Waging Peace: Eisenhower and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

General Eisenhower with the first NATO flag in October 1951

U.S. Army Photo

“If we Americans seize the lead, we will preserve and be worthy of our own past.” – Eisenhower to the nation, February 2, 1951

In the late 1940s, Europe was still in recovery from the ravages of World War II. Cities had been destroyed and millions of people displaced. Recovery, even with the assistance of the Marshall Plan, was slow. In addition to challenges at home after defeating Nazi Germany, the old allies now faced a threat from one of their own, the Soviet Union.

Amidst this, Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife Mamie were looking to settle down and live a life of retirement. In late 1950, the Eisenhowers purchased a farm in Gettysburg, PA, intending to finally live a quiet life away from the spotlight. With the world learning that waging peace was just as complicated as waging war, soon Eisenhower would be called to step back into public service and onto the world stage.

During World War II, the Soviet Union endured—and dealt—a great deal of death and destruction as they battled Germany on the Eastern Front during World War II. Following the war, Soviet forces occupied many countries of Eastern Europe. Their leader, a strong-man dictator named Joseph Stalin, relied on authoritarian control and a secret police force to stifle freedom of expression to preserve order and his political power. For the nations of Western Europe, living with democratically elected governments, expansion of the Soviet Union was a threat taken very seriously.

To stem the Soviet tide, efforts were made to unify many of the old European Allies of World War II. Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as formerly neutral Portugal, and former enemy turned ally, Italy entered into a historic agreement. On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was born.

NATO had several missions critical to the survival of western democracies. Part of that effort was focused internally to combat the rise of nationalist militarism and Soviet agitators at home. The larger and perhaps more well-known effort was to promote European political integration while also meeting the very real threat of Soviet expansion on as many fronts as possible.

Key to this effort was the declaration that "an armed attack against one or more of them… shall be considered an attack against them all" and that following such an attack, each ally would take "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force" in response. This served as a warning to those in the Soviet Union who might seek territorial expansion in Europe. It added a level of protection to nations with military forces that were dwarfed by Soviet military might.

The vital work of pulling together such a coalition needed someone that the nations of NATO could trust. All eyes turned toward General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was then serving as President of Columbia University. In the fall of 1950, as Ike and Mamie were eyeing their Gettysburg retirement farm and envisioning a quiet future, President Truman asked the former Supreme Allied Commander to take the helm of NATO. Despite his desire to settle down, Eisenhower—forever bound by duty to country—said yes.

Shortly after accepting the responsibility, Ike wrote to his friend Swede Hazlett, “I rather look forward to the effort…” Ike also shared his view that NATO was “about the last remaining chance of the survival of western civilization.” It was, for him, another in a string of assignments for which he was the most qualified.

After traveling to Europe to confer with leaders from the NATO nations, Eisenhower made a report to the nation from the Pentagon in early February 1951. He emphasized the responsibility of the United States support for our NATO allies. Ike’s concern about the potential rise of isolationism among citizens of the United States informed his tone. He said, “…In our own interest, we must insist upon a working partnership with every nation making the common security its task of first priority. Every one of the member nations must realize, that the success of this combined effort to preserve the peace rests directly upon America’s productive, economic, and political strength as it does on any amount of military force we can develop.” He continued, “Only cooperative effort by all of us can preserve for the free world a position of security, relative peace, and economic stability.”

This endeavor, thought Eisenhower, was not only the correct course of action, but also one which history would well remember should their efforts of NATO be successful; “If we Americans seize the lead, we will preserve and be worthy of our own past. Our children will dwell in peace. They will dwell in freedom. They will read the history of this decade with tingling pride and, from their kinship with this generation, they will inherit more than can be expressed in millions, in acres, or in world acclaim.”

While publicly optimistic about the future of NATO, Ike was frustrated about the path forward. He wrote in his diary on November 24, 1951, that if there wasn’t some sort of “European amalgamation” which resulted in unity of economic power and a European Army, that much of the spending laid out by the United States “will be sheer waste…” He continued, “Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Italy, and western Germany should form one Federated State.” That Western Germany was considered for membership was an uncomfortable subject for the other nations involved. Germany was defeated less than five years earlier and the old allies had strong reservations about rearming the recently vanquished enemy with a less-than-stellar track record of maintaining peaceful relations once re-militarized. The choice was to have Western Germany with NATO, have them potentially (and unlikely) as neutral, or have them side with the Soviets. The same day Ike committed these thoughts to his diary, he wrote to his friend George Whitney, the head of J. P. Morgan & Company, Inc., of the challenge, “The job of trying to impart courage to fearful men, forthrightness to those who have never met an issue squarely in their lives, really constitutes a drain upon a man’s reserves or energy. I would rather take a good breaking than have to do this kind of thing…”

Even though speechmaking and trying to rally people to this common cause frustrated Eisenhower, he understood how critical it was to the United States and the Western World that NATO succeed. Addressing the NATO Council, gathered in Rome, Italy, on November 27, 1951, Ike said, barring any substandard living conditions within the borders of member nations, “Our peoples must understand that, for each nation, the concept of collective security by cooperation must be successful or there is no acceptable alternative for any of us. All of us must understand that the task we have set for ourselves can be done because of our great resources and our determination and skill.” If NATO should fail, he said, it would be due to “our own laziness, our own failures as leaders, and secondly we are victims of Soviet propaganda, because they will, in all cases assert the contrary.”

While Ike continued his work to shore-up NATO, a new threat to its existence emerged. This time it wasn’t from the Soviet Union, but it was from Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. Taft, in the leadup to the United States involvement in World War II, was a noninterventionist or isolationist. Following the end of World War II, Taft saw little value in the work of NATO and wanted to remove the United States from membership, essentially destroying the treaty and tossing all of Eisenhower’s hard work out the window. Senator Taft’s views were concerning to Eisenhower, however, what drove Ike to action was the fact that Taft was running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

On May 31, 1952, after winning several primaries without being an announced candidate, Ike stepped down from his post as Supreme Commander of NATO forces. In July he resigned his commission to officially announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. His subsequent victory at the Republican National Convention in Chicago and then in the general election allowed him to preserve NATO and further it’s work in defense of democracy.

Set with the backdrop of a desire to retire to his bucolic farm in Gettysburg, Dwight Eisenhower's return to active service at the helm of NATO, and ultimately his run for the presidency, demonstrated Ike's commitment to put his personal wishes aside and continue to wage peace in the years after World War II.