Zestful Leader

Cheerleaders bounded and bounced in a political harlequinade, and Republican dignitaries lined up with grins wide enough for tooth inspection as the presidential Columbine III touched down at San Francisco's International Airport just ahead of the fog bank rolling over the San Bruno hills. Dwight Eisenhower, his face ruddy with returned strength and alight with expectation, stepped lightly from the big airplane, faced microphones and told why he had come a day ahead of schedule to the scene of the Republican National Convention. "I suddenly discovered this was too interesting a place to stay away from," he said. "I just read the names of too many friends in the paper, and I wanted to see them."

The simple statement told a lot about the Eisenhower of Election Year 1956; the military hero who walked so gingerly for so long in the political world has become a zestful party leader who thoroughly likes that world and its political inhabitants. Last week, by his every word and act, he proved it.

The Whole List. San Francisco was like wine to Ike. As he came close to the heart of the city on his run from the airport, he ordered his Lincoln stopped so that the Plexiglas bubble-top could be pushed back. There he stood in the rear waving, first with his left hand, then right, then both, to the heavy crowds who lined the streets and packed Union Square in front of the downtown St. Francis Hotel. His Secret Service escort moved narrow-eyed and tense through the surging, shouting lobby throng, but the President was clearly delighted as he and Mamie Eisenhower made their way to the elevator for the ride to their two-bedroom suite on the sixth floor. There President Eisenhower received brief courtesy calls from California Republican leaders, chatted with his family, retired early.

He was up early Wednesday morning, ready for anything. And the first problem was unscheduled: from Vice President Nixon came an early-morning call reporting his father seriously ill in La Habra. Said Ike: "You've got to go."

The day's regular order of business began with an 8:30 breakfast with Republican National Chairman Leonard Hall. After Hall, in rapid order, came California's Senator Bill Knowland, Convention Chairman Joe Martin, Platform Committee Chairman Prescott Bush and a string of others, including Detroit's Mayor Albert Cobo, who is running for governor of Michigan. Dick Nixon's Republican critic, haggard Harold Stassen, appeared on the sixth floor, conferred for an hour and a half with Presidential Staff Chief Sherman Adams before seeing Ike for ten minutes. The immediate aftermath of Stassen's visit: the first live TV presidential press conference in U.S. history.

His Own Strength. When Ike slipped through a butler's pantry into the Italian Room of the St. Francis, Washington newsmen who had been away covering the conventions were astonished by the change that two weeks had made in his looks and outlook. He seemed muscular, his normally high color had returned, his eyes had brightened. Harold Stassen, said the President, had become "absolutely convinced that the majority of the delegates want Nixon," and had therefore asked to "second the nomination of the Vice President."

After his Stassen announcement, he fielded an assortment of humdrum political questions. Then in one memorable sentence he made clear, however modestly, that he has come to recognize his own unique political strength. Asked if he agreed that Dick Nixon would weaken the Republican ticket, Ike replied: "Now, frankly--this could get a little embarrassing--because all the polls that I saw showed this: that any Vice President seemed to reduce my percentage just a little."

"Pretty Soft Touch." That afternoon, with Mamie, son John and daughter-in-law Barbara, and his hearty brothers Earl and Edgar Eisenhower, the President of the U.S. watched the convention proceedings on television. He listened solemnly while Indiana's Charlie Halleck--who nominated Wendell Willkie in 1940--addressed him on the screen, nominated him as "the most widely beloved, the most universally respected, the most profoundly dedicated man of our times." He watched with fascination as his nomination was seconded by eight assorted Republicans--including a South Dakota dirt farmer, a Texas mother of six, a Louisiana ex-Democrat, a Negro educator, a Rhode Island steelworker, Notre Dame's longtime (1941-53) Football Coach Frank Leahy, and Maryland's Governor Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin.

Through the roll call, brother Earl ribbed the President: "Think you're going to make it?" and "Wait till your opposition moves up on you," and "Yea, you got a pretty soft touch this time." Ike laughed: "You know, I haven't lost a vote yet." He never did.

"You've Really Got Me." Wednesday night he put on his new blue suit, and with Mamie, who wore a black velvet cocktail dress and a mammoth ribbon, slipped in early to the Republican Centennial Ball in San Francisco's handsome Civic Auditorium. Although only 1,500 of the 7,000 guests had arrived, the great cry went up: "We want Ike! We want Ike!" Almost by instinct, the President threw both hands up in the air, the familiar grin wrinkled his face. Then, suddenly, something happened. He broke out laughing, his hands turned outward, his shoulders shrugged, he turned half around and said quietly: "Well, well, for golly sakes--you've really got me." By those close friends who heard him, this was translated to mean that Ike finally knew he was heart and soul in politics--and loved it.

On Thursday, the convention's final day, the President fell to politicking with a heartier will than ever. All morning long, Republican candidates for Congress streamed into the presidential suite for individual photographs with their party's leader--a performance that the press dubbed "Operation Coattail." Ike once looked on that sort of thing as sheer drudgery. Not so last week, as he slapped Republican backs, asked about state and local political problems, assured each picture mate: "Now really, I want to see you in Washington next January."

On the way from the St. Francis to the Cow Palace for his acceptance speech, President Eisenhower stood in the rear of his Lincoln and waved all the way, hardly noticing when his hat blew from his hand (it was recovered by a nimble Secret Service man). Marching down the ramp into the Cow Palace auditorium with Mamie at his side, Ike watched delightedly while delegates trumpeted and paraded for nearly 20 minutes. Down from the roof came hundreds of red, white and blue balloons, some labeled "Ike," some "Dick." Finally, the preliminaries over, President Eisenhower faced the 1956 Republican Convention and began to read a memorable speech that lifted the Eisenhower doctrine to a new peak of intensity and power.

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