Walker on Kaplan, 'Harold Stassen: Eisenhower, the Cold War, and the Pursuit of Nuclear Disarmament'
Lawrence S. Kaplan. Harold Stassen: Eisenhower, the Cold War, and the Pursuit of Nuclear Disarmament. Studies In Conflict Diplomacy Peace Series. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018. 212 pp. $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8131-7486-0.
Reviewed by David Walker (Boise State University)
Published on H-Diplo (March, 2019)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)
Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=52989
Compromise may appear to be a diminishing feature in US politics. Reading Harold Stassen: Eisenhower, the Cold War, and the Pursuit of Nuclear Disarmament by Lawrence S. Kaplan reminds readers of a notable politician who made advocating compromise a central facet of his political career. The “boy governor” of Minnesota elected in 1938 at age thirty-one started as a wunderkind whose ambition for the Oval Office never came true despite multiple attempts. Instead, Harold Stassen’s success in Washington surrounded his tenure as director of the Mutual Security Agency in 1953, which was folded into the Foreign Operations Administration that same year with Stassen at its head, until the administration’s dissolution in 1955. President Dwight Eisenhower then bestowed upon him the title of special assistant for disarmament, which Stassen held until 1958. Kaplan’s new book focuses on the Eisenhower period. Kaplan aims “to explain Stassen’s role in the foreign policies of the Eisenhower administration and to judge whether it merits a more important place in American history than it is usually given” (p. 8).
The Stassen that Kaplan portrays is indeed that perennial candidate for the White House, but that depiction is merely a necessary background to illustrate the oddity of a politician who valued consensus and compromise in practice. A further curiosity is Stassen the mid-century Republican politician who maintained a firm anti-communist stance while working hard to create and strengthen the United Nations and foster nuclear disarmament as well as foreign aid expenditure. At the time, most hardline anti-communist Republicans disagreed with the objectives of disarmament.
Kaplan provides a brief background on Stassen the boy politician who energetically captured the Minnesota governor’s mansion and therefore the attention of national politicians. Stassen’s role as a delegate to the 1944 UN conference in San Francisco cemented his role as a vigorous UN supporter, including, as Kaplan writes, “his role in writing the UN Charter ... [that] made control of the atom bomb his special interest” (p. 37). All of this background, including Stassen’s postwar tenure as president of the University of Pennsylvania, is covered in the first three chapters. Kaplan shows Stassen’s ambition as tied to doing notable work on the world stage—Stassen setting himself up as an expert in foreign affairs. He successfully shows that Stassen’s political beliefs did not arise solely from ambition but also from a true belief in the UN concept, collective security, and the New World Order. This coupled with a strong belief in nuclear disarmament leads to the heart of Kaplan’s book and the remaining five chapters: Stassen’s role in the Eisenhower administration, especially vis-à-vis Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
The Stassen-Dulles relationship as illustrated by Kaplan is a textbook example of how Eisenhower skillfully managed two advisors to get what he wanted. Kaplan notes that the dynamic further proves the “hidden hand” presidency theory, first articulated by Fred Greenstein in 1982 in The Hidden Hand Presidency (p. 191). Greenstein’s much-quoted theory posited that the apparently aloof Eisenhower was in reality a very calculating hands-on president behind the scenes. The intricacies of the Stassen-Dulles competition make for a good example of foreign policy in the making.
The central example of this, and the core of Kaplan’s book, is the inter-White House struggle over Eisenhower’s Open Skies proposal in 1955 and Stassen’s role as the special assistant for disarmament, or “Secretary of Peace” as the joke went at the time. Kaplan observes that Stassen only gave a “halfhearted disavowal” of the nickname and that Stassen believed Eisenhower to be “a kindred spirit in his approach to the Cold War” (p. 112). For Kaplan this all culminates in “Stassen’s Blunder,” a subsection of his chapter 7 titled “1957—Stassen’s Gaffe?” Stassen communicated to his Soviet counterpart a White House draft memorandum on disarmament before consulting with the White House or US allies. Kaplan acknowledges this as a blunder but explains Stassen’s intent as a play to finally bring the two sides together. His action strained the relationship between Stassen and Dulles to near the breaking point, but Kaplan judges that he “kept his job because the president appreciated the talents he brought to his office and chose not to remove him” (pp. 175-76).
The unanswered question that is perhaps unknowable is that if we were to construct a Stassen scale of intent, what does the balance look like? Is it weighted more toward presidential aspirations by demonstrating foreign policy leadership and results or genuine zeal for a comprehensive nuclear deal? As a reader I am not sure, but Kaplan provides the most that perhaps could be known about the intent of an individual such as Stassen. Kaplan does not offer a definitive answer and that is appropriate. Kaplan does demonstrate that Stassen proved to be more important of a figure in the Eisenhower administration than is commonly observed.
Kaplan includes a short but adequate historiographical section that clearly illustrates the gap in the historiography concerning Stassen’s role in the Eisenhower administration. Kaplan succeeds in filling this gap in a work that is compact and readable, coming in at 192 text pages. Organizationally there is just enough contextual background, such as short sections dealing with Stassen’s presidential ambitions and his role in the founding of the UN, that allows for insight into Stassen’s policy choices during the Eisenhower years. Kaplan is a well-known senior Cold War historian writing on a focused topic where the vast majority of his sources are primary sources. The research is based on all the relevant archives concerning Stassen’s Eisenhower years: the National Archives, the John Foster Dulles Papers at the Library of Congress, and the Eisenhower Library. This includes the requisite document collections: Foreign Relations of the United States and Documents on Disarmament. He also uses numerous other primary sources, such as memoirs and contemporary periodicals. Kaplan’s work is a solid monograph that enriches the history of the Eisenhower era. If a reader is looking for a political biography of Stassen then this book would be a good brief overview, at least to 1958.
Readers may be left to ponder the politician who forcefully advocated for nuclear disarmament and a central role for the United Nations. Kaplan’s conclusion hints at what could be further written by mentioning Stassen’s continued rallying cry for a more robust United Nations after the end of the Cold War. However, this in no way should be considered a weakness, for if a monograph leaves the reader wanting more along with the recognition that the author specifically stated that his was not a political or whole life biography, then this short book has done what it set out to do.
Citation:
David Walker. Review of Kaplan, Lawrence S., Harold Stassen: Eisenhower, the Cold War, and the Pursuit of Nuclear Disarmament.
H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews.
March, 2019.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=52989
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