In a recent article in American Thinker, Ed Lasky suggests that the current Presidential administration’s hostility to free enterprise is reflected in the extreme lack of experience in the private sector, of President Obama’s advisors. He cites a graph compiled by Nick Schultz comparing the private sector experience of presidential advisors since 1900. I noticed that the highest number of business-experienced presidential counselors served during the terms of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Whatever else that statistic may indicate, it made sense to me that a man who served his entire life in the armed forces and now led the most economically powerful nation on earth, tired of wars and seeking economic prosperity, would surround himself with men who had lived their lives, at least in part, in the real world of work and business and understanding of how the “free market” works.

I understand that the men who filled the cabinet and advisory positions under Ike did not roll back Keynsean economics or dismantle the course that FDR’s New Deal had set in motion. He, in fact, added new layers of federal bureaucracy and promoted industrial capitalism guided by Wall Street principles. But I can see his desire to fill the gaps in his own knowledge and expertise in the marketplace by positioning men with experience and know-how at his side. Historians of the 1960s and 70s viewed President Eisenhower as a passive, grandfatherly war hero who played golf and reminisced with visitors at his Gettysburg farm. In the 1980s and 90s, Ike underwent the typical revisionism that the distance of twenty years of study by scholars and the uncovering of large amounts of new information often requires.

The new Ike is the paragon of a quiet but strong manager, behind the scenes controlling the course of the nation and orchestrating the practical results of his advisors wisdom. The success of his efforts is reflected in the prosperity of the nation, and his stunning electoral victory in 1956. Far from perfect and occasionally making the wrong call, Smiling Ike, nonetheless, was the same man in office as he was at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces—surrounding himself with men who knew their jobs, were committed to victory, and spent no time pondering ways to reshape the country to look more like those of their enemies when the crisis was over.

Bill Potter
December, 2009