The President's Task

The President of the U.S. came back to Washington last week, his health tested by his vacation in Georgia, his mind apparently cleared of doubts about his second term decision. Of the U.S.'s deep sympathy and understanding for Dwight Eisenhower's personal problem there was no doubt. Nor was there any doubt that the U.S. posture before the world has suffered seriously from the prolonged vacancy in the White House caused by Ike's illness. Whether Ike runs or not, he now has his work cut out: he must swiftly meet the problems that have piled high in his absence from Washington.

Foremost of these is the growing apprehension about the course of U.S. foreign policy. The apprehension was heightened by last week's furor over the 18 tanks for Saudi Arabia (TIME, Feb. 27) principally because this inept episode in diplomacy was read as being symptomatic of high-level inattention to detail. Some of the worry was stirred by eager, trend-pursuing newsmen (see JUDGMENTS & PROPHECIES) and politicians in pursuit of campaign issues. Some of it was well-founded.

Massive New Look. Specific reasons for concern were not difficult to find; they include precarious local crises that stretch from the trigger-happy situation between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East to France's evident inability to deal with her problems in North Africa and at home, from the increasing economic penetration by Communist China in Asia to Britain's recurring economic crisis (TIME, Feb. 27). But overriding and surrounding and worsening all of these local problems is the massive "new look" of Communist policy elaborately displayed in Moscow.

For the first time since Lenin's death the U.S. is confronted by a Communist ideology that moves toward world domination with a line that is meant to sound like sweet reason. Already in its first blush this is having its desired effect on some of the colonial and neutral nations, as evidenced by Nehru's warm applause for the Russian new look in New Delhi (see FOREIGN NEWS).

Immobilizing Absence. Of itself, the new Soviet threat need not unnerve a nation with an inherent zest for political and economic competition. But it is bound to cause apprehension if the highest leaders of Government in the U.S. and elsewhere fail to call the new signals. One trouble in Washington is that Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in pursuit of person-to-person diplomacy abroad, has been too busy to spell out the State Department's policies to congressional committees and the people as thoroughly as he did earlier. But a more important factor is that because of his illness the President has missed the day-to-day development of new problems, and the U.S. has missed his on-the-job decisions.

By the very nature of the U.S. Government no one but the President can effectively speak for the U.S. before the world. Cabinet officers can help, but they are really effective only when the President stands literally as well as figuratively beside them. More than most Presidents, Dwight Eisenhower adds a special personal plus to this presidential function. And for this reason the major task before him as he goes back to work is to re-establish in current terms the moral authority that has made the U.S. a hope and symbol through the long years of a much tougher kind of cold war.

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