THE PRESIDENCY: The Youngest Brother

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Dovetailed Minds. That began Milton Eisenhower's long career in government. Within two years, after due service in Edinburgh, Milton was in Washington as assistant to Secretary of Agriculture Jardine, whom President Coolidge named to his Cabinet in 1925. And shortly after that, along came big brother Ike, then an obscure Army major called to Washington to write a guidebook for the American Battle Monuments Commission.

To Ike, the sight of his kid brother attending White House teas and moving knowledgeably about Washington was a revelation. Milton's home on 24th Street and Massachusetts Avenue was only a short walk from the Wyoming Apartments where Ike and Mamie lived. The brothers fell into the habit of spending evenings together at Milton's dining-room table, locking heads, thoughts and aspirations. They discovered a remarkable community of interests. "We were not only intimate," says Milton, "but we found that we liked to talk over our problems together." Ike has since added: "Our thought processes dovetailed very closely." Over the dining-room table grew their lasting relationship.

Dwight and Milton Eisenhower kept in close touch with each other even as their jobs drew them physically apart. Dwight moved through the Army's glacially slow peacetime promotion list, then burst to five-star status in World War II. Milton moved steadily up the government promotion list, became one of the most highly regarded officials in Washington. Under Henry Wallace, he restored order to a chaotic land-use program that at one point urged some farmers to reduce their cotton acreage, urged others to increase it. At the start of World War II, he was placed in charge of relocating West Coast Japanese in the U.S. interior, carried out a heartbreaking job with personal dignity. At Franklin Roosevelt's request, he undertook a monumental study of all Government information agencies and their relationship to national defense, helped frame the charter for the Office of War Information. And in 1943, even while continuing to serve as a top-level Government consultant, he answered another call: he returned to Kansas State as its president.

"Which One Do You Mean?" By war's end Milton Eisenhower had achieved all the recognition he needed. At an Abilene family reunion, with General Ike just returned from his crusade in Europe, a reporter asked Ida Eisenhower how it felt to have her famous son at home. Her sharp reply: "Which one do you mean?"

From Kansas State, Milton Eisenhower moved to the presidency of Penn State, and there, in 1952, he heard from Dwight, then in Paris commanding SHAPE. Irresistible pressures were building for Ike to make the run for the Republican nomination for President. Inevitably, the final decision would be Ike's own. But in the making of that decision, he wanted Milton's valued advice. Milton's opinion: Ike should run.