Divisions and Dissent

Despite growing attention to the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, a number of common assumptions about politics in the 1950s remain unexamined. One such assumption is that bipartisanship in foreign policy, though badly shaken at the end of the Truman administration, was restored under Eisenhower and prevailed throughout most of his two terms. Democrats, it has often been argued, supported Eisenhower more strongly in foreign policy than did his own party-at least until Sputnik and Democratic jockeying for the 1960 nomination caused the working relationship to come unglued. In part, this contention has resulted from greater scholarly attention to the division between nationalist and internationalist Republicans during the period, which perhaps made the Democrats seem united and relatively cooperative. The theme of Democratic cooperation is generally only implicit in studies of the 1950s, however. Political studies of the period customarily focus on the harmonious relationship between Eisenhower and the Democratic leadership in the Congress-notably Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn.1 Similarly, works on the partisan aspects of foreign policy in the 1950s usually center on the president's conversion of Republicans to internationalism, and on the continuation of

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