Who was the last decent Republican president?

[thucythucy]

135. That was indeed a great speech.

I think Ike was too much under the influence of the Dulles brothers, and Nixon. It was Nixon, if I recall my reading of this correctly, who pushed for the covert action in Guatemala, at the behest of United Fruit, who were worried their lands (on which they paid practically no taxes) would be nationalized. The Guatemalans wanted UF to pay a reasonable tax on their huge holdings. UF said, "but the land is worthless" (a lie, of course) so the Guatemalan government said, essentially, "Okay, if it's so worthless, we'll take it off your hands." Corporate freak-out leading to CIA covert action.

In part I think Eisenhower had the same problem as LBJ. He relied too heavily on old school State Department and Corporate business types to steer his foreign policy, believing himself limited in that area of governance. In fact, his instincts were excellent, just as LBJ knew in his gut that a land war in Vietnam was going to be a disaster, but didn't have the confidence to stand up to A) the Rusk types at State and B) all the conservatives who had howled "Who lost China?!" in the '50s. I think it was Bill Moyers who said LBJ's problem wasn't that he was ignorant about foreign policy, but that he believed he was ignorant. A rare spot of humility in an otherwise mountain of ego.

BTW, I'm pretty sure Ike was echoing Bryan's "Cross of Gold" rhetoric, another great speech, if far less widely cited now.

Best wishes.