National Affairs: Ike in the West

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Ike's tour of the West was something of a triumph. Early in the morning or late at night, huge crowds turned out at the depots to hear him; in the cities there were showers of tape, and people sometimes lined five deep along the curbs. Newsmen on the Eisenhower Special (who stood 24 for Adlai, 7 for Ike in a recent poll) conceded they had seen nothing like it since Franklin Roosevelt's greatest days.

Eisenhower's words seemed to echo the enthusiasm of the crowds. With the difficult political maneuvering through "Taft territory" behind him, Ike sounded more at ease than he had since the campaign began.

He worked hard, going through half a dozen speech drafts with his advisers before he was satisfied. He tried to get to bed by 10:30 or 11, but his aides were getting used to having him knock on their doors at 2 a.m. when he had just thought of something that he wanted to thrash out at once.

Eisenhower was angry at Truman's attacks (see above). He jeered at Stevenson for leaving the dirty work to Harry. ("You used to read in your newspapers about a mysterious character called 'the White House spokesman' . . . Now it is the Administration's candidate who has the White House spokesman.") He specifically answered Truman on three issues:

Resources. Truman, whom Ike referred to as an "expert in political demagoguery," had conducted the people "through an underworld of imaginary devils," charging that the Republicans wanted to wreck development of natural resources, irrigation and power projects. Nonsense, said Eisenhower. Many of these projects had been started by the Republican 80th Congress, which Truman calls the "worst." The Republicans, said Ike, want to safeguard a measure of local control over the projects instead of surrendering all to "whole-hog Federal Government."

Korea. Truman had tried to pin on Eisenhower, then Army Chief of Staff, the blame for the 1947 recommendation to withdraw troops from Korea. Any opinions rendered by the Chiefs of Staff, said Ike, were military. The U.S. decision to withdraw was political. "There were some things back there in 1947 that I didn't foresee would happen," said Ike. Among them: that the Secretary of State would make public to a potential enemy the decision that Korea was not in the U.S.'s vital defense perimeter.

Russia. Truman had taxed Eisenhower with a 1945 statement hoping for peace and collaboration with Russia. "And that charge," said Ike in Eugene, Ore., "came from the very same man who only three years later, remember, in 1948, came to this town [and said]: 'I like old Uncle Joe Stalin. Joe is a decent fellow. But the people who run the government won't let him be as decent as he would like to be.' "