"Come Home, Ike"

"Will Ike come home in time?" is the greatest cliff-hanger question since Phil Sheridan was 20 miles away. As of New Hampshire Primary Day, these pertinent facts, and these only were clear:

1) Ike now wants to be President and will take any honorable step consistent with his military position to get the G.O.P. nomination.

2) His closest advisers have told him in terms of increasing urgency that he must come home by May 1 at the latest, and must declare his intention to come home within the next few weeks.

3) Nevertheless, Ike has not made a firm promise to anybody that he will be home by any date. His staff in France is proceeding on the assumption that he means to stay. Last week Robert P. Burroughs of New Hampshire made public an Ike letter of Feb. 27 in which Ike said he had not budged from his Jan. 7 statement: "Under no circumstances will I ask relief from this [NATO] assignment in order to seek nomination to political office."

There is a possible avenue of escape from this sweeping statement. Ike's friends might possibly persuade President Truman to relieve Ike without a request from him. Or Ike might simply face the embarrassment, announce that he has changed his mind, and ask to be relieved and returned to inactive military status.

In case neither of these courses opens up, Eisenhower supporters can pay heed to the words last week of Malcolm S. Forbes, a New Jersey state senator just back from a chat with Ike in Paris. Said Forbes: "It is high time those of us active in the fight to gain him the nomination stop wringing our hands and screaming, 'Come home, Ike, or all is lost.' We must . . . fight the fight on our own hook."

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