A Lesson From History

This past weekend I had the honor of participating in a series of lectures and discussions surrounding a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Premier Khrushchev's visit to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to meet with President Eisenhower. Of course any visit to Gettysburg is a sobering experience, its rolling hills steeped in historical relevance almost beyond mortal description. The significance of the battle there has received, and legitimately so, a prominent place in our history, both its teaching and learning.

However, the occasion that brought us together at this past weekend involved an event that has garnered much less attention, even to those of us who consider ourselves students of American History. In fact, astonishingly enough, I cannot recall any political science or history class in which attention was given to the Khrushchev-Eisenhower meeting during my academic career. Hopefully, I am the exception, not the norm.

In light of the enormity of the nuclear challenge facing the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in 1959, particularly as it helped shaped the Cold War, the ability of these two military veterans, both familiar with and involved in war, to engage in personal talks in an effort to help ease tensions between the two superpowers is an abject lesson in diplomacy that I believe will hold the Obama administration in good stead. It is unfortunate that the chicken hawks who directed our defense posture during the previous eight years did not learned from this historical experience, especially given that they were of the age to witness and absorb it.

The appeal of face to face meetings, the incalculable goodwill and trust that can be generated from personal interaction and the power of personality simply cannot be overstated. Of course, it needs to be fortified with solid substantive and well-thought out policy objectives, but the fact that the leaders of nations that were sworn enemies such as Eisenhower and Khrushchev could meet and share ideas, thoughts, concepts, and personal stories speaks volumes to the need to reach out to the world community to solve what sometimes seem to be intractable problems. I am particularly thinking here in terms of the upcoming meeting in Copenhagen regarding a global solution to climate change, but it applies to the world's economic and financial crisis, or any other issue that threatens our ability to peaceably coexist.

The two star attractions of the weekend confab shared the same last names as the stars of the initial meeting: namely, Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of the former President, and Sergei Khrushchev, son of the former Premier, who accompanied him on his two-week sojourn across America half a century ago. The stories, as told by these two relatives, showed a personal and human nature of the individuals to which so much was entrusted.

The ageless maxim that those who do not learn from their mistakes are bound to repeat them is instructive here. I was inspired enough to reach back into my own memory and reread a copy of Eisenhower's farewell address. For those who have not read it, it is seemingly timeless and contains wisdom that should help guide us today. What makes his words even more credible or incredible is the fact that they came from a professional military man.

I would like at this point to quote a few passages from the speech, delivered in January, 1961, just three days before turning the keys of the White House over to his successor.

America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment." He goes on further to add that "in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

And finally:

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose...that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

When I look around and see the venomous vitriol spewed by the conservative opposition to progressive thought and policy today I wonder from where it derives its political justification. Certainly, it is not embedded in the conservative Republican ideology of the 1950's, as represented by Eisenhower. I also wonder at what point these self-described conservatives deviated from the rational model of political discourse.

When I see tea-baggers proselytizing on the merits of secession or administration opponents publicly challenging the veracity of the president on policy differences, or right wing pundits questioning the legitimacy of a democratically elected leader and suggesting that either his failure or demise would benefit the nation, I cannot help but think that rational discourse has abandoned our political system.

I would heartily suggest that maybe a history lesson is very much in order here. In fact, it would probably benefit us all to hark back to the wisdom of this moving address in hopes that it might help improve the state of public discourse and foster greater cooperation instead of conflagration. And in the process it just might contribute to a greater level of trust and confidence in our institutions and elected officials, further marginalizing those who have captured an inordinate share of public babble that passes for rational debate.

 

 

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Comments

[MajorKong]

Kruschev never knew if he should try to scare us or try to be nice to us.

He was quite afraid that if we ever found out just how weak the USSR was, the hawks in the Pentagon would push for an attack on them.

He actually preferred dealing with Republican Presidents because he believed they had a better chance of keeping the military under control.

[jhamm1]

WIth all due respect, I find many of the insinuations in this article both trivial and naive, applying overinflated significance to an example of detente that have been exemplified on multiple occasions by a variety of leaders throughout the cold war.

Furthermore, there's nothing especially significant about the prospect of a "former military man" acknowledging the evils of the military industrial congressional complex, or heralding the virtues of peace via mutual understanding rather than conquest.

Additionally, Eisenhower can hardly be deemed the most military-esque of military men. In fact, the significance of his role as C-in-C in Europe embodied that of, not a military strategist, but as a mediator who presided over a variety of Generals with different and often conflicting personallity traits, enabling them to work together long enough to do his strategic planning for him.

Furthermore, just because Eisenhower was a Republican who persevered in his quest for detente does not mean that it embodied the "conservative Republican ideology" of the time.

But most of all, the real significance of the stoopidity of the recent Republican opposition to diplomacy nowadays is the fact that the circumstances of today hardly embody those of the Cold War, whereby we are not acting in accordance to a means to counter an imperialist power with attempts to subjugate others beyond its own borders, and unlike Iran and North Korea, the Soviet Union could at the time indeed be deemed as a legitimate threat.

[Freesia2]

The problem with the conservative party is that the base needs to leave and form 2 other parties. They need a Corporate party and an Evangelical party.

The corporatists (is that a word?) are the same people who push to have the Supreme Court rule that a corporation has the rights of an individual. So it is no surprise that they dehumanize the President and view the constitution as a contract that needs to be nulled and voided. They view America as a business corporation not a collective of individuals with shared ideals with a moral compass . It's all about the ledger book so they need to leave the Republican party and form a Corporate party.

And the evangelicals would replace the Constitution with the King James bible and restructure our society into an extention of their church from educating that "Jesus rode a dinosaur" to marching into people's bedrooms to make sure it follows biblical standards or some such. They need to leave and hold a church meeting for their convention and sunday school for their political rallies. They need the Evangelical party.

Until those two groups leave the GOP there will be no rational discourse or cooperation from the GOP. No lesson from history, I believe, can help at this point. The GOP has been gutted and infested by people who aren't conservatives. They're corporate/holy rollers. And there we are.

[missouriwatcher]

I am in agreement with you here, Freesia. The problem is that the GOP is too busy taking seemingly endess corporate and evangelical money. Why would they give up their biggest cash cows?

[Freesia2]

Exactly. They know who butters their bread.

The thing is I don't know that they realize, or care to acknowledge anyway, just how enslaved they are to both. For instance, the GOP has always been the party of business, "up with your bootstraps and "Go West Young Man" and all that. But that was back before the corporations began to think of themselves as a 4th branch of the government. With all the legal gymnastics they've done, free enterprise isn't free really. When one giant company can own a monopaly, and freeze out smaller companies or absorb them, not because they've worked harder or had better ideas but because they've bought the politicians who gave them the edge, free enterprise is just a slogan. (This healthcare battle is the perfect example.).....and as for evangelicals, the moment the GOP parked their policy on a pew, they were going to become evangelical themselves whether they liked it or not. I think they thought they were having one over on the Falwellites, but I'm from the south where white southern preachers have a power in a community. I think they thought the evangelicals were rubes that they can pickup and drop at will. Good luck with that.

Real conservatives need to form their own party missouriwatcher. The GOP has guests eating them out of house and home and they're aren't leaving anytime soon.