Paths Towards Surrender

WITH all his weaknesses, Dwight Eisenhower had one strength as President of the United States: the voices of the Establishment, which dominate the intellectual life of the nation, reached him only in muffled tones. Kennedy, unfortunately, is under constant and direct bombardment. Not only is he surrounded by a choice assortment of its leading figures, but also it is rumored that he reads— and from the publicity given to what he reads, it is largely, if not entirely, the product of that same Liberal Establishment. It is the pressure of this accumulated opinion which goes far to explain the pusillanimity Kennedy—whatever his native inclinations may be—has displayed on Cuba, on Berlin, on nuclear testing, on the manifold issues of resistance to the Communist drive for world conquest.

Meyer

FS

About the Author

Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

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WITH all his weaknesses, Dwight Eisenhower had one strength as President of the United States: the voices of the Establishment, which dominate the intellectual life of the nation, reached him only in muffled tones. Kennedy, unfortunately, is under constant and direct bombardment. Not only is he surrounded by a choice assortment of its leading figures, but also it is rumored that he reads— and from the publicity given to what he reads, it is largely, if not entirely, the product of that same Liberal Establishment. It is the pressure of this accumulated opinion which goes far to explain the pusillanimity Kennedy—whatever his native inclinations may be—has displayed on Cuba, on Berlin, on nuclear testing, on the manifold issues of resistance to the Communist drive for world conquest.

Meyer