Paul Hoffman: Dwight Eisenhower’s Hidden Hand
Loren Penningtona, Kevin Westb & Christopher Lovettc
aThe Late of Emporia State University
bLTC (Ret)
cTopeka Public Schools Unified School District 501, Topeka, KS Corresponding Author (Lovett): lovewildcats@yahoo.com
In nearly all biographies of Dwight Eisenhower, Paul Hoffman is merely an afterthought in Eisenhower’s rise to the presidency. Yet a close examination of the materials at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library tells a different story.As this paper will show, Paul Hoffman was not just an able administrator at Studebaker, the Ford Foundation, and with the Marshall Plan, but also had a unique insight into political affairs that assisted President Eisenhower in restoringAmerican leadership both at home and abroad during the early Cold War.Although never a political fixer by any stretch of the imagination, Hoffman was a practical and integral adviser to Eisenhower during critical times in his administration. If Ike needed advice on handling a serious domestic issue, such as dealing with Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Hoffman was there and helped mobilize others for the fight. Hoffman was also instrumental in brokering a deal to merge Studebaker-Packard (of which he had served as Chair) with Curtiss-Wright, which foreshadowed later federal rescues of Chrysler (1979, 2009) and General Motors (2009).
Keywords: Dwight Eisenhower, Paul Hoffman, Joseph R. McCarthy, Studebaker, Packard, Curtiss-Wright, automobile industry
Dwight Eisenhower’s Politics and Leadership
In 1948, Harry Truman was willing to not run for president if Dwight Eisenhower ran as a Democrat. But Eisenhower was not ready.As a matter of fact, few if any people knew what political party Eisenhower supported. But there were those angling for Eisenhower to run. Then inApril 1950, Richard Rovere, a contemporary journalist, noted, “Eisenhower is, in the public view, a
personage, and we are today in the midst of a crisis without any crisis leadership.” Yet the question remained whether Eisenhower would run for president. Rovere was correct when he said, “No one who knows him seems to think he is running hard right now.” But this was Eisenhower’s style. It was not aloofness, but a calculated endeavor banking on success. Ike’s first civilian job after leaving the army was the presidency at Columbia University, which really wasn’t a suitable fit for an individual of Eisenhower’s
skills. His brother Milton was more up to that task. Yet it did not take long for his stay at Columbia to wear thin. Eisenhower often pontificated on pressing national and world issues, but as Rovere claimed, there was “intense hostility toward him on the part of both faculty and the student body.” While at Columbia, Ike’s primary interest was not in finding a new chair of the department of romance languages but “rebuilding Columbia’s lost prestige in athletics.” When he was supposed “to be attending an important faculty convocation, he is downtown in the railroad station giving the throttle of the new Broadway Limited its first pull.” Even more perplexing was his shifting political views On the one hand, he protected academic freedom. On the other hand, the “conservativism he has been espousing lately does not appear to be the outgrowth of any rigorous search for wisdom on his part, and it has not been expressed with any urgency or moral conviction. It does, though, appear to be the result of a recent conversion.”1
When Eisenhower was recalled to active service to be the first NATO commander in January 1951, Jean Edward Smith, one of Eisenhower’s many biographers, concluded, “Eisenhower kept close watch on the GOP presidential campaign. Whenever asked, he firmly denied any interest in the nomination.”2 Unlike the current political climate in the United States today, internationalists within the Republican Party agreed with Harry Truman that the borders of the United States were no longer the Atlantic and Pacific but were now set at distant outposts on the Elbe in Germany and the thirty-eighth parallel in Korea.
Assertions like this raised the ire of the isolationist wing of the GOP to fever pitch, despite recent memories of World War II. No member of the party was angrier than Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, the potential Republican nominee in 1952.At that point, Eisenhower arranged a meeting with the Ohio senator and leading Republican conservative in the Senate at the Pentagon. According to James Patterson, a Taft’s biographer, Ike was so encouraged that Taft had this meeting voluntarily that Ike had his aides draft a statement: “I want to announce that my name may not be used by anyone as a candidate for President and if they [sic] do, I will repudiate such efforts.” Eisenhower then “folded up the statement and stuck it in his pocket.”3
Although Eisenhower was career army, he was also an astute politician. Even more to the point, he was an avid poker player. During this meeting with Taft, a meeting described by Patterson as “the first extended tete-a-tete they ever had,” Eisenhower sought to ascertain Taft’s and his allies’ position concerning European security. Eisenhower went further and asked, “Will you support this idea [of collective security] as a bipartisan policy?” If Taft agreed, Eisenhower told Taft, he was prepared to remain in Europe for the “next years.” If Taft didn’t, Eisenhower would be back in the United States. The implication was evident, and Eisenhower himself believed it was clear. Taft did not agree with his position.After the meeting adjourned, Eisenhower summoned his staff once again. This time he took the pledge from his pocket “and tore it up.”4
Enter former General Lucius Clay, an old army acquaintance and former subordinate of Ike’s, who grew up in the world of Washington politics. Clearly what galvanized Clay was the fear of a Taft presidency. Clay was, as William Hitchcock noted, “one of the great architects of America’s position in Europe…[and] a stout believer in the Western security program Eisenhower was now building.” If Taft reached the White House, all this would have been for naught. More succinctly Clay noted, “We cannot let the isolationists gain control of government if we are to endure as a free people over the years.”5 How then was Eisenhower going to run for the presidency while serving as NATO commander? Many of Ike’s friends and the men who brought him the Republican nomination, visited Paris to plan Eisenhower’s future strategy
On October 16, 1951, Robert Taft made it official: He was seeking the GOP nomination.As Herbert Parmet related, Taft had remarkable strength among the Republican rank-and-file by citing “a poll of 455 of the 1,094 Republican delegates to the forthcoming convention that was taken by NBC radio commentator Ned Brooks [and] revealed that the Senator was their favorite of 244 to 114 for Eisenhower and Harold Stassen was a poor third at thirty-four.”6 Eisenhower depended upon a phalanx of dedicated supporters to make this happen.
Today, manyAmericans aren’t aware of the fear generated during the early Cold War in the 1950s. It was precisely those concerns that motivated Eisenhower’s friends and supporters propelling him to the White
House in 1952. What endeared Eisenhower to his friends and backers also influenced theAmerican electorate writ large. Historian StephenAmbrose, perhaps more than others, captured those traits when he noted that Ike’s “magnetic appeal to millions of his fellow citizens seemed to come about as a natural and effortless result of his sunny disposition.” But still,Ambrose assumed “that the big grin and bouncy step often masked depression, doubt, or utter weariness, for he believed it was the critical duty of a leader to always exude optimism.”7
This does not mean that Eisenhower during his two terms as president did not face both domestic and foreign challenges, because he did. Richard Nixon, writing in the early 1960s, described his own challenges in the book Six Crises. Ike easily could have done likewise. The issues Eisenhower confronted were momentous, even though some were adventurous as in Iran and Guatemala, and would have long-term consequences. From requests from the French for the use of an atomic attack at Dien Bien Phu in support of the beleaguered French garrison in 1954 to the U-2 affair in 1960, Eisenhower demonstrated solid judgment and thoughtful action in every single crisis of the many he faced as president. This does not mean the Eisenhower presidency was infallible, but as William Bragg Ewald wrote in 1981, “Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency gave America eight good years the best in memory.”8 Still, manyAmericans, especially Blacks facing mounting discrimination, would challenge that claim, as would some of the leading historians of the time, especially Arthur Schlesinger, Jr , since Eisenhower was not as dynamic as
Schlessinger’s favorites, Andrew Jackson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom he saw as men of action.
Even more problematic, Schlesinger later wrote in his Watergate-era book, The Imperial Presidency, was that Eisenhower established a new dimension of presidential power never fully enunciated when “he declared deniable at presidential will: material generated by the internal deliberative processes of government,” beginning the road to what he assumed was the imperial presidency during theArmyMcCarthy affair 9 What Schlesinger and others tended to overlook were the dangers posed by not only Joe McCarthy but also elements within the conservative wing of the Republican Party that were a threat to the internal stability of the United States during the Cold War. This paper is an effort to examine two crises, one involving the internal security of the United States, and the other an economic crisis that could have had a profound impact on jobs and the American standard of living. Eisenhower biographers have overlooked the economic rescue of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation in 1956, something this paper seeks to address. One player who impacted both episodes was Paul Hoffman, someone who has been forgotten in the grand scheme of the Eisenhower presidency until now.
Dwight Eisenhower and Paul Hoffman: AUnique Friendship
Paul Hoffman was a go-getter, and nothing was going to hold him back. In 1909, when Hoffman was only eighteen, he left the
University of Chicago and moved to Los Angles to sell Studebakers.As if that were not enough, he became a self-made millionaire at the age of thirty-four, in 1925. Ten years later, as the nation was still in the throes of the Great Depression, Hoffman became president of Studebaker, which he saved from bankruptcy. He held that position until 1948, when Harry Truman appointed Hoffman as chief of the Economic CooperationAdministration in which he administered the Marshall Plan.10 It was at this point in his career that he met General Dwight Eisenhower, who was appointed SupremeAllied Commander in Europe in 1950.After leaving as Marshall Plan administrator, Hoffman became chairman of the Ford Foundation, a position he held until 1953, when he returned to run Studebaker.
But in 1951, Hoffman took a leave from the Ford Foundation to form Citizens for Eisenhower, to draft Ike to run for the presidency. Hoffman was one of a growing number of internationalists among independents and Democrats who encouraged Dwight Eisenhower to run in 1952, mainly because the GOP was returning to isolationism, as seen by the rise of Robert Taft’s candidacy and the earlier opposition to NATO and internationalism in general. To Paul Hoffman, and many others, Dwight Eisenhower was the man for the moment. Hoffman helped catapult Eisenhower to the nomination.11
Eisenhower had many who advised him to run, but according to StephenAmbrose, “Paul Hoffman, whom Eisenhower admired enormously, wrote him on December 5 [1951]: ‘Whether you like it or not, you
have to face the fact that you are the one man today who can (1) redeem the Republican Party, (2) change the atmosphere of the United States from one impregnated with fear and hate to one in which there will be good will and confidence, and (3) start the world down the road to peace.”12 But this is only part of Hoffman’s role in working for Eisenhower. He also helped develop a plan to rescue StudebakerPackard, which was a model for later federal rescues of Chrysler and General Motors well into the next century. But how did it all begin?As some say, the past is prologue.
Malmedy and Joe McCarthy
On December 17, 1944, during the early stages of the German offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge, elements of the First SS Panzer Regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Joachim Peiper captured, and executed, eightyAmerican troops of Battery B of the 285thArtillery Observation Battalion at a crossroads near Malmedy, Belgium. Leon Jaworski, then serving in the JudgeAdvocate General’s Corps, said, “[O]f all atrocities committed againstAmerican personnel the Malmedy incident is the most vicious and brutal…. Its atrocious nature has been widely publicized, and it is expected by the public and military authorities alike that the perpetrators be brought to justice.”13 The USArmy did precisely that by using the Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) and by war’s end, the army had apprehended the Waffen SS personnel responsible for the massacre.
The trial was held in the former Dachau concentration camp, and on July 11, 1946, the verdicts were reached. Forty-three, including the commanding officer, Joachim Peiper, were sentenced to death. Twenty two others were sentenced to life in prison, and the remaining eight were sentenced to ten to twenty years. Peiper requested that his lawyer, Colonel Willis Everett, ask the court to change the method of execution from hanging to firing squad for those sentenced to death.14 The fight to exonerate Peiper and his fellow SS subordinates found its way to the US Supreme Court and the US Senate in due time. Joe McCarthy’s political rise to prominence had its start with this investigation when he appeared as a guest of the subcommittee of the SenateArmed Services Committee investigating the claims of torture of the SS perpetrators at Malmedy. Although McCarthy was not a member of the subcommittee, he made his mark as soon as the hearing began in the spring of 1949, claiming the army interrogators tortured and abused the defendants to extract confessions from them. McCarthy’s false and outlandish claims were aided by German clergy and former die-hard National Socialists seeking to revive an extreme right-wing party in Germany following the war’s end.15
McCarthy’s defense of Peiper and the Malmedy perpetrators caught the attention of at least one serving officer, who reached out to McCarthy three days before Thanksgiving in 1949. Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel, in his biography of McCarthy, sought to mask who that officer was, claiming that there were three of them, “and literally overnight the Senator decided to make the battle against
Communism his issue.” Remarkably historians continue to claim McCarthy’s meeting at the Colony Restaurant with Father Edmund Walsh of Georgetown was the main source of McCarthy’s anticommunism crusade. But the real source was an Army general, with critical knowledge of the most sensitive information during the early Cold War. He was not just any general; he was Carter Weldon Clarke, the intelligence chief at Arlington Hall, the home of theArmy SecurityAgency, the future site of the National SecurityAgency. In the privacy of his diary, Drew Pearson wrote, “Learned the man feeding Senator McCarthy is General Carter Clark[e], the colonel who fed the Republicans all the dirt on F.D.R in regard to Pearl Harbor and who gave Dewey the information in 1944 that we were breaking the Japanese code.”16
Carter Weldon Clarke was conservative, bordering on being a political reactionary. He never trusted the Roosevelt administration, and the same applied to Harry Truman. Just as the code breakers were making headway in deciphering the code system for the VENONAProject, which indicated that the Soviets had penetrated the Manhattan Project and government agencies, Clarke told the FBI liaison betweenArlington Hall and the Department of Justice that the distribution list should exclude the president, Harry Truman, from that intelligence derived from VENONA. If Harry Truman wanted to know anything about claims of Soviet penetration of the US government, he would have to read the minutes of the House Committee on Un-AmericanActivities 17
The President and the Demagogue
Initially, Eisenhower had a complicated relationship with Joe McCarthy. There is no evidence that Ike was the senator’s fan, but his political advisers pulled him in different directions. During the 1952 campaign, the closest Eisenhower came to confronting McCarthy was his reference to protecting George Marshall in a speech Ike gave in Wisconsin during the 1952 campaign. General Jerry Persons, one of Ike’s political advisers, was opposed to offending McCarthy on his own turf, and probably leaked Eisenhower’s intentions. Wisconsin Governor Walter Kohler, Joe McCarthy, and the GOP national committeeman from Wisconsin, Henry Ringling, flew from Madison to Peoria to meet with Eisenhower to dissuade him from making any antiMcCarthy references when he spoke in Milwaukee. One close Eisenhower aide claimed that he heard Ike yell at McCarthy. The following day, McCarthy had another discussion with Eisenhower and told Ike that if he did not modify his forthcoming speech, according to author Jeff Broadwater, “he would be ‘booed.’” Ike replied being heckled was not his concern. Next, Kohler met with ShermanAdams, Ike’s campaign manager, and said that any affront to McCarthy could have a negative impact in Wisconsin, even going so far as to claim that McCarthy’s attack on George Marshall was not challenging Marshall’s loyalty.18
Eisenhower deleted the offending passage from his speech, but Fred Seaton, a key Eisenhower loyalist, and others, informed friendly journalists that Ike was going to challenge McCarthy. The press headlines
damaged Eisenhower’s well-cultivated image for plain speaking. Yet, it was just the beginning of a struggle that culminated in McCarthy’s being censured in the Senate two years later.
Challenging McCarthy encompassed both political and personal risks. Those who stood up to McCarthy’s brazen and destructive political attacks over time were defeated at the polls, resigned from the Senate, or died by suicide. One of the first victims was Millard Tydings, a conservative Democratic senator from Maryland, who lost his seat in the Senate after challenging McCarthy’s claims of Soviet spies in the State Department. Scott Lucas of Illinois, who dared to take on McCarthy, suffered the same fate Another was Republican Senator Ray Baldwin of Connecticut, who stood up to McCarthy in theArmed Services Subcommittee investigating Malmedy. He resigned from the Senate in 1949. Then there was the case of Robert La Follette, Jr., “Young Bob,” to those who followed the La Follette political dynasty. Robert La Follette was defeated by Joe McCarthy in the 1946 Republican Wisconsin primary.Although La Follette suffered from depression, it was a threat by McCarthy calling him to testify before McCarthy’s committee that may have caused his suicide on February 24, 1953.19
Standing up to McCarthy was a career ending chore if you were a politician.
Lester Hunt’s tragic suicide is also linked to McCarthy. Hunt’s confrontation with McCarthy came on the SenateArmed Services Subcommittee while investigating the Malmedy affair Simultaneous with the infamous Red Scare, there was the Lavender
Scare, of the perceived dangers homosexuals posed if they served in the government in any capacity. McCarthy and his senatorial supporters like Styles Bridges of New Hampshire and Herman Welker of Idaho were on a mission to expose them too. On June 9, 1953, Lester Hunt’s son, Buddy, was arrested for soliciting sex from a male undercover police officer in Washington. Although the charges were dropped, Bridges and Welker, no doubt with McCarthy’s aid, pressed the Washington police to recharge him. McCarthy and his staff used a similar line of attack against General Miles Reber while seeking to gain a commission for Roy Cohn’s friend G. David Schine. Reber’s brother, Samuel, was forced to resign his post with the State Department. When it became evident that McCarthy was going to expose Buddy, Lester Hunt brought his .22 caliber hunting rifle to his senate office and took his own life on June 19, 1954. Was McCarthy involved? Earlier, McCarthy made an assertion that caught the attention of Lester Hunt before his suicide: McCarthy said he was going to investigate a senator “who had fixed a case.” It appears that Lester Hunter believed that he was that senator.20
Fort Monmouth, Fort Dix, and the Downfall of Joe McCarthy
Joe McCarthy’s staff received a telephone call from a security officer assigned at Fort Monmouth, notifying the senator of serious breaches, in his view, of security at the Camp Evans labs at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The call was made by Robert Stillmore, someone who has been lost in the
McCarthy story.21 The reason for McCarthy’s foray into the operations of the Signal Corps electronics facility was the fact that Julius Rosenberg once worked there, and one of Rosenberg’s friends,Aaron Coleman, had his security clearance restored.Although the investigation began in September 1953, it was a telephone call from Roy Cohn to JohnAdams, the army’s chief counsel, that created serious concerns about McCarthy’s intentions.All told, fortyfour cases involving derogatory information were made as of November 1, 1953, and thirty-three were suspended.As Bryce Harlow of the Eisenhower administration noted, many have been investigated repeatedly.22
On Tuesday, October 27, 1953, Robert Stevens, secretary of the army, returned a call from Roy Cohn, who had earlier called JohnAdams, the army’s chief counsel, concerning the appearance of Brigadier General Harry Reichelderfer, who was chief of theArmy SecurityAgency at Arlington Hall, the home of the top-secret VENONA project. The pretext for the appearance of General Reichelderfer was that he had clearedAaron Coleman in 1946. Immediately after the call, Stevens contacted Fred Seaton, the newly appointed assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs and Eisenhower’s point man in the Pentagon. Soon Eisenhower was notified, as was Eisenhower’s staff secretary for internal security affairs, General Peter Carroll. Unlike other calls from the secretary of the army, the calls with the president, Carroll, and Seaton were not monitored.23
As McCarthy’s investigation at Fort Monmouth continued, Roy Cohn kept the pressure on the army to grant his special friend, G. David Schine, a commission to avoid Schine being inducted into the US Army. Cohn’s target was JohnAdams, the army’s counsel. To meet McCarthy’s demands, a meeting was held at the office of Herbert Brownell, the attorney general, on January 21, 1954. Also present was Sherman Adams, Eisenhower’s chief of staff. During the discussions, JohnAdams described earlier pressure for a commission in one of the armed services or an appointment to the Central IntelligenceAgency. Sherman Adams recommended that JohnAdams develop a chronology of McCarthy’s pressure for special treatment of Schine at Fort Dix after he was drafted, and the effort to obtain a commission for him. The final Adams document, better known as the Adams Chronology, was released, which set the stage for the dramatic hearings that fatally weakened Joe McCarthy.24
Schine’s treatment as a draftee at Fort Dix, New Jersey, was intolerable for army authorities, and on January 29, 1954, army officials were ready to act. Then, on the following day, McCarthy called before his subcommittee Major Irving Peress, an army dentist at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. Peress’s problems were just about to begin. Before he was medically drafted during the Korean War, he was a member of the American Communist Party. McCarthy belittled Peress and demanded to know who had promoted him. Peress refused to respond to McCarthy’s demands by noting his FifthAmendment privileges. Next, McCarthy called Brigadier General Ralph
Zwicker and demanded to know who had promoted the communist dentist. But Zwicker was ordered not to release that information. McCarthy then lost control of himself and exclaimed: “Any man who has been given the honor of being promoted to general and says, ‘I will protect another general who protects Communists’is not fit to wear that uniform, general.”25 McCarthy never grasped what his declaration of war against the USArmy meant for his career.
AFortuitous Meeting
On March 24, 1954, Paul Hoffman paid a visit to Dwight Eisenhower at the White House. We don’t know exactually what transpired, but a letter from Hoffman to Eisenhower may give the public an idea of what was discussed. Obviously, the two had much to discuss and analyze. The day before, Eisenhower sent a memo to Herbert Brownell, the attorney general, wondering if “any Committee of Congress cited to you any individual, with proof, that the individual is a Communist or should be tried for membership in a conspiracy of which the purpose is to destroy theAmerican Government by force?”26 What made this meeting significant for the Eisenhower administration, but even more significant for the country, was that it provided President Eisenhower with the germ of an idea for his claim of executive privilege during the heat of theArmy-McCarthy controversy. Eisenhower’s assertion was so audacious, the late Raoul Berger wrote during the Watergate scandal that it was “the boldest claim to withhold information from Congress” to date. Furthermore, he asserted
that “it [was] altogether without historical foundation.”27 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. went even further, claiming that Eisenhower “made the most absolute assertion of presidential right to withhold information from Congress ever uttered to that day in American history.”28 The term “executive privilege” did not appear until 1958, four years after Eisenhower exercised his presidential prerogative during the McCarthy affair.
Setting the Stage
McCarthy’s bullying tactics during the heyday of McCarthyism made Eisenhower’s ploy palatable for most scholars, who failed to realize that the assertion of the privilege was a ticking time bomb that presidents could use twenty years later, pitting Congress against the White House during Watergate. Why did Eisenhower claim the right to withhold material from Congress? Even more important, where did he get the idea in the first place?
The standard interpretation involves President Eisenhower’s decision to protect army and loyalty and security board members from congressional subpoenas, especially Joe McCarthy’s effort “regarding their actions in the case of one of the individuals under investigation at Fort Monmouth.”29 Herbert Brownell asserted, “The president asked my advice as to his constitutional powers to order the army personnel to refuse to honor the subpoenas.”30 Unfortunately, Brownell was not entirely correct and tended to amplify his role in the affair; historians may have assumed that reexamining the McCarthy
affair was not worth their effort, since further research would not drastically alter the collective knowledge of McCarthy’s political demise. Most casual observers of the Eisenhower years are now familiar with the work of the late Fred Greenstein’s interpretation of Eisenhower’s hidden-hand style of leadership. Of all the scholars, Greenstein had come the closest to unscrambling Eisenhower’s covert operation to neutralize McCarthy. To conceal that clandestine operation, Eisenhower had to make certain that the White House’s role, and that of his lieutenants, was never uncovered.As they say, dead men tell no tales.All the participants took their secret to the grave. One, however, left a paper trail and that person was Paul Hoffman. Hoffman was not only an Eisenhower loyalist but also a vociferous McCarthy opponent. Probably from their meeting on March 24, Hoffman sent a letter that the president received on March 25, 1954. For the president, Hoffman’s letter was a godsend and Eisenhower jumped at Hoffman’s suggestion.
Hoffman’s Recommendation
What did Hoffman propose? Hoffman offered an escape. “Sooner or later probably sooner Senator McCarthy will again summon for questioning browbeating some member of the Executive Branch of Government who should not be summoned solely for the purpose of providing headlines for the Senator.” When McCarthy followed his standard technique of subpoenaing another victim, Hoffman proposed, “Then and there, I suggest that you issue instructions to this person to
refuse the summons from Senator McCarthy and give him reasons for doing so.”
31 The president responded to Hoffman, “I am consulting with some of my close advisors on it.”32
Quickly Eisenhower sent Hoffman’s letter along with an accompanying memo to Herbert Brownell, inviting the attorney general to pay “attention, particularly [to] its latter part.Assuming that the time may come when I may find it necessary to take the action suggested in the letter, could you prepare a draft of a statement, accompanying my instructions? If you believe, of course that his [Hoffman’s recommendation] has no merit whatsoever, just please return the letter to me.”33 The exchange indicates that the idea fascinated Eisenhower, and he was aware of the situation concerning McCarthy.Any claim that the concept of executive privilege was developed through a prolonged series of discussions between the DOJ and the White House is erroneous.
Even more intriguing was the response provided by the Justice Department. In a memo sent to Eisenhower dated March 2, William Rogers, deputy attorney general, offered the president all the legal authority he needed to withhold information from Congress. Likely the letter and accompanying reports were predated to conceal Hoffman’s role in terminating McCarthy’s career, since Hoffman was a well-known McCarthy critic. Herbert Brownell, much like Henry Cabot Lodge, may have disagreed with Eisenhower’s plan, since Rogers signed the accompanying letter as “ActingAttorney General.”34
Hoffman Helped Set the Table for Eisenhower’s Claim
Officials in the Pentagon realized that John G.Adams, the army counsel, could not lead the army’s case against McCarthy in the upcomingArmy-McCarthy hearings. With the help of Thomas E. Dewey, the 1944 and 1948 GOP standard-bearer, the Pentagon settled on Joseph Welch of the wellestablished Boston law firm Hale and Dorr. Shortly thereafter, Robert Stevens, secretary of the army, terminated all official monitoring of calls between himself and Welch, effectively blinding future generations of historians investigating the Army-McCarthy affair.35 During consultations with JohnAdams,Adams’s detailed records of McCarthy’s effort to secure a commission for G. David Schine and his threats to wreck the army impressed Welch. Despite claims to the contrary, as noted in Brownell’s memoir,Adams’s disclosure of a January 21, 1954, meeting with ShermanAdams, Eisenhower’s chief of staff; JohnAdams; Herbert Brownell; and UNAmbassador Henry Cabot Lodge, discussing how to respond to McCarthy’s was not spontaneous. Instead, it was planned to disclose the material during his testimony on May 14, 1954, allowing Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson to submit to the committee of Eisenhower’s claim of privilege on the following Monday, May 17.36
Raoul Berger rightly claimed, “Such refusals are merely part of a wider pattern of concealment.37 What did Eisenhower seek to conceal? Was it the January 21, 1954,
meeting in Brownell’s office where key Eisenhower staffers were discussing how to impede McCarthy’s investigation at Fort Monmouth? Or was it something more sinister? Evidence available at the Eisenhower Presidential Library leads to startling new conclusions concerning the Army-McCarthy affair. The conventional interpretation involves blackmail and preferential treatment for G. David Schine, a staffer on McCarthy’s committee and a close friend of Roy Cohn, who was drafted and sought a commission. Yet the events involved were more complex, and were so serious, Dwight Eisenhower risked his presidency by using the Central Intelligence Agency, the National SecurityAgency, and the army’s Counterintelligence Corps to investigate Cohn, Schine, and McCarthy. Some officials in the administration thought McCarthy was a communist, while John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, thought he was a fascist. For Eisenhower it was pivotal to conceal that effort from not only McCarthy but also from congressional Democrats on the committee. Clearly, Paul Hoffman’s suggestion contributed to Eisenhower’s extraordinary claim to a privilege Berger believed was “a myth.”38
Other Matters Discussed at Hoffman’s Visit to the White House
Paul Hoffman was worried, and so was the president when they conferred on March 24, 1954. No doubt Eisenhower, in confidence, discussed the McCarthy matter. Not only would Hoffman respond with his proposal, but he would rally some of his friends in the Senate to challenge McCarthy, such as
Vermont Senator Ralph Flanders, a leading McCarthy opponent. But he also expressed concerns about the fate of his company, Studebaker. The fate of Studebaker was in the balance.
With the approaching end of the Korean War and the subsequent loss of defense contracts, Studebaker required a massive volume of automobiles if the company was to remain profitable. By the time of the meeting with Eisenhower, Studebaker was losing more than $2 million a month in its automobile and truck operations. If as if that were not bad enough, the air force decided to discontinue the use of the J-47 engine in favor of the J-57, the contracts for which went to Ford.At this point, Studebaker decided to drastically reduce its labor costs. Hoffman ended group piecework and introduced a measured day rate, reducing Studebaker’s hourly labor costs to meet industry standards.39 While this change reduced hourly wage rates, it had, if any anything, adversely affected work standards, which no longer depended on one’s fellow workers for enforcement but on management. It was a problem that Studebaker management, totally inexperienced in industrial discipline, was incapable of handling.40
In addition to attempting to cut wage costs, Studebaker in the early months of 1954 decided to press for a merger with the Packard Motor Car Company, a deal that had been discussed for months. Like Studebaker, Packard was an old-line company with a substantial reputation. It had emerged from the war, as one commentator put it, “a fairly fat cat and it
lost no weight during the post-war seller’s market.” In 1949, the company produced its first completely new post-war car. It was soon dubbed the “bathtub Packard” and was probably the most atrocious auto design since the infamous 1929 Buick. Packard did come up with more acceptable styling in 1951, but its directors recognized that if it was to remain profitable in the auto business, vast changes would be necessary in its operations. They selected James J. Nance of Hotpoint as the man to effect those changes, and he took over as president in March 1952. During the next two years, he labored to revitalize the dealer organization and managed to bring Packard’s labor costs in line with the Big Three GM, Ford, and Chrysler. But much like Studebaker during the Korean War, Packard depended on defense contracts, chiefly for the J-47 engine, to keep the company sustainable 41
Nance decided that if Packard was to remain in the auto business, it would have to gamble. The first thing would be to move Packard production from its antiquated multistory and inefficient plant on Detroit’s Grand Boulevard to a more modern facility. The first step was the conversion of the Packard defense plant at Utica, Michigan, to the automated production of a new V-8 engine and transmission. The second step was to move the assembly operations to the somewhat more modern Conner plant in Detroit, leased from Chrysler, where Packard would not only assemble cars but manufacture its own bodies. The net investment for those innovations was $50 million, a sum that could be recovered only if Packard volume could be increased beyond what could reasonably be expected.
Like Studebaker, Packard confronted, though for far different reasons, the prospect of operating well below its break-even point. The only viable solution seemed to be a merger with another auto company whose product was in a lower-priced line so that the merged company, by using the same bodies and other parts in the two car lines, could affect the savings of a full-line company. It was in such dire circumstances that the two companies found each other in 1954.42
The Studebaker-Packard Merger
The merger was a friendly one. James Nance was made president and chief operating officer of the new Studebaker-Packard Corporation, while Paul Hoffman was made chairman of the board and Nance head of the executive committee.43 In a gesture of confidence in Studebaker-Packard, three of the nation’s leading insurance companies lent the new corporation $25 million to handle any immediate problems that might arise.Afew months later, a consortium of twenty banks made a $40 million credit line available. Nance calculated that the company would lose approximately $9 million in 1955, reducing to a smaller loss in 1956, and make a considerable profit on its integrated models in 1957 and 1958.44
There was only one small dark cloud on the horizon. The end of the J-47 production had left Studebaker-Packard without substantial defense contracts. This meant that the company had to maintain a considerable volume of automobile production to avoid a loss far exceeding the projected $9 million
for 1955. What, then, was the break-even point for each car line?At the time of the merger negotiations, Walter T. Grant, Packard vice president for finance, had calculated the break-even point for Packard at 64,000 cars per year, and E. C. Mendler, Studebaker vice president and CPA, had calculated the Studebaker break-even point at 165,000 cars and trucks. Each accepted the other’s figures. But in late 1954, Grant recalculated Mendler’s figures and concluded that Mendler had lied; with the low work standards still prevailing in the Studebaker plant, Studebaker’s break-even point was not 165,000, but 282,000! Studebaker’s record in 1955 seemed to bear Grant out. Studebaker managed to produce 138,000 units, only 17,000 fewer than the supposed break-even point, but still lost $15 million 45 But 1955 also gave Mendler his revenge. Packard produced 63,000 cars in 1955, only 1,000 fewer than Grant’s estimated break-even point, but instead of nearly breaking even, it too lost $15 million Mendler could well have charged that Grant had lied, though he had the good sense not to do so. In fact, neither had lied. Both had used reasonable assumptions in their calculations that were not borne out.46
Despite the nearly $30 million loss in 1955, the situation was by no means hopeless. But the future depended on several unpredictable factors: One, could the company, which by the end of 1955 had imposed reasonable work standards at South Bend, Indiana, successfully conclude satisfactory labor agreements with its Detroit, South Bend, and LosAngeles locals? The answer was yes by mid-February 1956, the new contracts were signed.47 Two, would industry-wide car
sales for 1956 approach 1955’s record levels? The answer was a definite no. The industry’s overproduction during 1955 had drastically reduced the 1956 market.48 Three, could Packard, with its slightly facelifted 1956 models, overcome the bad press caused by the lack of quality control in its 1955 models to at least maintain its share of whatever 1956 sales market existed? Again, the answer clearly was no.49 By January, Packard sales had fallen drastically, and in February the Conner plant shut down for a month and then reduced production by 40 percent.50 Four, could the drastically restyled 1956 Studebaker, which had dropped the foreign look for a more conventional style, increase its share of the market?51 Again, the answer was no.52
Last, and most crucial, could Nance and his colleagues raise the $50 million in additional capital they needed $20 million to strengthen the dealer organization and at least $30 million to bring out the new body for the 1957 Packard? In January 1956, S-P director J. Russell Forgan of the New York investment firm Glore, Forgan & Company, was put in charge of a special finance committee to raise the funds. Sometime later that month, Nance and the finance committee approached the three insurance companies that had earlier bankrolled Studebaker-Packard, but they flatly refused to extend the needed funds. Forgan’s finance committee now became a salvage operation.53
Studebaker-Packard Facing Financial Collapse
By the time the board of directors met on February 27, Studebaker-Packard was facing disaster.As there was no longer hope from the insurance companies, the finance committee was instructed to explore the possibilities of borrowing funds from commercial banks, the New York Federal Reserve Bank, or even from the Big Three. Unless the money could be secured in the next few weeks, it would be “sudden death” for the new model. On the other hand, if suppliers were told to hold off, and the word got around that Studebaker-Packard was on the verge of bankruptcy, a possible drastic fall in sales could be expected.An extensive defense contract might temporarily bolster confidence, and the question was whether the company might induce the Defense Department to give it the prime contract for the J-57 engine. If Studebaker-Packard could obtain neither financing nor new defense contracts, the only possibility seemed to be to sell off all or at least some of the company’s assets or seek a merger. It was agreed that the finance committee should explore the possibilities of selling off all the assets of the corporation to Chrysler, American Motors, or Kaiser Industries, and if it could be done, to sell Packard to either Chrysler or Ford.As far as mergers were concerned, the prospects seemed to be International Harvester, General Dynamics, Massey-Harris, and Curtiss-Wright.54
By the time the board met again on March 23, the crisis was at hand. The Wall Street Journal had received some inkling of the
dire situation that the corporation was enduring and ran an article hinting that there would be no 1957 Packard.55 The article led to serious morale problems among employees and dealers, and dealer orders had practically dried up. Forgan reported that “Washington had been covered from top to bottom. If we could come up with a constructive plan to save the company we could get some money not all we want but some money.” Forgan had explored merger possibilities with several companies, dangling before them the prospects of using Studebaker losses as tax credits to offset their own profits, as well as hoped-for defense contracts. International Harvester rejected the proposal out of hand, and Chrysler had also declined. Ford was noncommittal, and Forgan had also been approached by Royal Little of Textron American. But the best hope seemed to come from Roy Hurley, president of CurtissWright, whose company was heavily involved in defense production and supposedly could make full use of Studebaker-Packard’s tax credits. The combination of Curtiss-Wright and federal help would be the basis of the bailout and was beginning to take shape. But for the moment, the pressing matter was the decision on the 1957 models. There seemed to be only two rational possibilities: concentrate auto production in South Bend or liquidate the company. Hoffman insisted that a decision had to be made now today. But Nance argued that the possibilities should be explored by the StudebakerPackard accountants Ernest & Ernest, and by Robert Heller &Associates of Cleveland.
Nance carried the day, and the decision was again put off.56
When the directors next met onApril 16, the preliminary reports from Heller and Ernest & Ernest were ready.According to Heller, liquidation would be a total “washout” and would leave nothing for the shareholders, and the plans suggested by Ernest & Ernest seemed to offer only a little time. Though they would continue to discuss possibilities with the auto industry, the directors were, in effect, down to Curtiss-Wright.And now there were two possibilities in the talks with Curtiss-Wright. The first was “the Germans,” as Forgan persisted in calling them Daimler-BenzA.G., manufacturer of the prestigious Mercedes-Benz. DaimlerBenz already had business connections with Curtiss-Wright and dissatisfied with its distributor in the United States, was seeking a new dealer organization. Daimler-Benz saw the Studebaker-Packard dealer organization as the solution to itsAmerican distribution problem and was putting pressure on Hurley to work out a deal. The other new element was Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey. Humphrey insisted that under no circumstances should Studebaker-Packard be liquidated and said he “wanted the deal to go thru & was going to put heat on Hurley tell [him] no use of delay.” Forgan was to meet with Hurley the following Saturday and was ordered to tell him that the whole deal hinged on Studebaker-Packard getting defense business and on Curtiss-Wright’s purchasing a large block of unissued StudebakerPackard stock.57
On Wednesday, May 2, the directors met again in the New York offices of Glore, Forgan. It was a meeting that was to continue, with adjournments, untilAugust 6, as the directors (and the Eisenhower administration) pursued the elusive agreement with Curtiss-Wright and its onagain-off-again president, Roy Hurley. Hurley drove a hard bargain, but so did the directors and the Eisenhower administration. At that meeting of May 2, Hurley was off again, and the directors, the meeting was the lowest point of the entire crisis, the “last chance,” as Forgan put it to resolve the crisis. Nance had gone to Washington on April 26, where he was told by Secretary of Defense Wilson that the Big Three had no interest in maintaining a fourth full-line auto company. Hurley himself was present at the board meeting and told the directors that Studebaker-Packard stock was not worth the $3 to $5 the company was asking for its unissued shares. Considering this, plus the fact that he could not get the promised contracts from the Defense Department, he doubted there could be a deal. Heller presented its final report a plan for liquidation, which would not only leave the shareholders with nothing but fall $7 million short of even meeting Studebaker-Packard’s obligations. Reluctantly, the board voted to announce a shrink-back to South Bend on the following Monday, May 7, as a prelude to liquidation.58
The Curtiss-WrightAgreement
On Monday, there was no announcement of the shrink-back, and the minutes of the board meeting of the following day reveal
why. On the previous Saturday, Forgan had held another meeting with Hurley, and the next day the Curtiss-Wright officials huddled among themselves. What happened next cannot be determined,59 but at the board meeting of May 8, Forgan laid Hurley’s offer on the table. The banks had agreed to lend Studebaker-Packard the remaining $15.3 million of the original $40 million credit line. The government was to guarantee a substantial amount of defense contracts for Studebaker-Packard, and a meeting in Washington was set for the next day to firm this up. Daimler-Benz would buy a million shares of unissued StudebakerPackard stock at $5 per share, and Studebaker-Packard would distribute Mercedes-Benz cars in NorthAmerica. Curtiss-Wright would take an option to buy 6.5 million Studebaker-Packard unissued shares at $5 per share over the next two or three years and take over the affairs of the company immediately. Surprisingly, the directors hesitated. The most important question revolved around the legal requirement that two-thirds of the stockholders agree to the sale of stock to Curtiss-Wright. Could the directors get the two-thirds vote, especially if they turned control of the corporation over to CurtissWright before the stockholders’meeting was held? But the alternative was liquidation, and they went along.60
When the directors met again on June 2, they were astounded to learn that Hurley had called the whole deal off the defense contract issue, despite everybody’s best efforts, simply could not be resolved. Hurley intended to issue a press release to that effect just after the meeting, a step that
Hoffman said would be the end of Studebaker-Packard. Rays of hope were diminishing by the hour. Secretary Charles Wilson had suggested that StudebakerPackard organize a subsidiary corporation to handle defense contracts he could not justify giving defense contracts to Studebaker-Packard in its present condition, but he might be able to give them to a subsidiary. Forgan was sent out to place a call to Hurley. Hurley was enthusiastic about the news. The press release was called off, and that afternoon Hurley and Forgan met to continue negotiations.61 By Monday, June 4, plans for a Studebaker-Packard subsidiary were moving forward. But now there was a new problem: The Curtiss-Wright management agreement would be only with the subsidiary. The question now was, what about the auto operations? Hurley assured the board that he was working on a plan for that, too, and would have it ready in a few days.62 On June 7, the directors were informed that Hurley was ready to deal based on having Curtiss-Wright turn Studebaker-Packard subsidiary, and “advise” the auto operations. Defense contracts were being prepared, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was expected to approve Studebaker-Packard’s request for a $15 million loan.63
Throughout the month of June, Forgan, Hurley, Wilson, and Humphrey continued their negotiations. When the board met on June 27, they were chagrined to discover that the long-sought loan from the Federal Reserve had finally been offered on terms so onerous it could not be accepted. Moreover, Treasury tax rulings were such that there was little chance that Studebaker-Packard
tax credits would be of any use to CurtissWright. Finally, the heat from the press on Charlie Wilson had been so intense that he had not been able to give StudebakerPackard the hoped-for defense contracts. Hurley was willing to ignore all these problems. But, he said, they had forced him to change his plans.All of the StudebakerPackard defense contracts, present and future, should be turned over to CurtissWright, and the planned subsidiary should be a subsidiary of Curtiss-Wright rather than Studebaker-Packard.As for the auto operations, Curtiss-Wright would give advice, but accept no responsibility. The directors were aghast. Hurley was asking them to give up defense business and their two best plants Utica and South Bend Chippewa to Curtiss-Wright, leaving them with their auto operations in the antiquated South Bend main plant, and all without accepting the responsibility for those operations, a responsibility the board considered necessary to restore public confidence in Studebaker-Packard’s automobile future.Astormy session ensued, with opinion ranging from agreeing with Hurley to continue going it alone in both the defense and auto businesses to, again, liquidation.64
The following day, June 28, StudebakerPackard attorneys Irving Olds and Royall Victor lunched with Hurley and his associates, and that afternoon they reported back to the board. Hurley was disturbed that the directors had not looked with favor on his proposal. He could not understand why they were so adamant about keeping their defense business when for all practical purposes, they had none. He was taking an
unprofitable business and group of plants off their hands. Hurley assured the StudebakerPackard attorneys that the Curtiss-Wright defense subsidiary would sub-contract some of its defense work, particularly trucks, back to Studebaker-Packard. He also pointed out that Curtiss-Wright’s proposed lease of Studebaker-Packard facilities for the subsidiary’s activities would provide Studebaker-Packard with the necessary financing to bring out the 1957 Studebaker. Victor had argued that Studebaker-Packard could not turn over its defense plants and contracts without stockholder approval. Hurley answered that he did not believe this to be the case, but if it was true, he would not put up a dime until shareholder approval had been secured. The directors knew they did not have the time to gain stockholder approval. When they asked Olds if they could legally turn over their defense business and plants without such approval, his opinion was that they could not, but because the only alternative was bankruptcy, they would have to take that chance. There was really nothing more for the directors to say.65
But there was more to be said by Washington.And now Hurley the blackmailer became Hurley the blackmailed, as Wilson not only promised him defense contracts if he did come to agreement with Studebaker-Packard but threatened him with the loss of contracts if he did not. For his part, Humphrey summarily informed Studebaker-Packard that its tax credits would be canceled unless it remained in the auto business. On July 25, Forgan told the board that details of the agreement were 95 percent complete, and Nance gave the
welcome news that Studebaker would commence its 1957 auto production on October 15.66
Another meeting the next day67 and one on August 6 completed the details. CurtissWright and Studebaker-Packard entered into a management agreement whereby CurtissWright would give management assistance to Studebaker-Packard’s auto operations. In return, Curtiss-Wright received an option to buy five million shares of unissued Studebaker-Packard stock, but at the $5 per share demanded by the Studebaker-Packard board.Anew subsidiary of Curtiss-Wright was formed, the Utica-Bend Corporation, to operate defense production at the Utica and South Bend Chippewa plants, and those were leased from Studebaker-Packard for $25 million.All defense contracts of Studebaker-Packard were turned over to the subsidiary, and Curtiss-Wright paid Studebaker an additional $10 million for the inventories.68 In the final settlement, Studebaker also received $10 million from Daimler-Benz to take over the distribution of the company’s autos in the United States. With this total of $45 million, Studebaker continued the rocky road ofAmerican automobile production for the next seven years.
There was only one remaining hurdle to overcome the stockholders. Detroit lawyer Sol Dann and the New York bondholder John Neville led a group of dissidents who argued that the whole plan was a sellout of the stockholders’equity to Curtiss-Wright. If they could defeat the proposal to sell the five million shares of stock to Curtiss-Wright, the deal would still fall through, e.g.,
Studebaker-Packard would have to be liquidated. If this was done, they claimed, the stockholders could expect to receive $15 per share for their stock, which was then selling for $6. Their efforts are a story in themselves but are beyond the scope of this study. Suffice it to say that while the dissidents constituted a real threat, they met with no success, and in a stockholders’ meeting beginning in late October that lasted three days, the agreement with CurtissWright scraped by with the necessary twothirds majority.69
One Final Question
How did it all turn out? The answer is certainly not as well as the two later bailouts of Chrysler and General Motors, but it was by no means a failure. For the next two years, Studebaker made no progress in regaining its sales position, but in 1958 Studebaker’s new president, Harold E. Churchill, managed to design what seemed to be a new car, the Lark, and 1959 was the most profitable year in Studebaker’s history. An effective merger was implemented, and when Studebaker auto sales faltered again in 1962 and 1963, the company was able to exit the auto business, until it was absorbed in 1980 by McGraw-Edison. Then in 1958, Curtiss-Wright withdrew from its management agreement and declined to exercise its option to purchase Studebaker stock. In doing so, it failed to profit from the rapid rise in price of Studebaker-Packard stock that followed the introduction of the Lark. Nevertheless, Curtiss-Wright probably more than recovered its $35 million investment from government contracts that
the Eisenhower administration placed with its Utica-Bend subsidiary. Concerning Daimler-Benz, the relationship was often less than friendly. The arrangement of Studebaker-Packard to distribute MercedesBenz cars greatly increased the German automaker’sAmerican market so much so that when Studebaker ceased itsAmerican auto production in 1963, the distribution rights to Mercedes-Benz had become so valuable that Daimler paid Studebaker another $12 million to recover the right to distribute the cars itself. What about the banks and the insurance companies? In 1958, an agreement was reached whereby the debt owned by Studebaker-Packard was exchanged for equity based on one share of convertible preferred stock for each $233 of debt. By late 1959, the value of each of those shares of preferred had risen to $500, at which point the banks and insurance companies sold them, more than doubling their investment.
Some ten thousand Packard workers in Detroit lost their jobs when the company left Detroit.70 But several thousand got jobs at the Utica plant of the Curtiss-Wright subsidiary. The same happened at the Chippewa plant in South Bend. Moreover, an average of more than eight thousand workers stayed on the job for Studebaker in South Bend for the next seven years. If one considers that all those workers would have lost their jobs in 1956 if Studebaker-Packard had been liquidated at that point, the advantage of the agreement even to the workers was considerable. Still, the South Bend community took a serious economic blow in 1963, although it was not as serious as it would have been in 1956. The city was
given time to prepare, and it was time used wisely by the city fathers. Even after Studebaker closed its South Bend auto operations, army trucks, post office vans, and other specialty vehicles continued to roll off the assembly lines at the Chippewa plant, owned first byAmerican Motors Corporation and later by theAmerican Motors General Corporation, and manned partly by ex-Studebaker workers, and sometimes at the rate of nearly fifty thousand vehicles annually. What about the shareholders, including the dissidents headed by Sol Dann and John Neville? If they held on to their shares until 1959, they would have received $29 a share rather than the $15 they would have received in 1956.
What did the Eisenhower administration gain? If Studebaker-Packard failed, as they were destined to do, it would have had an adverse effect on the economy and the political fate of the administration. By reaching a deal, the administration avoided that potential scenario. Like during the future bailouts of Chrysler in 1979 and Chrysler and GM in 2008, the government managed to avoid serious economic consequences and economic dislocations. No one concerned, including the taxpayers, had to provide a dime, unlike those future bailouts. Even today, with the economic maelstroms that happened in 1956, 1979, and again in 2008, the criticisms remain more strictly in the realm of ideological economic theory than in good government and prudent policy development.71
Eisenhower’s Leadership Style and Presidential Leadership
Everyone familiar with the Eisenhower presidency is aware of the often-cited Paul Helms letter of March 9, 1954. Both Fred Greenstein and StephenAmbrose point to this letter as the crowning example of Ike’s leadership style. Eisenhower explained to Helms how he developed his leadership technique from all his past experiences: “I have developed a practice which, so far as I know, I have never violated.” Eisenhower went on, “that the practice is to avoid mention of any name, unless it can be done with favorable intent and connotation; reserve all criticism for the private conference; speak only good in public.”72 The first Helms letter explained why Eisenhower had not attacked McCarthy directly.As a matter of fact, there were few, if any, direct contacts between the Wisconsin senator and the White House during the height of the McCarthy affair.73
In the same letter, Ike told Helms that when newspapers reported McCarthy’s excesses, “the whole United States abandons all consideration of the many grave problems [the nation] faces in order to speculate on whether McCarthy has it within his power to ‘destroy our system of government.’When the proposition is stated as badly as this, then it becomes instantly ridiculous, without added proof” [emphasis added].74 Was Eisenhower saying the news accounts were journalistic embellishments? Were they only exaggerations because they lacked the
evidence to demonstrate McCarthy’s malevolence?
While theArmy-McCarthy hearings were underway, Eisenhower wrote Helms again on June 3, 1954, and amplified his earlier description of leadership. Here, Ike adds an important yet overlooked twist to his original definition: “Today, in spite of the sorry spectacle going on, I am more than ever convinced that ‘leadership’cannot be imposed; a climate must be created that makes men receptive to and desirous of fighting for the principles of the man currently in the position of the ‘leader’” [Italics added].75 Perhaps in no other place in the Eisenhower collection do we see how
Eisenhower outlined his leadership style, how he encouraged his friends and subordinates to go through hell or high water to achieve his objectives either dealing with Joe McCarthy or saving StudebakerPackard and avoiding economic hardship for American workers. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Paul Hoffman were men for the moment. Their friendship and leadership helped guide the United States through the turbulent times associated with the Cold War and the second Red Scare and guided America before the challenges of Vietnam and the sixties altered the United States forever.
Notes
For purposes of brevity, the following abbreviations are used throughout the notes:
DDEPP Dwight David Eisenhower Papers as President, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas
PGHP Paul G. Hoffman Papers, Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri
WSJ Wall Street Journal
NYT New York Times
SBT South Bend Times
DN Detroit News
SPC A Minutes
Handwritten minutes of the meetings of the board of directors of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation taken down by Corporate Secretary Paul Clark. The A minutes are unpaged.
SPC B Minutes Supplementary documents filed with the minutes of the board of directors of Studebaker-Packard Corporation.
SPC C Minutes Preliminary minutes of the meetings of the board of directors of Studebaker-Packard Corporation written by Clark for correction by James Nance, president of the corporation, and by Royall Victor and Maurice T. Moore, of the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Studebaker-Packard corporate attorneys.
SPC D Minutes
Final minutes of the meetings of the board of directors of StudebakerPackard Corporation as approved by the board at a subsequent meeting.
The above four groups of materials were originally in the Studebaker-Packard Collection at the George Arends Library, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York; from there they were transferred to the Studebaker Archives at Discovery Hall Museum, South Bend, Indiana; they are now at the Studebaker Museum in South Bend. Dates given for these materials are the dates of the meetings of the Studebaker-Packard board of directors. All other Studebaker-Packard records cited are also at the Studebaker Museum.
References
1 Richard H. Rovere, “The Second Eisenhower Boom,” Harper’s, April 30, 1950, 31–39.
2 Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace (New York: Random House, 2012), 501.
3 James T. Patterson, Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972), 483. For additional information on Robert Taft’s view of American national security regarding NATO nearly contemporaneously, see William S. White, The Taft Story (New York: Harper and Row, 1954). The authors of this article strongly disagree with the assessment made by Geoffrey Perret, who claims “Eisenhower had nothing against Taft’s views on domestic and economic policy. He agreed with virtually all of them.” Geoffrey Perret, Ike (New York: Random House, 1999), 391.
4 Ibid., 484.
5 Jim Newton, Eisenhower: The White House Years (New York: Doubleday, 2010), 53; Lucius Clay quoted in William I. Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 55.
6 Herbert S. Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 39.
7 Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President (New York: Touchstone: 1990), 574. For the situation in 1950s America, see Nick Bunker, In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950 (New York: Basic Books, 2023).
8 William Bragg Ewald, Jr., Eisenhower the President: Crucial Days, 1951–1960 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981), 6–10. See also, Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962).
9 Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Volume 2: The President (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 619; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), 156. Schlesinger traced this to Eisenhower’s claim of executive privilege on May 17, 1954, believing this was the beginning of Richard Nixon’s assertion of the right to deny information to Congress during the Watergate investigation, something that John Roberts as chief justice would have upheld as he did in the immunity claims of Donald Trump in Trump v United States in July 2024.
10 Alan R. Raucher, Paul G. Hoffman: Architect of Foreign Aid (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1985), 1–99; Benn Steil, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 133, 195.
11 Peter Lyon, Eisenhower: Portrait of the Hero (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), 459.
12 Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 262.
13 Leon Jaworski quoted in Steven P. Remy, The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), 26.
14 Remy, 124. Willis Everett was a reservist from Georgia who had virtually no trial experience. Yet he saw the perpetrators of the Malmedy incident as legitimate combatants who murdered the victims in the heat of battle. During the trial, and thereafter, he demonstrated antisemitic views of fellow lawyers and members of the CIC who brought the perpetrators to justice. See James J. Weingartner, A Peculiar Crusade: Willis M. Everett and the Malmedy Massacre (New York: New York University Press, 2000) for a different view, one that blames the US Army for a miscarriage of justice in the case.
15 McCarthy’s false assertions were part of a concerted conspiracy led by former German National Socialists, a communist front group, and German clerics. Each had separate agendas. In the case of former Nazis, that role was played by former Waffen SS troops and Rudolf Aschenauer, who was linked to a shadowy American fascist, Francis Parker Yockey. For material on Yockey, readers are directed to Kevin Coogan’s Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1999) and Kerry Bolton’s Yockey: A Fascist Odyssey (London: Arktos Media, 2018). McCarthy biographers, for the most part, simply reported on the claims made by the armed forces subcommittee findings of the plot to discredit the army’s case, without providing analysis of those involved. For examples, readers should review Thomas C. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy: A Biography (New York: Stein and Day, 1982). Reeves claimed that if the Germans were duped by the communists, then so was McCarthy. Those claims are found in other works such as David M. Oshinsky’s A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 77n. Scholars, even today, tend to agree with the critics of the trial, yet tend to echo either assertions made by the defendants of torture and deception in the case or fascist claims of victor’s justice, all of which are untrue. The best account available on the trial and aftermath is Steven P. Remy, The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017). Joachim Peiper was unrepentant and was murdered by unknown assassins while living in France in 1976. For additional information on Joachim Peiper’s career and postwar life, see Danny S. Parker, Hitler’s Warrior: The Life and Wars of SS Colonel Jochen Peiper (Philadelphia: Da Capo, 2014).
16 Roy Cohn, McCarthy (New York: New American Library, 1968), 8–9, 11; Tyler Abell, ed., Drew Pearson Diaries, 1949–1959 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974), 112–
113. According to Pearson, not only did Clarke provide McCarthy with highly classified materials from the crown jewels of American intelligence, but he also provided Thomas E. Dewey with information that FDR knew about the upcoming Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, in 1944. When General George Marshall heard about it, without knowing that Clarke was the source, he ordered Clarke to visit Dewey and persuade him not to use that material in his 1944 campaign. See Stanley Weintraub, Final Victory: FDR’s Extraordinary World War II Presidential Campaign (Philadelphia: Da Capo, 2012), 157–169.
17 David Alvarez, Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy, 1930–1945 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 205; Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 70, see illustration on page 72. VENONA was a highly classified code-breaking program that began in 1943 and ended in the early 1980s. It supported claims of Soviet espionage against the United States during the war years and the penetration of the Manhattan Project. It was so sensitive that some Russian agents were never tried because it would have exposed the project during their trials. Only two Americans were tried from materials gleaned from VENONA: William Remington and Julius Rosenberg. Remington was murdered while in prison, and Rosenberg and his wife were executed after being convicted for atomic espionage. They were the first Americans executed for espionage in peacetime
18 Jeff Broadwater, Eisenhower and the Anti-Communist Crusade (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 45–47.
19 Patrick J. Maney, “Young Bob” La Follette: A Biography of Robert La Follette, Jr., 1895–1953 (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1978), 311; Larry Tye, Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000), 5–6; Lately Thomas, When Even Angels Wept: A Story Without a Hero (New York: William Morrow, 1973), 210–211.
20 Rodger McDaniel, Dying for Joe McCarthy’s Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt (Cody, WY: Wordsworth, 2013), 296–303. For McCarthy’s quote see Drew Pearson’s Diaries, 321.
21 Diary Entry August 5, 1954, DDE Personal Diary Jan–Nov 1954, box 4, DDE Diary Series, Ann Whitman File; Draft of Proposed Re Fort Monmouth, Harlow, Bryce N, Records, 1953–61, box 16, Miscellaneous (Classified) [1953–61] (1).
22 Bryce Harlow, an Eisenhower staff secretary, reviewed the Fort Monmouth cases and reviewed forty-four of those alleged security risks. Even today, twenty-four of them are still closed. The first was Aaron Coleman. He drew the attention of security officials and McCarthy because he knew both Julius Rosenberg and Martin Sobel, one of Rosenberg’s accomplices. He was later suspended for ten days for having classified material at his home, but no evidence existed that he passed that material on to any foreign power. See Harlow, Bryce, N, Records 1953–61, box 16, Miscellaneous (Classified) [1953–61] (1).
23 Telephone Call, Stevens to Roy Cohn, 27 October 1953, Telephone Notes Secretary of the Army (5), box 8, FAS Eyes Only Series, Fred Seaton Papers. In the official transcript of this conversation, all future references to General Reichelderfer were removed. See return call from Stevens to Roy Cohn, October 27, 1953, Transcripts of Robert Stevens’s Telephone Conversations re McCarthy, box 5, FAS Eyes Only Series, Fred A. Seaton Papers. The army’s desire to protect Reichelderfer and VENONA perhaps contributed to McCarthy’s continued attack on the Loyalty Security Program. Another possibility existed: the desire of Roy Cohn to attain a commission for his friend G. David Schine, a staff member, who was on the verge of being drafted.
24 Sherman Adams, First-Hand Report (New York: Harper, 1961), 143–144.
25 McCarthy quoted in Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense, 377.
26 Memorandum to the Attorney General, May 23, 1954, box 6 DDE Diary March 1954 (1), DDE Diary Series, Ann Whitman File.
27 Raoul Berger, Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 234.
28 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. The Imperial Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), 156.
29 Herbert Brownell with John Burke, Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Herbert Brownell (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 257.
30 Ibid.
31 Letter, Paul Hoffman to Dwight D. Eisenhower, March 25, 1954, box 6, DDE Diary March 1954 (1), DDE Diary Series, Ann Whitman File.
32 Letter, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Paul Hoffman, March 29, 1954, box 6, DDE Diary March 1954 (1), DDE Diary Series, Ann Whitman File.
33 Memorandum, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Herbert Brownell, March 29, 1954, box 6, DDE Diary March 1954 (1), DDE Diary Series, Ann Whitman File. The original letter was never returned to the White House.
34 Memo, William P. Rogers to Dwight D. Eisenhower, March 2, 1954, box 8, Brownell, Herbert Jr., 1952–54 (3), Administration Series, Ann Whitman File.
35 Before the termination of the Pentagon monitoring of official calls, John Adams collected a massive number of reports from calls made by McCarthy or his subordinates for sensitive information or favors for either Roy Cohn or Cohn’s friend G. David Schine.
36 The date coincided with the famous Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decision, but barely made a ripple in the day’s news.
37 Berger, 7.
38 Berger, 1. This was a high-stakes poker game played by Eisenhower. On one hand, he did not want to convey that he was hiding vital information, and before exerting the privilege, the president had called Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson on May 11. After the call was over, Eisenhower memorialized the conversation in his diary, writing, “My own belief is that the Army would be well advised to provide every possible bit of information in this case where the security of the country and efficient administration will permit. They must
not be in a position of appearing to ‘cover up.’” Two days later, May 13, Robert Anderson, acting secretary of defense, received instructions from Sherman Adams, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, authorizing Assistant Secretary of Defense Fred Seaton to collect all materials relating to the Army-McCarthy hearings and deposit them in the White House. Then, while under oath, John Adams testified about the meeting in Brownell’s office on January 21, 1954. Senators on the committee required Adams to return on Monday, May 17, 1954, with all relevant materials. And on that Monday, May 17, 1954, Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson exercised the privilege to deny access to executive branch officials from congressional inquiry. Not realizing what Eisenhower was about to do, Henry Cabot Lodge wrote the president and encouraged him to “accept full responsibility.” See Entry, May 11, 1954, box 7, DDE Diary May 1954 (2), DDE Diary Series, Ann Whitman File; Letter, Robert B. Anderson to Robert T. Stevens, May 13, 1954, box 4, McCarthy (3), Eyes Only Series, Fred Seaton Papers; Letter, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Eyes Only,” May 17, 1954, box 24, Henry Cabot Lodge (1954) (6), Administrative Series, Ann Whitman File.
39 William B. Harris, “The Breakdown of Studebaker-Packard,” Fortune (October 1956), 139.
40 Loren Pennington’s interview with C. W. MacMillan, June 19, 1971. MacMillan was in Studebaker management at the time, and later under Harold Churchill’s presidency, became vice president for industrial relations. He continued in that capacity until the company ceased auto operations in Canada in 1965.
41 Harris, “Breakdown of Studebaker-Packard,” 222.
42 Material in this paragraph is a summary of information contained in the James J. Nance Papers and the Packard Motor Car Company Records, which are in the Studebaker Archives Loren Pennington researched the archives first at Syracuse University and later at Discovery Hall, and they are now at the Studebaker Museum in South Bend. Production at the Utica plant started in later 1954. The move to the Conner plant was originally scheduled to occur at the beginning of the 1956 model run. The schedule was advanced to include the 1955 model because of unforeseen circumstances. Packard had previously purchased bodies from Briggs Manufacturing in Detroit. In 1954, Briggs sold out to Chrysler, and Chrysler informed Packard that they needed Briggs production for their own bodies, and limited supplies to Packard. Consequently, Packard decided to move to the Conner plant for the 1955 model to build its own bodies. For the best summary of the difficulties Packard confronted, see R. P. Powers’s letter to Nance, April 30, 1956, SPC B Materials, May 8, 1956.
43 Nance and Hoffman remained with Studebaker-Packard until the Curtiss-Wright agreement of August 1956. Nance left the corporation in 1955 to accept an Eisenhower appointment to the Atomic Energy Commission.
44 Harris, “Breakdown of Studebaker-Packard,” 222, 224.
45 Ibid., 224. The production figures for 1955 are from an article in the WSJ, March 19, 1956, 9.
46 Letter, Mendler to Hoffman, November 13, 1956, PGHP, Studebaker-Packard Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1956–1970. Mendler’s letter to Hoffman is the best statement of a Studebaker official regarding the whole course of Packard management of the company’s affairs from the time of the merger through early 1956, when Mendler was forced to retire.
47The progress of negotiations with the three locals may best be followed in the numerous articles appearing in the DN, SBT, WSJ, and NYT from December 1955 through February 1956. See also SPC A Minutes, D Minutes, 6, January 20, 1956.
48 See especially WSJ, January–June 1956, passim. A production race between Ford and Chevrolet during 1955 resulted in a record production of 7.8 million cars but greatly reduced the market share of the independents. By the end of December, dealer stocks of unsold cars stood at a record of 650,000, 230,000 above the December 1954 levels.
During the first six months of 1956, Ford and Chrysler reduced production schedules drastically, and even GM instituted some curtailment. In spite of these cutbacks, dealer stocks rose to 900,000 by the end of April, and by the end of June, Lincoln was the only marque with production line for the year ahead of the first six months of 1955. Ibid.
49 The rush move to the Conner plant and the difficulties of getting a body under production resulted in what may well have been one of the poorest-quality cars produced by an American automaker in the post–World War II era an intolerable situation in the luxury car field. Warranty costs to a company (the cost of repairing vehicles in the field) was more than $100 per unit. (Nance Papers and Packard Records, passim.) Pennington and Innes are unable to say whether this was a record amount for an American automobile company up to that time, but obviously Studebaker records indicate that warranty costs on Studebaker cars and trucks for the same model year was just over $8 per vehicle.
Harris (“Breakdown of Studebaker-Packard,” 228) says that on the 1956 model run, the first 5400 Packards had a serious axle defect and had to be impounded in dealer stocks until the defect could be repaired by the Dana Corporation, which supplied the axle. On this matter see also SPC D Minutes, December 15, 1955, 5. According to the SPC Minutes for January 20, 1956, Nance told the board that Packard sales during January were “seriously below projections.” According to Clark’s A Minutes, what he said was “Packard sales just collapsed.”
50 WSJ, January–March 1956, passim.
51William Keller, whom Nance had brought into Studebaker-Packard from the Lincoln Division of Ford and who was made sales manager of the Studebaker Division, once publicly referred to the styling of the 1955 Studebakers as “the droopy penis look.” The remark infuriated Studebaker Division chief Harold Churchill. When Churchill became president of Studebaker-Packard in August 1956, his first move was to fire Keller. (Loren Pennington’s interview with Harold E. Churchill, June 21, 1971.)
52 At the beginning of 1955, Studebaker was producing at the rate of 3300 cars per week. By January 1956, they were at 2800 cars per week, and by May were down to fewer than 1500 per week (WSJ, January–May, 1956, passim).
53 Harris (“Breakdown of Studebaker-Packard,” 228) says the committee was appointed in December 1955 and that the insurance companies’ refusal came on January 15. The corporate records indicate that the committee was established at the board meeting of January 20, 1956. Besides Forgan, the other members were Homer Vilas and Frank Manheim, both members of the board. (SPC D Minutes, January 20, 1956, 6–7.) At the February 27, 1956, meeting, directors Nance, Hoffman, Edwin F. Blair, Maurice T. Moore, and W. Tom ZurSchmiede were added to the committee. (SPC C Minutes, February 27, 1956, 6–7.) The meeting with the insurance companies was after the board meeting of January 20, and therefore could not have been on January 15 as Harris claims. According to corporate minutes, the refusal of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to put up the money came “at the end of January.” (Ibid., 8.)
54 SPC C Minutes, February 27, 1956, 6–20, and especially A Minutes of the same date. As a stopgap, the directors decided to borrow an additional $19.8 million of their credit line from the banks. Half of this was to be used to pay back the banks the sums coming due on previous borrowings, and the other half was to be used for the continuing operations of the corporation. (Ibid , 6 )
55 WSJ, March 16, 1956, 1. The article was a comparison between the situations of StudebakerPackard and AMC. The directors may have overestimated the effect of that particular article, because it by no means reported the company’s prospects as anywhere near as bad as the directors knew they were. One upsetting component of the story was that the WSJ writer had asked Paul Hoffman for a comment, and, as reported in the article, he said he had not been involved with the company’s activities since the merger. This was true and Hoffman had told Eisenhower as much, as the president related in his diary. See: Diary of Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 20, 1956, DDE Personal Diary (1), Diary Series, Ann Whitman File. Since early 1955, Hoffman had concentrated on securing defense contracts, which he was able to do because of his close association with Eisenhower. See Hoffman letter to Dewey Smith, June 7, 1955, PGHP, Chronological File, 1955-June. Dewey Smith was an integral part of Studebaker’s Export Division at the time. Hoffman was also disenchanted with Nance’s handling of the corporation’s affairs, and there was growing estrangement between the two men. See Hoffman letter to his son Peter, June 26, 1956, Ibid., 1956-June, in which Hoffman says he would have resigned in early 1955 except for the fact that he felt an obligation to do his best to rescue the company. See also Hoffman letter to Gerald L. Madren, Spokane, Washington, June 3, 1956, Ibid., 1956July, and Hoffman letter to Smith, August 7, 1956, Ibid., 1956-August, where Hoffman notes, “my ideas and Jim Nance’s ideas as to how the company should be run were miles apart.”
56 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 4-10; and B Materials, March 23, 1956. It was against this backdrop of failure that the annual stockholders’ meeting was held on April 16, 1956. There was considerable dissidence from a stockholders’ group led by Detroit attorney Sol Dann and New York bond broker John Neville, but the directors managed to carry the day without revealing the desperate condition of the corporation. (Studebaker-Packard Directors’ Meetings, 2/27/56-7/25/56, Annual Shareholders’ Meeting.) For a typical newspaper report that overplayed the directors’ trouble in handling the meeting, see WSJ, April 17, 1956, 2.
57 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 8-12; B Materials, April 16, 1956. Forgan had nothing new to report from either GM or Chrysler, and the banks had forbidden talks with AMC. As for Ford, Henry Ford II was interested, but “had no support from his associates.” (Ibid., A Minutes.)
58 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 2-5, May 2, 1956. At the April 26 meeting in Washington, even Humphrey, who had once insisted and later would again that Studebaker-Packard remain in the auto business, told Nance and Forgan that “we couldn’t stay in the auto business had to get out.” (SPC A Minutes, May 2, 1956.) The only hopeful note at the directors’ meeting was that Textron America had shown increasing interest in a merger. (Ibid.)
59 There is some confusion in the record about why these meetings were held and when Hurley made his offer. The SPC D Minutes of May 8, 1956, say that Hurley made his offer at the meeting on Monday, April 30. But no mention is made of this in any of the minutes of the board on May 2, and one can only conclude that Hurley’s offer came on Monday, May 7, rather than Monday, April 30.
60 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 2-6, May 8, 1956. As negotiations continued through the month of May, the deal was changed so that instead of purchasing Studebaker-Packard stock, Daimler-Benz would make $10 million available to Studebaker-Packard to finance the sale of Mercedes-Benz cars in the United States. For his part, Hurley tried to get the option price of Studebaker-Packard stock down to $2 per share, but the directors held firm for the $5 price. (SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 2-6, May 29, 1956.)
61 SPC Minutes, June 2, 1956. Humphrey was doing his best to help by arranging a $15 million loan from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Forgan was several times called out of the meeting to talk by phone to Humphrey and Donald F. Quarles, assistant secretary of defense. (SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 2-3, June 2, 1956.)
62 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 1-4, June 4, 1956. For once the directors had some breathing room. Robert Heller & Associates had suggested that the auto operations of Packard be shut down June 15 (as it turned out, this was done) and Studebaker on June 30. But Nance told the board that sales had picked up, the company had $7 million more than expected, and it could continue auto operations into August. (Ibid., A Minutes, June 4, 1956.)
63 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 2-4; B Materials, June 7, 1956. To handle the auto situation, Hurley wanted to meet with fifteen top members of Studebaker-Packard auto operations
to work out the details. He submitted a list of the officials he wanted to talk to. It was headed by Harold E. Churchill, chief of the Studebaker Division, and did not include Nance. Forgan asked Nance to comment, and Nance exploded. He had tried to be pleasant to Hurley, but it had become increasingly difficult. Hurley had humiliated him in negotiations with Washington, and in the presence of bank officials had told Nance there was “nothing wrong with the auto business if you know how to run it.” Now Hurley had gone around him to negotiate with Nance’s subordinates. A meeting should be called in which Nance and Hurley would make a joint statement. Forgan replied that he did not think Hurley would agree, and Nance subsided. (Ibid., A Minutes, June 7, 1956.)
64 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 5-10, June 27, 1956. For the Utica and Chippewa (South Bend) plant leases, and their inventories, Hurley offered $33 million. For the Aerophysics subsidiary of Studebaker-Packard in California, which was tooling up to produce Dart missiles, Hurley offered an additional $2 million, for a total of $35 million. The directors were especially reluctant to part with Aerophysics. Hurley did sweeten the pot by guaranteeing Studebaker-Packard the Mercedes-Benz franchise, and with that and its domestic car manufacture, Hurley estimated that Studebaker-Packard would show a small profit in 1957, and that the profits would rise to $22.6 million in 1958 (Ibid ). His calculations for both years were wildly improbable, and in fact Studebaker continued to lose money in large amounts until the fourth quarter of 1958.
65SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 4-5, June 28, 1956. At the luncheon Victor asked Hurley why he still wanted the option to buy Studebaker-Packard stock, considering the Treasury ruling that Curtiss-Wright could not use Studebaker-Packard tax credits. Hurley gave no satisfactory reply. The banks were especially anxious to have Hurley announce publicly that Curtiss-Wright was taking over the management of Studebaker-Packard, but Hurley refused to make any such announcement. There was also a flaw in the Daimler-Benz part of the deal; it could not be announced until Daimler-Benz could terminate the contract with its distributor in the United States. (SPC A Minutes, June 28, 1956.)
66 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 5, July 27, 1956. For Hurley’s part, he strong-armed the banks and the insurance companies into accepting the agreement and waiving their load requirements that Studebaker-Packard had to maintain working capital of at least $40 million or go into default on the loans. (SPC A Minutes, July 27, 1956.)
67 APC A Minutes; D Minutes, 2-16, July 28, 1956. It was at this meeting that Hoffman resigned as chairman and Nance as president, and Harold E. Churchill was elected president and chief operating officer. (SPC D Minutes, 12-16, July 28, 1956.)
68 SPC A Minutes; D Minutes, 2-4, August 6, 1956. The outright sale of the Aerophysics subsidiary was included in the $10 million amount for the inventories. At this meeting the directors made it clear that they believed the ultimate responsibility for the conduct of Studebaker-Packard’s affairs still rested with them rather than with Curtiss-Wright. (Ibid., A Minutes; D Minutes, 4-5, August 6, 1956.)
69 The meeting began on October 31 and lasted through November 2. The transcript of the meeting, which a court reporter recorded, is more than two hundred pages. (StudebakerPackard Directors’ Meetings, 11/28/26 [sic] 12/27/56, Book Shareholders’ Meeting, Studebaker-Packard Corporation, Detroit, Michigan.) The contention that liquidation would leave each shareholder $15 per share was ludicrous; they probably would have received nothing, and under the best of circumstances, no more than a dollar or two per share.
70 The case of the Packard workers was especially tragic. The average age of the ten thousand Packard workers laid off by the plant closing was fifty-two. For the best settlement of their plight, see Curt Murdock, President, Packard Local #190 to Eisenhower, May 16, 1956, White House Central Files, General File 129-B-2, Studebaker-Packard, DDEPP.
71 It may be of some interest that in 1981, Chrysler followed the Studebaker model by selling off its defense business for $350 million to use the money for its automobile operations. In 2008, as the US economy was in jeopardy of collapsing, it would have been foolhardy and economic malpractice to allow Chrysler and GM to collapse. Rescuing those corporations permitted the American economy to rebound from the most serious economic crisis that the United States experienced since the Great Depression.
72 Letter, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Paul Helms, March 9, 1954, DDE Diary, March 1954 (4), box 6, DDE Diary Series, Ann Whitman File.
73 A review of the White House Telephone Office; Records of the Telephone Office, 1953–1961, especially the Telephone Logs for 1954, show no telephone contact between McCarthy or his staffers with the White House staff, including Thomas Stephens, Jim Haggerty, Sherman Adams, and the president.
74 Letter, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Paul Helms, March 9, 1954.
75 Letter, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Paul Helms, June 3, 1954, DDE Diary, June 1954 (2), DDE Diary Series, Ann Whitman File.
The Effects of Circuit Resistance Training on Psychosocial and Physiological Outcomes in Underactive Latinos
Jack Watson & Erin M. Blockera
aDepartment of Health, Physical Education & Recreation; Emporia State University, Emporia, KS
Corresponding
Author: jwatson9@g.emporia.edu
TheLatinopopulationin theUnitedStateshashigherratesofnumerouschronicdiseases compared to their non-Latino counterparts. Research has consistently shown that exercise is an effective strategy to reduce the risk for chronic diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases. This randomized controlled trial investigated the physical and psychological impact of an 8-week circuit resistance training program among underactive Latino adults. Participants, randomly assigned to an exercise intervention (CRT) or control group (CON), underwent assessments for cholesterol levels, triglycerides, glucose, blood pressure, weight, and BMI, along with psychosocial measures including the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Barriers to Being Active Quiz (BBAQ), and Self-Efficacy Exercise Scale (SEES). Following the 8-week exercise intervention, significant improvements were found in psychosocial outcomes, evidenced by reduced perceived stress (t(16) =2.479, p = 0.024), diminishedbarriersto physical activity(t(16)=2.651, p =0.017), and heightened exercise self-efficacy (t(16) = -3.017, p = 0.008) for the CRT group participants. While no significant changes were observed in physiological biomarkers, factors like the program's duration, sample size and individual metabolic responses may have influenced these outcomes. Importantly, the enhanced exercise attitudes and self-efficacy lay the groundwork for sustained physical activity, which could lead to long-term improvements in physiological health and reduced risk factors for diseases associated with metabolic syndrome and cognitive decline. This study underscores thevalueofintegratingsuchtrainingprograms to fosterpositivebehavioral changes essential for ongoing health benefits.
Keywords: Circuit Resistance Training, Psychosocial Outcomes, Physiological Measures, Underactive Latinos, Physical Activity, Mental Health, Exercise Self-Efficacy.
Introduction
The Latino population in the United States has higher rates of chronic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease compared to other ethnic groups. A report by the Center of Disease Control1 in 2015 found
that Latinos are about 50% more likely to die from diabetes when compared to whites and have about 23% higher rates of obesity. One study2 published in 2019 analyzed data from a large health center in United States and found that the prevalence of both diabetes and prediabetes was highest among Latino patients when compared to other ethnic groups. In a
report by the Office of Minority Health3 from 1988-2018, the Latino population was shown to have higher rates of obesity, a known risk factor for most chronic diseases.
Research has consistently shown that exercise can reduce the risk for these chronic diseases. One study4 found that individuals who engaged in moderate-intensity physical activity had up to 37% lower risks of mortality compared to those who were inactive. They also found that higher levels of physical activity were associated with further reductions in mortality risk. Another study5 found that inactive individuals who increased their physical activity over time experienced lower risks for mortality from all causes. They also found that maintaining the minimum physical activity recommendations would potentially prevent 46% of deaths associated with physical inactivity. Circuit resistance training, which involves performing a series of resistance exercises and aerobic exercises with minimal rest in between, has become increasingly popular as an effective exercise regimen for improving overall health and fitness.6-8 Due to the nature of the exercise, it can be an effective way to increase both exercise intensity and adherence to the exercise. Performing circuit style resistance training allows for aerobic exercise and resistance training to be incorporated within one session in a timeefficient manner. It also allows for constant movement through different exercise modalities that some individuals could find more engaging than other forms of exercise such as steady-state aerobic exercise.
Preliminary work has suggested that circuit resistance training may be an effective exercise
regimen for individuals to improve their overall health. A meta-analysis6 published in 2021 found that circuit training was an effective method for improving body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, and strength. A study published in the International Journal for Preventive Medicine7 found there to be significant changes in HgbA1C and subcutaneous fat in females with type 2 diabetes that took place in a circuit resistance training program for three months. Specific to the Latino population, one study published in the Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise Journal8 found that circuit training was an effective start up program for improving body composition and insulin resistance in Latino youth who were overweight. Another study9 showed that exercise as a whole promoted favorable mental health in an older Latino population.
However, there is a need for further research on the effects of circuit resistance training in the Latino population. The existing literature provides evidence that chronic diseases are more prevalent among Latinos compared to other ethnic groups in the United States, highlighting the need for targeted prevention and management strategies in this population. Research also indicates that circuit resistance training can be an effective method for improving various health markers.6-8 There is a gapin knowledgeregardingtheeffectiveness of circuit resistancetrainingforinactiveLatinos in improving not only physical health but also psychosocial outcomes such as quality of life and self-efficacy for physical activity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of circuit resistance training on physical health and psychosocial
outcomes in inactive Latinos. Specifically, the study aims to examine the effects of circuit resistance training on blood lipid measurements, body composition, cardiovascular health, quality of life, and selfefficacy in a sedentary Latino population. This study may provide insight into the potential of exercise to improve overall health and wellbeing among underactive Latinos.
Methods
Participants
Eighteen (18) participants were recruited for this randomized controlled trial. All participants were of Latino ethnicity with parents or grandparents of Latino descent. The age range of participants was 24 to 41 years, with a mean age of 32 years. The recruitment process involved a virtual sign-up form that collected information on age, activity level, ethnicity, and contact details. Screening ensured participants were underactive and had no existing conditions requiring medication or hindering their ability to exercise. Participants completed the Telephone Assessment of Physical Activity (TAPA) Questionnaire10 and were only eligible for the study if classified as underactive or sedentary. Participants also completed the 2020 PAR-Q+11 to ensure they had no existing conditions that would disqualify them from participation in the study. All participants were incentivized with a Fitbit Inspire™ 2 fitness tracker, provided as both a gift and a tool for participants to monitor their heart rate during exercise. Following recruitment, participants were randomly assigned to either the Circuit Resistance Training group (CRT) or the control group (CON). The CON group completed all health assessments at baseline and again 8 weeks later.
Theyreceivednointerventionbutreceivedtheir incentive upon completion of the postassessments. The CRT group participated in an 8-week circuit resistance training program and underwent health assessments at baseline and upon completion of the 8-week exercise trial.
Assessments
All participants underwent assessments targeted towards overall health, assessing both physiological biomarkers and psychosocial outcomes through subjective surveying. An identical protocol for assessments was conducted before and after the 8-week intervention. All assessments were conducted in the morning with participants in a fasted state. The assessment order included psychosocial surveys followed by blood pressure measurement, finger-stick blood draw for lipid profile and glucose analysis, and finally height and weight measurements for BMI determination. Each assessments protocol will be explained in detail in the following sections.
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
The 10 question PSS12 was used to assess participants’ current level of self-reported stress. The questions in the scale ask about one’s feelings and thoughts during the last month. The scores were summed for a total score with a higher number indicating higher stress and a lower number indicating lower stress. This allowed for the changes in average scores to be analyzed for both the CRT and CON groups.
Barriers to Being Active Quiz (BBAQ)
The BBAQ13 is a survey designed to identify perceived barriers hindering physical activity participation. Participants responded to questions that gauged their perceptions of
obstacles to engaging in regular exercise. The total score was obtained by summing the scores from all questions. Reductions in the total score indicate a decrease in perceived barriers to physical activity.
Self-Efficacy for Exercise Scale (SEES)
The SEES14 is a survey designed to measure individuals'confidencein theirabilitytoinitiate and maintain exercise programs in various situations. Participants responded to questions assessing their exercise self-efficacy. The total scorewas obtained by summing thescores from all questions. An increase in the total score indicated enhanced exercise self-efficacy.
Blood Pressure (BP)
After being seated in a restful position for 5 minutes, a BP measurement was taken using an electronic radial artery blood pressure cuff. Participants sat with their elbow resting in a position where their radial artery was in line with their heart. The machine was started and both systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure measurements were recorded.
Blood Lipid and Fasting Glucose
Participants underwent fingerstickblood draws and their blood samples were analyzed using theAbbott Cholestech LDXTM System machine with Cholestech LDXTM Lipid Profile GLU cassettes. The procedures for operating the Cholestech LDX system were followed according to the guidelines outlined in the 8 modules form the Cholestech LDXTM Product Demo Library.15 The test provided Total Cholesterol, High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL),Triglycerides, and Glucose measurements.
Body Mass Index (BMI)
Body weight was assessed using an electronic scale, while height was determined using a manual height measurement tool.
Subsequently, Body Mass Index (BMI) was derived from these measurements.
Exercise Program (CRT Group)
Exercise sessions were offered 6 times weekly, with three (3) morning and three (3) evening sessions on given days. All exercise sessions were offered in a small group format. CRT Participants were required to attend 3 groupstyle sessions per week throughout the entire 8week period. They were allowed to miss no more than 2 sessions through the 8-week period and therefore attended at least 22 total sessions. One optional exercise familiarization session was offered prior to study initiation. The exercise program was designed using fundamental principles of evidence-based exercise design.16 The program considered participants’ training status for proper exercise selection and order, utilized linear periodization, progressive overloading, a rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scale, and target heart rate. The exercise program was outlined as follows:
Weeks 1-2
Sessions lasted approximately 45 minutes and consisted of a 5-minute warm-up followed by three circuits. Each circuit included two sets of three resistance training (RT) exercises followed by one aerobic exercise (AE) for 2 minutes. A 1-minute rest occurred between exercises, and a 2-minute rest preceded the next circuit. RT exercises were performed for 10 repetitions with a Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) of 5 on a 1-10 scale. Participants aimed to stay above 50% of their age-predicted maximum heart rate (APMHR). This was tracked using their Fitbit Inspire 2 fitness tracker. Each participant began on a different RT exercise within one of the circuits as their
starting point. They each rotated through the 3 RT exercises within the circuit until 2 sets of each were completed. This ensured proper rest periods were met without having to share the use of equipment. The RT exercises stayed consistentthroughouttheweekswithindividual progressions being made within the
movements. Participants were given the choice for the AE exercise they did, with each aiming to stay within the target heart rate zone. The exercise protocol can be seen below (Figure 1.1):
Figure 1.1 shows the exercise protocol for weeks 1 and 2.
Weeks 3-8
Sessions lasted approximately 60 minutes, maintaining thesamestructureas weeks 1-2but with three sets of each RT exercise. RT
exercises were performed for 10 reps with an RPE of 6-7. Participants aimed to stay between 60-75%oftheirAPMHR.Theexerciseprotocol can be seen below (Figure 1.2):
Figure 1.2 shows the exercise protocol for weeks 3 – 8.
Statistical Analysis
Statistical analyses were conducted using Microsoft Excel (version 16.74). Descriptive statistics were calculated for all outcome measures, including means, standard deviations, frequencies, and percentages, at baseline and post-intervention for both the Circuit Resistance Training (CRT) group and the control (CON) group To evaluate the effectiveness of the circuit resistance training intervention, independent t-tests were conducted to compare differences between the CRT group and the CON group for each outcome measure. For each variable, we used a Two-Sample Assuming Equal Variances t-test to compare the pre and post scores. This test was chosen as it is appropriate for analyzing the
differences between two independent groups, which in our case were the pre and post intervention measurements. The t-Test allowed us to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in the means of the variables before and after the intervention. It also allowed for comparing differences in changes between the CRT group and the CON group for each outcome measure.
Results
Following the 8-week exercise intervention, participants in the Circuit Resistance Training group (CRT) exhibited significant improvements in psychosocial outcomes compared to the Control group (C). Reductions
in perceived stress were significant in the CRT group when compared to the control group (t(16) = 1.965, p = 0.033). Additionally, perceived barriers to physical activity were substantially diminished intheCRTgroup,with a significant 46.9% reduction in barrier scores, in contrast to an 8.8% reduction in the control group (t(12.38) = 2.777, p = 0.008). Moreover, exercise self-efficacy showed a significant increase in the CRT group, whereas the control group experienced an average reduction in scores (t(16) = -2.932, p = 0.005). Although psychosocial outcomes exhibited significant improvements, physiological biomarkers, including cholesterol levels, triglycerides, glucose, blood pressure, weight, and BMI, did not show statistically significant changes.
Psychosocial Outcomes:
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS):
Figure 2.1 shows the change in average scores from the PSS for both the CRT and CON groups
The PSS results, Figure 2.1, indicated that the CRT group alone displayed significant reductions in average perceived stress scores before and after intervention (t(16) = 2.479, p = 0.024). Comparatively, the control group saw no significant changes in average scores (t(16) = 0.392, p = 0.700). The CRT group had an average reduction in scores
of 4.3 points, compared to an average reduction of 1.2 points for the control group. This represented a 26.5% average reduction for the training group compared to only a 6.7% reduction for the control group. No significant changes were found when comparing the change in scores between the two groups.
Barriers to Being Active Quiz (BBAQ):
Figure 2.2 shows the change in average scores from the BBAQ for both the CRT and CON groups.
The BBAQ results, Figure 2.2, revealed that the change in BBAQ test scores were significantly different between the two groups (t(16) = 2.651, p = 0.017) indicating that the CRTgroup exhibited significantly diminished perceived barriers to physical activityafterinterventionwhencomparedtothe CON group. The CRT group had an average reduction in barriers to being active scores of 11.8 points, compared to an average reduction of 2.7 points for the control group. This represents a substantial 46.9% reduction in average BBAQ scores for the CRTgroup, while the CON group experienced an 8.8% reduction.
Self-Efficacy Exercise Scale (SEES):
Figure 2.3 shows the change in average scores from the SEES for the CRT and CON groups
The SEES results, Figure 2.3, revealed that the change in SEES test scores were significantly different between the two groups (t(16) = 2.651, p = 0.017) indicating that the CRTgroup showed significantly heightened exercise selfefficacy following intervention compared to the CON group. This was evidenced by a notable 17 point improvement in average SEES scores for the CRT group compared to a 12.1 point decline in average scores for the CON group. This represents a 30.4% increase in exercise self-efficacy scores for the CRTgroup, whereas the CON group experienced a 21.9% reduction.
Physiological Outcomes:
Physiological assessments included cholesterol levels, triglycerides, glucose, blood pressure, weight, and BMI. However, no significant changes were observed in these physiological biomarkers. This lack of significance may be attributed to factors such as the relatively short program duration,asmall samplesizewith only 9 participants in the CRT group, and individual variations in metabolic responses. Individuals' current health statuses are also important to considerwhenassessingtheeffectivenessofthe intervention. Only two individuals in the CRT
group had total cholesterol (TC) levels above 200 mg/dL at the beginning of the trial. However, those two individuals featured an average reduction in TC levels of 29.5 mg/dL following the intervention. It is possible that other participants who were already within normal ranges of blood lipid assessments and thus apparently healthier were not subject to the same responses. No members of the control group had TC levels above 200 mg/dL at the beginning of the trial. This was additionally supported by Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL) levels; only three individuals had LDL levels above 100 mg/dL at the beginning of the trial. Those three individuals saw an average reduction in LDL levels of 31.8 mg/dL following the intervention. Comparatively, six individuals in the control group had initial LDL levels above 100 mg/dL and those individuals saw an average reduction of 7.5 mg/dL. Although conclusions cannot be drawn based on these trends, they hint at potential benefits for individuals with higher baseline cholesterol levels. While the overall sample did not show statistically significant changes, these trends raise questions about the potential impact of CRT on individuals with compromised blood lipid levels. Future research with underactive Latinos pre-screened for abnormal blood lipid levels may provide a more comprehensive understanding of the physiological impact of CRT on this population.
Discussions
This trial revealed that while an 8-week CRT program may not lead to significant physiological changes, the program did induce significant positive shifts in psychosocial attitudes and self-efficacy for exercise among
underactive Latino adults. This population is one who has had higher rates of numerous chronic diseases in the United States, a factor that anecdotally can be attributed to heightened perceived barriers and lowered self-efficacy to physical activity, a lifestyle change that is known to improve overall health.1-3,6-8 Not only did this study reveal that the CRT intervention significantly reduced perceived barriers to physical activity and improved exercise selfefficacy among participants, but it also significantly lowered stress levels, another psychosocial outcome related to quality of life.
The findings of this study align with previous research demonstrating the positive impact of exercise interventions on psychosocial outcomes. A study by Hernandez et al9 concluded exercise programs were a promising strategy for promoting favorable mental health in Latino individuals after finding that participants displayed lower scores for depressive symptoms following an exercise trial. Our findings of lowered perceived stress following the exercise intervention are in line with these conclusions, as stress levels represent another important marker for mental health status. This also is in agreeance with the literature surrounding the positive effects of exercise on mental health nonspecific to a particular ethnic group. Research17 has found evidence that physical activity is associated with improved mood, reduced symptoms of depression, and enhanced overall well-being. This suggests that exercise interventions, such as circuit resistance training, can serve as effective strategies for improving psychosocial well-being, regardless of ethnicity. Moreover, our study supports previous research indicating the potential benefits of group-based exercise
programs in promoting positive behavioral changes and enhancing exercise adherence. A study by Davis et al found that circuit training was an effective start up program for improving body composition and insulin resistance in Latino youth who were overweight.8 Groupbased exercise sessions, as implemented in our circuit resistance training program, foster a sense of community and support among participants, which may have contributed to the observed improvements in psychosocial outcomes. A study by Estabrooks and Carron18 found that individuals who reported higher levels of group cohesion were more likely to adhere to their exercise regimen, suggesting that the social support within a group exercise setting can positively influence adherence to exercise programs.
Whileourstudydidnot findsignificantchanges in physiological biomarkers, this result is not unprecedented in the literature. Similar studies examining the effects of exercise interventions have reported mixed findings regarding physiological outcomes. For instance, while a study by Marandi et al19 found that light and moderate aerobic exercise signficicantly improved BMI and HDL levels, no significant changes were found in LDL or Triglyceride levels. Another study by Kim et al20 that investigated a 12-week circuit training program found significant improvements in several physiological outcomes such as waist measurements, total cholesterol, and triglycerides levels. However, they reported finding no significant changes in several other physiological outcomes such as blood glucose, HDL, and LDL levels. These outcomes highlight the complexity of improving physiological outcomes with exercise as the
intervention, something that is aligns with our study’s findings. While our study supports such research demonstrating a lack of physiological improvements, it does not align with the literature presenting circuit training’s effectiveness at improving physiological health.Ameta-analysis by Ramos-Campo et al. cited under endnote 6 found that circuit training was an effective method for improving body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, and strength. Although we could not make similar conclusions, our study did not investigate improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness or strength, and instead investigated physiological outcomes related to disease risk.Authors of the meta-analysis cited above also pointed out how the average program duration was 10 weeks They stated that a severe limitation was the lack of longer training programs that exceeded a 12week duration. Our study also highlights the short program duration as a potential limitation for improvements in physiological outcomes.
The findings from our trial reveal the potential benefits of a short-term program with a groupstyle form of exercise in increasing long term adherence to exercise. It is unrealistic to expect a short period of exercise like this 8-week program to elicit significant large-scale physiological responses. However, the improved psychosocial outcomes suggest that a program such as this, where underactive individuals sign up for an instructor-led exercise program that features the comradery of group-style exercise, can substantially change the individuals’ attitudes towards exercise leading to long-term adherence with potential improvements in physiological health.
The study highlights the potential of such interventions to instigate sustained physical activity, with implications for long-term improvements in physiological health. Despite the valuable insights gained from this study, it is crucial to acknowledge its limitations. The relatively short duration of the 8-week CRT program may have constrained the potential for significant physiological changes. The small sample size, with only 9 participants in the CRT group, poses a limitation with generalizations of the findings. Individual variations in metabolic responses further complicate the interpretation of physiological outcomes. Additionally, the study did not incorporate nutritional interventions, and participants' existing health conditions and genetic predispositions may have influenced the observed responses. While the group-style of the sessions allowed for comradery between participants, it also limited the ability to individually monitor each participant diligently to ensure the appropriate intensities were being strictly maintained. Variations in individual effort or adherence to prescribed exercise intensities could have influenced the observed outcomes. The lack of a long-term follow-up also prevents us from understanding the sustainability of the observed psychosocial improvements and whether they translate into enduring changes in exercise behaviors such as hypothesized increased long-term exercise adherence. These limitations underscore the need for future studies. Future research should explore factors influencing physiological outcomes, delve deeper into understanding the mechanisms behind these psychosocial improvements, explore longer intervention periods, include a larger sample size, explore potential nutritional interventions, and
investigate how cultural factors might play a role in the effectiveness of exercise interventions among Latino populations.
Acknowledgments
This research was made possible through the support of Emporia State University and the ESU Summer Undergraduate Research Program (ESURP) along with the support from the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) with funding through grant # P20 GM103418. We express our gratitude for their financial assistance,
which enabled the execution of this study. We also extend our appreciation to the Emporia State University Student Recreation Center for allowing use of the facility throughout the duration of the intervention. Additionally, we express our gratitude to the Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation at Emporia State University for their continued support through the use of facilities and equipment. Finally, we extend our appreciation to the participants who dedicated their time and commitment to contribute valuable data to this research.
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