If the People Choose

At 4 o'clock one afternoon last week four trusted associates of Dwight Eisenhower met at the White House and were quietly ushered into the President's office. After the men he had summoned gathered around his desk, the President made formal and final the commitment that they and millions of other people had at first hoped for and had then expected through many anxious weeks. The President told Vice President Richard Nixon, Presidential Aides Sherman Adams and Wilton B. ("Jerry") Persons, and Republican National Chairman Leonard Hall that he would accept a second term if the party and the people wanted him.

He would make his announcement at his news conference the next day, he said, and explain his decision to the people on radio and television a few hours later. Then, together, the five went over an early draft of the statement the President proposed to make to the people.

Although the men thus entrusted with the great secret kept it to themselves, nearly all of the 311 reporters jammed from wall to wall in the President's news conference room the next morning were sure that he would make an announcement and that it would be yes. No other answer seemed possible. Nevertheless, tension crackled in the room. Reporters peering down from the balcony could see what was on the one sheet of personal "DDE" stationery the President dropped on the desk. Printed in large letters and underlined with black grease pencil were the words Red Cross, Italians, Farm Bill, Upper Colorado. The fifth subject, doubly underlined, was "Personal."

"That Is, Affirmative." First the President had a word to say about the annual fund campaign of the Red Cross, including the comment that "I could profitably use the whole half hour if I would try to express what I really believe about it." There was a nervous laugh in the room and a whispered "Please don't." After three minutes on the Red Cross, Ike spent a minute talking about the visit of Italy's President Giovanni Gronchi and Signora Gronchi. Then he wanted "to mention two bills that are before Congress," the farm program and the Upper Colorado River development bill. By that time, under the glare of the television lights, the temperature in the room was rising and the pressure on the reporters had risen to the breaking point. No one could be quite sure whether Ike merely wanted to get the other subjects out of the way, or whether he was the only man in the room enjoying those minutes.

At 10:37 a.m., by the big electric clock on the wall, there was a pause. Then the President took a deep breath and began the announcement that the world was awaiting: "Now, my next announcement involves something more personal, but I think it will be of interest to you because you have asked me so many questions about it." But before he gave his answer, he had some tantalizing introductory remarks. He had reached a decision, but he could not express it in a simple yes or no, so he was asking for time on television and radio. Then, finally, he said it: "My answer will be positive, that is, affirmative."

Then the questions poured out.

Q: When had he arrived at his decision?

A: I will say that I was arguing about it yesterday morning.

Q: With whom had he discussed the problem?

A: Everybody that I thought was my friend, and some that I wasn't so sure of.

Q: What was Mrs. Eisenhower's reaction to the decision?

A: Mrs. Eisenhower and other members of my family, at the beginning, have said: "This is your decision. We will conform."

Q: How does he expect the issue of his health to be handled in the campaign?

A: For my part, I am going to try to be just as truthful as I can be. And I believe this: I think even people who would classify themselves probably as my political enemies do believe I am honest--they may call me stupid--but I think they think I am honest.

Q: What does he regard as the major issues of the campaign?

A: I have a record established before the American people: that is my campaign.

Q: Does he intend to work for election of a Republican Congress?

A: The legislative and executive should properly be in the same hands, so that there can be responsibility fixed without crimination and recrimination . . . But this is not to deny that I have had active and vital Democratic support in certain of the programs that I have advanced.

Q: How many people were in on his secret?

A: I think since last evening there has been probably half a dozen.

Q: How about before that?

A: Well, there could have been no one because I didn't know myself.

Q: What had influenced him most in his decision?

A: When you come down to comparisons, I am not certain what influences man most in this world.

After the reporters, finished with their questions, had bolted for the door (see PRESS) the President went directly to his office, took a pencil and memorandum pad and went to work again on the statement he would make to the people. At noon he had a swim, half an hour's rest, lunch, and was back in his office at 2:30, only to find that it was overrun by radio and television technicians setting up for the speech that night. He took his note pad and a handful of pencils into the Cabinet Room and sat alone at the huge Cabinet table. Occasionally Ann Whitman, his personal secretary, went in for dictation of a few paragraphs. Speechwriter Kevin McCann, Aides Adams and Persons and News Secretary James Hagerty moved in and out, but essentially it was the President's own message in his own words. He read the speech aloud three times, timing himself as he did so, making changes each time.

"Suaviter, Portlier." That night, when the President walked into his office with his final draft (which he had edited considerably with black pencil after the last typing), he was relaxed and jovial. On his desk in front of the lectern rested an inch-high plate bearing the Latin motto, Suaviter in Modo, Fortiter in Re, and the translation, "Gently in Manner, Strongly in Deed."* When someone mentioned the motto, which has been on the President's desk for more than a year, he cracked: "Maybe I'd better hide that; that proves I'm an egghead."

On signal from Television Adviser Robert Montgomery, the President was on the air, talking to an audience estimated at 65 million.

"I wanted to come into your homes this evening," he said, "because I feel the need of talking with you directly about a decision I made today after weeks of the most careful and devoutly prayerful consideration." Then, reversing the formula that another general, William Tecumseh Sherman, used in 1884, he said: "I have decided that if the Republican Party chooses to renominate me I shall accept the nomination. Thereafter, if the people of this country should elect me I shall continue to serve them in the office I now hold. I have concluded that I should permit the American people to have the opportunity to register their decision in this matter."

Then the President reviewed in intricate detail the medical reports showing that he has made a good recovery, and the physicians' estimate that he is able to continue in the presidency. He pointed out that he might possibly be "a greater risk than is a normal person of my age," but "so far as my own personal sense of well-being is concerned, I am as well as before the attack occurred . . . As of this moment, there is not the slightest doubt that I can now perform as well as I ever have all of the important duties of the presidency . . . I am confident that I can continue to carry them indefinitely. Otherwise I would never have made the decision I announced today."

But he would have to follow a "regime of ordered work activity, interspersed with regular amounts of exercise, recreation and rest." This meant that some of the less vital duties that he had been performing, including some speeches, ceremonial dinners, receptions and correspondence, would be reduced. "All of this means also that neither for renomination nor re-election would I engage in extensive traveling and in whistle-stop speaking, normally referred to as barnstorming. I had long ago made up my mind, before I ever dreamed of a personal heart attack, that I could never as President of all the people conduct the kind of campaign where I was personally a candidate . . .

"I shall in general wage no political campaign in the customary pattern. Instead, my principal purpose if renominated will be to inform the American people accurately through means of mass communication."

Then Dwight Eisenhower uttered what seemed to be the key to his decision: "The work that I set out four years ago to do has not yet reached the stage of development and fruition that I then hoped could be accomplished within the period of a single term in this office. So if the American people choose under the circumstances I have described to place this duty upon me I shall persist in the way that has been charted by my associates and myself."

When the President finished, Mrs. Eisenhower stepped to his side and took his hand. Then he picked up his text, said "Thank you, thank you, boys," to the cameramen and, with the members of his family who had been in the room, went back to his living quarters. There was no doubt that he had on that day decided the Republican nomination for the presidency. And most political observers felt that he had also decided the election.

* Derived from a phrase ("Fortes in fine consequendo, et suaves in modo") used in a treatise published in 1606 by a brilliant administrator, Claudio Aquaviva, fifth Director General of the Jesuit order.

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