Dwight D. Eisenhower Covert action EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Listen to Presidential at http://wapo.st/presidential This transcript was run through an automated transcription service and then lightly edited for clarity. There may be typos or small discrepancies from the podcast audio. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: It's January 1961 -- Muddy Waters, Elvis Presley, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie are all on the radio. The Cold War is hot, and President Eisenhower is about to leave office. He gives a farewell address from the White House, and he's sitting at his desk with an American flag hanging behind his mostly bald head. He's wearing his thick clear-framed glasses. And he has on a vest and tie under his suit jacket. Some Americans are listening to him on the radio, but a lot are watching him on black-and-white television sets from their homes in the suburbs. And Eisenhower looks into the camera and issues them a famous warning: 'Beware the rise of the military industrial complex.' DWIGHT EISENHOWER CLIP: We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations. Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved -- so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: It's amazing how much clearer the recordings are getting, right? This speech was so memorable because Dwight Eisenhower entered the White House in 1953 having risen to fame as a five-star general and a World War II hero. Yet, here he was eight years and two terms as president later, warning them about military buildup. One of my guests for the episode is Stephen Kinzer, the former New York Times correspondent and author of 'The Brothers,' which is a biography about two brothers who ran the State Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 1 Department and the CIA during Eisenhower's administration. I asked Stephen about Ike's cautionary plea against the military industrial complex. STEPHEN KINZER: I think his warning against it was sincere. It's certainly a warning we've fully ignored. But I think there's another subtext that people don't often understand: When he was railing against inflated defense budgets and giant military establishments, what he was also saying is: Covert action is the way to go. We don't need to invade countries anymore. We have ways to overthrow regimes and foment Civil War and start problems covertly. So, by warning against the growth of the huge military establishments, what he was saying is essentially, 'My policy was right: small military establishment, nuclear deterrent, and secret but intense campaigns of covert action.' LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: In this episode, we'll be exploring two types of covert action: the international espionage type and how the use of that under Ike's administration started to change the perception of America's leadership on the global stage, and then the other type of covert action is the kind that Eisenhower practiced as part of his own leadership style -- a sort of working behind the scenes to accomplish his agenda. So, let's dive right into the American presidency of the 1950s. I'm Lillian Cunningham with The Washington Post, and this is the 33rd episode of “Presidential.” PRESIDENTIAL THEME MUSIC LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: We have two fantastic guests for this episode -- University of Virginia professor and historian Will Hitchcock and Stephen Kinzer, whom you heard from a moment ago. I'm going to turn first here to Will, who spent about eight years working on a biography of Dwight Eisenhower that's set to come out pretty soon. So, Will, what was Ike's childhood like? And I'm particularly fascinated by the detail that his mother was a pacifist. But maybe you could just paint a portrait of the home he grew up in. WILL HITCHCOCK: Sure, well Eisenhower was born in Texas, actually, and he lived there just only a couple of years and moved back to Abilene, Kansas, which is where his parents had originally founded a family. And he grew up in Abilene in very modest -- I think, really, even one could say poor -- family circumstances. He was one of six boys. And those six boys shared two bedrooms. Four of the boys slept in each other's bed. His father worked in a creamery, and Eisenhower and all of his brothers also worked in the creamery in the summer and after school. They were a hardscrabble sort of Central Plains family that worked very hard, that were poor, that went to church regularly. They came from a Mennonite community. And Eisenhower, pretty much every night, gathered with his father and the family Bible and they read scripture together. His parents did later go on to become Jehovah's Witnesses, and that is interesting when you think that Eisenhower became one of the great warlords of the 20th century, and his parents became connected to this pacifist sect. And so, there they lived in very difficult circumstances. Eisenhower was an extraordinarily happy Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 2 young man in Abilene, and he always thought of himself as a man who came from Kansas. He wanted to be buried there, and he is buried there. He set up his presidential foundation there. So, he identified really strongly with those simple virtues in central Kansas at the beginning of the 20th century. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: And do you see the ways that the religion in his household, and later the pacifism of his parents, affected him and shaped his views? WILL HITCHCOCK: Eisenhower didn't exactly go through a period of rebellion, but he decided to go to college at West Point, the U.S. military academy, which was a bit of a shift for his family. He went off to West Point, joined the Army and became an Army officer and spent the next 30 years building his career as a world famous Army commander. But his religious principles -- it's quite interesting. He never went to church after he left Abilene. He never participated, really, in formal religious ceremonies of any kind. And here's an interesting fact: Eisenhower was not baptized until he became president. In February of 1953, Eisenhower decided, well, he was now president so he ought to be baptized – because that would send a signal to the American public that church-going and worship of God was an important American value. And that's what he believed. So, he was actually baptized in the Presbyterian faith, which was Mamie's family's faith, in 1953 as a sitting president -- the only president ever to be so baptized. He avoided organized religion as an adult because he had been so steeped in it as a young man. But he often said, 'I'm the most religious person you know’ to anybody who ever asked. He was profoundly devoted to kind of core principles of thinking about man's relationship to God, and he was governed by a very strong moral code. He knew a great deal of scripture because he had to read it and recite it with his family as a young man. So, I find him interesting on this score. He publicly did not wish to be perceived as manipulating religion for political purposes. At the same time, he wanted Americans to be religious. He was the man who put 'Under God' into the Pledge of Allegiance. He was the man who put 'In God We Trust' on the American currency. He believed in these symbols that demonstrated that Americans were God-fearing and religious, because, of course, that was the great contrast with the Soviet Union and so-called atheistic communism. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So, when he ends up going to West Point, he didn't actually have really great grades. He wasn't a standout, top-of-the-class student, right? He was even a bit of a prankster. WILL HITCHCOCK: He wasn't bookish, that's for sure. The most distinctive feature about him as a college kid, if you like, was that he was a great athlete. We might imagine Eisenhower nowadays as an old man or as a sick man, because he was sick as president. But, in fact, as a young man, Eisenhower was incredibly athletic -- very, very gifted as an athlete. He played football until he wrecked his knee. He was called in local newspapers of the time 'The Huge Kansan,' because he was so muscular and strong as a football player. But he did hurt his knee, so then he went on to to be the head of the cheerleading corps, which was also a role of real social prominence. He also played baseball very, Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 3 very well and thought about a professional career briefly. So, he loved sports more than he loved his school work, no doubt about it. And he loved sports for the rest of his life. He was very much an outdoorsman, and of course became an avid golfer.