Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505170011
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: COMMENTARY BY WILLIAM BRAGG EWALD JR.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
FIFTY YEARS AGO, on May 7, 1945, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted the German armies' surrender. On Jan. 17, 1961, from the Oval Office in the White House, he delivered his farewell address to the American people.
Between those two dates he left a record that makes him arguably the greatest president of the second half of the 20th century. Too often, however, that record may seem irrelevant - the accomplishment of a man historically tied to the eras of World War II and the Cold War, both of which have ended and are receding in memory.
But today, as a number of prominent Republicans contend to lead the United States into a new century, the Eisenhower record is in fact the most relevant one they could possibly consult for guidance. Democrats profess to learn from their great hero, FDR, again and again and again. What can Republicans today learn from Ike about the conduct of the presidency?
For one thing:
No fear of competent and experienced lieutenants.
For secretary of state, Eisenhower chose John Foster Dulles, who had begun his study of foreign policy in 1907. As his press secretary, Ike chose Jim Hagerty, a 10-year top assistant to Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York. As his congressional liaison chief, Ike chose Gen. Wilton B. Persons, who had run congressional liaison for Gen. George C. Marshall all through World War II.
No micro-management.
Ike ran the greatest invasion in human history. He got from D-Day to VE-Day through his genius for directing a massive organization - an organization of millions. He knew both how to delegate and how to control. There must be a well-ordered chain of command. Everyone cannot report to the general or the president. No one should infringe on another's turf. Ike assigned responsibility, gave subordinates freedom to make decisions and held them accountable.
No dilution of trust.
If trust is lost, all is lost. Government must have the purity of Caesar's wife. When Sherman Adams, Ike's chief of staff, through petty imprudences that in retrospect resemble double parking, tarnished the confidence that runs between the White House and the American people, Ike knew Adams had to go. And despite his great ability, he went.
No executive war.
We've had no congressional declaration of war, required by the Constitution, since Pearl Harbor. Not in Korea, not in Vietnam - wars that made us a house divided. On March 10, 1954, as Eisenhower confronted the possibility of going into Vietnam, he made a flat, unequivocal declaration to a news conference: ``I will say this: There is going to be no involvement of America in war unless it is a result of the constitutional process that is placed upon Congress to declare it. Now, let us have that clear. And that is the answer.'' It still is.
No federal domination.
On water and power in the West, on offshore oil, on education, Eisenhower sided time and again with states' and municipalities' rights and against the smothering power of an excessive federal bureaucracy.
No neglect of infrastructure.
Ike gave the infrastructure the most massive single addition in our history - the Interstate and Defense Highway System, which indelibly remade the face of America.
No fiscal folly.
Ike gave us three of the four balanced budgets we've had in the past 44 years. A $200 billion deficit and a $4 trillion national debt would have given him cardiac arrest.
But Eisenhower is more than a line-item laundry list of negatives, however cogent these negatives are for today. His largest legacy is the one great positive: in the phrase of Matthew Arnold, to see life steadily and see it whole.
In 1996 we do not need an adjectived president. Over the years we've had all sorts of adjectived candidates: education candidates, conservation candidates, law-and-order candidates, domestic policy candidates, civil rights candidates, geopolitical candidates - you name it. In 1996 we don't need a fix-it president - a single issue, single purpose forget-everything-else engineer, whatever the ``it.'' We need a president, period: a man or woman who brings to the office the qualities of mind and heart and conscience, a president who sees that foreign and domestic policy make a seamless unity.
Sure, Ike spent most of his time in that perilous Cold War period on diplomacy and national security. But he knew strong defense demanded a vibrant domestic economy. He refused to spend one dime on excessive armaments and thus undermine such an economy. In 1953, he rejected seeking security in a deadening garrison state. In 1961 he attacked the throttling power of a military-industrial complex. He knew that ``what America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.''
What we need is a president committed to that word that appears most often in Ike's farewell address - balance. As Eisenhower said, ``Balance in and among national programs - balance between the private and public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.''
Eisenhower talked repeatedly of the great principle of government he believed in. ``All I do is belabor the obvious,'' he said.
Some of us who worked for him became restless at times: Great principles - which often became platitudinous good-sense generalities - tend to make for tame speeches. But - and this is an important but - they make for good government.
William Bragg Ewald Jr., who was a special assistant on Dwight D. Eisenhower's White House staff, is the author of ``Eisenhower the President.'' He wrote this for The Washington Post.
by CNB