To Be Done: Homework

The nominee settled down last week in a three-room log cabin in the Rocky Mountains. Seventy-two miles northwest of Denver and two miles from a paved road, Dwight Eisenhower fished for trout, made flapjacks and did some thinking.

Some thinking was needed. The wisest of Ike's supporters know that he will have to improve his performance if he is to stall the Democratic machine in November as he ditched the Taft vehicle in July. Once the campaign gets rolling in September, Ike may not have much time for thought. Between now & then, Ike can win or lose his battle depending on his ability to dredge up a convincing campaign out of his own wide experience and his own deep convictions.

He Must "Know." Ike loves meeting people, talking to them, hearing what they have to say. He is much less enthusiastic about long hours of reading, study and concentrated thought.

When he said "I don't know" at his first press conference in Abilene, it was a refreshing answer in a political atmosphere smogged with panaceas. But from now on, as the party's nominee, he cannot say that he doesn't have any prescription for Korea, that he doesn't know much about Farm problems or, in fact, that he "doesn't know" about any important issue. Now, he must know.

Knowing should improve the Eisenhower speeches, which have been marred by too many hollow notes, too many platitudes, too many superficialities. The difficulty lies not in speech writing, but in speech thinking--in the content of the speeches. Good speech writers can help a candidate to say what he wants to say; only the candidate can find out what he wants to say.

The pre-convention campaign left no doubt about Eisenhower's fundamental political convictions or about the political effectiveness of his personality. Between conviction and personality, however, lies the. wide gap that Candidate Eisenhower must fill with program, argument, and decision on practical issues.

Ike cannot repeat the kind of omission which marked his Detroit speech: in one of the nation's greatest industrial centers, he did not mention labor. Ike has to take a hard look at the labor-management situation in the U.S. and at Government policy toward same, and he must develop a fairly specific attitude toward what needs to be done or undone.

Staff Position. To be his good right hand, he needs a staff and a chief of staff, the political equivalent of General Alfred M. Gruenther, his brilliant chief of staff at SHAPE. Last week Ike was said to be seeking just such a man. The staff chief would not have to be a skillful political tactician like Herbert Brownell, but rather a man used to dealing primarily in issues. Among the names being mentioned in some Republican councils last week--not necessarily as the top prospect, but as the kind of man who is needed: Minnesota's scholarly Representative Walter Judd. Whoever he picks has to have the stature of a collaborator, not a subordinate. Eisenhower's military staffs have been characterized by "strategy" men, not afraid to talk back. He will find that the same kind of staff works in politics.

Ike and his political staff have cut out for them one of the toughest tasks ever to arise in U.S. politics. Voters normally, usually (and naturally), make their decision on the present. Yet no Republican can win an argument that lies wholly within the prosperous present. The weakness of the Democratic Party's position lies in the damage it has done and may still do to the American future. Example: the spirit of individual enterprise has not been destroyed, but in the last 20 years it has certainly been undernourished in a way that may develop later with critical consequences to the republic. The U.S. is certainly not stagnant, but perhaps it is missing the greatest opportunity for growth in its history--an opportunity which Candidate Eisenhower must discuss in most specific terms if it is to be made real to the voters.

In foreign policy, the present-future contradiction is even more clear. The Korean war is not a catastrophe in the ordinary politico-military sense; U.S. forces have not been beaten in the field, yet an invitation to future catastrophe lies in the fact that the U.S. Government in Korea (and elsewhere) is involved in a deadly struggle which it does not know how to win. The Democratic Administration is not even actively searching for a solution. Eisenhower must.

To translate the future dangers and opportunities of the U.S. into a campaign will not be easy. The issues are not readymade. Only the man now fishing for trout can give them their first essential shape.

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