White House Reoccupled

Critical problems were piling up, urgent questions waited for answers, but Dwight Eisenhower was calmly readjusting himself to life in the White House. At measured pace, he proceeded through a week which ranged from reviewing the nation's defense needs to enjoying his grandchildren.

Back from vacation (and a speechmaking trip in Massachusetts), Ike dropped in on the organizational meeting of his Commission on Foreign Economic Policy. A way must be found, he told the group, to "develop new markets for our great productive power and at the same time assist other nations to earn their own living." Chairman Clarence Randall later declined to speculate on how this challenging goal might be achieved. "For a fellow with a loud mouth," he said, "you'd be surprised how tight I can keep it."

Out on the lawn by the White House rose garden, the President was at his spontaneous best. Members of the U.S. Committee for United Nations Day stood hushed as they heard his simple avowal of faith in the U.N.: "Where every new invention . . . seems to make it more nearly possible for man to insure his own elimination from this globe, I think the United Nations has become sheer necessity."

Ike reached into his wartime memories for an object lesson to the Committee on Employment of the Physically Handicapped. He had once asked for a certain major general to be placed in command of a corps. He was told the man could not pass medical requirements. Replied General Eisenhower: "Please send this man right away quickly. It's his head and heart I want." Ike got his officer (who, although not identified by the President, was Troy Middleton), and he "fully met every expectation I had of him."

The crushing problem of national defense was the subject at both the Cabinet meeting and the lengthy session of the National Security Council (see above). But during his off-hours, the President found time to visit his grandchildren, dodging the model planes which air-minded David, 5, sent zooming around the room; admiring the doodles which filled the drawing books of Barbara Anne, 4, and delighting in the baby tricks of Susan, 21 months. Last week the President also: P: Named Bryce Harlow, 37, former Oklahoma City textbook publisher, as chief presidential speechwriter in place of Emmet J. Hughes, who resigned to return to the editorial staff of LIFE. P: Revived the Point Four Program's policy steering committee, inactive since last November, by appointing seven new members and continuing the tenure of five others.

P: Attended the swearing-in as his liaison man with Congress of I. Jack Martin, onetime Taft aide. Grinned Ike: "Be prepared for a good long oath, because Justice Burton really gives you the works."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.