Monday, Jul. 22, 1957
On to Newport
At 12:06 p.m. the sirens in Washington began their drawn-out wail, warning that "enemy H-bombers'' were approaching the capital as part of the fourth nationwide civil defense test, "Operation Alert 1957." Like millions of other Americans in major cities across the U.S., the President of the U.S. was ready to play his part in the nuclear-age fire drill. At 2:10 p.m., hatless, wearing a tan, double-breasted summer suit, he walked across the White House's south lawn, and for the first time boarded his new royal-blue and white Bell Ranger helicopter.* Serious of mien, the President strapped himself in the four-place whirlybird next to White House Secret Service Chief Jim Rowley. The aircraft rose from the lawn, hovered above a cluster of photographers, then skimmed southwestward past the Washington Monument, followed by four other copters carrying some 20 White House staffers, including Ike's personal physician, Howard McC. Snyder.
At 3:22 p.m. a "five-megaton H-bomb fell on Union Station," wreaking "total destruction within three miles," but by that time, reported civil defense officials, the President was "well out of danger" at a secrecy-shrouded mountaintop "Emergency White House" (one of several alternate command posts) less than 200 miles away. There, with his staff, he settled down to direct dry-run command operations under a simulated "unlimited state of emergency." One by one, the bulletins flashed in over the closed-circuit emergency communications system: enemy aircraft were striking south from Alaska and Canada; 100 U.S. cities were blasted in atomic attack. Adding a lighter note, Mamie and Ike's grandchildren arrived by car from Washington, and next morning all drove off to the President's Gettysburg farm for a weekend of golf and relaxation.
Last week the President also:
P:Noted the "amazing" charge by Soviet Dictator Nikita Khrushchev (see FOREIGN NEWS) that U.S. efforts to develop a "clean" H-bomb amounted to "a stupid thing," replied promptly that "avoidance of mass human destruction in an atomic war is and has been a prime objective of the Administration no less than the aim of eliminating the possibility of war itself. Such efforts--to which the U.S. is dedicated--are and will be continuing."
P:Reluctantly signed into law Congress' $1,990,000,000 omnibus housing bill. His principal objections: builder-inspired provisions that 1) permit inflationary lower down payments, e.g., $300 instead of $700 on a $10,000 house, on home mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration, 2) boost the Administration's original housing budget by 104% to almost $2 billion. The President noted that the added spending was not mandatory, implying that he might take his time putting the new law into full effect.
P:Received Publisher Malcolm Forbes, 37, eager beaver New Jersey Republican candidate for governor, and his photogenic family (four sons, aged four to ten, and two-year-old daughter Moira). Forbes's visit came at his own urgent request only three weeks after his Democratic opponent, Governor Robert Meyner, had at the Governors' Conference edged his way into pictures with Honor Guest Eisenhower for the benefit of the folks back home.
P:Presided at a White House lunch for Pakistan's Premier Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (see box), gave his guest two hard-to-get Air Force helicopters (paid for by foreign aid) to be used in rescue work in flood-stricken East Pakistan.
P:Passed up half a dozen invitations from other northeastern resort areas, e.g., Massachusetts' Cape Cod, announced that he will spend a work-play holiday at Newport, R.I.* "if and when" the House of Representatives declares a recess (leaving the Senate to grind on with civil rights). Sold on Newport by Naval Aide Captain Evan P. Aurand, Ike will relax at Marine-guarded, 92-acre Coaster's Harbor Island, a secluded U.S. Navy installation (home of the Naval War College and a naval training station) hard by the lush Rhode Island summer colony, will stay in the twelve-room stone-and-brick quarters of the base commander. Prime assets in Ike's eyes: an adjacent naval air station, a convenient Navy base equipped with first-rate communications and hospital facilities, ready access to a fine golf course at nearby Newport Country Club.
* Much was made of the fact that Ike's trip was the first U.S. presidential helicopter flight. Actually, Eisenhower is no whirlybird newcomer; as NATO commander (1951-52) he racked up many copter hours inspecting troops and installations in Western Europe. * Asked the Boston Globe's Herbert Kenny: "Will Ike find rapport / at Newport? / Will his temper distort / at Newport? / Would the weather dare thwart / his transport of sport / the day they escort / Ike to the seaport of Newport?"
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