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.It is clearlya Cold War document, reporting on the reactions of Communist nations andthe implications for the conduct of foreign relations.92d w i g h t e i s e n h o w e r a g a i n s t t h e e x t r e m i s t s■93The persuasive eVect of President Eisenhower’s appeal to international-ism is more diYcult to assess.Medhurst suggests a disparity existed betweenthe opinions of the citizenry and the president regarding race relations: “Tomost Americans, civil rights was a purely internal domestic problem.ToEisenhower it was a serious issue in the ongoing Cold War.”93 In one sense,Medhurst is correct.The president’s speech had the capacity to inXuenceAmerican public opinion about the international implications of the LittleRock crisis, as many Americans, unlike Ike, did not perceive that racial prob-lems at home aVected world opinion.Yet it is unclear to what extent mostcitizens could be persuaded to see the Cold War implications of racial ten-sions.Exposure to Eisenhower’s speech could move racial moderates andthose on the margin to change their attitudes and beliefs toward desegrega-tion, which could promote African Americans’ integration into dominantculture.Such a change, however, would be superWcial and ephemeral since itwould be grounded in a situation subject to change and not inherent to theissue of race relations.And the racial conservatives whose cooperation wasnecessary to avoid future situations like Little Rock were unlikely to be per-suaded at all by Ike’s appeals to the Cold War.Moreover, Medhurst’s claimthat civil rights was a purely internal issue to most Americans neglects thefact that many African Americans saw domestic civil rights issues in aninternational context.For example, in a letter dated September 13, JackieRobinson urged Ike to deliver a speech on the Little Rock situation, noting“As it is now, you see what the Communist nations are doing with the mate-rial we have given them.” Nearly a week before Eisenhower’s speech, NAACPexecutive Roy Wilkins wrote to the president, claiming that the “events of pastthree weeks.have humiliated the United States before the family of nations.”On September 21, the Norfolk Journal & Guide reported on international reac-tions to the situation in Little Rock, noting that “American integration prob-lems in the South have furnished the Communists with new ammunition tosmear the United States.”94Although Eisenhower claims in his address that civil rights is an importantissue in the Cold War, in another sense, few oYcials in the State Departmentor White House saw civil rights as anything other than a purely internal mat-ter.That is, the administration had made the states’ rights approach to domes-tic civil rights its international orientation.It refused to allow internationalconcepts of human rights or international organizations committed to civilrights to determine federal thinking or policy.Brenda Gayle Plummer notes94■The Modern Presidency and Civil Rightsthat the State Department saw internationalism in civil rights as a threat ratherthan a challenge.95 Eisenhower’s speech illustrates the administration’s orien-tation.For example, Ike quotes from the U.N.charter but does not argue thatit is a standard the nation should live up to; instead he claims that America hasbeen “portrayed” as violating the principles of the charter.The president ispreoccupied with “the image of America” across the globe, not with strivingto meet or spread international concepts of civil rights.Unlike Harry Truman’sspeech to the NAACP, Eisenhower’s address does not suggest that the UnitedStates has the potential to advance civil rights abroad by putting its own housein order and exhibiting the virtues of democracy.Rather than showing con-cern with leading a worldwide movement for freedom and human rights againsttotalitarian and Communist regimes, the president focuses solely on remov-ing the stain on America’s “fair name and high honor.”As an alternate rhetorical strategy, Ike could have mentioned that Com-munism’s promise of equality might lure away third-world nations unless Americademonstrates its commitment to civil liberties at home and cooperates with othernations to promote it abroad.Then, Ike could have articulated the philosophythat makes desegregation an important national and international goal.Such arhetorical approach would have been consistent with Cold War goals and mighthave defused criticism that the administration’s “New Look” Cold War strategywas ineVective at portraying the United States as a vanguard force for a betterway of life in the global arena.96 Eisenhower also might have referenced theWndings of the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimi-nation of Minorities, which had undertaken a study of discrimination in educa-tion months before the Brown ruling, to make an argument about the legitimacyand desirability of school desegregation.Such a rhetorical approach still wouldnot have persuaded the intransigents at home to support desegregation but mighthave appealed to moderate and undecided citizens.It also would have promoteda principle of human rights and global freedom rather than a political concernwith national image.In short, Eisenhower should have made his appeal to for-eign concerns a truly international argument about civil rights.A truly interna-tional rhetorical orientation would have avoided subordinating domestic civilrights to Cold War concerns about national image, would have urged the na-tion to put its own house in order so that it might promote democracy abroad,and would have used international principles and declarations, such as the UnitedNations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to advocate the advancementof human rights everywhere.d w i g h t e i s e n h o w e r a g a i n s t t h e e x t r e m i s t s■95Response and ReactionA Gallup poll indicated that most Americans nationwide (64 percent of thosepolled) supported Ike’s decision to send troops to Arkansas, while a clear mi-nority of citizens in the South (36 percent of those polled) endorsed the pres-ident’s judgment.97 Responses to Eisenhower’s justiWcation for federalintervention also fell along regional lines.Following the inXux of letters andtelegrams responding to Ike’s address, White House secretary Ann Whitmannoted that response to the speech “was about even, with a sharp delineationas to geographical location of the sender of the messages
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