Burdens & Bosh

All week long the White House swarmed like an anthill prodded by a two-pronged hickory limb. Leaders of the House and Senate marched in for briefings. Republican politicians filed in for dinner, and more than 700 guests came to dance at the annual congressional reception. During the week, five special messages were packed off to Capitol Hill, while the last decimal points were checked on the sixth and biggest message -- the budget (see below). One day Oveta Gulp Hobby clicked in with a bundle of charts and diagrams for the President's message on health, just as Economic Adviser Arthur Burns deposited a stack of data for the annual economic report. More than 175 reporters showed up at the presidential press conference, threw questions that ranged from the nature of Wolf Ladejinsky's past to the price of uranium in the future. At every opportunity, Democraticos lobbed in test grenades for 1956. But the man in the White House seemed to be enjoying his job more than he ever had before.

Pleasures v. Duty. Particularly, Dwight Eisenhower at last seemed to be relishing the role of political leader. His stag dinner was the third within a month attended largely by G.O.P. politicians. At each one he has clearly indicated that he intends to assume firm leadership of the Republican Party, but he has skillfully refused to commit himself on 1956.

Last week as the black-tied diners talked of politics in the President's gleaming white study, Manhattan Lawyer Tom Dewey seemed to be presenting arguments on both sides of the case. Dewey dwelt at length on reasons why the President should seek reelection. His arguments were easily boiled down: the party, the country and the world need Ike. But when he turned to his other favorite topic, Citizen Dewey could not refrain from describing the pleasures of a man who chooses not to run again. Since he stepped out of the governor's office in Albany, he said, he has really been living: into the office at 10 a.m., out by 6, no midnight crisis that must be met before dawn, a winter weekend at his farm while the new governor was struggling with a legislative program.

Later at his press conference, a reporter asked Ike if he had told G.O.P. officials that he favored a later convention and a shorter campaign in 1956. Why, yes, said Ike, if he remembered correctly, the national chairman had asked him about that. He had replied that the candidate (whoever that might be) surely would favor shortening the backbreaking job of campaigning. That brought a whole bevy of reporters to their feet clamoring for the next question. Was he aware that this stand implied that he will be the candidate? Ike's answer: Bosh.

As the reporters well knew, bosh is neither no nor yes. They probed on. Wasn't it true that Tom Dewey had urged him to run again? Well, he had read in the paper that Dewey did a lot of urging. But Dewey had described the joys of private life in terms that certainly seemed to commend it to him.

Tactics v. Strategy. In recent pronouncements on military policy, President Eisenhower had referred to the need for mobile military forces ; reporters asked him to explain in detail how these would operate. Ike refused, saying that there is no military situation that can be predicted in detail. His Administration's aim is to build up indigenous forces in friendly countries and help them in time of trouble by supplying mobile forces, e.g., airlifted Marine units.

Did he anticipate that these units would use tactical atomic weapons? His answer: Nothing can be precluded when a nation resorts to force as the arbiter of human difficulty. Generally it gets in deeper and deeper, and there is no limit except the limitations imposed by force itself. But he could not conceive of an atomic weapon being used as a police weapon, and the local situations he was talking about would be police actions. Police are to protect and stop trouble, not just to cause destruction.

Did the President consider it possible to draw a distinction between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons? No, he did not. He did not even think a sharp line could be drawn between strategy and tactics. They merge. Every expert that has ever written on the subject has had his own definition of strategy and his own definition of tactics.

Although the press, the Congress and the world gave Dwight Eisenhower one of his busiest weeks since he moved into the White House, he nevertheless found time to play 18 holes of golf at chilly (35DEG) Burning Tree. He also found time to see the usual list of visiting students and folks from back home. Welcoming citrus men, he listened with a grin while an indignant Texan complained that the Texas grapefruit in a punchbowl the visitors presented to Ike had been buried beneath fruit from Florida, California and Arizona. Said Ike, who obviously realized that there is a limit to what a man can do in one week: "Well, I'm not gonna break out crying about Texas."

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