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The Ike & Harry THAW: A Presidential Aide Sought to Restore Cordiality between Two Presidents (ex-presidents haven't always loved each other)
Govt Archives ^ | Fall 2013 | Samuel W. Rushay, Jr.

Posted on 01/24/2021 3:35:42 PM PST by DoodleBob

For most of his presidency, Harry S. Truman maintained a friendly relationship with General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Truman knew a hero when he saw one, and Eisenhower was viewed as a national hero for leading the Allied invasion of Normandy that helped bring about the demise of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Truman even indicated he would support Eisenhower for President on the Democratic ticket in 1948, with Truman stepping down to be Vice President once again.

But the bitter 1952 election campaign put an end to the cordiality that had developed between the two.

Truman, campaigning for the Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson, made several attacks on Eisenhower, the Republican nominee. Truman’s attacks included an accusation that Eisenhower had abandoned his principles and displayed “moral blindness” by refusing to defend Gen. George Marshall from attacks by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others.

The charges involving Marshall were particularly painful for Eisenhower, who had served under Marshall at the General Staff in Washington during the early years of World War II. Marshall had dearly wanted to lead the Allied invasion of Europe but stayed in Washington at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s insistence. Marshall recommended Eisenhower instead.

Eisenhower, a relative newcomer to presi­ dential politics, took Truman’s campaign attacks personally and was bitter about them for years. Emmet John Hughes, an Eisen­hower speechwriter, wrote that the “mere mention of Harry Truman’s name brought fastflashes of antipathy” in the GOP candi­date during the campaign.

Relations between the two men remained chilly during and after the 1952 campaign. On Inauguration Day in 1953, Eisenhower refused to leave his automobile to pay a courtesy call on the Trumans in the White House. The ride to the inaugural ceremony at the Capitol included a snippy exchange of words between the two men concerning the 1949 inaugural.

(Excerpt) Read more at archives.gov ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History
KEYWORDS: eisenhower; expresidents; truman; trump
The article concludes with Truman and Ike ultimately burying the hatchet but about 3-6 years after they were both out of office. Thus, the contemporary practice of former presidents loving each other on Day 1 seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

Trump seems more in line with Ike than Dubya...there's another reason to love Trump.

1 posted on 01/24/2021 3:35:42 PM PST by DoodleBob
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To: DoodleBob

“Truman knew a hero when he saw one...”

Didn’t help MacArthur much.


2 posted on 01/24/2021 3:38:43 PM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: DoodleBob

Barring the two assassinations of JFK and RFK, I suspect that something similar would have happened between JFK and Nixon in 1968, especially since the Democrat candidate would almost certainly have been Robert, which Hubert Horatio (Hornblower) Humphrey the VP on the ticket.


3 posted on 01/24/2021 3:41:30 PM PST by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: DoodleBob

Clinton, Obama and Biden couldn’t be Truman or Ikes bat boys.


4 posted on 01/24/2021 3:41:31 PM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: DoodleBob

which=with


5 posted on 01/24/2021 3:42:31 PM PST by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: DoodleBob

People have pointed out that Trump was the first president not to attend his successor’s inauguration since Andrew Johnson. Gee, Trump and Andrew Johnson were the only two presidents to have been impeached for purely political purposes with Trump having been impeached twice for purely political purposes.

Is anybody really surprised at his response?


6 posted on 01/24/2021 3:49:57 PM PST by beancounter13
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To: DoodleBob

Bkmk


7 posted on 01/24/2021 3:56:54 PM PST by sauropod (#RecallMcConnell. #Resist. #NotMyPresident.)
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To: Bonemaker
Agreed.

Dubya is a real head-scratcher. Yea, I know, globalism blah blah blah. But he was vilified for eight years, by Clinton's wife and Obama and their ilk. Bush lied millions died, blood for oil, Cindy Sheehan, etc. Even Ellen DiGeneres, the left wing darling, got shellacked for sitting with Bush at a Cowboys game recently. And it's not like anyone apologized.

8 posted on 01/24/2021 4:00:08 PM PST by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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To: DoodleBob

A very trite comparison. Ike and Harry both loved America. Neither one was a pervert personally or would have thrown their lot on with deviant men who want to chop their penis off and nominated one as asst Sec of health. Both would have been repelled by Buttgig kissing another man on stage. Both would have been sickened at molesting their own daughter like Biden did. Neither would have thought an 8 year old who should be allowed to decide to medically try to change sexes. Both would have been sickened at abortion, and especially secret abortions in middle school and high school hidden from the parents. Neither though communism and Marx were virtues. Both were honorable Army men, Truman in WWI and Ike in WWII.

There was so little distance between Truman and Ike that there really was very little reason they couldn’t be friendly after the election was settled.


9 posted on 01/24/2021 4:09:41 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. .... )
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To: DoodleBob
Truman was the problem.

McCarthy was right in most all his accusations, and American Democrats were are even more so, Socialist Symps.

The Demonization and Destruction of McCarthy set the stage and the method for the imposition of China Biden's imposition of Marxist Mob Rule in America.

10 posted on 01/24/2021 4:11:36 PM PST by Navy Patriot (Celebrate Decivilization)
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To: Bonemaker

Actually, MacArthur was vain and relatively unskilled. Except for deep political connections Roosevelt couldn’t afford to offend in WWII, he would have been fired early in the war. The existence of MacArthur probably prolonged the war in Pacific by at least 6 months and cost tens of thousands of lives.

The single honest success MacArthur had was dealing with post war Japan. That was his masterpiece and there he was the perfect man for that moment in history.


11 posted on 01/24/2021 4:17:01 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. .... )
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To: DesertRhino
You can call the comparison whatever you want. It doesn't change that they had little contact with each other after 1952 and for much of that time, they weren't friendly. During that time, communism steamrolled thru eastern Europe and cultural decay through rock and roll commenced. Indeed, it reads like Kennedy's funeral was when their thaw started, a good 10+ years after Ike's election.

My point remains - newly-minted ex-presidents' aren't ipso facto besties.

12 posted on 01/24/2021 4:18:11 PM PST by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2)
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To: Bonemaker

Speaking of not recognizing a hero when he saw one, MacArthur had the same affliction. We rightfully condemn the cop in the Capitol building who murdered Ashli Babbitt cold blood.
MacArthur did the same thing to the WWI bonus marchers. Deliberately disobeying a direct Presidential command, he crossed the bridge into their camp and attacked and burned them out killing 2. Ordered to cease the attack, he instead deemed it an insurrection and launched a cavalry charge and intensified his operation.


13 posted on 01/24/2021 4:33:43 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. .... )
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To: Bonemaker

Isn’t that the truth. There must have been a very good reason he was never told about the Manhattan Project, until he took over as President on FDR’s death.

The issues with MacArthur are deep seated in the fact that Truman was rejected by West Point (he could not see-vision issues glasses had to correct too bad vision), and personality of a “little man”. Which is interesting also, because in WWI he failed to follow direct orders and was to be court martialed for firing artillery where he was not to do so- and saved the 28th Division for that initiative. MacArthur was simply a brilliant military leader, and imperious (another thing in behavour the little banty rooster could not tolerate- since he had to scruffle his way up every chain of command/responsiblity and was an “operator” hustling in the dem Missouri machine).

Never liked Truman- but there are things in his life that explain who he became. FDR dumped a supposed Leftist Henry Wallace (a successful agriculture/seed producer that the urban FDR business thieves of the New Deal did not trust), for Truman’s dem machine delivery of Missouri and midwest agricultural interests, and... oil.


14 posted on 01/24/2021 4:36:09 PM PST by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: DesertRhino

Inchon was a stroke of genius.


15 posted on 01/24/2021 4:57:34 PM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: DoodleBob

To be fare, Eisenhower didn’t care for either Truman (which he thought was corrupt) or Kennedy (which he thought was a young punk)


16 posted on 01/24/2021 5:00:46 PM PST by The MAGA-Deplorian (It is the Trump way! It is the only way)
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To: DoodleBob

Good read. Thank you.


17 posted on 01/24/2021 5:02:27 PM PST by Andy'smom (Proud member of the basket of deplorables)
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