Say It Is Or Isn't So

To President Eisenhower's bedside one morning last week came the week's most constant caller with the week's most pressing executive business. Businesslike Sherman Adams, pushing a twelve-hour day as White House No. 1 while Ike is away, reviewed the matter quickly. If the U.S. showed a favorable attitude, said he, invitations to visit Russia would be forth coming to all Chiefs of Staff, not merely the Air Force's General Nathan Farragut Twining. Two hours later Russia's Colonel Sergei A. Edemsky called at the Pentagon, learned the U.S.'s attitude: such J.C.S. visits are impractical just now; future chances will hinge on Twining's treatment in Russia next week. In any event, the Chiefs would not visit as a group (presumably because the U.S. would never put its four top-ranking military men in Russian hands at one time). So went Dwight Eisenhower's first major decision since he entered Walter Reed Hospital for surgery.

Advised of the presidential ruling by a tired, taut and testy Jim Hagerty, newsmen realized that Ike still had a Levin tube down his throat, a needle in his arm for feeding, a temperature and pulse only "essentially" normal. By Hagerty's own description the President still "did not feel like doing a jig." Had he actually, they pressed, made the decision himself? Or had he assented meekly to a judgment already made? Said Hagerty: "The President certainly made the decision. He sure did." On Capitol Hill the question was echoed by Congressmen considering what to do about legislation spelling out the point at which a President should be relieved as incapacitated. (Their decision: do nothing until after November.) Only one question was more gripping at that moment: whether Ike would decide not to run. When neither no nor yes to that one filtered down from Walter Reed's presidential suite last week, the world did its own guessing and grumbling.

Unhealthy Prognosis. In Chicago Democratic Chairman Paul Butler purpled over the unequivocal approval of a re-election campaign given by Ike's surgeon, Major General Leonard D. Heaton, a scant ten hours after the operation (TIME, June 18). Butler condemned Republicans for practicing a "new science of politico-medicine." In Chicago Dr. David Allman, who last week was chosen president-elect of the American Medical Association, burbled (without examining any of the subjects) that the President would now be "in better physical condition than any of his opponents--Republican or Democratic--have been at any time in their lives." He got a quick rebuke from the Milwaukee Journal, among others, for making "a political mockery of medical science."

New-Dealing Columnist Doris Fleeson fanned up the most smoke by citing a pessimistic section on ileitis from an insurance underwriters' medical handbook ("Recurrence is distressingly high, one in three within two years"), and the New England Journal of Medicine. Hagerty refused to be smoked out, gibed, "As far as I know, Miss Fleeson is not a doctor," but later confirmed that recurrence is less common in older patients than in youthful ones. When Columnist Stewart Alsop published word from "the Republican high command" that Ike would reaffirm his candidacy before he left Walter Reed, Hagerty replied heatedly: "If you people for one minute think that I am going to comment every time on what some columnist says, you're nuts."

Healthy Organism. A fresh opinion on the President's health was given by West Germany's Elder Statesman (80) Konrad Adenauer, emerging with Secretary Dulles from a ten-minute call on the President (65). Said Adenauer: "I must say that I would not have thought it possible that a person, so few days after an operation, could look that way, could talk that way and could participate so vividly in the discussions. I have asked the doctor to explain this miracle, and he has told me that it is a healthy organism which offers the best foundation to overcome any obstacle of this kind."

As the week progressed, Ike gave continued evidence of a healthy organism. Away went feeding tube and the unpleasant stomach apparatus. These gone, he slept six hours one night, eight the next. He had not rested so well since entering the hospital. He sipped beef broth, read a newspaper, heard his favorite musical tunes piped in by Washington's station WGMS (Eisenhower requests like Rhapsody in Blue and Mendelssohn's "Italian" Symphony were heard as well by subscribers on the capital's GEorgia telephone exchange when excess power on the line into Ike's room carried the melodies into telephone lines). Each day he exercised a little, conferred with members of his staff. Pulse, blood pressure and temperature returned to normal. He ate his first solid food in nine days, four ounces of cereal with milk and sugar. He was delighted to receive a get-well card from the 156 golfers in the National Open tournament at Rochester, asked for a television set and watched the tournament's windup and Cary Middlecoff's victory (see SPORT). He was even more delighted to receive a Father's Day visit from his four grandchildren, and a flower pot filled with ivy and philodendron from each.

Between visits the President remembered to ask Hagerty to send his regards to White House correspondents keeping the long watch downstairs. So moved were the newsmen that they responded with a note expressing pleasure at Ike's rapid progress. Dizzied by the week's hard speculation, they appended a coy and curious plea: "Is there anything else you want to tell us?" Reported Hagerty after presenting the note: "The President laughed."

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