"Good Old Ike"

Canadians liked his infectious grin, his firm handshake, the way he stopped unexpectedly to chat with a veteran of the Royal Canadian Regiment in his guard of honor. When U.S. Chief of Staff Dwight David Eisenhower strode down the red carpet in the cavernous Union Station at Ottawa last week, he walked right into Canada's heart.

General Eisenhower's four-day visit was a personal triumph--and something more. Canadians appreciated his direct, sincere praise of Canadian fighting men, the way he stepped from his car in the sleet for an unscheduled salute to the National War Memorial, and stood between Prime Minister Mackenzie King and the Earl of Athlone and sang God Save the King. They liked the honesty with which he said he hated war, would "devote what talents I have for the rest of my days to working for peace."

He had cracked the shell of Canadian reserve.

Wherever he went, crowds gathered.

On the Plaza, they roared themselves hoarse as the Prime Minister led three rousing cheers. They broke through police lines to shake Eisenhower's hand, thump his back, shout "Good Old Ike." A little girl cried, "I love you." Even a high-ranking Cabinet minister caught the mood: "I said to myself, brother, if ever you run for anything I'll vote for you."

Across the Border. At a luncheon in the green & gold ballroom of the Chateau Laurier, Ike put on his shell-rimmed glasses and spoke warmly of Canadian-American relations. He told how 12,000 Americans had joined the Canadian forces during the war, how 26,000 men of Canadian birth had served with the U.S. forces, how they trained in each other's schools. Cheers shook the windows as he made an eloquent, earnest plea for cooperation to keep the peace for the sake of "white crosses, standing in regimented clusters throughout a thousand leagues of foreign soil."

Prime Minister King rose to reply: "No words of mine can tell General Eisenhower what Canadians feel for him in their hearts." Canada, he said, had no Culzean Castle such as Scotland had offered the General last November, but it did have something more enduring--9,390-ft. Castle Mountain, in the Rockies.

To express Canada's gratitude to the onetime Supreme Allied Commander, this legendary home of the chinook winds, familiar to every tourist who has taken the road from Banff to Lake Louise in a famous Canadian national park, had been renamed Mount Eisenhower.

Ike blinked misty eyes, hesitated for words, said simply that he was "deeply touched." Then his easygoing composure returned. He rubbed his pate and quipped: "One thing I feel thoroughly certain of--it must be a bald peak."

None Better. At a press conference in the Parliament Building he stood, arms akimbo, as he gave straightforward answers to newsmen: "I have never compared Allied soldiers with each other. But there were none better than the Canadians." He shied from direct comment on joint U.S.-Canadian defense planning: "You as well as ourselves have a lively concern for the territorial integrity of North America. You wouldn't sit back and see Florida taken any more than we would see one of your provinces taken."

But Canadians noted the time he spent visiting Defense Headquarters, chatting with the Canadian General Staff and Defense Minister Doug Abbott. He was laying a firm personal foundation for the inevitable U.S.-Canadian defense consultations on standardization of equipment and joint maneuvers.

After a hustling three days in Ottawa, Ike moved on to a heart-warming civic reception in Toronto, a Toronto University luncheon and degree (LL.D.). As he entrained for Washington, Canadians were sure of one thing: the U.S. had never sent them a better envoy--not even Franklin Roosevelt.

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