Frank & Forceful

Unexpectedly, Dwight Eisenhower has become a master of the press-conference technique. Clear, frank and forceful, he is turning these conferences into educational sessions from which the public can learn a lot about the President's mind and the nation's business.

Without waiting for a question, the President began his conference last week by stepping up to the big topic: Does the U.S. think that the shooting down of U.S. planes means anything ominous about relations with Malenkov's Russia? He doesn't see anything different from the attacks of the past, Eisenhower said. As to the changeover in the Kremlin itself, he said, there has been, as you know, an expression of an intention to seek peace. They will never be met less than halfway, the President continued, because the purpose of this Administration will forever be to seek peace by every honorable and decent means.

Maine Newshen May Craig noted that the President had referred in a recent speech to the "Korean war." Asked May: "Is that a manner of speaking or do you differ from Mr. Truman, who always called it a police action?" Said Ike: It could be his upbringing, but when you see American soldiers, called out under a draft, suffering casualties in the numbers they have been suffering, it must be called a war as far as he is concerned.

Clausewitz, the President continued, knew 150 years ago there are various kinds of war. Some were police actions, and others would get to be complicated. So far as he is concerned, said the President, Korea is a war--a particular kind of war.

Referring to the threat of Illinois' Harold Velde of the House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate churchmen (TIME, March 23), a reporter asked: "Are you in favor of the Federal Government, through the Congress of the U.S., investigating Communism in the churches?" The President paused thoughtfully for a moment, rubbed his chin, and replied: If our churches--which certainly should be the greatest possible opponent of Communism--need investigation, then we had better take a new look and go far beyond investigation of the churches in our country. The church, with its testimony of the existence of an Almighty God, is the last thing that would be preaching, teaching or tolerating Communism, so therefore he could see no possible good to be accomplished by questioning the loyalty of our churches.

The President declined to back a proposal made by California's Senator Bill Knowland to name Russia as an aggressor in Korea. When a reporter mentioned Joe McCarthy's opposition to Charles ("Chip") Bohlen as ambassador to Moscow, Eisenhower backed Bohlen's nomination. He went on record against New York's Daniel Reed on a tax cut, and against Senator John W. Bricker's proposed constitutional amendment to limit the treatymaking power.

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