Lay It on the Line

The telephone rang in Vice President Richard Nixon's Washington office. Over the wire came the voice of Dwight Eisenhower, who wanted to talk about the speech Nixon would make that afternoon at Ike's Gettysburg farm. There 650 Republican leaders from every state would gather for the formal launching of the 1956 campaign. "Lay it on the line, Dick," said the President. "Let's get a little tough with those people."

Nixon promptly threw away his prepared speech notes and set to work anew, aware that the telephone call had signaled a turning point in the campaign: Ike is through turning the Republican other cheek to Democratic attacks. As Nixon knew, the brunt of carrying the counterattack would fall upon him and G.O.P. National Chairman Leonard Hall, for Ike had no intention of lending the presidency to campaign potshotting.

Well before most of the Republican workers arrived in Gettysburg, Host Eisenhower was buzzing around the farm in his Crosley with the fringe on top, surveying the big tent that had been set up in his east pasture. Spotting two big white trailers south of the tent, he asked: "What are those buses?" Whispered Appointments Secretary Bernard Shanley: "Those are comfort stations, not buses, Mr. President." Ike whipped his glasses out of his breast pocket for a look, gasped: "Oh, for goodness' sake." At 4:30 p.m. he took his seat on the platform and the program began. First major speech was a warm-up by Len Hall, then the speech that Ike had been waiting for. Author: Dick Nixon. He did not believe in answering personal attacks on the President, said Nixon, but when the Administration's accomplishments are misrepresented or distorted, "it is our responsibility to set the record straight." Examples:

Foreign Policy. "We have heard over and over again . . . that there is no peace . . . that our foreign policy has failed and our prestige is at an alltime low. All I can say about that is: it may not be surprising that those who defend an Administration which never recognized there was a war in Korea may not know the difference between war and peace."

The Draft. "For a candidate for the presidency of the U.S. to suggest one day that we are 'losing the cold war' and the next day that we might get rid of the draft . . . is the height of political fakery and irresponsibility."

Communism at Home. "It shouldn't be an issue which would ever divide Americans. [But] if Mr. Stevenson does not repudiate the statement of Mr. Truman, who still says that Alger Hiss was not a Communist and not a spy, then we have no choice but to discuss the issue and let the people decide whether we or our opponents are better qualified to handle this difficult problem."

Finally it was Ike's turn. He got a roar of happy acclaim when, looking fit and ruddy, he proclaimed: "Ladies and gentlemen, I feel fine." After high praise for Dick Nixon ("No man in the history of America . . . has had such a careful preparation for carrying out the duties of the presidency if that duty should ever fall upon him."), he outlined, in a rambling speech delivered from notes, four Republican objectives: 1) arouse in the American people a consciousness of all that is at stake in this election; 2) convince them that their best hopes for the future lie with the Republican Party; 3) make converts to the cause; 4) build registration and get out the vote.

Maine's election results reminded him of the unexpected German attack that launched the battle of Kasserine Pass. "We took a real beating before we recovered ourselves, [and] never again did you find American troops casually sitting on the side of a hill and assuming that the Germans wouldn't attack at 2 a.m. From that time on they were real soldiers. I think maybe Maine has a lesson in it."

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