经济学人161:欢喜冤家

　　Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon

德怀特·艾森豪威尔和理查德·尼克松

The odd couple

欢喜冤家

They were more alike than is often thought

他们的相似之处比人们通常想的要多

Take a few swings

挥几杆

Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage. By Jeffrey Frank.

书名：《艾森豪威尔和尼克松：一场奇特的政治联合》作者：Jeffrey Frank

BETWEEN 1933 and 1977 only two Republican presidents were elected, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. They are often seen as opposites: the hero and the crook 2. Eisenhower was the genial 3, selfless five-star general who seemed to float above the fray 4 of party politics. Nixon was the cold, conniving 5 liar 6, paranoid and petty. Jeffrey Frank, a former senior editor at the New Yorker, has written a book about the unlikely duo, which offers a more nuanced portrait of their personalities 7. Though they disagreed about politics and struggled to get on, Ike and Dick were more alike than is often thought.

1933至1977年间，只有两名共和党人士当选总统，他们就是德怀特·艾森豪威尔和理查德·尼克松。人们通常认为他俩的为人截然相反—一个是英雄，一个是坏蛋。在人们眼中，艾森豪威尔是一名和蔼可亲、无私奉献的五星上将，似乎总是置身于党派间斗争之外；尼克松则是一个冷酷无情、精于暗算、生性多疑、心胸狭窄的骗子。曾在《纽约客》任资深编辑的Jeffrey Frank写了一本书，内容就是关于这两位并不像搭档的双人组合，该书更加细致地描述了他们的性格。虽然他俩在政治上各执己见、关系也处的不是太好，但艾森豪威尔和尼克松的相似之处比人们通常认为的要多。

Eisenhower picked Nixon as his vice-presidential nominee 8 in 1952 because he had qualities Ike lacked. The old warhorse from Kansas needed someone young and nakedly political. An anti-communist would satisfy the party and a Californian would help to win over the Golden State. Nixon it was. It did not matter so much that the pair squabbled. They won 39 out of 48 states and 55% of the popular vote.

1952年，艾森豪威尔指定尼克松为他的副总统候选人，因为后者有他自己所不具备的特质。艾森豪威尔——这名来自堪萨斯的老兵需要一个纯政界出身的年轻人。这个人最好是反共的，因为这样可以满足其党派之需；最好还是个加州人，这样就可以帮助他赢得加州人民的支持——尼克松就是不二之选。这两人是否相处得融洽并不重要，重要的是他俩获得了48个州中39个州的支持，并囊括了55%的选票。

They often failed to see eye-to-eye. Nixon was a hawkish 9 adviser 10 who blamed Democrats 11 for losing China to communism. Eisenhower strove to avoid war at any cost. He ended the Korean war and refused to send soldiers to Vietnam, Hungary and Suez. The two had different views about the space race as well. When Russia launched the satellite Sputnik into space in 1957, Nixon saw it as a failure of Western civilisation 12. Eisenhower said, “Any of you fellows want to go to the moon? I don't. I'm happier right here.”

他们往往做不到“心有灵犀”。作为一名鹰派顾问，尼克松指责民主党把中国丢到了共产党手中。艾森豪威尔尽最大努力不惜一切代价阻止战争的发生。他结束了朝鲜战争、拒绝派士兵到越南、匈牙利和苏伊士。两人就太空竞赛的意见也不相同。当苏联于1957年把Sputnik卫星发射升空时，尼克松视之为西方文明的失败。而艾森豪威尔则说：“你们有谁想奔月吗？我可不想，我在这儿就挺高兴的”。

This was a source of tension between them. Nixon would grumble 13 about foreign policy and defence. He could be bitter. “This ‘togetherness' bullshit,” he said of Eisenhower's doveish multilateralist defence policy, “I don't believe in that. I think the time will come when we'll look back at this era and ask ourselves whether we were crazy or something.” Ike could be standoffish in return.

那是他俩不和的一个原因。尼克松常常抱怨美国的外交政策及防御策略，他的言论有时会很尖刻——对于艾森豪威尔的鸽派多边防御政策，尼克松说道：“这种‘团结一致'纯是扯淡，我一点儿也不相信。我认为，总有一天，我们会回首这一阶段，并问问自己我们是不是疯了还是怎么的。”对此，艾森豪威尔回应冷淡。

But Ike needed Dick to be his political hound dog. Nixon savaged 14 the administration's opponents, which allowed the president to be an apolitical, national figurehead. An aide called this Eisenhower's “dirty work”. When Joseph McCarthy, a Republican Senator, overreached in his crusade to hunt communists from public life, Adlai Stevenson, a targeted Democratic governor of Illinois, pointedly 15 declared that a “political party divided against itself, half McCarthy and half Eisenhower, cannot produce national unity 16.” Eisenhower decided 17 it was time to restrain McCarthy. A fervent 18 anti-communist and talented orator 19, Nixon was well placed for this. He laid into McCarthy on Saturday-night television, logically unweaving his illiberal 20 argument. “It was just right, Dick,” Eisenhower said over the telephone.

但艾森豪威尔需要尼克松来充当他在政治方面的喉舌。尼克松猛烈抨击艾森豪威尔政府的反对者，这样艾森豪威尔就能成为一名政治中立的国家名誉总统。一名助手称这是艾森豪威尔的“肮脏把戏”。当共和党参议员约瑟夫-麦卡锡过分地从公众生活中抓捕共产党员时，被指定为伊利诺伊州州长的民主党派阿德莱·史蒂文森(Adlai Stevenson)对此直言不讳：“一个内部分裂的政党—一边是麦卡锡、一边是艾森豪威尔——是不能促进国家团结统一的”。因此艾森豪威尔决定，是时候让麦卡锡收敛收敛了。尼克松——这名狂热的反共分子、天才的演说家—正适合这一角色。在周六晚的电视节目上，尼克松把麦卡锡劈头盖脸地一顿骂，条理明晰地一一击破了对方的狭隘论点。艾森豪威尔在电话中对尼克松说：“尼克松，干得好”。

Eisenhower could be ignoble 21, too. After the Supreme 22 Court declared segregated 23 schools unconstitutional in 1954, he wrote, “No other single event has so disturbed the domestic scene in many years.” Martin Luther King observed that Nixon did more for race relations than Eisenhower. Nixon spoke 24 passionately 25 about civil rights on the stump 26. He took on critics during the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

艾森豪威尔也可能不会正大光明。1954年，在最高法院宣布“实行种族隔离制度的学校是违法的”之后，他写道：“这是多年来最扰乱国内形势的事件了”。马丁路德金称：与艾森豪威尔相比，尼克松在种族间关系方面做的工作更多。尼克松在作巡回政治演说时，激情洋溢地谈论了公民权利。在1957年民权法案通过期间，尼克松与批评家展开了较量。

At a time when political machinations are all too overt 27, it is entertaining to learn about the wheeling and dealing 28 during a more discreet 29 age. Yet readers may wish less space was devoted 30 to how Dick felt about Ike, and then how Ike felt about Dick. All this gossip seems to take up valuable space: the Suez crisis, for example, covers no more than two pages. The Iran coup 1 and important details about America's economy are missed out altogether. Mr Frank tells an absorbing story in a breezy, lucid 31 way. But as a work of history, the book leaves something to be desired.

在当今政治阴谋得以明目张胆之时，看看在更谨慎的年代人们是如何尔虞我诈的不失为一种有趣的作法。然而，读者朋友们可能希望关于他俩对彼此看法的篇幅不要占的过大。所有的这些流言蜚语似乎占据了宝贵的空间：比如苏伊士运河危机只占了不到两页；1953年伊朗政变和关于美国经济的重要细节全被忽略了。本书作者明晰而风趣地讲述了一个引人入胜的故事。但作为一部历史著作，本书还有些不尽如人意的地方。