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own cleverness. At the head of this list were the new millionaires led by the Texas oil pluggers whose fortunes were based on tricky tax provisions and government-subsidized transportation systems. Page 982 The Kremlin was quite wiling to keep America's men, money, and attention tied down in Korea. Page 985 During Truman's last four budgets, expenditures on national security increased from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953. THE EISENHOWER TEAM, 1952-1956 Page 986 The Korean War disrupted the pleasures of the postwar economic boom with military service, shortages, restrictions and cost-of-living inflation which could not help but breed discontent. And through it, all the mobilized wealth of the country, in alliance with most of the press, kept up a constant barrage of "Communists in Washington," "twenty years of treason." In creating this picture, the leaders of the Republican Party totally committed themselves to the myths of the neo-isolationists and of the Radical Right. In June 1951, Senator McCarthy delivered a speech in the Senate of 60,000 words attacking General Marshall as a man "steeped in falsehood" who has "recourse to the lie whenever it suits his convenience," one of the architects of America's foreign policy made by "men high in Government who are concerting to deliver us to disaster, a conspiracy so black that when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men." Page 987 Eisenhower had no particular assets except a bland and amiable disposition combined with his reputation as a victorious general. He also had a weakness, one which is frequently found in his profession, the conviction that anyone who has become a millionaire, even by inheritance, is an authoritative person on almost any subject. Page 988 If elected, he would go to Korea to make peace. Although himself not a neo-isolationist or a reactionary, Eisenhower had few deep personal convictions and was eager to be president. When his advisers told him that he must collaborate with the Radical Right, he went all the way, even to the extent of condoning McCarthy's attack on General Marshall when he, under McCarthy's pressure, removed a favorable reference to Marshall from a Wisconsin speech. Eisenhower allotted the functions of government to his Cabinet members ("eight millionaires and a plumber"). Page 991 Attorney General Herbert Brownell confided to a businessmen's luncheon in Chicago that President Truman, knowing that Harry Dexter White was a Russian spy, had promoted him from assistant secretary of the treasury to executive director of the U.S. Mission to the International Monetary Fund in 1946. The House Committee on UnAmerican activities at once issued a subpoena to the ex-President to testify which was ignored. McCarthy's attacks on the U.S. Information Agency overseas libraries led to burning of books like Tom Sawyer and Robin Hood as subversive (Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, clearly a Communist tactic). Page 992 Dulles publicly announced the conception of "massive retaliation" before the Council on Foreign Relations on January 12, 1954. Page 995 W.L. Borden wrote a letter to J. Edgar Hoover stating that "J. file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/me/Desk...ley,%20Carroll%20-%20Tragedy%20and%20Hope.txt (97 of 129) [14/06/2005 11:42:40]