Vacation Time

The President of the U.S. was plainly worn. After weeks of burning crisis in the Middle East, the Far East was warming up, and old familiar crisis words--Que-moy, Matsu--were in the headlines. At home, the drive to give Negroes their lawful rights in public schools needed only a spark to start fire. Dwight Eisenhower, wearied by months of foreign policy, domestic economy, legislative and legal problems, was not at his best.

President Eisenhower's press conference last week was perhaps the least impressive in his more than five years in office. Asked about reports that he had told friends he thought desegregation should proceed more slowly, the President replied: "It might have been that I said something about slower, but I do believe that we should--because I do say, as I did yesterday or last week, we have got to have reason and sense and education . . . if this process is going to have any real acceptance."

Within hours the headlines shouted the word. IKE FOR SLOWER INTEGRATION, Said New York's World-Telegram. This was just about the last thing he had meant; what he had obviously wanted to say, as he had said many times before, was that Americans should exercise patient judgment in trying to understand one another's problems. Indeed, just 90 minutes before he went to his press conference, the President had conferred with U.S. Solicitor General J. Lee Rankin. U.S. Legal Spokesman Rankin had told the President, point by point, what he intended to present as the position of the U.S. Government at the Supreme Court's Little Rock hearing next day. That position was for broader action against segregation than even the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had petitioned for (see below)--and Dwight Eisenhower gave his unqualified approval.

At his press conference the President naturally was asked about Communist China's invasion threats against Nationalist-held Quemoy and Matsu. And in that sequence he was asked about the discretion of U.S. field commanders in using nuclear weapons. The President hesitated, stumbled, labored his way through 120 rambling words, finally ended by saying: "I would have to make certain. My memory is not quite that good this morning."

In short, it was clear that after his wearing, crisis-packed summer, President Eisenhower both wanted and needed a vacation. At week's end he flew off to Newport, R.I., for the second straight year, packing 135 still-unsigned congressional bills in his baggage. Stepping from Columbine III, he squinted at the sun-spangled Rhode Island sky, smiled like a new man: "I hope my golf is as good as the weather."

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