Eisenhower & McCarthy clash in '52

[Blitzhund]

During the 1952 election campaign Eisenhower toured Wisconsin with Joseph McCarthy in September. Neither were friends of the other and the tour was held to cement a pivotal Republican state in '52.

A speech that was to be delivered by Eisenhower originally included an tribute to Marshall (architect of the Marshall plan) as Eisenhower's mentor. This obviously was intended to be a subversion of McCarthy in his home state and to condemn any attack on Marshall.

Ike was cautioned by Republican campaigners and the governor of Wisconsin to remove the portion of the speech as it would endanger the Republican position in Wisconsin and he did so.

However, the text of the speech had already been circulated to the press and on Sept 2nd, 1952 a newspaper article entitled "Election at any cost?" came out in Milwaukee and several other cities. The famous political cartoonist Herblock created a cartoon that embarrassed Eisenhower ("Anything to Win"). Ike still won the election but he suffered a setback in the polls for his obvious betrayal of his own beliefs. He also surely suffered a relationship breach with Marshall though this remains undocumented as neither man mentioned the incident in public.

What if Eisenhower delivered his speech with the empassioned defense of George Marshall in it? Make no mistake Ike had a great dislike for McCarthy to begin with but didn't want 'to sink to his level' and was, in all honesty, probably afraid of a direct challenge to him at the height of his power. Eisenhower was definitely a man of his principles so I don't think it would be a far stretch to have him give this speech.

Would the war of words between Eisenhower and McCarthy go hot? McCarthy had a tendency to lose his cool and rage so my guess is the he would accuse Ike of being a 'tool of the reds' or some such nonsense. What would be the ramifications on McCarthy's anti-communist crusade? On Ike's campaign? His first days in office?

If someone has already covered this particular aspect of the Eisenhower-McCarthy relationship, I apologize, I did a search and didn't find anything.

 

[MikeTurcotte]

I really wish Ike had.

Ike was a popular man, and I think he had 52 in the bag regardless of Wisconsin. McCarthy creeped a great many Americans - Republican and Democratic - out. I think if Ike goes after him, he wins even bigger.

Mike Turcotte.

 

[Magniac]

I don't know if Tailgunner Joe is crazy enough to turn against the presidential nominee of his own party. Yet he had proven himself a national political force to be reckoned with ever since he went and campaigned successfully against the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in his homestate of Maryland in 1950, so who knows what effect a McCarthy who snaps might have on the election of 1952.

Ike still won the election but he suffered a setback in the polls for his obvious betrayal of his own beliefs.

How so? This is the election where Eisenhower's running mate was lambasting Dean Acheson (for being architect of the "College of Cowardly Communist Containment") as furiously as McCarthy and other GOPers were going after Marshall, or FDR's imagined betrayal at Yalta, or the communists who'd supposedly dominated the adminstration for the last two decades. Hell, 'Who Lost China?' was a line invented by eastern Republican grandee Henry Luce, not the horrible McCarthy.

As responsible as Eisenhower was, he was actually leader of an entire party that was captured by slightly nutty anti-communist paranoia in 1952 (the year before the majority of Republicans had been thoroughly in love with MacArthur's presidential boomlet). All this went beyond Joe McCarthy.

Not only do I doubt that Ike suffered electorally because of one fumbling, pandering act to McCarthy in Wisconsin, but I'd argue his greater challenge was that he had many more irrational followers/allies to manage than just the senator from the Badger State.

 

[RogueBeaver]

Magniac: Shortly before McCarthy died IOTL he apologized for supporting Eisenhower in 1952 and referred to "21 years of treason", thus including Ike as well.

 

[Magniac]

Magniac: Shortly before McCarthy died IOTL he apologized for supporting Eisenhower in 1952 and referred to "21 years of treason", thus including Ike as well.

Well, McCarthy was a famously broken-down drunk basket case when he died in '57. He had long since committed career suicide when he was censured by the senate.*

In 1952 he's still the coming man in the hardcore anti-communist movement, and he should realise he needs Ike's coattails on polling day to get across the line (he won less than 55% of the vote in his race).

McCarthy would have to go prematurely crazy to attack Eisenhower in this cycle.


*But Vice President Nixon was clever enough to protect his own hide by changing the wording of the motion so it didn't include the word 'censure'.