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Eisenhower will probably not be remembered as a great President. Many problems that haunt the nation, from the racial crisis to the Viet Nam conflict, would be less inflamed today if they had been seized upon in the '50s. The Eisenhower Administration's record on civil rights was, to say the least, undistinguished. "I have very little faith," he would say in the tones of Ecclesiastes that the next decade would find unacceptable, "in the ability of law to change the human heart or eliminate prejudice." Much as Eisenhower's Abilene background strengthened him for the great tests of war, it did little to help him understand the urban society he governed. In the era of Keynesian economics, his obsession with a balanced budget seemed archaic. In those days there were, to be sure, only hints of the bitter black-white struggle and the sometimes frightening war between the generations, only the beginnings of the "new morality" and permissive society of the '60s. Yet even then, as the decade ended, the dignified Eisenhower of the early '50s seemed out of touch with his people, particularly the young.
Still, he embodied something of American greatness in a way that went beyond particular successes or failures. The people acquiesced in his decisions, and on the big issues of war and peace, Eisenhower justified their faith. Though his Administration laid plans for the Bay of Pigs operation, leaving an enormous problem for its successor, it is unlikely that Ike, the meticulous technician, would have allowed the sloppy staff work that resulted in J.F.K.'s Cuban fiasco. And he would probably not have reacted as massively as Lyndon Johnson did in the Dominican Republic. By comparison, the U.S. intervention in Lebanon was refined and precise.
The beginnings of Viet Nam were clearly visible in the '50s, but Eisen hower seemed convinced that to fight a land war in Asia would be ruinous—though he later supported Johnson's policies. In retrospect, much of what was taken for clumsy bumbling was neither clumsy nor bumbling. "He knew when not to do something," says Political Scientist Harvey Wheeler, a fellow of California's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.
In a poll taken by Historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. in 1962, 75 prominent "students of American history" were asked to rate the Presidents. Eisenhower received a low "average" rating, ranking 22nd among the first 34, just above Andrew Johnson. Today he would probably receive a higher mark. The staff system he brought to the White House, for example—a target of ridicule in the late '50s and early '60s—is now seen as his valuable addition to the presidency. No President since World war II had been more resistant to the demands of the military than General Eisenhower. "We must guard," he said, "against feverish building of vast armaments to meet glibly predicted moments of so-called 'maximum peril.' "
A Piece of Ground