THE CONGRESS: The Majority Leader

As big & little politicos buzzed into Washington for the big Gridiron dinner, Kansas Senator Frank Carlson, a trusted Eisenhower lieutenant, strolled inconspicuously into the office of New Hampshire's Senator Styles Bridges. Carlson wanted to talk about the problem of electing a Senate majority leader for the next session of Congress. Bridges restated his position: he wanted to be chairman of the Appropriations Committee; he did not want to be majority leader unless that was the only way to avoid an open fight between Bob Taft's friends and the Eisenhower people who seemed to like California's Bill Knowland as...