National Affairs: Carrying the Fire

About him billowed campaign accouterments: pirouetting blondes swathed in red, white and blue; hosiery, haberdashery and lollipops inscribed "I like Ike"; memos about coffee hours for Eisenhower; recipes for beef-stew suppers for Eisenhower. Grinning as he entered the Hotel Statler's Congressional Room, where the National Citizens for Eisenhower executive campaign conference was encamped, the subject of this unquenchable admiration was struck less by glitter and gewgaws than by the sudden impact of an anniversary.

Said Dwight Eisenhower: "I am more and more impressed as time goes on. Some people acquire wealth, some acquire experience and I suppose some even acquire wisdom. For me, I acquire anniversaries. Almost exactly four years ago to the minute, I left Orly Field to come home. I came home in response—very largely the response—to a call from you people—your forerunners in this same movement, your associates all over the United States."

High Prestige. Scanning his Administration's efforts, Ike found them fruitful. War in Korea and Communist engulfment of Viet Nam had been halted. Trieste was eliminated "as a sore spot." In Iran "at least the beginning" of a settlement had been achieved. Moreover, "we have not been drawn into the position of being so completely on one side of a quarrel . . . that we are incapable of carrying out our proper role of mediator, conciliator and friend of both sides . . ." In a voice pitched for Democratic ears, the President said: "Certainly the prestige of the U.S. since the last world war has never been as high as it is this day."

Still, warned Ike: "The goals we have set for ourselves have not been reached. But progress has been made ... we know that these goals are not achieved all at once. Mankind moves forward by little steps ... if we never lose sight of that goal and every step takes us one inch closer to it, then that is progress. We are carrying a torch. We are carrying a fire. We are not carrying ashes."

Scanning the future, the President saw challenges. Foremost will be "the Communist threat." Warned Ike: we must meet it "in every conceivable way it can appear." Another challenge was complacency: "It has no place in my vocabulary." To a partisan audience he made a practical appeal for help in getting a Republican Congress elected: "I think it is only logical that the people you give to me as my closest associates ... be bound to me by terms of party loyalty as well as official and personal loyalty."

Grim Warning. In a personal prognosis ending the 16-minute appearance, Ike remarked, "As you know, I was ill last fall. I can only say this; now the only way I know is because the doctors keep reminding me of it." Having countered another Democratic dig, chipper Candidate Eisenhower acknowledged an ovation of handclaps, shouts and ear-tingling whistles and strode out.