leading role as chairman of the President’s Famine Emergency Committee and Eisenhower a supporting role as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Not surprisingly, Hoover briefed Eisenhower on civilian food needs and Eisenhower, in turn, briefed his own staff on Hoover’s work.

A third issue of common interest was politics. Hoover was keenly interested in the upcoming presidential elections of 1948 and Eisenhower was rumored to be a candidate for president. Would he run as a Republican? Hoover wanted to know and put his thoughts on paper.

A final issue of common concern was the reorganization of the executive branch—the so-called Hoover Commission. Hoover was pleased to have Eisenhower as a consultant on the reorganization of the War Department and its eventual transition into the Department of Defense. For his part, Eisenhower was pleased and honored to work with the former president on such a vital issue.

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Letter, Hoover to Eisenhower, April 24, 1945

The first documented correspondence between Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower came at the end of World War II. As the war was coming to a close, the former president sought the assistance of the Supreme Allied Commander with the gathering of documents and other historical materials to be added to the “War Library” at Hoover’s alma mater. The collection had been established by Hoover at Stanford in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I. The documents are now part of the vast holdings of the Hoover Institution. There is no evidence at either the Hoover or Eisenhower libraries of a specific response from Eisenhower to this letter.

The Waldorf Astoria Towers

New York, New York

April 24, 1945

My dear General:

This letter will be presented by Mr. John Brown Mason, who is in Europe collecting historical material for the War Library at Stanford University.

As you perhaps know, the War Library contains the largest collection of material on the last war and the subsequent events in the world today, and the Trustees are anxious to keep it abreast for the benefit of future Americans.

I am wondering if you could designate someone on your staff to give such incidental assistance to him as he may need. Mr. Mason will not be any embarrassment to the Army as he has been a long resident of Europe and knows how to conduct himself.

You can scarcely know the feeling of affection and esteem in which you are held by every American.

Yours faithfully,

Herbert Hoover

General Dwight Eisenhower

Supreme Allied Headquarters

Hoover Memorandum, January 28, 1946

Determined to extricate unique documentary materials from Europe as quickly as possible, Hoover arranged to have lunch with Eisenhower at the Pentagon on January 28, 1946. Joining the two men was John Mason Brown, Hoover’s factotum in Europe. Although Eisenhower served as a military officer in Washington during much of the Hoover administration, this is the first documented meeting between the two men. Hoover’s memorandum of the meeting articulated the former president’s effort to stop the division of documentary materials among several universities. Hoover’s foil in this effort was Major Clayton Bissell, assistant chief of staff for intelligence in the War Department and head of the department’s historical program.

Metropolitan Club, Washington, D.C.

January 28, 1946, 2:00 p.m.

I had luncheon with General Dwight Eisenhower in the Pentagon Building today.

I gather that General Eisenhower had informed himself in advance about the matter of collecting documents for the Library at Stanford as he seemed somewhat familiar with the subject. He said that he would do anything that he could possibly do to be helpful. He said he would look into the matter and advise me the day after tomorrow.

When General Eisenhower read the passage in General Bissell’s letter which I had handed to him, that it was G-2’s proposal to divide the documents collected in Europe by the Army equally between all interested universities, he asked how research students were going to work that out. General Eisenhower at once saw the absurdity of this suggestion of Bissell’s.

General Eisenhower asked if we had the money and he wanted to know if it was a small sum. I replied that we could spend a million dollars if necessary—but usually it is not necessary to put out large sums—for instance, heirs seldom expect more than a thousand dollars for diary notes or documents left.

I told him that I understood that a block had been put on us by the War Department, that it was partly university politics and partly G-2’s ambition to control everything. I explained that we were interested in areas outside Germany, such as Spain, where we wanted to collect documents on the Vichy Government, etc., which the army could not possibly expect to get as completely. That we also wanted to send men into Switzerland and to Stockholm. I told him that we had important collections of material that had been gathered during the war, that are now in cities occupied by the Russians and that we would like help in getting those collections out.

Eisenhower was very affable. He asked what he could do because the permission and passports must come from the State Department.

I pointed out that most of the dispute revolved around getting our men into Germany. I asked if he could see that no blocks were put in the way by the State Department. Eisenhower said he would try to do that. I then suggested that if he would give me a letter of introduction for our man, assuring him the same treatment accorded to newspapermen in Europe, by the Army, it would be most helpful. He laughed, and said that with such a letter, our man could probably get the passport—that he would look into it and see what could be done, but that he would rather fix it up on a more regular basis.

General Eisenhower thought it was a great pity that all the material for future research could not be assembled and concentrated in one place. I told him that the War Library probably had the only complete process verbal of the War Council of the last war. I explained to him that the landings in Normandy were made by use of maps that had been secured from the Library.

Eisenhower was greatly exercised about the situation in Europe. He agreed with me that everything behind the iron curtain of Russian occupation is Russia. He says that getting the cooperation of the French is the greatest obstacle. He said that the Russians are not so bad to get along with on an administrative plane as the French who are inclined to upset everything.

He said he was opposed to dividing Germany into sections and that he tried his best at Potsdam to oppose it and hold Germany together. He said that the French are opposing everything in order to try to force through their program of getting the Saar and Rhineland and of having the Ruhr neutralized. They won’t cooperate on anything. That the French Government must follow either one of two courses:

1. Either let Germany go communist and have the Russians on her border, or else

2. Have Southern Germany as a buffer state.

The French cannot stand the idea of having Russian Communism on their border, nor will they accept the idea of having Southern Germany as a buffer state.

We are presumably giving the German population 1600 to 1700 calories in our areas. If we raise the daily ration above this, we will get infiltration of Germans from the other zones into our area, and create additional problems. The public health indices are not too bad except for children. The doctors report the high mortality of children which is around fifty percent to be due to a large extent to the underfeeding of mothers during the pre-natal period. Communicable diseases are rampant—tuberculosis, etc.

I raised the question about the American Friends Service going in and Eisenhower thought that the time had come for them to do it—but that it is difficult because we are under two pressures, opposing feeding in Germany—one from the French and second from Jewish and similar groups in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1 Getting to Know One Another, 1945–1948
• 2 Conflict over Policy and Politics, 1949–1952
• 3 Negotiating the Nomination, 1952
• 4 A Tense Courtship, 1952
• 5 Back to Work, 1953
• 6 Reorganization Redux, 1954–1955
• 7 Insuring a Second Term, 1956
• 8 Dear Mr. President, 1957
• 9 Coming to Closure, 1958–1959
• 10 Drifting Away, 1960–1965
• Further Reading and Research
• Index