OPINIONS & VIEWSnThings He Believed InnThe Eisenhower Diaries; Edited bynRobert H. Ferrell; W. W. Norton &nCo.; New York.nby Allan C. CarlsonnAcademicians of any orthodox persuasionnhave always been uncomfortablenwith the legacy of Dwight Eisenhower.nWhen his second Presidentialnterm came to an end in early 1961, theynjoyfully dismissed him as an intellectualnlightweight, a mere West Point graduate,nan aging warrior whom time hadnpassed by, while his administration wasncoolly mocked as “the bland leading thenbland.” The professors were eager tonget on with reshaping the nation andnthe world in the heroic images drawnnby Rostow, Galbraith and Schlesinger.nThe 1950’s—an age characterized bynbourgeois dullness, an obsession withnbusiness and family matters, an abidingnmediocrity—had gratefully come to annend; the great adventure could begin.nNearly two decades later, the orthodoxnacademicians raised their bruised framesnabove the moral and intellectual ruins,ncontemplated the failed Presidencies andnsocial decay of the 1960’s and 1970’s,nand concluded that Eisenhower was innfact a great leader. Yet the transformationnrequired a few alterations in thenEisenhower image. According to thesenrevisionists, for example, Ike reallynwasn’t much of a conservative. In fact,nhe appears in retrospect to have beennsomething of a closet liberal. As denscribed by scholars such as Fred Greenstein,nRobert Divine and Burton Kaufman,nEisenhower was a “politically astutenand informed” leader who appliedna carefully honed concept of leadershipnto the conduct of his Presidency. Theynportray Ike as incessantly battling thenobscurant wing of the Republican Party,npressing for an internationalist foreignnDr. Carlson is executive vice presidentnof The Rockford Institute.n6nChronicles of Culturenpolicy, defending the New Deal reforms,nbacking the Supreme Court’s BrownnV. Topeka decision, quietly yet purposefullynundermining Senator Joe McCarthy,ndistrusting Nixon, fighting the Pentagonnto hold down defense costs, usingnJohn Foster Dulles as a front while himselfndirecting American foreign policyntowards peace and rapprochement withnthe Soviet Union, keeping the U.S. outnof Vietnam and guiding the foreign-aidnprogram away from an obsession withnmilitary security and Western Europenand toward economic purposes and thendeveloping nations.nOne can understand the professors’nanxious efforts to transform Eisenhowerninto one of their own, and there arenelements of truth in most of what theynsay. Recently declassified foreign-policyndocuments from the 1950’s, fornexample, have provided a more complexnand flattering perspective on Eisenhower’snrole in that period. Moreover,nthe discovery and publication of a seriesnof diaries kept by Eisenhower intermittentlynfrom 1935 until his death in 1969nhave’ provided fresh insight into thenmind, attitudes and world view of annexceptionally “private” public figure.nYet the effort to rework Eisenhowerninto a minor hero in the liberal pantheonnsimply won’t work. The Eisenhowerndiaries do provide a common denomi­nnnnator to Eisenhower’s life, philosophynand political program, yet it is one innwhich most of the professors can personallyntake little comfort. As the diarynentries make clear, Eisenhower believednfervently in traditional moral and familynvalues, in the concepts of duty, honesty,npersonal responsibility and patriotism,nand in the justice and efficacy ofnthe free^enterprise system. His greatestnfears focused on communist expansionninternationally and on creeping statism,nimmorality and personal irresponsibilitynat home. The diaries, quite simply, portraynthe Eisenhower most persons wouldnexpect, a prototype of the contemporarynconservative temperament.nSuch traits were a legacy from Eisenhower’snfamily experience, particularlynthe example set by his father. In 1942,non the day of his father’s funeral, Ikensat in his wartime office at the Pentagonnand wrote: “He was a just man,nwell liked, well educated, a thinker.nHe was undemonstrative, quiet, modest,nand of exemplary habits—he never usednalcohol or tobacco. . . . His word hasnbeen his bond and accepted as such; hisnsterling honesty, his insistence upon thenimmediate payment of all debts, hisnpride in independence earned for him anreputation that has profited all of us boys.n. . . My only regret is that it was alwaysnso difficult to let him know the greatndepth of my affection for him.” Emotionalnreticence characterizes the diaries.nYet it is significant that Eisenhower’snfew other recorded flights of feeling—ne.g. during a 1938 trip with his fathernto Yellowstone or on the pending arrivalnof his first grandchild—centerednon family-related events. Eisenhower,nin fact, saw his own family as an examplen”of what this country with its system ofnindividual rights and freedoms, itsnboundless resources, and its opportunitiesnfor all who want to work can donfor its citizens… .”nEisenhower’s loyalties are also transparentlynsimple. In 1939, he wrote that,n