On October 3, 1952, presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech to 10,000 people in the Milwaukee Arena, attended by Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy had been attacking General George Marshall, one of the victors of World War II and Truman's Secretary of State, as a Communist stooge. Marshall was Eisenhower's boss, mentor and friend. Eisenhower let it be known that he would defend Marshall in his speech in Milwaukee. Campaign aides and the governor of Wisconsin urged him not to.
"Eisenhower in his speech at the Arena endorsed McCarthy's anti-communism campaign — and didn't mention Marshall at all. He even shook hands with McCarthy for the news cameras..... There was one problem for Eisenhower: His plan to speak out for Marshall 'was an open political secret,' so when he didn't, it became news — and to some, a sign that Eisenhower had abandoned his old friend and acquiesced to pressure from McCarthy". Chris Foran, "When Eisenhower campaigned with Joe McCarthy in Wisconsin — and regretted it", Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 14, 2017.
It is instructive to review what various historians and writers say about this moment. Foran, gleaning David Nichols' Ike and McCarthy, concludes: "'Ike never forgot that humiliation' of the Milwaukee speech, and that humiliation helped push President Eisenhower to take on McCarthy clandestinely, in the Senate hearings that led to the Wisconsin senator's eventual downfall in 1954.But he would never live down the egregious decision he had made to eliminate 74 words of praise for George Marshall from his speech on Oct. 3, 1952'".
The George C. Marshall Foundation website is kinder: "Eisenhower defended Marshall throughout his 1952 campaign stops, praising Marshall as 'a man and a soldier'
and a 'great patriot.' When Eisenhower was to give a speech in Wisconsin, McCarthy’s home state, he was persuaded by the governor to
leave out any mention of Marshall.This brought the ire of one of Marshall’s staunchest allies, President Harry Truman, who said of candidate Eisenhower, 'I had
never thought the man who is now the Republican candidate would stoop so low.' This obvious omission also angered
Katherine Marshall, who reportedly never forgave Eisenhower". But the piece regards this as if it were a momentary glitch, noting that
President Eisenhower would defend Marshall against another Mccarthy attack later, and attended his funeral in 1959.
"Could candidate Eisenhower have been more focused on addressing the slander on Marshall by McCarthy? Perhaps.
But I think that President Eisenhower’s honest, heartfelt comments in the summer of 1954 make it perfectly
clear what he thought of Gen. George C. Marshall". The title of the article says it all:
"President Dwight D. Eisenhower Defends Character and Record of Gen. George C. Marshall",
January 24, 2023 The George C. Marshall Foundation.
The Miller Center at the University of Virginia offers as part of an "Age of Eisenhower" presentation,
"McCarthyism and the Red Scare",
UVA/Miller Center,
"It has long been a subject of debate among historians: Why didn’t Eisenhower do more to confront McCarthy? Journalists, intellectuals, and even many of Eisenhower’s friends and close advisers agonized over what they saw as Ike’s timid approach to McCarthyism. Despite his popularity and his enormous political capital, they believed, Ike refused to engage directly with McCarthy.
By avoiding the Red-hunting senator, some have argued, Eisenhower allowed McCarthyism to continue unchecked. By contrast, later scholars working
from the documentary record perceived a design in Eisenhower’s strategy with McCarthy. Ike adopted an 'indirect approach.' Instead of going right at McCarthy,
Eisenhower worked behind the scenes to undercut and stymie the senator and his attacks. The political scientist Fred Greenstein, for example, argued that
Eisenhower’s handling of McCarthy provides evidence of a 'hidden hand' approach to government.
In this interpretation, Ike rode above the fray of politics while secretly pulling levers and using White House influence to obstruct McCarthy and his allies".
(An image of the crossed-out page is included.)
These three representative articles all present or align with an Official Narrative: That Eisenhower hated McCarthy; that he wasn't powerful enough to
take him on (or it was more important to win the Presidency first, so that he could go at him later); that Eisenhower protected the American people from McCarthy
as soon as he could. In any event, his failure to defend Marshall in Milwaukee was nothing more than a glitch or a minor bad moment, which
cannot much be counted against Eisenhower, especially because he himself so regretted it, and fixed it later.
Submitted for your consideration, what I believe to be the true (and very instructive) story: Eisenhower stood at a huge moral crossroads that night
in Milwaukee-- and failed hugely. Definitively. Vaingloriously. Eisenhower had a choice, to stand up for a friend not when it was easy to do so,
but when it was hard. The moment when you find out who your real friends are, is when someone does something for you that they didn't have to,
from which they themselves receive no advantage, and which in fact involves some risk. Eisenhower did the opposite: given what he believed might have
been a choice between his friend and the Presidency, Eisenhower shopped Marshall. Threw him under the bus. Rather than being a glitch, a minor side-kerfuffle, this was the defining moment of
Eisenhower's political career-- of his life, really.
Eisenhower's choice becomes even more significant because he was a general who shared much of the credit for winning the war. Anything foolish
or dishonorable Kennedy did does not contrast with anything prior-- but for his service on a PT boat in World War II, Kennedy had gone from being a cosseted
rich kid to a politician. Eisenhower had come from an actual career, one which required both truth-telling and courage. In order to win wars, you have to be able
to perceive conditions on the battlefield, analyze them truthfully, tell the truth about them and listen to truth from subordinates. The job also requires
physical courage in staying calm in the midst of bullets and blasts.
It is a bit of a truism that the qualities of a general may not be those required of a President. Eisenhower in ordinary life was a man of mediocre
intellect-- and the backbone he had under fire did not map to courage in political life. He had traveled, in effect,from one moral universe
to another-- and in the new one, everyone wanted him to sell out Marshall. I am sure he wanted to be President too badly. to resist.
I see no real reason to believe this was a choice he greatly regretted, nor that he was motivated to go after McCarthy from the first moment of his
Presidency. McCarthy was useful as long as he was punching Democrats. When, after the 1952 election, knowing only one trick,
McCarthy continued to punch at Republicans, and was haplessly aiming upwards now towards Eisenhower, the time had come
to end him. And they did.
The last words of the Miller Center piece: "The era of McCarthyism was over. Ike had helped bring it to a bitter end". Please! HUAC continued ending careers and
even lives for another eight years or so, then, diminished, continued subpoenaing first civil rights leaders, and hippies protesting Vietnam, until
Congress finally pulled the plug on it in the 1970's-- twenty years after the Army hearings.
Why am I thinking about this now, in December 2024, in the last calm weeks before we plunge back into Trump Universe? (Though arguably we were never
out of it.) Because October 3, 1952 was a signal moment, one that stands squarely in the through-line to today. Eisenhower's choice that night led to Donald Trump.
Marx said all historical events repeat, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Trump is surrounded by a horde of Marxian-farcical mini-Eisenhowers, including J.D. Vance and Lindsey Graham.