"What a Bellyache!"

In Operating Room 6 of Walter Reed General Hospital, a massive, bowl-shaped lamp bathed the operating table in its shadowless glare. Bending over the table with hawklike attentiveness were the four surgeons in their blue-green gowns, white skullcaps and masks, tersely and softly directing a team of 20 physicians, nurses and technicians. On the table, his breathing regular as he fell into a deep sleep, lay Dwight David Eisenhower, 65, 34th President of the U.S., undergoing major surgery to relieve an obstruction of the small intestine. Nearly two hours later, with a steel-grey dawn just breaking over Washington, came the announcement that the operation had been a success.

Around the world, editors remade their front pages still again to handle the bulletins. The President's operation had been decided upon without much warning at a midnight medical conference. It came as a final twist to a dramatic, tense, often confusing 32 hours that began on Thursday night, when the President attended the annual banquet of the White House News Photographers Association in Washington's Sheraton-Park Hotel.

First Intimation. Ike had rarely seemed healthier or happier. In white jacket and black tie, he arrived at the Sheraton-Park shortly after 7 p.m., grinned and handshook his way through a reception, sipping at a Scotch-on-the-rocks, then at part of another. His color was ruddy, perhaps higher than usual around the cheekbones. For dinner he skipped the thick soup on the regular menu, had instead a cup of clear consomme, which came more in line with his diet of 1,800 calories a day. He ate a small piece of filet mignon (without the himself displayed at dinner of White House News Photographers Association.

rich cream sauce ladled on for the other guests), bypassed his baked potato, nibbled at an unbuttered green vegetable, and talked to his photographer dinner companions on subjects ranging from painting to golf. Later, when the lights were turned low in the vast ballroom, the President settled back to enjoy the entertainment, rocked with laughter at the quips of Comedian Bob Hope, returned the jaunty wave of Negro Songstress Pearl Bailey. When it was time to leave, he took a few strides in the wrong direction, spun, and walked from the room so rapidly that the Secret Service men had to scurry to keep pace. As he entered his car he turned and asked if anyone wanted a ride. There were no takers. By 11 p.m. the President was back in the White House.

Less than two hours later, at 12:45 on Friday morning, came the first intimation of trouble.

Milk of Magnesia. Dr. Howard McCrum Snyder, the President's 75-year-old personal physician, was sleeping in his Connecticut Avenue apartment when the bedside telephone jangled. Over the wire came the voice of Mamie Eisenhower: the President was turning and tossing with a stomachache. What should she do? Old Army Man Snyder was unworried; his patient had a record of stomach complaints. He recommended a small dose of milk of magnesia, turned off his bed light and went back to sleep.

Thirty-five minutes later Mamie called again and asked: Would the doctor please come over? General Snyder dressed hurriedly and drove to the White House, about a mile away. He stayed at the

President's bedside for the rest of the night, while his patient dozed fitfully. Once, Snyder administered dextrose for strength-building purposes. For breakfast the President had a cup of tea with sugar. He was not in acute pain, but felt generally rotten, vomiting several times during the morning.

Not until 7:15 a.m. was White House Press Secretary James Hagerty notified of the President's bad night. Hagerty hastened to the White House, called Vice President Richard Nixon (who was dressing to come to an early-morning Cabinet meeting), and got ready to break the news to the press. The only reporter then in the White House, Associated Pressman Marvin Arrowsmith (see PRESS), was called into Hagerty's office. Hagerty, calm and unruffled, was waiting with a four-line statement, which he had just scribbled on a piece of yellow paper. This was the first of the many hurriedly-written, urgently-awaited bulletins that were to come that day:

The President had an upset stomach and headache. Dr. Snyder has been with him since early this morning. There is nothing wrong with his heart.

Newsmen, who soon flooded into the White House, were not so sure about the President's heart; they recalled all too clearly that the President's heart attack in Denver last September had at first been described as a "digestive upset." As they clamored to see Hagerty, the tension grew in the White House. Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams walked into the office of his top deputy, Major General Wilton B.

Persons, with the news. Attorney General Herbert Brownell and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. arrived early for the Cabinet meeting, slipped away tight-lipped when told of the President's illness. Other Cabinet officers were informed by telephone.

Upset Upset. By the time newsmen finally jammed into Jim Hagerty's office, they were bursting with impatient questions. Hagerty himself was edgy, his forehead gleaming with sweat. He reread his original bulletin, then tried to cope valiantly, knowing precious little himself, with questions aimed principally at discovering whether Ike's heart was involved. ("I don't know how much clearer I can say it when I say there is nothing wrong with his heart.")

The stomach condition, he said, was best described as an "upset." But able Jim Hagerty to the contrary, it soon became starkly clear that the President's trouble was more than that. Before noon Howard Snyder called in Dr. Francis Pruitt, chief of medicine at Walter Reed, for consultation. Pruitt and Snyder examined the President again, came to a decision that brought forth the day's second headline-making bulletin:

The President has an attack of ileitis (Inflammation of the lower portion of the small intestine). As a precautionary measure, he is being taken to Walter Reed Hospital this afternoon. His blood pressure and pulse are good. He has no fever. There is no indication of any heart trouble.

At 1 p.m. an olive-drab Army ambulance moved slowly through the south west White House gate and backed up to a door at the foot of the winding staircase from the White House south portico. Medical Corpsmen took out a stretcher and carried it into the White House. Reporters waited.

"It's John!" There was a 20-minute wait, broken when Mamie Eisenhower (accompanied by Presidential Army Aide Colonel Robert Schulz and Assistant White House Physician Walter Tkach) got into a limousine for the drive to the hospital. As the car paused at the gate before moving into West Executive Avenue, another car drew up and halted. Someone shouted: "It's John!" Major John Eisenhower, who had driven from his station at Fort Belvoir in nearby Virginia, jumped out and ran to his mother's car, pounding on the window and shouting: "Oh, mother!" Mamie, near tears and showing the strain, opened the door. John got in beside her, and the limousine headed for Walter Reed.

Moments later the President, dressed in tan pajamas and covered by a light Army blanket, was carried from the White House and placed gently in the ambulance under the watchful eyes of Dr. Pruitt and Jim Rowley, head of the White House Secret Service detail. To the dismay of newsmen who were swarming around the southwest White House exit, the ambulance left by another gate. It was escorted by three motorcycles, their sirens moaning dismally as the little caravan hit East Executive Avenue. Already the calls were going out for other doctors to head for the President's hospital bedside. Dr. Thomas Mattingly, chief heart specialist at Walter Reed, was stopped by highway patrolmen as he drove through South Carolina on his vacation, whisked back to Washington in a T-33 jet trainer. Dr. Paul Dudley White ("They wanted me on hand in case anything needed to be done"), arriving at Boston's Logan Airport from his Beacon Street office, was met by his wife, who had rushed from home with the famed heart specialist's suitcases and a spare hat.

Still on the stretcher, President Eisenhower was carried from the ambulance at Walter Reed, shielding his eyes with one hand against the sun. He was taken to the presidential suite--two bedrooms, living room, dining room, bathroom and small kitchen in Ward 8 on the hospital's third floor. Surgeons, headed by Major General Leonard Heaton. commanding officer at Walter Reed, immediately began examination and treatment, although they were not yet certain that surgery would be necessary. An electrocardiogram, along with other tests, showed the patient sound in heart; an X ray revealed an obstruction in the small intestine.

"A Partial Obstruction." Downstairs in the hospital lobby, the mustachioed marble bust of onetime Army Dr. Walter Reed stared sternly out on a bewildering scene. Newsmen churned around, setting up shop in a large conference room and an adjoining public-relations office, spilling out into the corridor and other nearby offices. Workmen strung the wires for 33 special telephones, television cables tangled hopelessly, cheese sandwiches and coffee appeared as the press began its long, nerve-shredding wait.

At midafternoon a grim-faced Jim Hagerty came down to the conference room with another medical statement: So far, all studies confirm the original diagnosis of an attack of ileitis. The X ray of the abdomen revealed a partial obstruction in the terminal portion of the small intestine (ileum) . . . The President's blood pressure is 126 over 80. His pulse is 90. His respiration is 20. His temperature is normal.

The afternoon grated on. Hagerty and Major Eisenhower, still in his Army suntans, finally slipped away from the hospital and went up the hill to the officers' club. Bypassing the 35-c- martinis, they drank a beer apiece, talked quietly as they ate dinner at a side table. Hagerty was back at 8:35 p.m. to read another formal statement, this one signed by Drs. Heaton and Snyder: The President's condition is progressing satisfactorily. The latest X rays and examinations, including electrocardiograms, show no change in the previously reported condition except that the President is resting more comfortably. He has required no sedation. The consulting doctors have agreed to reassemble at midnight. There is no indication for immediate surgery.

Again the questions came:

Q: In the first press conference [at the hospital] you did not discuss surgery; you did not want to discuss it until you talked further with the doctors.

Hagerty: That is correct.

Q: In the second press conference you said there was a possibility.

Hagerty: That is correct.

Q: In the third one you say there is no immediate--

Hagerty: There is no indication for immediate surgery. That is as far as I can go.

Q: Jim, there is still no one-word description of the President's condition.

Hagerty: I think we again tried to say it when we said 'progressing satisfactorily' --that 'there is no indication for immediate surgery.'

Q: How long is 'immediate,' Jim?

Hagerty: How tall is tall?

Between 8:30 and midnight there was a deceptive calm in Walter Reed's Ward 8. A patient a few doors away from the President snored loudly. A nurse passed swiftly through the doors of the presidential suite, disclosing an Army guard just inside. The call light over the doors was unlighted.

"This Will Cause Death." In all, more than a dozen doctors participated in the midnight conference. During the day, every opportunity had been given the President's intestinal obstruction to correct itself. But the latest tests showed it persisting. Without an operation, the condition could cause gangrene of the bowel. As Surgeon Heaton explained later, this would be "a very serious situation . . . This will cause death." Heart Men White and Mattingly were consulted about the

President's ability to withstand surgery. Aware of the grave overall situation, they gave a go-ahead.

Shortly after 2 o'clock on Saturday morning, Jim Hagerty left Ward 8, punched an elevator button and descended to the main floor. He walked past the clutter of television apparatus and into the pressroom, preceded by cries of "Here comes Jim." Biting off every word, he began to read:

It is the considered opinion of the physicians in attendance that, since the previously mentioned partial obstruction in the terminal portion of the small intestine has persisted, an exploratory operation is necessary. This operation will be undertaken immediately.

Even as Hagerty talked, the President was being readied for the scalpel. He was wheeled past a floor kitchen, past the office of the chief of Walter Reed's obstetrics and gynecology section, into the main corridor and finally into Operating Room 6, directly above the pillared entrance to the hospital. Outside the operating room stood Secret Service Man Rowley. Assigned to carry progress reports from the operating room to the President's anxious family was Dr. Snyder. Mamie, John and Dr. Milton Eisenhower, the President's youngest brother (see EDUCATION), waited in the Williamsburg-green living room of the President's suite. Outside the hospital, newsmen clambered on a fountain, adorned by stone penguins (which were not at the moment spouting water) to get an angled glimpse into the operating room. They saw only the dramatic shadow-show of surgeons at work.

President Eisenhower's operation began at 2:59 a.m., ended at 4:52. Then, after hours that had seemed like eons, Jim

Hagerty, bleary of eye and trembling of hand, was able to make his most encouraging report:

At operation, an intestinal obstruction due to ileitis was confirmed, and the obstruction relieved. The operation was performed under general anesthesia. The heart action was normal throughout. The President's condition continues very satisfactory.

The President slept through most of Saturday--while the eyes of the U.S. and the world focused on his hospital room. In the early afternoon came the fullest explanation of exactly what had happened. Chaperoned by Jim Hagerty, Surgeon Heaton and two other doctors filed into the Walter Reed conference room. Surgeon Heaton, cool and calm in a fresh summer suit, spoke slowly and distinctly, pacing himself by watching the pencils of newsmen. He read a formal report, then used a blackboard diagram to explain further.

"The postoperative condition of the President," he said, "is excellent, and we have every expectation of a normal convalescence. We look for a rapid and complete recovery, and feel that he will return to his good health in a short period of time. During the coming week, he should be able to sign official papers and carry on those functions of the Government which are necessary. We should like to establish here that his cardiac condition has no relationship to this present illness. We do not expect his heart in any way to affect his convalescence. You ladies and gentlemen know as well as I that there is no relationship between ileitis and malignant disease. I want you to know that there was nothing suggesting a malignant disease found at operation . . ."

Can He Run? Heaton was asked what the diseased area of the President's intestine had looked like. Said he: "Markedly contracted, inflamed and had the consistency of a hard rubber hose." Questioned more closely about the President's future, he estimated that Ike would remain in the hospital about 15 days, then rest up in a place of his own choosing, resume his full duties in from four to six weeks. He was asked if the President's life expectancy had been affected. Said Heaton: "We certainly don't think so." Added Dr. Howard Snyder: "We think it improves it."

Then came the big question. Did Heaton think the President should now decline to run for reelection? Heaton did not hesitate. His answer was short and emphatic: "I certainly do not."

In less than two days Dwight Eisenhower had apparently gone from brimming good health to mild "upset" to "serious" to "excellent." A lot more would be heard of his latest illness. But perhaps Ike himself had placed his sickness in its best perspective when, coming out from under anesthesia after the operation, he looked up at the Army doctor at his bedside and grinned weakly. Said the President of the U.S.: "What a bellyache!"

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