Chair, Alumnus Coauthor New Book on our Nation's 34th President
Chair, Alumnus Coauthor New Book on our Nation's 34th President
December 2011
In a collaboration between a professor and his former student, William H. Becker, chair of the Department of History, and William “Mac” McClenahan, Jr., PhD ’93, explore the macro- and microeconomic policies of the Eisenhower administration in their new book Eisenhower and the Cold War Economy (Johns Hopkins University Press). How do the foreign and domestic policies put in place by our nation’s 34th president during the 1950s resonate today? We asked Bill Becker that and other questions during a recent interview about the book and his work with McClenahan.
Did you uncover anything new about Dwight D. Eisenhower or his administration while researching the book?
The book’s main contribution is a new perspective on Eisenhower. Although he was known as a president heavily involved in military and foreign policy, he was also deeply involved in economic policy. Throughout his two-term presidency, Eisenhower faced the challenge of managing a period of peacetime prosperity after more than two decades of depression, war, and postwar inflation. The essential economic issue he addressed was how the country would pay for the deepening Cold War and the extent to which such unprecedented peacetime commitments would affect the United States economy and its institutions.
I believe the book’s examination of the Eisenhower administration's economic policy enriches our understanding of the history of the modern American economy, the presidency, and conservatism in the United States.
In what ways do the policies employed by Eisenhower relate to today’s global economy?
Eisenhower was president in a world very different from ours today, but he brought to the White House qualities that successful presidents continue to need—a long-term perspective, a keen sense of realism, a strong commitment to principle, and, when necessary, a pragmatic approach to problems. These are qualities that still resonate in the current political and economic climate.
Eisenhower's beliefs and his experiences as a military bureaucrat and wartime and postwar commander shaped his economic policies. He worked with new instruments of government policy making, such as the Council of Economic Advisers and a strengthened Federal Reserve Board. His policies aimed to preserve and enhance the performance of the American market-based system, which he believed was inextricably linked to the successful prosecution of the Cold War.
While some of the decisions Eisenhower made did not follow conservative doctrine as closely as many in the Republican Party wanted, his approach to and distrust of partisan politics led to success on many if not all fronts, and maintained and buttressed the country’s domestic and international economic health.
Eisenhower famously warned about the “military industrial complex” during his farewell address to the nation. As a scholar of history and public policy, how do you think he’d react to our current state of affairs?
Eisenhower had more experience in his career in working in a large bureaucracy than did other presidents. He thought that the leaders at the top of major organizations, both in the private and public sectors, could be insular and much too focused on short-term goals. Eisenhower worried about the close relationship between the Congress and special interests in areas other than the arms industry, such as agriculture. He feared that these networks would undermine the public interest. As to the current state of affairs, I think that he’d be horrified at how well-organized private interests have compromised Congress and the regulatory agencies, especially in banking and finance.
Tells us about your relationship with Mac McClenahan, your new book’s co-author.
I first met Mac in 1986 when he began his doctoral study in the Department of History at Columbian College after a career as an attorney at the Interstate Commerce Commission. Mac received his doctorate from GW in 1993 and, what started out as a mentorship, turned into professional collaboration. We’re close in age and have similar interests in the history of business–government relations, regulation, and public policy. He’s now on the faculty of the R. H. Smith School of Business at the University Maryland, so he’s close by, which helps our joint efforts. In addition to our book on Eisenhower, we’ve worked together on a number of other projects, including The Market, the State and the Export-Import Bank of the United States, 1934-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and The Voice of the Marketplace, A History of the National Petroleum Council (Texas A&M Press, 2002).
