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Hughes was particularly unimpressed by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: "Whether expanding at philosophic length upon his estimate of the Communist challenge, or responding at legalistic length to a specific question of policy, Dulles apparently made one consistent impact upon Eisenhower: he bored him . . . From the 'epic' of these mid-Pacific meetings, I therefore returned with one impression that seemed, for the future, more important than all the others. This was the serious expectation that, in the great labor of redirecting American foreign policy, the partnership of Eisenhower and Dulles would surely break, most probably within a year or two. It was a memorably erroneous conclusion."
A Pair of Parentheses. As Hughes watched, listened, thought and jotted down notes during his White House months, he found only one among top Eisenhower colleagues who could command his continuing respect. Writes he of White House Staff Chief Sherman Adams: "The unselfish sense of service of a Sherman Adams offered a contrast, sharp as silent mockery, to the self-preoccupation of a John Foster Dulles."
But Interior Secretary Douglas McKay and Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks "paired off like parentheses—ready to close in upon words or views with any too dangerously 'liberal' ring." Treasury Secretary George Humphrey's "formulations of serious conclusions remained so bromidic ('In business, it is results that count') that his wife collected them, in memory, as fondly as photographs for a family album." Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson "personified, occasionally almost to the point of caricature, a classic type of corporation executive: basically apolitical and certainly unphilosophic, aggressive in action and direct in speech—the undoubting and uncomplicated pragmatist who inhabits a world of sleek, shining certitudes."
Then, too, there was that dreadful fellow, Vice President Richard Nixon. Nixon was a "politician"—but not on Hughes's terms. For Hughes considers "the art of politics" to be "the subtle and sensitive attuning and disciplining of all words and deeds—not to mend the petty conflict of the moment, nor to close some tiny gap in the discourse of the day—but to define and to advance designs and policies for a thousand tomorrows." That's a pretty tough standard to live up to, and in Hughes's view, Nixon failed. Hughes quotes Ike as telling him in confidence: "I've watched Dick for a long time, and he just hasn't grown. So I just haven't honestly been able to believe that he is presidential timber." Hughes's own summation of Nixon: "He was always the pupil who 'heard the music but yet missed the tune.' He was the host obsessed with the setting of his table—but with no taste for food."