THE PRESIDENCY: Reflections of a Spirit

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For months Dwight Eisenhower had worked out details of the U.S. position on Germany and the Berlin crisis with John Foster Dulles and his new Secretary of State, Christian Herter. Last week, while Herter carried out the plans at the foreign ministers' meeting in Geneva (see FOREIGN NEWS), the President plunged into activities on the U.S. domestic front, and the plunge was something to see.

As if signaled by spring's own lively thrust, Ike turned to with evident vigor; his color was well-weathered, ruddy; the lines that ringed his eyes a month ago were gone. In his wide-ranging week, the President:

¶Sent a sharp, unprecedented (for him) message to Congress demanding "urgent consideration and action" on three items that he had requested last January: an increase of 1¢ a gallon in the federal gasoline tax to keep the pay-as-you-go highway program going, increased mortgage-insurance money for the Federal Housing Administration, a new bill to correct the dramatic failure of the support and control program for wheat.

¶Met and entertained King Baudouin of the Belgians in Washington.

¶Turned the first shovel at groundbreaking ceremonies for Manhattan's $75 million Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

¶Talked generalities in a half-hour chat in Manhattan with United Steelworkers President David McDonald, who dropped by during a recess in the critical contract negotiations with Big Steel.

¶Addressed a science research symposium and paid profound respects to the Federal Government's dependence on the world of science.

¶ Flew to Colorado to inspect the new Air Force Academy and talk informally to its first graduation class.

It was in Manhattan that the President best symbolized the nation's aspirations at the same time that he reflected the warmth of the human spirit. In an area in Manhattan's West Side slums, a group of public-spirited citizens (president: John D. Rockefeller III) had pulled together the resources of dozens of public and private agencies to plan a center for the performance and instruction of opera, music, dance and repertory theater. The President's car skirted a crowd of 12,000, pulled up behind a huge green-and-white-striped umbrella tent and a blue-draped speakers' platform. Beneath the great tent: the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor Leonard Bernstein rapped his baton and signaled the spirit of the day with Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. A rousing Hail to the Chief brought on the President himself, and then the full-throated Star-Spangled Banner. After a few other musical offerings (Mezzo-Soprano Rise Stevens, Baritone Leonard Warren), the President got up to speak. The music, he quipped, raised one question: "If they can do this under a tent, why the Square?"