Published: April 29, 2008 09:06 pm            

BRUDE KAUFFMAN: Ike’s chief political skill: Asking what’s next?

The name Dien Bien Phu may not be familiar, but in 1954 this tiny Vietnamese hamlet was the scene of a decisive battle in which North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh army destroyed a well-equipped French force, marking the end of the French colonial presence in Indochina and the start of America’s presence in Vietnam.

Dien Bien Phu was a great victory for Ho and his followers in North Vietnam, but not so the resulting post-war settlement, which carved Vietnam into the North under Ho and the South under an American puppet named Diem (later deposed with CIA help). Angered at this deal, Ho increased his attempts to subjugate South Vietnam, forcing America to come increasingly to its defense. You know the rest.

What you may not know is that right before Dien Bien Phu fell, America’s military leaders asked President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower to consider the use of atomic weapons on Ho’s army in order to save the French.

Eisenhower’s response, which was uttered this week (May 1) in 1954, reflected his plainspoken Kansas upbringing. “Are you crazy?!” he practically shouted at them. “We can’t use atomic weapons against Asian people for the second time in 10 years! (Hiroshima was in 1945.) My God, public opinion would crucify us!”

Short, to the point and dead on, it was characteristic of Eisenhower, one of our most underrated presidents. Long thought of as a likable dolt who preferred to play golf while his aides ran the country, Ike was actually a disciplined, tough-minded leader who could get quickly to the heart of a problem (“What do you mean I’m not politically experienced?” he said to a reporter during his first run for president. “I’ve spent my entire career in the army. There isn’t a more political organization in the world.”). Indeed, perhaps Ike’s chief political skill was to always ask, “What happens next?” He meant what would be the ramifications of any action.

To that end, my favorite of Ike’s “What happens next?” occurred during the early stages of the Cold War when some of Ike’s military advisers also suggested a pre-emptive atomic weapons strike against the Soviet Union itself.

“But what happens next?” Ike said. “You gain this great victory and what do you do with it? You’d have an area stretching from the Elbe River to Vladivostok torn up and destroyed — without government, without its communications, just an area of mass starvation and disaster. I ask you, gentlemen, what would the civilized world do about this? I repeat, there is no victory, except in your imagination.”

Again, short, to the point and right, which explains why history is beginning to revise its opinion of Eisenhower — a revision long overdue.

Bruce Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net

        

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