Heat

Press-conference day dawned brightly in Washington. President Eisenhower, in the added heat of TV lights, faced questions sparked by previous blasts from Senators. "Mr. President," the firing began, "Senator Morse yesterday accused Mrs. Hobby of gross incompetency, and said she should be removed from office."

Sternly, Ike said he would not waste his time on the Morse attack, but would be glad to give an opinion about his Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Despite some feeling among White House aides that Oveta Hobby's handling of the polio vaccine problem has been less than inspired, Ike gave her a clean bill. Secretary Hobby, he said, is "merely the agent of these great scientists and doctors." It was their testing procedures that were in question, he indicated, and it was their decision to hold up vaccine distribution.

Later in the press conference, the President threw out a hint that the Secretary might have to leave Government for another, personal reason. Said he: "Mrs. Hobby placed me on notice some many months ago." (Her 77-year-old husband, Texas' ex-Governor William P. Hobby, has been seriously ill with arthritis.) "If she has to go," added Dwight Eisenhower, "I will be very, very disappointed . . . She has done a mighty magnificent job."

When the questioning veered again, Ike got a chance to reply to the suggestion that the Big Four conference might result in a Yalta-like sellout. Nobody mentioned the name of California's Senator Knowland, but all knew that the President's intense words, punctuated with a fist-to-desk bang, were addressed to him. "There is no appeasement in my heart," said Ike. "I just can't believe that [Americans] . . . suspect their Government in general, is apt to fall into that trap."

What about East-West trade, if, as the President hoped, a new dawn starts to thaw out the cold war? "Trade is the greatest weapon in the hands of the diplomat," but a rigid policy can leave the diplomat emptyhanded. Instead of saying, "We won't trade," the U.S. has to say, "When does trade in what things benefit us most and our friends?"

The warm half-hour over, Dwight Eisenhower sighed, "Maybe we need air conditioning," and whisked away to the Burning Tree Club's fairways for a round with two of his favorite golfers, Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan.

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