THE PRESIDENCY: The Youngest Brother

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During the campaign, Milton, avoiding the scarring, jarring rough and tumble of partisan politics, played only a minor part. But once election was won, he took charge of an exhaustive preparation for office. A management-survey firm was hired, at his suggestion, to draft detailed analyses of each federal department and major agency. This sort of efficient staff work, at which both brothers excel, helped Ike take over in 1953 without any serious administrative hitches.

The Black Notebook. At Ike's side, standing at the summit of government, Milton could easily have carved out a sub-empire of his own. But in the following five years he has placed himself in full command of nothing but the job of easing the President through the toughest job in the U.S. Ordinarily mild mannered, he can be firm in dealing with those who would add unnecessarily to the presidential burden. After Ike's 1955 heart attack, Attorney General Herbert Brownell began collecting Cabinet suggestions for lightening the President's burden. Brownell carefully compiled all the ideas in a little black notebook. "Why don't you give it to the President?" asked Milton. Brownell hesitated; weeks of polishing, he said, would be required. "Herb," Milton persisted quietly, "why don't you give it to him now?" Brownell sat silent for a moment, then handed the notebook to a presidential aide.

Again, in January 1956, Ike summoned his closest advisers to a White House stag dinner. "I have called you together," said he, "to discuss a decision that I must soon make myself." Subject for decision: whether to run for reelection. In the general stampede to urge Ike to run, two guests, privately primed by Milton to present the negative side, forgot their duty. Then Milton stood up. "I was supposed to summarize this discussion," said he. "But since the opinion is unanimous, there is nothing to summarize. Therefore I am going to state both sides of the argument." He did just that—and later, in private talks with Dwight, he could throw his influence on the affirmative side, secure in the knowledge that Ike had been made aware of the negative.

In an official capacity, Milton Eisenhower has been a prime mover on President Eisenhower's three-member Advisory Committee on Government Reorganization. Among its achievements: creation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Information Agency and the Airways Modernization Board. In his trips to South and Central America, he has served as the President's eyes and ears in a critical area. "In the long view," wrote Milton in a 1953 report that has since become the foundation of Latin American policy, "economic cooperation, extended to help the people of Latin America raise their level of well-being and further their democratic aspirations, will redound to their benefit and to ours."

Following the death of his wife Helen (of cancer) in 1954, Milton, lonely and lost in the 14-room president's mansion at Penn State, resigned in 1956 to become president of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, just 4O-odd miles from the White House and within instant direct-line call from the President.