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blind whims of the public.
Prescott Bush moved into action in 1952 as a national leader of the push to
give the Republican presidential nomination to Gen. Dwight D. ("Ike")
Eisenhower. Among the other team members were Bush's Hitler-era lawyer John
Foster Dulles, and Jupiter Islander C. Douglas Dillon.
Dillon and his father were the pivots as the Harriman-Dulles combination
readied Ike for the presidency. As a friend put it: "When the Dillons ...
invited [Eisenhower] to dinner it was to introduce him to Wall Street
bankers and lawyers." / Note #1 / Note #3
Ike's higher level backers believed, correctly, that Ike would not
interfere with even the dirtiest of their covert action programs. The
bland, pleasant Prescott Bush was in from the beginning: a friend to Ike,
and an original backer of his presidency.
On July 28, 1952, as the election approached, Connecticut's senior U.S.
senator, James O'Brien McMahon, died at the age of 48. (McMahon had been
Assistant U.S. Attorney General, in charge of the Criminal Division, from
1935 to 1939. Was there a chance he might someday speak out about the
unpunished Nazi-era crimes of the wealthy and powerful?)
This was "extremely" convenient for Prescott. He got the Republican
nomination for U.S. senator at a special delegated meeting, with backing by
the Yale-dominated state party leadership. Now he would run in a special
election for the suddenly vacant Senate seat. He could expect to be swept
into office, since he would be on the same electoral ticket as the popular
war hero, General Ike. By a technicality, he would instantly become
Connecticut's senior senator, with extra power in Congress. And the next
regularly scheduled senatorial race would be in 1956 (when McMahon's term
would have ended), so Prescott could run again in that presidential
election year ... once again on Ike's coattails!
With this arrangement, things worked out very smoothly. In Eisenhower's
1952 election victory, Ike won Connecticut by a margin of 129,507 votes out
of 1,092,471. Prescott Bush came in last among the statewide Republicans,
but managed to win by 30,373 out of 1,088,799, his margin nearly 100,000
behind Eisenhower. He took the traditionally Republican towns.
In Eisenhower's 1956 re-election, Ike won Connecticut by 303,036 out of
1,114,954 votes, the largest presidential margin in Connecticut's history.
Prescott Bush managed to win again, by 129,544 votes out of 1,085,206 --
his margin this time 290,082 smaller than Eisenhower's. / Note #1 / Note #4
In January 1963, when this electoral strategy had been played out and his
second term expired, Prescott Bush retired from government and returned to
Brown Brothers Harriman.
The 1952 Eisenhower victory made John Foster Dulles Secretary of State, and
his brother Allen Dulles head of the CIA. The reigning Dulles brothers were
the "Republican" replacements for their client and business partner,
"Democrat" Averell Harriman. Occasional public posturings aside, their
strategic commitments were identical to his.
Undoubtedly the most important work accomplished by Prescott Bush in the
new regime was on the golf links.
Those who remember the Eisenhower presidency know that Ike played ... quite
a bit of golf! Democrats sneered at him for mindlessness, Republicans
defended him for taking this healthy recreation. Golf was Ike's ruling
passion. And there at his side was the loyal, bland, pleasant Senator
Prescott Bush, former president of the U.S. Golf Association, son-in-law of
the very man who had reformulated the rules of the game.
Prescott Bush was Dwight Eisenhower's favorite golf partner. Prescott could
reassure Ike about his counselors, allay his concerns, and monitor his
moods. Ike was very grateful to Prescott, who never revealed the
President's scores.
The public image of his relationship to the President may be gleaned from a
1956 newspaper profile of Prescott Bush's role in the party. The "New York
Times," which 11 years before had consciously protected him from public
exposure as a Nazi banker, fawned over him in an article entitled, "His
Platform: Eisenhower":"A tall, lean, well-dressed man who looks exactly
like what he is -- a wealthy product of the Ivy League -- is chairman of
the Republican Convention's platform committee. As such, Prescott Bush,
Connecticut's senior United States Senator, has a difficult task: he has to
take one word and expand it to about 5,000.
"The one word, of course, is 'Ike' -- but no party platform could ever be
so simple and direct....
"Thus it is that Senator Bush and his fellow committee members ... find
themselves confronted with the job of wrapping around the name Eisenhower
sufficient verbiage to persuade the public that it is the principles of the
party, and not the grin of the man at the head of it, which makes it worthy
of endorsement in [the] November [election].
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