Eight Words

"The President has had a mild coronary thrombosis." Those eight words spoken in Denver by a White House secretary thudded on the nation and the world. The first concern turned on the man, a figure of affection and respect in the hearts of more millions throughout the globe than any man of this decade. He is not idolized as some of the 20th century leaders have been. He is not hated and feared as some have been. He is liked. He is understood.

From these two emotions comes the widespread confidence that Eisenhower has inspired. Critics in his own party, diehard Democrats, French neutralists, oppose him but do not think he will do anything very wrong. (Even the Communists, going along, profess to trust him more than other American leaders.) Popular affection for Eisenhower focused attention on the content of that word "mild." How good were his hopes of recovery? As far as could be learned from naturally cautious medical bulletins, read in the light of what medical specialists know about such cases, the chances were good that he would have many happy, busy years ahead.

A New Probability. The relief that greeted this medical interpretation was succeeded by a political question. Would Eisenhower be a candidate for President in 1956? This had scarcely to be asked before it became apparent that an enormous new probability now jutted up on the U.S. political landscape. Last week, before his heart attack, the weight of informed opinion was heavily estimating that he would run. This week, even if his recovery is as rapid and thorough as possible, the balance swung toward the strong probability that he would not.

Personal and family considerations would loom larger; few if any doctors would recommend the presidency of the U.S. for a recovered coronary case; even if Ike were willing to make the sacrifice, the people would view his situation with disquiet.

Around the new political probability be gan a great regrouping and reappraisal. So much of international and national progress and reassurance had come to be symbolized by Eisenhower that there was real danger that the prospect of his retirement would pull the linchpin of trust. No man in either U.S. party approaches him in stature. His own party, last week so confident, was plunged in gloom by the prospect of fighting the 1956 campaign without him in the van.

Eisenhower himself had warned of this danger. Only three weeks ago, answering an insistent demand that he run again, he said: "Humans are frail--and they are mortal. Finally--you never pin your flag so tightly to one mast that if a ship sinks you cannot rip it off and nail it to another. It is sometimes good to remember that." And he had broadened that advice to include all of the U.S.: "Any American would like to think that he has the confidence of his fellow Americans when he is trying to do a tough job. But, again, I say, this country . . . overshadows every individual and any individual in it." The Bases of Confidence. This is the statement of a man too wise and too humble to believe in his own indispensability. But it has another meaning: most of what President Eisenhower has contributed to international and national life does not depend for its endurance on his arteries.

He faced the Communist menace with a mien at once more confident, more forceful and more open to negotiations. The lesson is there for all to read.

He turned that massive and barely manageable ship--relations between the U.S. Government and the economy--in a new direction, away from the long drift toward the welfare-warfare state. That demonstration has been made and the result--the strongest and most dynamic economy the nation has ever had--hardly invites proposals for a turn-back.

He gave his party what it had lacked for 20 years--a way of expressing its principles in terms that appealed to the people. The anti-Eisenhower Republicans will no doubt ride again, but it is hard, in the face of the objective record of the last three years, to believe they will be going anywhere.

He has, in fact, moved both parties toward the middle of the road, and shown both how much can be accomplished on that path.

If President Eisenhower has to forgo another campaign and another term, he will leave much unfinished. But as millions of people around the world talked about him and his future, they reflected on how much he has already achieved that will last.

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