Adams and Eisenhower: Different Personas, Similar Visions

It is unwise to believe that John Quincy Adams and Dwight Eisenhower were opposites within the pantheon of American Presidents. Their differences were real but surface level and reflected their personalities but not their philosophies or policies. Adams comes to us as the quintessential intellectual President, Eisenhower as the old soldier who was an incoherent public speaker. Both envisioned America as the freest and most powerful nation in history, a multiracial republic whose economy was fostered by investments in infrastructure and science. Most importantly, they, perhaps more than any of the other men who have held the office, understood how best to advance America’s interests internationally and were the preeminent foreign policy visionaries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Neither man came from wealth but Adams’ family stood at the peak of early American society. John Adams, his father, was among the six central Founders (the others being Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton). He had led the argument to declare independence from Britain within the Second Continental Congress, conducted diplomacy in Europe during the war, crafted Massachusetts’ constitution, and served as the first Vice President and second President. He managed this only with Abigail, his wife and Quincy Adams’ mother, standing beside him as his most important advisor.

John and Abigail are the great love story of the Revolution but they scaled their summit through a fierce ambition that they then placed upon their children. Quincy Adams was the eldest son and was instructed to either become President or else tarnish the family’s legacy. Adams’ interests were science and poetry but he felt obligated to satisfy his parents’ request. He followed his father to Europe as a child, became a lawyer, and then served as America’s minister in the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, Britain, and was even in Paris during Napoleon’s 100 Days. He also represented Massachusetts in the Senate where he was expelled from the Federalist Party for supporting President Jefferson’s foreign policy, including the Louisiana Purchase and the Embargo. Madison assigned him to lead the negotiations at Ghent which ended the War of 1812 and Monroe appointed him as Secretary of State.

The parental pressure to become President enabled Adams’ contribution to America’s second generation but, joined with their demand that he remain a paragon of virtue, warped Adams’ personality. He was abrasive, advancing himself and his beliefs through argument rather than persuasion. He prided himself in standing outside of coalitions and compared himself to Job, who endured God’s punishments while remaining devout. This made long term political alliances impossible, undermining his career. Worse, he emotionally abused his family, endlessly criticizing Louisa, his wife, and his sons for failing to meet his ambitious standards. When one son wrote to him that his uncle felt he lacked studiousness, Adams responded:

You boast of studying hard, and pray for whose benefit do you study? Is it for mine, or for your uncle’s? Or are you so much of a baby that you must be taxed to spell your letters by sugar plums? Or are you such an independent gentleman that you can brook no control, and must have everything you ask for? If so, I desire you not to write anything for me.

Adams’ parenting induced tragic consequences. George, his oldest son, committed suidice out of fear of seeing the paternal tyrant when Adams commanded he come to Washington and help him vacate the Executive Mansion after his 1828 defeat. John, the middle child, failed as a lawyer and died of alcoholism in 1834. Adams and Louisa were devastated and they grew closer, leading to the most successful period of their marriage. His personality softened during his post-presidency since he was less ambitious and afraid of failure. He became playful in his final years, writing poems for his colleagues and was gentle with his grandchildren. Charles, his youngest son, proved the only successful child, serving as Lincoln’s minister in London and keeping Europe from recognizing the Confederacy. He later became a historian of his family and of the country. Most importantly, he broke the parenting cycle of his father and grandfather, raising seven children who lived to adulthood.

Eisenhower’s childhood resembled the sort described in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, perhaps one reason why Mark Twain was his favorite writer. The Eisenhauers, of Mennonite descent, moved to Pennsylvania in 1741. Mennonites were pacifists but the family strongly opposed slavery and fought for the Union during the Civil War, settling in Kansas afterward. One of his uncles, Abraham Lincoln Eisenhower, was named for the family’s hero. Eisenhower (Ike) was the third of seven sons and was born during a thunderstorm in Texas, in 1890. Lightning struck the ground the moment he was born and Ida, his pacifist mother, took this to mean that her son would become a great warrior. She feared that he was more emotional than his siblings. At age ten, Ike wanted to go trick-or-treating with his older brothers on Halloween but his parents said he was too young. Ike’s face turned red and he went outside and punched a tree until his hands bled. His father lashed him for his outburst. Ike went to his room and cried but after an hour Ida came and quoted the Bible, “He that conquereth his own soul is greater than he who taketh the city.” She bandaged his hands and told him that hatred only hurts the person harboring it. Ike would spend the rest of his life saying, “Anger cannot win. It cannot even think straight.” He said this was the most important conversation and moment of his entire life because, along with his training at West Point, it established his worldview that humans were selfish beings who had a duty to overcome their instincts and benefit others and not just themselves.

Ike’s optimism and curiosity about people and the world was his defining trait. His classmates at West Point nicknamed him “Sunny Jim” (after a cartoon character) and he was skilled at putting people at ease. Sergeant McKeough, who had served with Ike in the interwar Army, stood at attention and saluted when assigned to his staff in Washington after Pearl Harbor. Ike stuck out his hand and said, “Hello, Mickey, sure am glad to see you again,” instead of returning the salute. He did not dwell on setbacks, like the 1958 midterms or the U2 incident, choosing to accept the bad news and push forward. But his optimism was not rooted in weakness. Michael Korda, a biographer, wrote:

A man who has successfully commanded millions of men in battle, who has made the most difficult and far-reaching military decision of all time, and who accepted the formal surrender of Nazi Germany, must have a core of steel; a streak of ruthlessness; the ability to make cold, hard, objective decisions; and an imperial sense of command, however well disguised they may be by a big grin and a firm handshake.

He had a healthier family dynamic than Adams. He and Mamie, his wife, were close and openly affectionate, often kissing and embracing in front of their White House staff. She supported his rise through the Army and presidential campaigns (The New York Times claimed she was worth 50 electoral votes). Their marriage was not perfect, since such a union does not exist. They grew apart in the year following their first son’s passing and had occasional bouts of jealousy. Both were suspicious of the other during the year that Mamie stayed in Washington before joining Ike in the Philippines and Mamie disliked Ann Whitman, Ike’s secretary as President. Most famously, Mamie was hurt by rumors that Ike had an affair with Kay Summersby, his driver during World War II. There is not a consensus among his biographers about whether it occurred. Most believe they grew emotionally close but never consummated their relationship. Their colleagues unanimously denied that an affair occurred and Mamie said she believed Ike’s denial and would have left him if she doubted him.

John, Ike’s second son and the only one to live a full life, began his memoir saying, “I am certain I was born standing at attention.” Ike was a disciplinarian but never abused his child, as Adams did. John graduated from West Point on June 6, 1944, and served in both World War II and Korea before becoming a historian.

Both men lost children. Adams’ fourth child, named after her mother, died while he was minister to Russia. His wife remained suicidal for years, and Adams said,

She was at the age when the first dawn of intelligence began to reward the parents’ pains and benefits. Every gesture was a charm, every look a delight, every imperfect but improving accent at once rapture and promise. To all this we bid adieu.

Ike’s first son, Icky, died of scarlet fever when he was three in 1921. Ike called his passing, “the greatest disaster and disappointment of my life.” Ike sent Mamie yellow flowers (Icky’s favorite color) on the anniversary of Icky’s birthday every year.

Despite these vast differences in their personal lives, Adams and Eisenhower held similar moral and political views. Both men revered George Washington, meaning they shared a common influence. Washington believed people and the colonies had a duty to cooperate for the Union’s benefit. This became the centerpiece of both men’s philosophies, though Ike focused more on nations prioritizing world peace over their individual interests. Their parents reinforced these beliefs with their lessons on virtue and conquering one’s soul. Washington also established the political tradition to which Adams and Ike became heirs. He and Hamilton fostered America’s Industrial Revolution by establishing the Bank of the United States and investments in infrastructure and negotiated the removal of European impediments to westward expansion so the country could grow into a great power. Adams and Ike made the implementation of that agenda their primary goal.

They stood at the pinnacle of global statecraft within their respective centuries. Historians widely consider Adams to be the greatest Secretary of State. His goal was to secure control of North America by taking advantage of the Spanish Empire’s collapse. He advised President Monroe against recognizing the South American rebels fighting Spain’s rule because doing so risked war with Europe, which was unified under the Holy Alliance after Napoleon’s defeat. Instead, he and Monroe seized Amelia Island from pirates that had captured it from Spain. Holding the island, instead of returning it, proved Spain’s powerlessness and allowed Adams to negotiate Spain’s selling of the Florida Territory and claim to the Pacific Northwest.

A larger crisis emerged in Monroe’s second term. The Holy Alliance was a league of conservative European states set on promoting monarchy at liberalism’s expense and it proclaimed opposition to South American independence, threatening to invade the continent to reimpose Spain’s empire. Britain wanted access to South America’s markets and offered to make a joint statement with America in 1823 that denounced the Alliance’s aggression. Most Americans supported the idea but Adams feared that making a joint declaration revealed that America could not defend the New World on its own and relied on her former colonial master. This would harm America’s credibility as a rising power. Adams’ solution was for Monroe to proclaim a new principle in which America would oppose any new European colonies in her hemisphere while also promising to not involve itself in European affairs, thus dividing the Old and New Worlds. Britain was more threatened by the Alliance than by America and endorsed this principle, thereby deterring the Alliance without weakening American prestige. History remembers the principle as the Monroe Doctrine. It was a successor to Washington’s Farewell Address, which Adams had also influenced as a minister in Europe, and is the most famous statement in the history of American foreign policy.

As the head of General Marshall’s War Plans Division in early 1942, Ike wrote a series of memos arguing that the one way to defeat Nazi Germany was to invade France and engage Hitler’s army directly. Marshall had the idea independently and Ike’s memos solidified his position. Thus began Ike’s rise through World War II to becoming the Supreme Allied Commander of the European Theater. Operation Overlord proved the largest amphibious invasion in history, the first successful cross channel attack since 1066, and a vital step to civilization’s victory. Ike emerged from the war as America’s biggest hero and an expert on national security and diplomacy as he had led history’s largest coalition across the Western Front.

No leader ever faced a greater or more complex challenge than the one Ike did as President in the 1950s. Using the atomic bomb on Japan had ended World War II and was seen by the American public and establishment as a normal weapon to be used as part of national security. Truman’s final policy for containing communist expansion relied primarily on large conventional forces. Ike feared this would lead to more wars like Korea that would escalate to nuclear conflict. His initial solution was to propose that the US and USSR mutually surrender their nuclear weapons to the United Nations who would dismantle them and use the technology to build peaceful energy for the world. When Moscow rejected the idea, Ike designed what we now call the nuclear deterrent, meaning America would respond to communist aggression by starting World War III. Biographer Evan Thomas explained how this policy was a bluff and that Ike spent his presidency restraining his advisors from unleashing the deterrent in annual crises. In Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Suez Canal, Hungary, Taiwan (again), and Berlin, the National Security Council and Joint Chiefs unanimously pressed Ike to respond to Soviet and Chinese aggression with nuclear attacks. Every time he refused while still threatening to do so in order to defuse the crisis. He even faked stupidity by intentionally misunderstanding his translators while meeting with foreign leaders and giving convoluted press conferences so the world would think he didn’t understand the consequences of atomic war in order to heighten the bluff.

The Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, meaning they would soon develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and could strike the American mainland. This undermined Ike’s deterrent. The Gaither Report, which the administration sponsored to propose a response, recommended expanding the defense budget from $40 million to $200 million and spending it on nation-wide fallout shelters and protecting the nuclear arsenal within mountains. Ike rejected the idea and instead reinvented the arsenal as the nuclear triad, formed of bombers and ground and submarine-based missiles which would be invulnerable to attack and guarantee that America could always deliver a second strike. This ultimate weapon, along with preserving the fragile peace for eight years, stigmatized using nuclear weapons in any scenario short of a last resort. Ike therefore stabilized the nuclear age, an achievement still underrecognized by history.

Both men believed that infrastructure was vital to America’s development. Adams made investments in internal improvements, such as roads and canals, the centerpiece of his presidential agenda. But the controversy surrounding his election crippled his political capital and Jackson directed his followers in Congress to fight Adams at every step. Consequently, Adams signed a fraction of the bills he hoped to. The Whig Party kept Adams’ vision alive and it was largely implemented by President Lincoln as the South was not present in Congress to oppose him. These policies, such as the Homestead Act and Transcontinental Railroad, contributed to America becoming the world’s largest economy in 1871. Ike was more successful. An assignment escorting Army vehicles across the country after World War I and witnessing the German autobahn after World War II convinced him that America needed a modern road system. He pushed for a highway and school construction bill in 1955, saying that “roads lead to schools.” Congress rejected this bill and Ike resubmitted it in 1956, this time selling it as necessary to evacuate cities in case of a nuclear attack. It became the defining infrastructure project of the twentieth century. Both men also believed in science, as Adams sponsored the new Smithsonian system after his presidency and Ike had Congress establish NASA and DARPA as part of America’s response to Sputnik.

Finally, Adams and Eisenhower were both forward-looking on race. The Missouri Crisis cured Adams of his belief that the South would willingly abandon slavery. He speculated whether the North should secede to form a union free from the institution and predicted that the future election of an anti-slavery President would trigger a civil war in which that President would end slavery with an executive order, correctly prophesying Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. He could not publicly comment on the issue while Secretary of State and President but he became a leading voice as a congressman following his presidency, combating the gag rule to restrict legislative debate and representing the Africans illegally brought to America in the Amistad case. Adams’ record is recognized by historians in a way Ike’s is not. Ike believed he could advance civil rights if he appeared neutral publicly while stealthily working with each branch of government. His greatest effort was in only appointing federal judges who supported civil rights to the judiciary, including five to the Supreme Court. This led to Brown v Board, integrating the public school system and bringing the Civil Rights Movement into the American mainstream. Ike later enforced the Court’s decision by sending the 101st Airborne to Little Rock in the biggest domestic crisis of his tenure.

The two men could not be more different on the surface yet more similar in substance. Adams came from America’s most distinguished family and was a human porcupine, Ike was the barefoot boy from Kansas known for his famous smile. But they shared a common vision for America - one empowered by the grandest advancements in science and travel, where individuals could follow their dreams regardless of their demographic, and whose interests were secure in a dangerous world without resorting to war.

M. B. Zucker is the author of award-winning novels about John Quincy Adams and Dwight Eisenhower -- The Middle Generation: A Novel of John Quincy Adams and the Monroe Doctrine and The Eisenhower Chronicles