On to Washington

As Ike Eisenhower's 13-day vacation at the Augusta National Golf Club drew to a close last week, Mamie Eisenhower measured the results with a wifely eye. By week's end she knew that Ike was soaring out of a case of real postcampaign fatigue. He had taken on a deep new tan and recovered his old bounce. The veins that stood out on his forehead and hands during the last days of the campaign were no longer visible. And, most convincing to any wife, Ike remembered Mamie's birthday (her 56th) with a pink wool robe and a nightgown.

One of Ike's obvious presidential qualifications was his ability to relax easily into relaxing routine. He got to bed every night--after a round of bridge--between 10 and 11 o'clock. He slept solidly until around 8 o'clock the next morning. He was eating man-sized meals (and letting others do the cooking), yet keeping his weight down with exercise. In mornings, at noon and in the evenings, he bantered and romped with his grandchildren, Dwight David, 4, and Anne, 3.

On two mornings he tried a few unsuccessful casts for bass in "Ike's pond," an artificial lake built at his suggestion on a visit in 1949. But Ike spent most of his time out on the golf course, dressed in flannel slacks, sport shirt and the Kelly green Augusta club jacket (its emblem: an outline of the U.S. with a red golf flag marking the location of Augusta). On two days when it rained, he played the course carrying an umbrella. His game was improving steadily as his nerves relaxed. One day he broke 90 for the first time since last summer, and Ike bragged happily that he had outdistanced Golf Pro Byron Nelson with his drives on the second and tenth holes.

A Round Peg. Ike kept his business routine to a minimum. For two hours each morning, he went over the mail and dictated answers to his secretary, Mrs. Ann Whitman. After that, his two aides, Appointments Secretary Thomas Stephens and Press Secretary Jim Hagerty, briefed him on the morning news and the day's dilemmas. Confronted by a problem, Ike would think it over for a moment, his forefinger and thumb playing with the cap on his front tooth. Then he would spring from his chair, pace the floor and announce his decision in a quick sentence or two.

One morning he broke into his round of golf to greet New York's Governor Tom Dewey, who flew down en route to a Miami vacation for a conference "on Korea and other policy problems" (see below). Next day the principal guest was W. Walter Williams, the Seattle mortgage banker who ran the Citizens for Eisenhower-Nixon during the campaign. One topic of discussion: How can the G.O.P. hang on to the interest and enthusiasm of the 2,000,000 members of the Citizens group, many of them independents or nominal Democrats?

Reporters asked Williams if the Citizens could be delivered intact into the Republican Party. "Impossible," he said. But Ike subsequently issued a statement hoping that the Citizens would work "within the framework of the Republican Party," which was taken as a signal that he did not want the Citizens to continue independent operations, between campaigns. Had Ike offered Williams a job in the Cabinet? They had talked Cabinet only "in a general way," said Williams cautiously. Then, under pressure, he confessed that he thought he might be regarded as a "round peg in a round hole" as Secretary of Commerce, but a "square peg" in Treasury.

A Shot from the Hip. By week's end Ike shook his head dolefully over the accumulating press of business. "Maybe I should have gone someplace on a boat," he said. But Mamie and the staff knew he was never better (he shot an 84 on Saturday) and actually was fretting to get on with his new job. On Sunday Ike and Mamie drove to the Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church in Augusta, heard the Rev. Massey Mott Heltzel, 37, attack the "diabolical Ku Klux Klan and night riders." After the sermon, Ike's eyes glinted as he shook hands with the Rev. Heltzel. "Thanks for the sermon," said Ike. "I liked that shooting from the hip."

This week Ike will move fast. After his triumphal entry into Washington and the "changeover" conference with Harry Truman,* he will head for Manhattan. There he has an appointment with Bob Taft and G.O.P. House Leader Joe Martin, and with his own personal advisers. Then, at an unannounced date, Ike will disappear into a curtain of military security for the flight to Korea.

*Although Franklin Roosevelt declined Herbert Hoover's invitation to joint action during the changeover in 1933, they did meet twice for face-to-face conferences, exchanged several letters, and their advisers were in continual contact.

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