Setting the Course

The shouts and cheers of half a million Washingtonians faded behind Ike Eisenhower as he stepped inside the door of the executive wing of the White House last week for his conference with Harry Truman. "Good morning, folks," said Ike cheerily to the newsmen and White House employees who packed the big executive lobby. Official Receptionist Bill Simmons shouldered into view to shake Ike's hand. "I imagine you're rather tired," said Bill. "No," said Ike, "this hasn't been such a hard day."

By the White House clock, Ike was a couple of minutes early. Harry Truman was off in the residential section of the White House, and Ike chatted with Simmons until the President arrived in his office and buzzed a "show him in" signal. Then Ike went in for his first face-to-face meeting with Harry Truman since last June, when the President pinned a fourth Oak Leaf Cluster on retiring NATO Commander Eisenhower.

Framework of Liaison. For 20 minutes the President and President-elect talked in privacy. There was little leakage of what went on, but aides pieced together enough hints to know that there was no bantering or joking about the campaign. The atmosphere was cool and Harry Truman was on edge. He talked gravely about, the need for cooperation in international affairs. Eisenhower agreed. Truman suggested a joint statement backing the principle of "no forcible repatriation" of prisoners in the Korean war. Eisenhower, who has adopted the firm policy of setting his own course, declined the joint statement but promised to make his own views known. (Next day, through Wisconsin's Senator Alexander Wiley, he "emphasized his agreement with the principle of no forcible repatriation.")

After the private session, Ike and Truman moved into the Cabinet Room with their advisers. There Dean Acheson did most of the talking. A joint press statement reported that Truman and Eisenhower had "worked out a framework of liaison and exchange of information," but made clear that "General Eisenhower has not been asked to assume any of the responsibilities of the presidency until he takes the oath of office." Before Ike left, Harry Truman handed him three loose-leaf volumes summarizing U.S. policies through the world, and top-secret plans in case of all-out Communist attack on Korea, Yugoslavia or Iran.

Ike was tight-lipped and grim as Secret Service men led him back through the crowded executive lobby to his car. On his way back to the airport he detoured to the Pentagon for a handshake around and a fast military briefing inside the guarded precincts of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Then he took off for New York.

Behind Barricades. In Manhattan next day he opened shop in a sixth-floor suite of the Commodore Hotel, blocked off by a special partition and a heavy Secret Service guard. Reporters choked the corridor outside, engulfing visitors like Bob Taft and House Leader Joe Martin (who came up to talk legislative programs) and the Cabinet nominees. When Britain's Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden stepped out of the elevator to keep a lunch date with Ike, he was greeted by a glare of flash bulbs and a roar from a photographer (to a slow-footed reporter): "Get the hell out of the road!"

The Eisenhowers ducked out of Manhattan early Friday to attend the annual reunion of the West Point Class of 1915, at Washington's Army & Navy Club. Ike is honorary president of the class, the only one in West Point annals to produce two five-star generals: Eisenhower and Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.*

Ike spent a quiet weekend back in Manhattan, picked up a heavy callers' schedule again early this week. Meanwhile, all signs indicated that he would soon disappear behind the security curtain for his trip to Korea. In Seoul, the Korean government erected welcoming banners, archways and Ike portraits. U.N. Commander Mark Clark flew to Korea from Tokyo to take charge of Ike's protection, and put Seoul through a practice blackout. Back home, Ike Classmate Omar Bradley assured a television audience that Ike would go close enough to the Korean front "to talk to division commanders, lower commanders, and even a bunch of soldiers, sailors and airmen themselves."

* Other notables of the class of 1915: Eighth Army's four-star Jim Van Fleet; the Air Force's four-star Joe McNarney, now retired and president of Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp.; the Air Force's three-star George Stratemeyer, also retired. Of the class's 164 graduates, 41 are dead, 74 retired, 20 in civilian jobs, 26 in the Army, three in the Air Force.

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