Patience & Impatience

All week long the White House telegraphed hints of the annoyance of the man inside. The President was thoroughly irritated by the McCarthy-Army hearings; he felt that they were wasting time, creating a bad impression abroad and, most of all, he felt that they were diverting attention from world problems and frustrating his legislative program. At his press conference the President made an admirable effort to muffle his feelings, but they showed through.

The Eisenhower wrath began to rise when, toward the end of the conference, a reporter asked if Defense Secretary Wilson had ever taken up the question of David Schine with him. The President's face flushed red through his Georgia tan. In a scornful voice, he asked: You mean this talking about this private?

Yes, said the reporter. Eisenhower shook his head angrily. He never heard of him, he said. He never heard of him. Then the President was asked what he thought, as a former general, of all the excitement at the Capitol. Ike said nothing for a long moment. His shoulders hunched in anger, his face turned a deeper red, and he looked like a man who was counting up to ten. When he did speak, his voice was husky with controlled emotion. The reporters would pardon him, he said, if he declined to talk about something that he didn't think was something to talk about very much. He just hoped that it was all concluded very quickly. And with that the President strode from the room.

Before the abrupt end of the conference, President Eisenhower made an important statement about Indo-China (see above). Other topics: P:P:On the progress of his legislative program: he tried to cultivate patience, said the President, but. he doesn't believe that he is primarily a very patient man, so when he thinks there is a course of action that looks as if it were for the good of the U.S., he is never satisfied until it is done. Though congressional leaders had assured him that the program would be enacted, he could not exaggerate the importance of getting it on the books, and soon. P:On his own campaign plans: he likes to go and visit, and he expects to move around the country, to talk about his legislative program. But, Ike reiterated, he does not intend to go out and, as a barnstormer, participate in a local election contest; that is not his business.

Last week the President also: P: Nominated his old friend and West Point classmate, Lieut. General Joseph M. Swing, 60, recently retired, to be Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization. P: Welcomed Nebraska's new Senator, Mrs. Eva Bowring (TIME, April 26) to Washington with a discussion of the relative merits of single-barrel (Ike's choice) and double-barrel shotguns (Mrs. Bow-ring's). The President, said Rancher Bowring, "made a Sandhiller feel right at home. He grows on you."

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