National Affairs: The General's Lady

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For the benefit of U.S. citizens who are about to see the wife of General Eisenhower for the first time next week as a prospective First Lady, an officer at SHAPE in Paris gives an estimate: "Take an average pretty Iowa girl, transplant her to Colorado, give her parents enough money to take winter holidays, let her bump around the world with the Army, give her a modified Lillian Gish hairdo complete with bangs, and that's Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower." A friend added: "Mamie doesn't change much, but that's the reason for Mamie's charm. Mamie won't be an Eleanor. She isn't a girl who wants publicity. I don't think she's ever made a speech. In a way, she'd just as soon go back to Denver or the general's farm at Gettysburg. Just the same, Mamie will never be stuffy."

How to Buy a Hat. It was a point on which many another of Mamie Eisenhower's friends gave testimony. To illustrate, more than one of them recalled a Washington banquet for General George Marshall at which Ambassador Joseph C. Grew served as toastmaster. Amid one burst of emotional oratory, Grew's tongue slipped: General Marshall, he said, wanted nothing more than to retire to Leesburg with Mrs. Eisenhower. Flustered, as the room rang with laughter, the ambassador halted to apologize "to the general." Smiled Mamie: "Which general?"

On the record, Mamie Eisenhower is not a woman to be awed by fame, but neither is she the sort who seeks for herself, or strives to reflect, the fame of others—even of her husband. In the rarefied atmosphere at SHAPE she has seen no reason to be anybody but the same Mamie Eisenhower who was a belle in Denver (everyone said she really looked a lot like Lillian Gish), the wife of an obscure young subaltern in the 1920s (she still plays piano by ear at parties, as she did in the old garrison days), and a woman who has always managed to bridge the years with old friends. At 55, her figure is still good; she stands about 5 ft. 4 in., and her weight, as it has for years, stays around 138 Ibs.

She has been a successful hostess in Paris by acting, in many ways, just about as she did in the late 19203, when the Eisenhower apartment on the Rue d'Auteuil—occupied while Ike served with the American Battle Monuments Commission —was known as "Club Eisenhower" to their friends, and nearby Mirabeau Bridge as "Pont Mamie."

Like many U.S. wives, Mamie Eisenhower manages the family finances, and, after years in the handling of a prewar officer's pay, still has a tendency to treat each dollar with great care. In Paris, she attends dress shows but rarely buys. "Do you see me paying $800 or $900 for a dress?" she cries. If she is complimented on a hat, she is likely to say that she saw it in an advertisement in the Sunday New York Times, and bought it by mail for $16.95. She is a doting grandmother, and writes weekly to her son, Infantry Major John (who last week received orders to report to the Far East this summer—see NEWS in PICTURES). She smokes Philip Morrises and plays canasta tirelessly. Until three months ago, when her doctor asked her to swear off alcohol because of a heart murmur, she drank old-fashioneds at parties.