20th Century Mount Rushmore: The Legacy of President Eisenhower

this year marks fifty years since dwight eisenhower's presidency this week marks the fifty fifth anniversary of the interstate highway system one of eisenhower's most lasting legacies i'm kate mcintyre and today on k pr present remembering america's thirty fourth president presidential historian richard norton smith called eisenhower one of the four most influential presidents of the twentieth century smith served as the first director of the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas he returned to the institute earlier this year for the two thousand eleven presidential lecture series in that four part series hosted by curran director bill lacy smith laid out his vision for a twentieth century mount rushmore featuring presidents ronald reagan franklin delano roosevelt forgive yourself a roof and five and how and five all of you for coming out and i had a great crowd having your list before and tell us why it is on the list will i readily

acknowledge that other people might come up with all the next i think fdr is about what's beyond dispute either personally think ronald reagan is as well and then you begin to get i suppose to the point where you could debate all sorts of things you could certainly make a case for harry truman alm reason eisenhower's on the worst is first of all you can make the case he's the most successful president set or were true you could certainly make the case that he represents a third way if project one would do to president reagan brought in speaking were talking about the cotton jeffersonian tradition updated to the twentieth century but that tradition that that harbors what they call healthy skepticism about government and its capacity to improve people's lives

a handout the wisdom of keeping that government as small and as local was thursday several laws as inexpensive as possible that is a tradition that fdr was thought to have almost obliterated because the nude what i call the new deal model which actually begins with teddy roosevelt up the view of this new personalized the office in a way that had never been done before out with a possible exception of lincoln and jackson in the nineteenth century the president becomes not primarily an administrator it becomes a national agendas he dictates to congress he commands the media to persuade not only the public to back his program but in many ways to over or opposition on capitol hill it it's a it's a it's an open office

more powerful i think and the founders frankly in vision and you could i do that it became that powerful in response to things that the founders could not envisage whether a great economic depression in a modern industrial society or a world war i mean there are you know there are no no shortage of explanations and that was the reason a lot of magic tr fdr argued oh these are people whose whose personality whose charisma arm became significant parts of that wage ok we've got this sort of jeffersonian if you will coolidge to reagan tradition mom and then you've got the new deal british dwight eisenhower represents something almost in between he has one precious calm

and as george washington at it and in his first full day in the oval office eisenhower sits down to write in his diary head he's been using a while that no doubt many people would believe that this represented out of a starting point mom for him but in fact it really represented a continuation of what we've been doing since the summer of nineteen forty one way they can achieve the staff of the third hour people were there was a republican to preside over george washington filled in effect an executive role dwight eisenhower's boyhood hero was what was george washington's succeeded in part by convincing everyone beginning with himself that he was no politician the conventional view rigid news that

allowed for example an almost at what was it about the modern presidency is this is the most relentlessly political job in the world adding it takes a remarkable set of political skills to master dwight eisenhower turn that on its head he i think successfully presented himself for a very long time as someone who was almost a political arm he did not he did indeed the ego gratification all there was a genuine modesty but look at what you don't like what i'm in the presidency was almost though a lot to do to his career as a wonderful story his brother was the president of penn state university it in nineteen fifty one invited his brother to deliver the commencement address and a couple hours before the

ceremony a prayer ceremony that skies are blackening i was getting very ominous sign and those getting very nervous and communicated this to look like he said you know i do concern and i said no i don't worry about the weather is june sixth the idea that storytelling volumes about what eisenhower lot to the presidency where he didn't need other like some later presidents for the office was almost meaning drink to that he was a reluctant president alm it turns out to have been in fact that it's ordinarily skillful politician how did out how to be

transition to politics from the military and how did his military experience manifest itself in its birth it's interested because it's easy to say he was also corp arm he was a political general in the best sense of that word i mean imagine i'm actually working alongside and getting the best out of all of churchill the goal roosevelt bernard war montgomery amo and all alone and all i'm eisenhower were all counts had this extraordinary capacity our first goal to win the people's trust they didn't resent him they didn't seem as a rival barber and that's a huge step when you become from well you know it's interesting

people tend to overlook the fact eisenhower had a remarkable provision including in washington politics and he had worried are after all he spent several years of video at the sight of douglas macarthur who are resentful moment once referred to him as the best darn cork who ever worked for me but that's why because they're probably couldn't get nominated for president and i could i do one on one or store about it it's never been treated about an hour everybody in america but i started when i was researching my biography of government do we do we decided very soon after nineteen forty eight that it had to be the future of the republican party yet that's when eisenhower was president of columbia university which by the way is another chapter in politics spend some time around academia

but the fact is then eisenhower left columbia when harry truman asked him to become the first commander of nato ah so it goes to your e and people would you know it's very frustrating one politician or another makes a pilgrimage to paris tried to convince eisenhower that is due to you know to take off the uniform and run for the president in particular and they're really having a walk and dewey's secretary do we have the same secretary to thirty seven years and as a former prosecutor he put very few things on paper so the center is you know i'm a quarter way we became friends and she told me a story one day this was almost to the day do was a lightweight today do we get on a strategy he sat down he wrote out there's only one cup of the water no

copy was ever made was rossi took the water stayed to nail that south to general eisenhower but safe and i'm in it now do we pointed out that is eisenhower did not come home so there was a distinct possibility that the republican party might be forced to turn to douglas macarthur thank you nobody is sure i discovered that it was his duty to come home and you know and it was the man without an anonymous would be here tonight bob dole tells story very movingly in june of nineteen fifty two when i went to abilene to kick off his campaign in a driving rainstorm on national

tv in the crowd as he says with a banged up a world war two veterans the embargo who always regarded dwight eisenhower as his hero and who quite frankly you could see real political connections to take a week for each one take a topical issue government spending and the budget deficit economy and i dig it bob dole would be proud to have the label eisenhower republican a growing up in a campsite he was born in texas i think that he grew up and it was raised ribbon cans that effect he's out looking for them by all accounts a remarkable set of parents freshly are extraordinary mother week we tend to get that i don't quite eisenhower was in effect a pacifist and i don't want him to attend an ivy league

school and then they they couldn't afford it so he and originally applied to the naval academy aaron that was for close to him so you know west point there's almost a last resort is a marvelous story he had a lifelong battle with his temper at around the white house was famously said if the president was wearing a brown suit stay away at your a brown suitcase and that meant his temper was likely to explode but you're the one hand says of his temper wonderful whitman who was his executive assistant where i went to dance and jump for nelson rockefeller and i can also didn't care for it but a weight one day she heard the president just went out this almost animal growl i love a lot of anger and he he rushed into the oval office and a

roll despite what turned out there were over a hundred letters that he was brought a sigh and he was so furious that the letters were we're not up to his tea and he said don't people knew was every single person who gets a letter from the president states is going to cherish it is going to be something that they value for the rest of their was a mean it's a keepsake it's important that we keep had that that sort of that's a remarkable political good he could take those little things and an aunt understand what they meant to you people and he was just he just lost it he was furious that the people were drafting these letters in for him to sign couldn't meet what he thought were minimum standards of of love of literacy and out and then he said so corsi and the doubts that because no no no no no

it's it michael you know he gets that he picks up although in all this himself but it's just you know what it's telling it's telling singing i get you to get angry over the right way what we're kind of in order to do that his leadership in terms of ending the korean war and he said in effect if you can find out the victory audio is it's a visit to weeks of what he liked and he had a speech writer named emmett cues from time life and a way to have a real thawing out and hughes wrote told local religious tale om but in the meantime an excuse was they used chief speechwriter i somehow was pretty good override his own speeches people tend to get your speeches but that was for profit arm the good ones but also see and rhetoric out

it on the excessive reliance on the personal pronoun and he knew if he knew how he knew how to communicate but a way hughes is credited with coming up with this what i am and you sort of the minute you heard a thought well gee why don't some of bombs before it what it did was eisenhower said i shall go to korea now sixty years later that doesn't sound all that galvanized what stop and they all the of the reputation of a man who set this is the man who had been on furlough credibility because of his experience in world war two and in the cold war and so when when i sold what eisenhower to say was you know after we owe this war which it was down there was a sense that it was a stalemate a bloody stalemate it wasn't going anywhere quite frankly

why think harry truman did the right thing arm and that's repeated the right way and harry truman brought says is admirable qualities what was not a great community yet not yet not done a great job in my queue also explaining the american people why korea was necessarily so when events over dwight eisenhower to feel that that's you that void so but to say i shall go to korea arm it was electrifying moment now anyone else could upset immediately stevenson who was a remarkable candidate i'm probably the most eloquent figure of the rubble of so of the of the iraq i'm someone who had the will sony and believe we've got that a political campaign was supposed to be an educational exercise a measure that but adley stevenson goes i think north korea and you know we were going on page

seventeen that are coarser that's like semi for war korea and on the front page news he also it you know it's interesting because one of the paradoxes about dwight eisenhower and his presidency is that as i say he convinced himself he convince the american people and for a long time even when the academics into thinking that he was not a political figure not a manipulator i am they get the interesting thing about his presidency and other reason they did set to depart from that to a lot of it will yet it was really from analysts and by that i mean he was someone oh harvard real doubts about what a president by his words alone could do to change the country to move in

the country allowing some of the criticism and i think some of what would give him that directed and eisenhower so called hate me and a probe city talk to two nations i think it worked with joe mccarthy i think it didn't work when it came to civil rights the fact is that he was notably silent in the wake of the brown decision from the supreme court although he did the right thing in nineteen fifty seven arm it will rock album a part of that was because eisenhower had seeing fdr up close he'd seeing church actually seeing he'd seen these great charismatic figures whose words we all want this day butt that's not his style of leadership he once said that if it works really were all that better than the american people share what ernest hemingway president and i and

i think it's a it's interesting it's an interesting approach to the office i'm under certain circumstances it might very well be a very realistic for a practical approach to the office i'll not the case to be made that it is much more suited to periods of relative calm which would say the first top of the fifties war that is to periods of of quickening um freshening problem for me the great criticism was an hour is that he did not need to problems head on at a time when perhaps through executive leadership he might have prevented them from blowing up on civil rights may be the worst example on the army and if you look at the disappointment he felt that the time of the little rock incident you know they felt the country

have failed although he is relieved in the basic goodness of other people ran up against ingrained racism that no court water i at that point in our history was going to dissolve what he did he signed a fifty seven in the sixties civil rights as well knowing that he he introduced a much stronger fifty seven dwight eisenhower introduces do with that because it was the heart of union leadership we're he believed the federal government had a clear unmistakable constitutional authority he could be as bold as that it for example in the district of columbia the bold in his objective remember yes i was just i was when harry truman so the buck stops here i'm dwight eisenhower signed was much more subtle then

we reveal a gently and they're strongly in the inlet ah okay so for example he finished we all know like the truman begin the desegregation of the armed forces it completed eisenhower completed more to the point in the district of columbia where clearly the federal government hair constitutional authority when eisenhower became president movie theaters were segregated african americans were relegated to a balcony so what is eisenhower do all he calls up his buddies and oliver bubbles the moviemakers any calls that the end yet without publicity without press conference is without speeches

without the bullwinkle but i'm in a very quiet sort of way he suggested it's unclear interests as well as the nation's interest that this practice it's a adequate at that point remember the hollywood studios don't all have fears the year the court or had not come down and yet that split them apart so he could go to the power source quietly and out and basically bring about the desegregation of of many facilities in washington state but that's that's typical day oral roberts signs here as you go home and talk a little bit about the confrontation was me that's one of the relatively small number of times when us forces have been deployed to take action in your soul talk a little bit about what led nineteen fifty seven though became famous as the little rock nine night after american children allam or the court ordered

ordered to attend to desegregate central high school in their work eisenhower in retrospect naive way i'd convinced himself that he knew the south it's the one time will sell your army general was disproportionately southern he thought he understood the south the body and i understood the culture he thought it could be brought along it over time he believed that no law by itself would change people's hearts on them as members of the window president's speech by either i think we're way underestimated the extent of resistance to the quarter out of the concept art of integrated schools in iraq which became in many ways a sort of a totem for the rest of the of the white south the governor orval faubus was up for a lecture and it was

certainly not above using this for his short term political advantage anyway one thing leads to another it is at newport rhode island all on a vacation working vacation ed had a sense of a meeting with governor faubus and he's going to try to use swayze his group you're focuses better instincts are due to right they do the decent thing think of history on well it was a waste of breath now the sequel is what is fascinating i'm in nineteen ninety i was asked to put together the eyes of our centenary of the national archives i was naturally we did a day long program on race relations in the fifties and we brought together for the first time for the war and nine governor faubus

and herbert brownout who was likes attorney general arm and arm brownell and volvos had not encountered each other e and over thirty years and it was extraordinarily moving brownell latino and you literally had two years of pride in what these kids had gone through and what they got on to in terms of becoming useful citizens and validating he was sort of the he was going to the house were killed by the eisenhower white house on civil rights so anyway then came governor faubus would this point was in his big nice result i think whites number four hour and i later on realize why because the first three at all heard the stories about dots it out i'm unsure off later on he lived long enough to wonder what number

five say that he gets up there and he tells his version of what happened and it has very little resemblance to reality you know it's like calm overall you know he used the other natural that eight to protect the carrots rather than keep about the school i mean you know this is kind of gadhafi so the history on so anyway and i thought you know about how because it dissipates a bottle you'll win the purser was in that role he's been dead for joyce's nineteen sixty nine brownell wasn't there you know was dwight eisenhower who majored in history our history was his favorite subject all his wife and by god because he had a real obligation to history dwight eisenhower dictated a memo of what happened in that meeting

and i couldn't resist it and i we get out you know and out and ready for governor bob this is better than it did it did that it didn't matter you know that was historic and he told that story so my god you believe that story you know he was thinking of that story so that was his version of history the fact is the dwight eisenhower sent in the one hundred first character the vision and that's no accident because they have played a vital role in the d day invasion he understood the symbolism so doing that and knowing that he left rhode island and came back to the white house and spoke to the nation from the oval office is the opposite jackson and wilson already said i couldn't i could've spoken to you from about whether i get is important for on this occasion for the president to go in effect

exploit the full panoply of alvah the office i'm in nineteen fifty seven he introduced the first civil rights bills of reconstruction and the single most important part actually anticipated the voting rights act of nineteen sixty five it made boeing lights the other side are dead and democrats in the senate led by lyndon johnson i don't primarily southern democrats basically obliterated if you if you've read robert carroll's book and johnson master's son at a wide part of it is is dedicated to just this one story a mean yes johnson demonstrated his master the senate but to what it so it that eisenhower signed what came out of a caucus but he was so he was clearly disappointed i think he grew i think

he and i think experience taught him that he was originated be a willingness of white southerners to come around to what was he always believed them the right that the eisenhower of his art had always believed that segregation was wrong arm he up yeah at the first african american white house cite a handgun in nineteen sixty four when bills for coverage on civilians of a protege was about was in about the running for the for the nomination is barry goldwater when you may remember barry goldwater was one of six republicans in the senate who voted against cloture

on the civil rights bill of nineteen sixty four the nineteen sixty four civil rights bill was enacted with republican votes in the united states senate because of course in those days the solid south was still democratic and still committed to segregation in that after the water cast his boat and was reportedly he got a call from eisenhower the gettysburg as chris said how do you feel this morning general and eisenhower said sick most of them are and i think that i think that's good i think he felt republican party was the party of lincoln oh if it wasn't the party of lincoln and that was in his forties one of the other things that president eisenhower snowboards interstate highway system where did that idea come from a town where he was and as a soldier as a

young soldier are dealing with logistics of moving equipment om it around the country eisenhower very early all came to the conclusion that the united states was woefully lacking any innate a decent national highway system and it's interesting because it is one of the great it's the wider strategic pivot the sky up until that that twenty five billion dollars are all right and i think it did before at a time when the entire federal budget was somewhere around seventy five or eighty billion the gauges didn't actually an enormous undertaking adams of the eisenhower very proud of but he was also responsible for the st lawrence seaway in a nineteen fifty five basically pass legislation and four years

later you know how to part of the dedication of that i mean i think he thought the government has a role particularly like but you know i think he would be a poll i was not armed he would be a hole at the deficits people forget in the family's there will address which you get george washington is his moral the two very well addresses in american history that matter what is george washington's and the other is dwight eisenhower and we all know about the military industrial complex but what we tend to walk i think was even closer eye chart he warned us that we must not school longer our grandchildren's inaccurate by wiggling for today at the expense of tomorrow that's almost a direct quote he was as what the docks as they call it is

economics he believed and no one sat harder on the pentagon and military the military budget than dwight eisenhower which we we've heard about the sputnik moment the irony is in some ways what presidents don't do is a demonstration of leadership as much as what they do eisenhower and always eisenhower i think has given the hysteria that overtook this country in the late nineteen fifties a galvanized by sputnik but fayette by this notion of a missile gap that somehow you know we was slipping by the soviets under communism was on the march after all that they can in china they were odd in southeast asia are a meeting where you will as as as the old colonial system of cornwall but is all that was another very significant backdrop of the us about you know how do you do you with the transition from

colonialism to independence for literally dozens of countries and what we now call the third world and then the lane communist threat that that presented all of these things they had a kind of national paranoia and eisenhower was the perfect cover to that when sputnik was launched into the heavens and there was this enormous porch two wheeled vastly increase defense spending and down and quite frankly you know he was skeptical about the space program om he was skeptical about how much it usually would increase american security he resisted that political tidal wave in ways that probably no one else could love because he had a credible i even that late in his presidency and by the way

another name of the eisenhower presidency does illustrate a second term jinx it was it was not a wholly unsuccessful up it needs but it was a bit much much less successful of the first allies question richard you referenced in a few moments ago when when he left the office of president eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex and it's rather like some insight and then it's it's interesting that it it would take a gentle you know to make that connection an issue that what was behind that again i think eisenhower the white army uniform he ever appeared in the armed services arm but he also saw growing up during that time i think we thought was an insidious connection

he turned to the military industrial complex get any number of people have tried to put their own definition i believe he thought that for example cold war theater the beginning and wanted to have when it came to a nuclear weapon is dwight eisenhower did not necessarily but the united states require supremacy in every theater every system armed submarines missiles your craft he believed that the united states require sufficient know what you mean by that he means that we have thousands already of missiles we have more than enough vessels to incinerate the planet is madness

to add to this stockpile a of weaponry if you're talking about the qualitative improvement that's another that's another story he come up with what he called a new book defense policy now it had certainly subject of criticism the idea was that it was actually going to be more dependent that people either nuclear weapons or diminish the relative significance of the battle was and the fact of matter is china that demonstrated korea and russia and me in terms of sheer mass numbers of men in uniform ob gyn the nineteen fifties how our enemies cohen could put more people on the field i'll that's not with your eyes and i want to play on eisenhower believed that the moonwalk would spend relatively less on very costly conventional weapons systems

although again and rather would emphasize of the nuclear deterrent and again the turret arm now what did that do that also however that also bred the covert actions he used cia it we overthrew governments in places like iran and warm alt om you know actions that don't i don't think history is littered with generous in its assessment but eisenhower believe that the policy of containment although broadly speaking he agreed with that he thought that saying anywhere on the planet all the i's states was appropriate to have to be gate would overcome that our resources again this was a man who

believed that inflation that whole posed as great a long term danger to the united states as soviet aggression and who was determined to balance the federal budget and that meant telling the generals he said the problem is you know you must read the constitution you think it says to promote of the generals welfare that is the general welfare any good brain injury with this i'm form sort of becoming a paid advocate it all these folks one other quick anecdote the risk of sounding sacrilegious but it was a but again the cliche of all the eisenhower years it's you know there's good grey a featureless you know remember carol burnett wonderful song i wasn't i had over john foster dulles

i mean the integrity of all of that is still is still part of the popular culture but anyway ezra taft benson course was a member of the mormon church it was also secretary of agriculture they're very much part of the tack way of the other public a party and it was his job it as a rule to begin every cabinet meeting with a prayer and the president came in one day and started him and some of the cleared their throat and actually get the president to get answered with the president and we've forgotten something and it just lapses said he said not get everything that the prayer cry cry cry would you love to venice why the wall or anyone that eisenhower the way are stereotypes that is

true of every public figure is true of every president is or two of every president in this series but it is true and no one i would say more and dwight eisenhower and in part because it deliberately fostered or encouraged some of that stereotype himself and took it still taking scholar is always used to peel back the other hilarious he have the syntax scrambled subjects you know besides playing golf the opposite of the thing that lingers the most the mythology is of like as a rather inarticulate they're all of those words didn't make sense that that is a wonderful story jim haggerty uses press secretary it gave us the first powerful press secretary i created a chief

of staff position the national security advisor the legislative liaison office the great irony as we think of franklin roosevelt as inventing the modern presidency bugging in is digital terms frankly a lot of it is is actually dwight eisenhower's press out and and the great i guess i probably would allow himself to be that the story you know after he had his first how to get someone said oh my god it would be the job it was it was it would be out would be terrible yes law eisenhower died and vice president nixon became president and then spent some observers think how much worse it would be if sherman adams died of ice about the day president today we're going to open it up now two years dna if you have a question please raise your and one of our students will come by first during the nineteen sixty campaign there was the famous question that

eisenhower received about nixon being involved in significant decisions and inside me we don't think about it would you give us some insights on how i really felt about vice president it's a at a great question and it's a very complicated relationship i somehow or in nineteen fifty two basically subcontracted the selection of a running mate to a small group led by tom dooley and others who had really been about his nomination he said later on he did not know for example that richard nixon was only thirty nine at that that's what he thought it was last several years older and then of course you have the famous fund crisis when nixon is accused by the new york post of having a slush fund it was a it was a partisan charge nixon went on television whatever you think of richard nixon

richard nixon and one that achieves something no vice president up until that point or potential vice president yet he had a constituency after that speech he had managed to reach out to what would later be called the silent majority of the units is fashionable to poke fun at the speech checkers and the pats clock over all that about but what makes a good very shrewdly first of all was to create his own constituency which meant that he could in effect ago he ate with eisenhower from a position of strength he will just say because of why doesn't really get what's that he took the decision out of whites the acts in this course of the speech he told everyone whenever they politicians say the ticket got a ticket to wire the republican national committee i'm one of the sadder that speech we know eisenhower's watch nixon said that

everyone who wants to be president of the united states should open up his finances and be is you know as good as he richard nixon was being latino and eisenhower had a special b o all when he wrote his world war two memoirs crusade in europe which sold a million copies made six hundred fifty thousand dollars and the irs have ruled that was driven to be treated as capital gains and not regular income nixon know that and he saw what he was actually doing it people were they are watching eisenhower watching nixon i knew exactly the moment that he heard this what was going off heat he broke his pencil but he didn't say anything when he broke his pencil our language and eisenhower knew you know he knew what games were being played and he realized that he had a

much more formidable running mate apparatus than he had expected during the vice presidency makes it really is the first modern vice president part because of a jet airplane because like sage of nixon travel very extensive which he spent three months first year of his vice presidency over seats and that's where he really began just so you know his knowledge of the world and the context and he developed that when you're serving well later on although there's no evidence that there was any particular closeness between the two pat nixon in nineteen sixty eight after the election but before the inauguration the johnsons invited the nixons to the white house and indeed the mentor the family quarters this it was the first time they've been in the family quarters which tells you something right thank you for

sharing to it this is one of my heroes my question to you tonight til is at seventy and they're behind every good man is a woman pushing and shoving what your views on mamie eisenhower you know i love i'm afraid they got to tell you how she is very out of fashion because it's very easy you know perpetrate this woman who basically stayed in bed until now most days i'm watching soap operas you know oh but you know what are a couple things first of all you know they never owned a house until the place of gettysburg they lived in something like twenty seven different homes before the white house and she read every one of them that i once ran them with militaristic polish i get to help people work and work for a handout maybe can give orders every bit as effectively as as a general

she it was a different era mr winton giving press conferences then he would shake a thousand meals a day that you tried that you say that and the more time she was in her way every bit as much a cultural icon in the fifties as jackie kennedy was in the sixties there were as maybe maybe bangs made me think maybe thought she said you like to think you could cook one was fired and the other was a mayday our she she i think she sort of white to be thought of as this kind of help with the mail ah but that that is you know she had two fourth on about a month after they were married he won office on maneuvers that he counted as a senator and forget we told this by julie as their arm

was told by maybe he said maybe you have to understand something i want to run but what my country will always come first their first child died scarlet fever at the age of forty something that by all accounts almost destroyed their marriage i'm couple years later that job who was to williston is about the guy now and a degree of just absolute sports but jo ann and an at once they said you know maybe also part of rumors about excessive drinking of the factory she had and here your condition which caused her to the purest at the times she did not drink to excess although you know given the the white and she actually would probably entitled

no question of that eisenhower served macarthur are some on how bright with macarthur out and eisenhower manage him and what did you learn from macarthur that he put to use in his own career as a general good question but crop was bright whatever you think about is the proper and again he's he's very much a nineteenth century figure ah flamboyant theatrical self dramatizing which by the way iraq or he you think of as the opposite was an hour with because they ask if your question we were from a character in many ways we were it was negative it he learned to calm style of leadership you want to avoid some ways but he also acknowledged the practice of brilliance the mcwrap

that was a remarkable given that he was an extraordinary solitude he was not a very good politician and eisenhower who was a remarkably gifted politician and a much less flamboyant dramatic kind of leader eisenhower even then was much more that was a big thing to the images you know that in the pacific referred to dugout book which quite frankly is unfair but i would tell you something about the impression that you left arm he like pat it all we said what he'd go the goal fifty miles for a free press conference a hundred miles red

wine column that there was a sense that the character was they in glorious that was all about promoting the product and eisenhower just the opposite of that and i think the famous picture was an hour on the eve of d day talking to troops that's that's isaac now because you get this sense all these people completely comfortable here is you know here's the commanding officer on the eve of this great historic of that feels very natural and onstage we think of douglas macarthur you think of o b all the famous photo of the philippines you know i have heard her arm as it is he said the president of the philippines was about to discover that he couldn't walk or

water tom one one question for them are probably believe that but the day that you know what one look backward in many ways and the other was a much more contemporary figure but one should never underestimate douglas macarthur's brilliance war or at it you might be in as his achievements as a as a soldier yes that dwight eisenhower was once quoted saying well damn fools the ever did was a point or a warrant as the chief justice's bring poor gives no more perspective on that weren't coming friday it was also quotes i guess i think about about win bread ah but we put on the court from the jurors that is a variation of the story says was the biggest mistake you ever made he said they're too low the bulk of the supreme court i remember asking herbert brownell about who is a moderate democrat tablet from new jersey

and was put on the court for balance ethnic as much as anything else and brown alan dooley was pretty tough character sort of investigative they said well you know we investigated that guy from held a breakfast they say just changed our lives which you know would not be the first supreme court justice earl warren that was a very popular governor of california so popular that it that he enjoyed the support of both the republican and democratic parties i in nineteen fifty two at the convention and historians still widely over this is what they call history i did it without it but there was a sense that eisenhauer and his people and basically promised her a warrant in return for his support the first supreme court vacancy when chief justice vincent warren court in the job and they were those in the white house

who who who basically quite well on the commandments say well we you know we didn't need the chief justice we just you and an event but one thing led to another and and warren was appointed a and the rest is history eisenhower also quick jaunt harlem on the court and we've read it and you know it's safe to say that he was not pleased with the out with the jurisprudence that that they follow but he was the warren court record but it's a lot you just heard presidential historian richard norton smith speaking with the only thing his successor as director of the dole institute of politics this was part three of their four part series on a twentieth century mount rushmore i'm kate mcintyre kbr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas