Busy Beavers

Early in 1952 a small group of distinguished Americans met from time to time to discuss ways and means of persuading General Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for the presidency of the U.S. They went from there to become unofficial campaign managers and victors in the struggle for control of the Republican National Convention.

These days, the pro-Ike leaders of 1952 are meeting again, busily trying to pave the way for his re-election in 1956, if he decides to run. Among members of the group: General Lucius D. Clay, now chairman of the board of Continental Can Co., Herbert Brownell, Attorney General of the U.S., Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. delegate to the U.N., Thomas E. Dewey, New York attorney, Paul G. Hoffman, chairman of the board of Studebaker-Packard Corp.,

James Duff, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. At a dinner in Manhattan's Commodore Hotel a couple of weekends ago, about ten of the Ikemen specifically decided: 1) to encourage pro-Eisenhower candidates to run next year for congressional and local offices across the U.S., 2) to reactivate the Citizens for Eisenhower movement of 1952. They do not intend to put any pressure on the President to run, but they do see the need for what one of them calls "a movement of rededication" to Eisenhower.

The Ikemen talk, confidently, as if the President will surely decide to run once he gets favorable word from the doctors. They argue that the strains of the presidency would not be so dangerous as the frustration of watching from Gettysburg while an Adlai Stevenson or an Estes Kefauver or an Averell Harriman dismantles the achievements of the Eisenhower Administration. One of the Ikemen said this week: "I'm confident he'll run again--if the doctors say O.K. I'm absolutely confident." In any event, the Ikemen feel they must get the bandwagon rolling through the period of "vacuum" between the present and the time that the doctors turn in their final report, before the President is able to announce his decision. The consensus of the Ikemen as of now: "We want nothing to stand in the way of his deciding to run again except his own decision on the condition of his health."

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