A Week with the Boys

"I always have trouble with bad colds," a husky-voiced Dwight Eisenhower told newsmen last week. "If I can get five days out in the desert somewhere . . . I am going, quickly." No sooner said than gone. Next day, after a luncheon chat with Italy's visiting Prime Minister Antonio Segni, Ike hopped 2,200 miles in his Boeing 707 jet to Palm Springs, Southern California's sunny sandbox. Self-prescribed for a cold he had caught in Scotland: eight lazy days in dry, hot Coachella Valley, at the comfortable La Quinta home of George E. Allen, professional pal of Presidents from F.D.R. to Harry Truman to Ike.

Waiting for the President's plane at Palm Springs were red-faced official greeters: as Ike came down the ramp, windblown sand—not brassy sun—tingled his face, forcing him to bend almost double to avoid the sting. Spirits lifted as the President received a brass putter, welcoming gift from the city fathers of the "Winter Golf Capital of the World" (pop. 15,000). Grinning, Ike brandished the putter, climbed aboard a helicopter to fly 14 air miles to the hastily spruced-up Allen home. The housekeeper, Mrs. Emmet Reed, had opened the three-bedroom stucco bungalow in jig time, adding womanly bowls of flowers. But Ike's party was strictly a stag affair. With him, besides Host Allen and Press Secretary Jim Hagerty, were Coca-Cola's Chairman Bill Robinson and Freeman Gosden, original Amos of radio's Amos 'n' Andy.

Golf, of course, held first place in the President's plenty-of-play, little-work plans. But between rounds he invaded the Allen kitchen. While a cook stood by, Ike donned an apron, broiled steaks for the boys. Though happily at home at the range, Ike gladly left dishes behind while he directed his main energies toward the El Dorado Country Club course four miles away, a tough par 72 that the President, far off his game, did not come close to.

Golfing, loafing, playing bridge, Ike found Palm Springs less crowded than 5½ years ago, when he was besieged by movie stars, song pluggers, faith healers and unfrocked Indian chiefs. This time, tight security kept away most of the interlopers. Taking his ease with the boys, marking time until this week's return to Washington and a visit from Mexico's President Adolfo Lopez Mateos, Dwight Eisenhower was serenely secluded, well on the way to conquering his nagging cold.

Last week the President also:

¶ Signed without comment the $3.2 billion foreign-aid appropriations bill—cut by the Congress $704 million below his request—which carried a rider extending for two years the life of the Civil Rights Commission.

¶ Approved a bill providing voluntary hospital, medical and surgical benefits—with the Government paying half—for some 4,500,000 federal employees and their families. Anticipated annual cost: $222 million a year.

¶ Urged finance ministers of International Monetary Fund nations, meeting in Washington, to share newly accumulated national wealth with economically backward countries.