The Long Weekend

For more than two weeks Dwight Eisenhower kept a watchful eye on his appointment schedule, hoping for a chance to slip away to the Augusta (Ga.) National Golf Club for a long weekend of golf and semi-privacy. Last fortnight a balky schedule kept him at home. But on Thursday afternoon last week, leaving a clean desk behind, the President climbed aboard his plane, the Columbine, Georgia bound.

He tried to keep the party small and, as presidential trips go, was relatively successful. (Harry Truman liked to travel with an entourage of a dozen or more.) Besides Mamie and Mamie's mother, Mrs. John S. Doud, he took a staff of only seven: Appointments Secretary Thomas Stephens, Press Secretary Jim Hagerty, White House Communications Chief Dewey Long, Personal Secretary Ann Whitman, Personal Valet John Moaney, Jim Hagerty's secretary, Mary Caffrey, and one White House military aide, Air Force Major William G. Draper, who was gainfully employed as the plane's pilot. A swarm of Secret Service men and 28 newsmen and photographers tagged along in a chartered Constellation.

Quick Change. Soon after the takeoff, the President settled down with a Western novel. He was still reading it when the Columbine landed at Augusta 2 hours and 16 minutes later. Augusta had not had a full day of sunshine since Feb. 18, but as the Columbine squared away for her landing, the sun burst through the clouds. There were still puddles of water on the airport ramp and on the highway as the Eisenhower car sped out to the Golf Club, zipped up the magnolia-lined driveway and came to a stop in front of the little (two-bedroom) white clapboard, green-shuttered "Bobby Jones" cottage.

Ike made a quick change, got out on the course in matter of minutes. On hand to greet him at the first tee was his favorite caddy, Willie Perteet. Ike calls Willie "Cemetery," a refinement on his usual nickname, "Dead Man." (In 1932 Willie was cut up so badly in a brawl that a doctor pronounced him dead.) With Willie in tow, the President set off over the course, striding along briskly, as he habitually does while golfing. He got in seven holes before dusk.

To Ike's unconcealed chagrin, he kept up his post-election record of never breaking 90 during the entire weekend. (Before he became President, he often made the low 80s.) His driving was as sound as ever, but his putting was way off form. He had his toughest time on the Club's twelfth, the "make or break hole." It is a nasty, short hole (155 yards) with an elevated tee and a stream running between tee and green. Ike plunked his first shot into the water. Undismayed, he teed-up another, laid it twelve feet from the pin, was down in two putts for a five.

"I'm Very Awkward." Ike gave up golf for a while on Saturday afternoon to present an old friend, Club President Bobby Jones, with an original Eisenhower: a framed 40-by-32 oil painting of Jones himself, as he looked 20 years ago when he was the nation's No. 1 golfer. Ike had worked on the portrait for six weeks, using an 8-by-10 colored photograph as a model. Jones was awed. "That's really something," he said.

"It's the first time I ever tried to paint hands," said the President in a tone of mixed pride and shyness. "It is very dark around the eyes," he added, thoughtfully. "I'm very awkward." Then he showed Jones a note written on the back of the canvas in grease-pencil: "Bob, by his friend D.D.E. 1953."

After attending services at the Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church on Sunday, Ike got in a final 18 holes (still over 90) before the return flight to Washington. Tanned and relaxed, he was back at his desk in the White House at 8:19 Monday morning.

Last week the President also:

P: Sent a message of welcome to the reconvening U.N. General Assembly: "The world will watch your deliberations with deep interest and high hopes ... I wish you Godspeed."

P: Presided over a conference of state governors, Congressmen and Administration officials, on federal-state problems.

P: Nominated as new boss for the Housing and Home Finance Agency Albert M. Cole, 51, Kansas lawyer and ex-Congressman.

P: Observed to a bipartisan group of Congressmen, during a tour of the White House, that the controversial "Truman balcony" is "a fine idea ... It adds to the beauty of the White House."

P: Accepted a season ticket for the presidential box for the Washington National Symphony, admitted (to Conductor Howard Mitchell) that he prefers bass voices and piano music.

P: Took time out for a personal goodbye to Harry Truman's departing Treasury Secretary, John Snyder.

P: Summoned eight military advisers (including his old friend, retired General George Marshall), six Congressmen and four Defense Department officials to hear a report from returning General James Van Fleet this week.

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