Taking in the flood of praise, banners, photos and editorial cartoons, I realized a crippling aspect of the museum was its narrative incongruity. That is, the tourists going through time are asked to cognitively jump from one time frame to another with no chronological, social, emotional or thematic overlap. We went from Maime to Eisenhower’s WWII leadership to a WWII overview to Eisenhower’s accolades to his return home to his rise in American politics. The museum should have funneled the audiences’ interests to more specifics as the walk-through progresses. For instance, starting with WWII then narrowing into Eisenhower, then his honors, then his return home/his rise as a celebrity, then Maime’s popularity and then Eisenhower’s rise in politics.
We had stood at a statue and a pavilion, visited the reconstructed boyhood home, saw a Kansas library display and walked through half of a museum over the last two hours and still hadn’t gotten to the first inauguration for America’s 34th President until this point.
Eisenhower’s rise from being a celebrity-general to a sought after political leader was nothing too new—as the same can be said for Washington, Jackson, W.H. Harrison, Taylor and Grant—but it’s hard to imagine it happening in this age of politics, especially with such vigor. The 1952 election was well demonstrated as a media frenzy in the museum, with no less than six videos playing on constant loops around various corners. The effect was confusing and even a little annoying, but it was the most immersive section of the museum. WWII was promptly forgotten as television boomed in popularity and society became so much more hyper-invasive and recognizable to modern day, 4G voyeurs.
The Cold War exhibit was once again mostly a book stapled to the walls, but it did pick up the argument that the Cold War was, in fact, a series of violent engagements, government overthrows and espionage. The only real reason we know the war as being “cold” is because both the USSR and the USA claimed it was. Well, that or because the Russians always have to wear jackets.
Some attention was given to the communists hearings and how Eisenhower “despised” Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy for badgering federal officials. The museum notes that McCarthy’s demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations really went too far when Eisenhower’s old friends George S. Marshall and Walter Smith came under attack. However, even the museum could not make the case that Eisenhower actually did anything to protect this friends, innocent Americans or even curb the influence of the verbose head(line) hunter. The hearings came a public climax when Joseph Welch famously cried out to McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency?” To which McCarthy shot back, “Damn, I knew I left something at your mom’s house.”
Oh, snap!
Okay, that story may only be half true, but the Eisenhower museum also appropriately credited news anchor Ed Murrow for denouncing fear-mongering and revealing McCarthy to the public for what he really was: a windbag cloaked in a soiled American flag.
On a small wall nearby, the museum softly noted the escalating Civil Rights crisis in America, which—unlike space travel, public education and even environmentalism—could not be acted upon by the federal government under the flimsy and unnecessary pretense of battling communism. A former history teacher of mine once said that traditionally Congress gets a lot more eager to spend when something can be connected to national defense. And if that’s what it takes to fund the construction of the interstate, reverse the Scopes Trial or put a man on the moon, I have no qualms. But even domestic instability, international embarrassment and basic morality were not good enough reasons for Eisenhower to get behind social equality. In fact, Eisenhower went out of his way to say appointing the liberal-leaning Chief Justice Earl Warren was his biggest mistake in office and that black leaders wanted too much too soon—as, you know, the Civil War had ended only some 80 years earlier. With only arguable self-awareness, the museum capped off the section, admitting that the battle over segregation and Civil Rights throughout the 1950s was one of Eisenhower’s “limitations as president.”
The next exhibits detailed Eisenhower’s general leadership style, with appropriately little regard to the specifics. Eisenhower delegated duties and so the museum delegated one’s education off to some other museum, book or History Channel documentary. Anecdotes were employed, though were as distressing as they were entertaining. For instance, that President Eisenhower grew weary from signing his name so often that he began just putting “DDE,” and later still just put down, “E.” Then three years into office, E had a heart attack and—wait, I can’t call him that; it sounds like the best episode of “Entourage” ever. Anyway, Eisenhower had a heart attack in 1955, ran for reelection in 1956, had a stroke in 1957 and inadvertently hurt the Nixon campaign in 1960 when the President failed to remember anything VP Nixon had done in the last 8 years. To the historically astute, that Eisenhower survived his own administration and then tripped trying to hand over the White House keys may been his last world-saving accomplishment. Had anything gone slightly differently, the volatile and vehemently anticommunist R.M. Nixon would have been President in 1962 and been the man in charge during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Staying in the pattern of staying in no real pattern, the next exhibit was the “Splendors of State”—an expected display of gifts from around the world given to the former President. The whole room was filled with priceless artifacts; ‘priceless’ in that they are one of a kind but, frankly, just gibberish decorations. If something is priceless, a dollar amount can’t be figured and the item essentially becomes worthless. At no point is this more suspicious then when I noticed an ancient Corinthian helmet given to the President from Greece. Having never been at the Eisenhower museum before, I was struck by my own familiarity with the helmet. I had seen that exact kind of helmet before at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum. Back in the Eisenhower tomb of riches, I was livid that the Greeks would just give at least two American presidents the exact same gift under the guise of it being the least bit special or unique.
-What, are they just giving out ancient Greek war helmets at the airport, I asked out loud.
-No, said Matt, but in Greece it’s pretty common to just trip over ancient artifacts.
-Lousy cheap Greeks…
I left Eisenhower’s walk-in treasure chest and found a large board nearby that posed the question, “1956: Run again?” in an assumed effort to ready me for Eisenhower’s second term. Then, literally two steps later, another board read: “Passing the Torch in 1960.” Like so many old people, I looked back behind me, wondering where had the last four years gone. I spent some time looking for a hidden lever or trap door but found nothing and moved into Eisenhower’s post-presidency.
I think the key to cracking the code of Eisenhower’s legacy can be found in the last quote from the man that the museum offers, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” We can’t say Eisenhower was an inefficient leader because things happened under this hand. Critics say Eisenhower was puppet in issues involving domestic policies; but even then, Eisenhower’s goal was to appear like a duck on a pond, floating along. Were his feet kicking? Having no evidence that he personally strained himself in office is the proof that he succeded in crafting a perception he wanted. Like many presidents, the man was a paradox. And so are other people, whether they live in Abilene, Lawrence or anywhere else.
Lastly, as we drove back east, the sun came out and then it started raining on us and I realized that Eisenhower was in his element dealing with varied difficulties, perplexing characters and seemingly impossible situations. After all, Dwight D. Eisenhower had spent his whole life putting up with the weather in Kansas
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