DWIGHT EISENHOWER, POLITICIAN

The President Moves in to Reshape the G.O.P.

The moment Dwight Eisenhower strode into the Congres sional Room of Washington's Statler Hotel last week, the members of the Republican National Committee could sense the change in him. When it came to political meetings, Ike had always been a notorious foot-dragger. This time, ready and willing to address the committee's mid-term session, he was obviously a man with a message. Moments later, he took the rostrum to deliver a dart-sharp speech calling for a complete overhaul and rejuvenation of the Republican Party, from precinct captain to panjandrum.

"My political experience is short." said Ike with a quick grin, "but I think most of you would agree it has also been quite intense. I know that underlying every political purpose --every political aspiration and hope -- must be work at the pre cinct level. We must reach the individual. We must convey to him -- and to America -- the ideals by which we live. . . .

"Next, on top of that kind of work, we must have good can didates . . . As I see the Republican Party, we have such a wealth of brains, of ability combined with personality, that it is a tragedy in any locality for any of us to push into nomination -- from alderman up -- someone who doesn't represent the ideals and purposes in which we all believe." He took time out -- "so that our balance of values does not get out of order" -- to note that Communists and not Demo crats were the principal enemy. "Let's not build up a picture that the worst enemy anyone can have is a Democrat. Far from it; we just don't think they can do as good a job as we, do." But midway in his speech, it was clear that Ike has abandoned his famed middle-of-the-road position. ("Too static," explained the White House.) He had toyed, he said, with the idea of calling his kind of Republicanism "progressive moderate." But now he thought that "dynamic conservatism" was the best term: "We are not antediluvian, nor are we trying to be men from Mars." Bedrock Conclusions. When he had finished, the national committeemen pounded the tables in delight. Whispered one committeeman to his neighbor: "Why. that's the first real honest-to-goodness Republican political speech I've heard him make." But the committeemen hadn't heard anything yet: Ike's speech was merely the first public outcropping of some bedrock conclusions that he has reached about politics. Items :

P: The 1954 congressional election was a vindication of Eisen hower policies, a rebuke to the G.O.P. Old Guard, and a man date for him to follow his own political instincts.

P: The Republican Party stands in danger of defeat and extinction if it does not attract more people by becoming more dynamic.

P: The success or failure of the Eisenhower Administration will have a substantial effect on whether the party survives or dies.

P: He will no longer try to compromise with the "McCormick wing" of the party.

P: With the Democrats in control of Congress, he is in a fine position to fight the Old Guard Republicans, i.e., if his program is defeated, the blame will be laid to the Democrats and not to G.O.P. intraparty strife.

P: Republicans must have attractive, youthful candidates; the only way to get good candidates is for the Eisenhower Republicans to capture control of state G.O.P. machines all down the line.

P: The time to get going for 1956 is right now.

Lines of Force. Eisenhower came to the White House full of humility and with a profound respect for the presidency as an institution. He tried hard to live up to what the institution demanded of him; he was intensely aware of the constitutional line between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue; he set up an exemplary staff system to bring the far-flung empire of the Federal Government under administrative control; he professed his faith in the Republican philosophy, but considered it his duty to operate on a plane above partisan struggle.

Ike has since learned that the presidency is something like a magnetic pole. It cannot be neutral; it either attracts or repels, and its lines of force are influential through all of Government.

If the White House does not send out lines of force, the various segments of the American system--Congress, party, bureaucracy--swing like so many wandering compass needles to their own petty interests. In short, he discovered that the President cannot be "above politics." The change shows itself in countless ways. A few months ago he chafed at the restraints and demands on his personal freedom, but now he accepts the restraints as a matter of course because he likes his job. In his personal reading he used to choose western stories for relaxation; he still likes them, but has become engrossed in The Federalist papers and in Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln. Currently, he is reading Pundit Sam Lubell's The Future of American Politics. Ike once made his decisions on the basis of quick written summaries and oral briefings; now he is reading more and more long reports to catch the nuances, often scribbles long notes and suggestions in the margin. In the early days he disliked press conferences; now, sure of what he wants to get across, he has carried the presidential press conference to new bounds of influence by opening it to television coverage.

Soothed Nerves. Essentially, Dwight Eisenhower is no plunger, and he believed that there were other aspects to his job that had to be settled before he got around to politics. He spent months learning to know and understand the members of his Administration staff, now feels that it is the finest staff ever installed in the White House. He knows his official family as few Presidents in history have known theirs; he listens carefully to all the members of his enlarged Cabinet, has learned that he can lean most heavily on Secretary of State Dulles, Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey, Secretary of Agriculture Benson, Attorney General Brownell and Presidential Assistant Joe Dodge (TIME, Jan. 24).

Eisenhower believes that his team stopped the drift toward more welfare statism, and that it achieved this without dividing the nation and disrupting the economy. He placed a long, coordinated program before Congress, notable for a more rational defense budget than the U.S. had seen for many a day.

Feeling on top of his job has given Ike the confidence to move--quietly. He has an aversion to stirring up unnecessary national crises, has deliberately tried to soothe the nation's nervous system--left jangled and jumpy by an unbroken procession of Truman crises. For example, Ike takes a serious view about provocative incidents such as the shooting down of U.S. planes, but he refuses to get headline-bent about them; he decided not to address a joint session of Congress to make his request for permission to defend Formosa (TIME, Jan. 31), because he did not want to create excitement.

Beyond his dislike of crisis, Ike had another inhibition about politics: like many military men and civilians, he believed that military life has few lessons relevant to civilian politics. Ike in 1953 thought that, as a military man, the complexities of civilian politics were beyond him; this belief strengthened his natural inclination to leave politics to the politicos. Actually, as commander of the Allied forces in Europe in World War II and later as NATO commander, his greatest successes were political. He probably knows more about the intimate political workings of more nations than any other individual in the Western world, including Winston Churchill.

Stag Dinner. The results of the 1954 congressional election helped to convince Ike that his political experience and instincts were just as reliable as those of any politico. He decided that the time had come for him to strike hard for the kind of Republican Party that he wanted. First he called in G.O.P. National Chairman Leonard Hall to get the facts straight about the election. Then, one night in mid-December, he gave a stag dinner for a group of his most trusted advisers from the 1952 campaign: Hall, Vice President Dick Nixon, U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Old Presidential Friend Lucius Clay, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, Deputy President Sherman Adams, Press Secretary Jim Hagerty, ex-White House Assistant C. D. Jackson--along with nine others whose views he respects. After a dinner of steak Chateaubriand, they talked strategy over liqueurs in the Red Room until 11:30, well beyond the usual quitting time for Ike's stag dinners.

Soon afterward, the offensive began to roll. Len Hall became a White House regular. Last month Ike appointed Arizona's ex-Governor Howard Pyle as administrative assistant in charge of patronage on federal-state projects. A few days later, he called in Washington's Governor Arthur Langlie to urge him to run against Democrat Warren Magnuson for the Senate in 1956. Last week Ike approved plans to talk personally to every Republican national committeeman, every member of the financial committee, every state chairman, and delegates from every major Republican women's group in the U.S.

The Obstructers. There is still one weak spot in the offensive. Ike has not learned to deal with Republicans in Congress as a forceful political strategist. His powers of personal persuasion are strong; his congressional liaison men are shrewd in estimating votes; and his House tacticians, notably Massachusetts' Joe Martin and Indiana's Charlie Halleck, are loyal and effective. But Ike has not developed the feeling for maneuver that made Teddy Roosevelt a master at getting results in Congress.

Bob Taft might have provided that kind of leadership. Without it the powerful senior Republicans, particularly in the Senate, still run things to suit their own conveniences. The Old Guard Republican leaders do not seem to be trying to take over the party. Rather, they snipe or obstruct without any apparent sense of party responsibility or direction. Minority Leader Bill Knowland, New Hampshire's Styles Bridges, Illinois' Everett Dirksen, Ohio's John Bricker and Colorado's Eugene Millikin virtually ignore the President as a leader of Congress. He makes no effort to punish them for so doing.

Flanking Movement. But if Ike sticks to his present political line, he could conceivably outflank the Old Guardists and their friends without a pitched battle. He has powerful weapons on his side. He is far more sensitive to the mood of the nation than the Old Guardists are. He is devastatingly effective on television. Moreover, if he chooses to run in 1956, he will be in a strong position to dictate the G.O.P. platform and influence the selection of delegates.

Concretely, the recent changes in Eisenhower's own definition of his job have almost certainly put him in a position where he must run again in 1956. Personally, he would rather not do so, but once he became impressed with the urgency of reforming his party--and through it the Government--the decision to run in 1956 became all but inevitable.

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