THE VICE-PRESIDENCY: In a Position to Help

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In Suite 361 of the Senate Office Building, Vice President Richard Nixon was working on a bulky folder of business letters when the intercom buzzed. Nixon picked up the phone, heard the receptionist announce from an outer office: "Governor Adams on red." Nixon pushed the red button: "Yes, Sherm?" Came the dry voice of White House Staff Chief Sherman Adams: "Can you come down here soon?" Replied Nixon: "Yes." Asked Adams, with an uncharacteristic note of urgency: "Could you come right away?" "Sure," said Nixon. "Fine," said Adams—and the telephone clicked.

That click sent Richard Milhous Nixon, 44, into a week unique in the history of U.S. Vice Presidents. Twice before, Dwight Eisenhower had fallen suddenly ill, and twice before, Nixon had worked as a key member of the Administration team that picked up the load as best it could. But never before had Nixon or any other Vice President emerged so clearly as a leader during presidential illness.

Within minutes after Sherman Adams called, Nixon's black Fleetwood Cadillac pulled up outside the White House. Nixon walked up a flight of stairs to Adams' office (he considers the elevator too slow, rarely uses it). Adams sketched the situation: the President had suffered a chill, had taken a sedative and was sleeping. Asked Nixon: Had a diagnosis been made? Not yet, said Adams, but there would be one by morning. Adams said the White House staff thought that the state dinner for Morocco's King Mohammed V should go on as scheduled that night and that Nixon should stand in for the President as host.

Next morning Nixon was scheduled to go to the White House for a conference looking toward this week's meeting with congressional leaders. By routine, he would have dropped by his office first for a quick check of the work on his desk. This time, leaving his new home on Forest Lane at 8 a.m., he ordered his limousine straight to the White House, forgot even to notify his daytime Secret Service agent, who showed up at the Senate Office Building and was embarrassed to learn that Nixon was across town.

By 9 o'clock, Nixon was meeting with Sherman Adams, Attorney General William Rogers, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and White House Aide Jerry Persons around what was to become the week's center of government: an oaken table in the corner of Sherman Adams' office. Adams briefed the group on the facts of the President's illness. Later, the President's doctors entered the room. Asked Nixon: "How is he?" The answer: improved.

Decision on Missiles. There was a vast difference between the White House mood last week and the reaction to President Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack. That first time everyone was excited and confused, wondering how—and even if—the Government could carry on in the President's absence. Few such questions arose last week. Says Nixon: "We had been over it all before." Bill Rogers was asked if any legal document or procedure was necessary to provide for interim administration. His answer: no. That said, the five-man group got down to business. How the U.S. Government operated last week is best explained in the work of the group's acknowledged leader, Richard Nixon.