"Exciting My Wonderment"

President George Washington wasted eight days coaching over nearly impassable roads from his home in Mount Vernon to the capital at Philadelphia, but 33rd President Eisenhower hardly changed his office routine, indeed barely got time to lean back and peel an orange, as he went about the Eastern Seaboard on air-age conveyances. Only a few days after he okayed purchase of three Boeing jet 707s for future Administration use on long trips, he pushed the sophisticated reciprocating engine up another notch in utility to Presidents. The helicopter, he proved last week, can be more than his traffic-jumping airport taxi; it makes a fine intercity grasshopper for regular commuting.

Work in Motion. At work in the White House until 9:45 one morning, he walked down the South Lawn to a quivering olive-drab giant, Army H34 Helicopter No. 64316, that needed only 34 minutes to set him down 80 miles away beside his home-town polling booth in Barlow Fire Hall, near Gettysburg. He tore the identifying #35 off the corner of his Pennsylvania primary ballot and boarded his bird again, whisking off to Harrisburg.

At Harrisburg, Ike switched from whirlybird to his own comfortable four-engined Super Constellation Columbine III for the easy drone over to New York and his talk to the American Management Association. Since hazards still lurk in machines, the President prudently keeps the Vice President from boarding the same plane with him, even though the two are, as they were last week, landing in the same city about the same time. But in New York Ike picked up another traveling companion, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, visited with his old soldier comrade while the pair shuttled easily across the map.

Astor to Oscilloscope. New York's modernized old (1904) Astor Hotel reminded Old Soldier Eisenhower of more leisurely times. "During my cadet days at West Point," he told New York Promoter William Zeckendorf. "I stayed at the Astor when I was in the city, but I did not get a bill until after I was graduated, and the management gave me 25% off." Soon the Columbine lifted him back to Washington and more technological advance. He headed a Cadillac cavalcade out to inaugurate the National Broadcasting Co.'s new Washington color-TV studios. Staring at winking oscilloscopes and red-eyed cameras, he beamed: "It is like nothing else so much in my mind as the radar room in a big battleship, or some other complex thing that really is entirely beyond my comprehension but is still capable of exciting my wonderment."

At week's end he coptered out to Gettysburg and put in a full 18 holes of golf before the sun slipped low, and his left shoulder stiffened with the old bursitis.

Last week the President also:

P:Miffed the White House press corps, whose traditional dinners he no longer attends, by dropping in unannounced at an annual party of Manhattan reporters.

P:Patted the backs of outgoing American Bar Association President Charles S. Rhyne (TIME, May 5) and incoming President Ross L. Malone Jr., onetime Justice Department house cleaner for Harry Truman.

P:Signed the $576 million bill boosting pay for all enlisted men and officers with more than a rookie's two years of service, also setting up in-grade bonus pay for tough jobs.

P: Signed something for very old soldiers: a 20% pension boost for pre-World War I vets, plus the first federal benefits ($101.51 monthly) paid to the two surviving Confederates and some 1,500 Confederates' survivors.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.