A Vital Capacity

For 13 minutes and ten seconds, the U.S. and the world hung upon what was said, shortly after 9 a.m. of a sunny Florida day, in the bachelor officers' quarters of the U.S. Naval Base at Key West. Behind a steel table stood the President, looking a bit thin about the face and neck, but tanned and healthy. "First of all," he said to the reporters, "the doctor tells me that what he calls my vital capacity is very much improved. I don't know

the meaning of the term so there's no use asking me about it, but I feel very much better--stronger--and much more able to get about ... I am going back tomorrow, I think, as ready to go to work as a person could be, after the physical experience I have been through."

Then came the first question: "Mr. President, are you--will you entertain some questions about your political future?" The President did not dodge. "All of the considerations that apply to such things are complicated," he said, "and it takes not only a thorough studying of each one before you are ready to talk on them, but naturally I will want to confer with some of my most trusted advisers ... I would say that the presidency is probably the most taxing job on the--as far as tiring of the mind and spirit, but it also has, as I have said before, its inspirations . . ."

Sense of Duty. A reporter said: "Some Republican leaders have suggested that if you are able, you might run again out of a sense of duty?" The President replied: "Well, I certainly sincerely trust that all of my actions in respect to public duty over the past 40 years have been inspired and directed by my own sense of duty, so of course that would have something to do with it . . . But where does the sense of duty point, and who determines what the duty is? That is a very tricky question . . ."

The President added: "As quickly as my own mind is made up ... I will tell you people very frankly. I have nothing to hide here. I am certainly not trying to be coy ... As soon as I feel that the whole thing is completely clarified and that I can say where the path of duty is ... It is a very critical thing to change governments in this country at a time that it is unexpected. We accustom ourselves, and so do foreign governments, changing our government every four years, but always something happens that is untoward when a government is changed at other times. It is a rather startling thing. They tell me that [there was] even some disturbance in the stock market at the time I got sick . . ."

The President concluded: "I believe that hard work is not only a very, very fine thing for most humans but keeps them healthy. But there's also things happen to the human body, that after all maybe a man isn't described fully as healthy, and then there's another calculation to make . . . My mind at this moment is not fixed. If it were, I would say so right here this second. But my mind is not fixed to such and such an extent that it can't be changed."

Man with a Platform. The President's statement hotted up speculation about whether he would run. Elsewhere in the U.S., other straws blew in the wind. From Concord, N.H. came word that the President's name will be entered in the New Hampshire presidential primary of next March--without objection from the White House. The Chattanooga Times reported from "an extremely reliable source" that Mrs. Eisenhower and Major John Eisenhower were now willing that the President should run again. "After the visit in Gettysburg," said the Times, "it became clear to all of the family that the President's temperament will not allow him to adjust happily to the restraints of an inactive life."

Perhaps more significant than a straw, in the minds of the political leaders of both parties, was the tone and composition of the President's annual State of the Union message to Congress (see The Nation). The message defined just the kind of platform--peace and prosperity, individualism and social welfare--upon which an Eisenhower-type conservative would choose to run. The Republican National Committee promptly ordered 150,000 reprints for immediate distribution to party workers. The Democrats reacted to the message with unusual sharpness, as if they too interpreted the message as a formidable campaign document. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, 1955's prime advocate of Democratic moderation toward the Eisenhower Administration, greeted the message with a campaigner's rebuttal. The U.S. domestic situation, said

Johnson, was not "as rosy as it is pictured" ; the international situation is "one of deep concern." Three days later Adlai Stevenson said of Ike's message: "Very misleading. I don't think it was very accurate . . ." A couple of hours after his Key West press conference, the President flew back to Washington to take full charge of the Government. "I will be in full swing," he said. The President had left the door wide open for his candidacy -- and both parties knew that this suspense was the dominant U.S. political fact today.

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