THE PRESIDENCY: Homecoming

Cold wind and drumming rain beat the golden leaves off oak trees, and the great cliffs of the Hudson were draped in fog, but inside the dining room of West Point's Thayer Hotel the President of the U.S. talked long and gaily between bites of roast beef. His wife, happy too, leaned over and planted a light kiss on Dwight Eisenhower's right cheek for no special reason at all. Ike, like thousands of other old grads this week, was making that American pilgrimage, a homecoming to his alma mater. The occasion: an informal reunion of the class of 1915.*

His...