Third Man's Theme

From a raised platform at one end of the Cabinet Room in Washington's Willard Hotel, long-legged Harold E. Stassen surveyed the crowd of more than 100 newsmen gathered before him. Then the onetime Republican wonder boy, now the middle-aged (44) president of the University of Pennsylvania, threw his hat into the ring. "With all humility," said Stassen, he was joining Ohio's Robert Taft and California's Earl Warren in open pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination.

The announcement was no great surprise, and his first campaign pronouncement was even less so. Striking out foursquare for right and virtue, he announced that he would campaign on a platform of "oldfashioned honesty," a "solid dollar," "greater harmony between groups in our country," and "a new American foreign policy, dynamic and clear-cut, to win the peace and gain expanding freedom for ourselves and for others." To help him accomplish his goals, said Stassen, he intended to call on such men as Douglas MacArthur (for Western Pacific problems), Bernard Baruch (for economics), Dwight Eisenhower (for Western Europe), Herbert Hoover (for Government reorganization). Ralph Bunche (for the United Nations), Democrats Jim Farley and Senator Harry Byrd (for liaison with the Democrats).

What About Ike? Candidate Stassen was clearly glowing with good will for all. But his platform was not what the reporters had come to hear. Last November

Stassen had called on Taft to withdraw from the race and join him in supporting General Eisenhower. There had been talk that Stassen might enter some primaries as a stalking horse for Ike. Now Stassen was just back from a visit to the general, and he had said the visit would have some bearing on his announcement. Had Eisenhower told Stassen anything to indicate that he is or isn't a candidate? The reporters could hardly wait for Stassen to stop talking about his own candidacy.

The first question cut right to the point: Do we assume that . . . General Eisenhower . . . has told you he is not going to run for President this year?

A. Well, I do not authorize any assumptions or deductions as to what General Eisenhower's plans may be ...

Q. Did whatever Eisenhower said influence your judgment . . .?

A. My conference with General Eisenhower was, of course, personal in nature, and I have never reported on ... personal conversations . . .

Q. What would you do, Governor, if General Eisenhower becomes a candidate?

A. That is for the future. I say specifically that this is a decision for a direct, thorough, consistent campaign.

Q, Does your offer to Senator Taft still hold--the suggestion that he back out and you and he both support Eisenhower?

A. Having made this decision, I do not anticipate directing now any invitations to other persons.

Q. In other words, it no longer holds.

A. That's right.

Engraved Invitations. For half an hour the questions kept flying, and Harold Stassen kept ducking. But two days later, a reporter pried some interesting information out of a close Stassen friend. Engraved invitations to the dinner at which Stassen made his public announcement last week were in the mail even before he talked to Eisenhower in Paris. When Stassen called on Ike, said the friend, the general used his widely known device for preventing political complications. He called in an aide to listen to every word that was said.

Nevertheless, Stassen had left the impression that he knew something about Ike's intentions; in fact, the easy inference from what he had done and said was that he was convinced Eisenhower would not be a candidate. But the inference might be too easy. In a national convention, there is a strong trading position in an open candidacy, and nothing that Harold Stassen said would stand in the way if he decided to throw his delegates over to the side of another candidate. Furthermore, the ring was there and Harold Stassen had thrown his hat in it before.

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