Reflections of a Spirit

For months Dwight Eisenhower had worked out details of the U.S. position on Germany and the Berlin crisis with John Foster Dulles and his new Secretary of State, Christian Herter. Last week, while Herter carried out the plans at the foreign ministers' meeting in Geneva (see FOREIGN NEWS), the President plunged into activities on the U.S. domestic front, and the plunge was something to see.

As if signaled by spring's own lively thrust, Ike turned to with evident vigor; his color was well-weathered, ruddy; the lines that ringed his eyes a month ago were gone. In his wide-ranging week, the President:

P:Sent a sharp, unprecedented (for him) message to Congress demanding "urgent consideration and action" on three items that he had requested last January: an increase of 1-c- a gallon in the federal gasoline tax to keep the pay-as-you-go highway program going, increased mortgage-insurance money for the Federal Housing Administration, a new bill to correct the dramatic failure of the support and control program for wheat.

P:Met and entertained King Baudouin of the Belgians in Washington.

P:Turned the first shovel at groundbreaking ceremonies for Manhattan's $75 million Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

P:Talked generalities in a half-hour chat in Manhattan with United Steelworkers President David McDonald, who dropped by during a recess in the critical contract negotiations with Big Steel.

P:Addressed a science research symposium and paid profound respects to the Federal Government's dependence on the world of science.

P: Flew to Colorado to inspect the new Air Force Academy and talk informally to its first graduation class.

It was in Manhattan that the President best symbolized the nation's aspirations at the same time that he reflected the warmth of the human spirit. In an area in Manhattan's West Side slums, a group of public-spirited citizens (president: John D. Rockefeller III) had pulled together the resources of dozens of public and private agencies to plan a center for the performance and instruction of opera, music, dance and repertory theater. The President's car skirted a crowd of 12,000, pulled up behind a huge green-and-white-striped umbrella tent and a blue-draped speakers' platform. Beneath the great tent: the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor Leonard Bernstein rapped his baton and signaled the spirit of the day with Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. A rousing Hail to the Chief brought on the President himself, and then the full-throated Star-Spangled Banner. After a few other musical offerings (Mezzo-Soprano Rise Stevens, Baritone Leonard Warren), the President got up to speak. The music, he quipped, raised one question: "If they can do this under a tent, why the Square?"

The Message. In a few words, he touched the seed of the idea that is to blossom in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. "The beneficial influence of this great cultural adventure," said he, "will not be limited to our own borders. Here will occur a true interchange of the fruits of national cultures. From this will develop a growth that will spread to the corners of the earth, bringing with it the kind of human message that only individuals--not government--can transmit. Here will develop a mighty influence for peace and understanding throughout the world." Then the President descended from the stand, and with a silver-bladed shovel turned three shovelfuls of the presoftened ground for the Philharmonic Hall, the Center's first, to be ready in 1961.

Before he drove off to see the U.S. World Trade Fair at Manhattan's Coliseum near by, Ike bade goodbye to Mrs. V. Beaumont Allen, Manhattan philanthropist, who donated $3,000,000 for Lincoln Center's Repertory Theater, and who, like the President, had suffered a coronary attack. Nobody heard exactly what Ike told her, but apparently it had something to do with the kind of medical care he got during his illness. A moment later she dashed over to the President's physician, Major General Howard Snyder, 78, and bussed him heartily. Shouted Ike gaily: "Tell her I'm a Cupid!"

The Inscription. Still chipper and wreathed with good humor, the President led a pack of newsmen and celebrity hounds through some two dozen national exhibits of goods and crafts at the fair. He talked with Polish Ambassador Romuald Spasowski about Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the Polish hero who fought in the Revolutionary War. Said Ike: "I always think of the quotation [on the Kosciuszko statue across the street from the White House]: 'And Freedom Shrieked As Kosciuszko Fell.' But I can never pronounce the name [kosh-tchoosh-ko]."

As Ike walked through the exhibits examining national products, eager representatives flooded him with gifts: a hippopotamus-skin shield decorated with gold and silver (Ethiopia), a coffee table (Liberia), embroidered linen (Yugoslavia), cloisonne vase (Japan), Bible (Israel), a boxed edition of Don Quixote printed on and bound in cork (Spain), 100 cigars (Cuba). From Eelco van Klef-fens, the European Coal and Steel Community's Ambassador to Great Britain, Ike got a boxed paperweight made up of metal flags of Common Market nations. Though the other gifts were to be sent down to Washington, he said, "My son can carry this," and handed the paperweight to his aide, Major John Eisenhower. Of all the exhibits, the Czechoslovakian inspired Ike with the greatest animation. Wagging his head, he discussed with Ambassador Miroslav Ruzek the thing that had impressed him most on his postwar trips to Prague: "There were more good-looking girls there,"he grinned. "Good-looking--no question about that. Really a gang of girls."

The Tradition. After his speech to the scientists (see below), Ike flew back to Washington, was off to Colorado two days later with John and Barbara Eisenhower and their four children (Mamie had already arrived in Denver to spend some time with her bedridden mother Elivera Doud, who turned 81 last week). On the President's priority list was a tour of the new aluminum-and-glass Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs. He had hoped to address the June 4 commencement ceremonies of the academy's first class (of 207), he explained to Major General James E. Briggs, the superintendent, but because he wanted to be in Washington for the expected windup of the Geneva conference that week, he decided on an earlier informal inspection.

From a balcony in the spacious, gleaming mess hall, the President gazed at the stick-straight cadets below. "At ease," said he. "I never like to see men standing up like they are ready to shoot at me when I am in front of them." Then, as if he were reliving for the moment his own formative days at West Point, the President evoked the glow of military tradition. "If you will permit an old soldier, I would just like to say one or two words . . . Everything with you is a first --the incidents and customs that you will create, even the . . . graduation, its varying procedures . . . whether you throw caps or turn somersaults ... it will be a tradition, and people 50 years later will be doing the same thing . . . There is one admonition I would give you. Make sure you get enjoyment out of every day . . . Go to bed with a smile and remember a very fine day. And with that custom I am quite sure you will find a long, happy and fruitful life--fruitful to yourself, to your country and to humanity." Then he left them and went on to spend the next day and a half in Denver with his family before returning to Washington--there possibly to remember, with a smile, a very fine week.

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