Records Administration Related questions. I rely on him greatly. He is here to speak to you today about the western influences on our beloved president dwight d. Eisenhower. He is a graduate of Wichita State and emporium state. He served in the United States for five years thank you for your service. Tim is the author of many articles on a variety of subjects. I hope you enjoy our program today. Please welcome with me, tim rives. [applause] x, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Great to see such a nice turnout during the middle of the week. Really appreciate it. We know the food has a large part in the attraction of these events, not just the wonderful speakers we attract. Again thanks to the foundation , and the trust. All this started a couple years ago in 2015 because it was 125th anniversary of his birth. 1890, the year that he was born was the year that the frontier was declared closed. We did a number of programs looking at 125 years. I did one on the influence of the frontier on eisenhowers political thinking, imagination. I will include a little bit of that today. I really want to look at the three influences that developed here in abilene on eisenhowers young man. You can see traces throughout his life, his military career , and his presidency. As you know we are right at the , matrix, the history of the old west, the legend of the old west, ground beneath this floor. Floor was used to pasture between 1867 and 1870 one so they could fatten them for market before they were shipped out. Just a couple hundred feet to your right, there was the chisholm trail. To your left was the boy hid home of eisenhower. Eisenhower really did grow up at a very important center of old west history. From the beginning, he was aware of that history. I read an account by his brother, edgar. This is confirmed by a letter i ke wrote to a friend of his. He began meeting pulp western novels. He would take proceeds from the vegetables he sold from their Family Garden in order to buy those magazines and books. He mentioned a neighbor in his autobiography. The home is no longer there. George dudley had at least claimed to have been a marshal under Wild Bill Hickok. I think a lot of people probably made that claim during that time. Period. Eisenhower knew many people in abilene who lived in those years, and he really was not that far removed. The heyday of the cattle trade was 1967 to 1971. Eisenhower was born in 1890. He was not a full generation behind the folks who lived that history, and many will still be here in abilene. Not just the location of where he lived, but the places around town really had an influence on i think this was working a minute ago. Now it does not want to advance at all. I will keep going in hopes that it will. Werehree influences on i his love of western novels and history and movies, a code of behavior that he learned, a code of the west, and the influence of the closing of the american frontier on his policy thinking. Im going to try this again. In william, will you come up and fiddle with this while i do a song and dance . [laughter] but i can go right into the western novels. I mentioned this is something he began reading when he was just a boy. It continued through his army years and is presidency. There was always in attempt to play it down. Especially once he became president. President s have a narrative very early that marks them thank you for the rest of their presidency. For eisenhower, the narrative was he is a good guy, a good manager, but all he really wants to do is play golf with his buddies and play bridge. He reads westerns and westerns are not terribly sophisticated. This is in contrast with someone like his successor, john f. Kennedy. He was urbain, sophisticated, and jfk did not read westerns, by the way he read spy novels. , a superior literary form to the western. Now we can hopefully move on. Oh yeah, ike liked westerns. I think reading those westerns, he could relive that history that he witnessed as a boy and relive those conversations that he had with people like George Dudley and others he mentioned in his book at ease. It really did help him relax during world war ii. And the presidency in fact, he stressed that in correspondence with people to say i hear you like to read westerns. He said i do, but it is so i can relax. What i really like his history and biographies. But others did not like the westerns, as i said. There were many letters. Unfortunately, we do not have this letter from this particular writer. Some of you may recognize him more quickly than others. But it was from hugh hefner, who had just founded a new magazine called playboy. He wrote sherman adams, who we as the chiefcribe of staff, and he said instead of having a president to is addicted to westerns, he said what we really need is a president who reads science fiction, as if sciencefiction and spy novels are better than westerns. Better reading. Westerns became a bit of a political liability. I am not sure how well you will be able to read it. The letter on the left is from the western writers of america, an organization that is still around. They wanted to raise the level of westerns. They reformed in 1953, when eisenhower took office. They wanted western writers to unite in terms of advocating better payment for themselves, and they even lobbied eisenhower for changes to a tax code that would have helped freelance writers. But it was clear from the beginning that some of the correspondence we have that they did want to use eisenhower, as a wellknown lover of westerns, to their advantage. 1953, herote him in had not been in office very long. Every year, they publish a compilation of short stories, and they wanted to dedicate their very first volume to dwight d. Eisenhower, our kindest critic. First of all, i do not know why they bothered to ask. I do not know if you need someones permission to dedicate a book to them, but out of courtesy they wrote to the white house. Eisenhowers secretary and knowledge acknowledged that usually come anytime they got letters like this, they were afraid it might look like a commercial endorsement. The blanket answer was no. But she said because of his interest of western stories, do you think the president would have any interest in this . And jim haggerty, the press wouldary, said no he not, because our enemies, our critics would use this against him. You can find letter after letter from the white house for someone where someone wants him to comment on his affection for western novels. The white house said no, back off because this could be used against us. Here is an example of a letter to a citizen who read an article somewhere that ike only read westerns, and shouldnt the president be reading something more important than a book about a guy on a horse . This letter also comes from sherman adams, eisenhowers special assistant. They said, this is based on some kind of facetious remarks that eisenhower made. What he really likes his is classical history and serious books on public policy. From the time he was a boy, classical history was his favorite. He is really the head of the field and how quickly he can grasp the new subject. So throughout that presidency, the white house had to push back on that image that he was a simpleminded western reader. Personally, i feel so much of that is not just based on a bias towards that popular genre. There was a bias for many years against any western writing in general, no matter the quality. There were other wellknown writers of the west that is the , western United States, nothing good literary wise comes out of there. Here you can see on this real level to eisenhower and his staff. But as he admitted, he had a friend named doug black. He was the president of the doubleday books and he would eventually publish his memoirs. They also published more westerns. Douglas black sent boxes of westerns to ike regularly. Eisenhower said thank you, and said i know, i have this habit of reading westerns continuously. One reason i like doing these programs so much is that we what we do here as a Research Library and archives. We have records in october of 1955, he was in colorado and had a heart attack and was hospitalized for a time. At Fitzsimmons Army hospital. During that time, he read 46 westerns in less than three weeks. [laughter] i will show you the records in a minute. The last couple years of his life in late 1967 to 1969, his staff noted the titles of 206 westerns that he read. I like to poke a little fun at him and his staff. He might have read histories and biographies, but we do not have any list like this. You would evenhy keep such meticulous records, but i am thankful they did. This is from october 1955. I know you cannot read it. On the left is a cover sheet. Bob scholes was an army general and an aide to eisenhower from 1947 until his death. He is writing one of the enlisted man on the staff. We need to ship the onesk, but only that do not have a read a check, because those are the ones i he has not read. The ones that are not checked at up to 46. He would have read about 64 books during the three weeks. He was really reading westerns at a rapid rate. I really enjoyed this because correspondence, especially anne whitman, his secretary. When she would write someone a thank you note about the westerns, she would say what they would help him relieve his mind from. So we know during the berlin crisis in 1969, he was reading the bushwhackers by max brand. During a boring meeting and canada, he read another one. Peter phil is not an actual person. He is what is called a house name. As him. Ters would write it is the Powder Valley or powder river series. There are still writers writing as peter phil. You can see when he met with khrushchev at an important meeting at cant david camp 1959, he goesin to afghanistan, he takes a book by lp homes. To relieve himself from the tedium, for deception like cliff deception byrt cliff ferrell. Im trying to assemble as many of these as i can to correlate events and books because it is fun to see what he was reading when. Favorite authors, we know this because of that great record from 1967 to 1969 of the 206 books you read during that time that he read during that time period. He graded the authors. His favorite is haycocks, who is not as wellknown today. He wrote books that became wellknown movies like the wild bunch. The Sam Peckinpah movie, and he wrote a short story called the last stage to lawrenceburg. It became a very well known it iscalled stagecoach, what made john wayne a star. So he was of that caliber. He was considered the best of the writers in that genre, among the best of the western writers. And so eisenhower really had good taste in westerns no matter what other people thought about them. We have louis lamour. Frank orourke, peter dawson. Lamour is still in print. If you go to the western section in a barnes and noble, it is 80 his books. He has sold Something Like 330 million books. Ronald reagan was a huge louis lamour fan. In fact, he gave him the president ial medal of read on. That is how much he thought about him area about him. Max brand is this is one, interesting. He rates zane grove as no. At least for the books that he read at that time. Who knows what actually drove these decisions, but apparently he told his staff these were the authors these are just a he likes. Few book covers. You probably cannot even see that first one. That is the wild bunch. Books, they are in our holdings and we scanned the covers of the bunch of his actual books. I liked that one. The smiling desperado by max brand. Luke short was another favorite of eisenhowers, he also has a good reputation among writers, and renegade guns, is interesting because it takes us into what he liked in a western and what he did not like. What he liked, his staff said, were books that included abilene and kansas. What he really disliked were criticisms of the Frontier Army. This comes from a letter he wrote to the then president of the western Writers Association, a guy named Tommy Thompson who later produced a Television Show called bonanza. After eisenhower became an honorary member of the western Writers Association after he left the white house, the certificate says it is for his reading of westerns, not his writing. Given renegade guns wrote to complain about it to and his friend, saying you can probably read that the Frontier Army was a necessary force. All the people i knew in abilene said you needed the Frontier Army there as a counselor and someone to maintain order. But my favorite is that if there were any romantic subplots in the novel, he would drop it on the spot. He said even in the history books, no goo. No mushy stuff for eisenhower. Thought we would have a number of talk was is just for fun throughout this presentation. As i am sure most of you know, eisenhower was a very good athlete. He gained the attention of the National Press when he was playing at west point during his sophomore year and got tackled in a game and that was the last thing he ever played. For a while, it threatened his commission. He could have been allowed to finish west point, but he would not have gone on to military service. You would think that would really bother him, but as he records again in that wonderful at ease, this was his reaction. He said it is all right for me because i have always read about the argentine, where they have gauchos. Maybe i will go down there and see the place and stay for two or three years. I thought it was interesting that his first reaction was i will go to this place that was like the wild west. If this army thing does not work out. He is writing this from 50 years removed or more. Man, orision as a young at least those plans. Again, i would like to show off a little gem from the 26 million pages of documents we have. Some of you probably recognize Wild Bill Hickok. Drawing, at a pencil nice letter was written to the president , i know you are from ckok wasld bill hil from, and here is a picture i drew of him. This goes back to the code that he carried. It is interesting. Eisenhower had speechwriters. They would usually discuss what they want to talk about, and the writers would take it over and there was all kinds of backandforth. With eisenhower, there was probably more backandforth than usual. They would revise until the last minute. One of his assistants wrote 30 for this talkech before the Antidefamation League in 1953, and at the last said no, that is ok, i will just speak. That is fairly early in his presidency and mccarthy was becoming a huge issue. Joseph mccarthy as a senator from wisconsin, trying to find communist influence in government and communists in the government. Eisenhower thought he is really ruining any sensible way we had communists in government. It was becoming more and more of a political liability because he was in his own party and was on the side of the Republican Party eisenhower had the most problems with. But he did not to talk about his opponents by name. He takes this opportunity for a nationally televised speech in front of the Antidefamation League. In fact, lucille ball and desi arnaz were there, jackie robinson, it was a very big event. Aboutates this story of while he was a boy, he lived in abilene, and the code of where if you had a disagreement with someone, you met them facetoface. There was no character association. He said the bullet had to be in front. You could not sneak up on someone and surprise them the way that joe mccarthy obviously was. This was a lesson he took from abilene, he said. I found some other evidence of that. Again another wonderful item , from our holdings. This is a message from George C Marshall to eisenhower. The allied expeditionary force, of which i was a supreme commander. You can see formerly classified, top secret. Down in the second paragraph, this is at a time in the war where the relationship with russia, which had never been warm and fuzzy, was now becoming cold and prickly. The cold war was beginning to start. Marshall says you have to deal with stalin by using main street abilene style. Was fromnder if this conversations he had had with eisenhower about the code of the west or abilene code, or from knowing ike was from that part of the country, he used it. But i think it is interesting that it shows up in his military career as well is that speech that he wrote. But i had my doubts, and one reason i had my doubts was because in that speech, when he said if you do not know Wild Bill Hickok, you should read your westerns more, not your history. Some historians still dispute if there was an unwritten code of the west that people really followed. I thought well, maybe ike was just for membrane this because he had read so many westerns, but then i found a clipping from the abilene chronicle, 1871, from the time that Wild Bill Hickok was marshaled. There was a gunfight on 1st street. It started. One man apparently drew his revolver and the other guy said wait, that is not fair. I have not drawn mine yet. You need to reholster. When he did so, the other guy put out his gun and shot him. They shot each other a couple of times and nobody died, but the paper editorializes what a heard that man was, and refers to a code of honor that you play fairly, and do not sneak up on someone like that and shoot them from behind or to trick them somehow into holster and their weapon. So in abilene when hickok was , here, they were talking about this code of honor, this code of the west. , o him one for westerne got it from fiction. That leads us to another. How was Wild Bill Hickok killed . Anybody . It violates the code of the west. He was shot in the back of the head at a poker game in 1876. There were elements to do not want a lawman anywhere near the game or any other activities going on at deadwood. So they encouraged mccall to assassinate hickok. They said he would be acquitted, which he was in his first trial, but then the u. S. Attorneys got a hold of him, and he was eventually convicted and hanged. The judge said why did you not shoot him from the front . He said because i did not want to commit suicide. So he violated the code of the west and went up and shot bill hickok from behind. Another quiz. I really like this one. It is reported to have been