The Press: Wholesale Indictment

What really upsets Columnist Reston is that Eisenhower has stayed popular through thick and thin—and that the people, in his opinion, have stayed so thick. Even the recent diplomatic disasters have done nothing to impair the Eisenhower image or ignite the country to the perils of complacency. Last week, following Ike's mild radio-TV report to the nation, Reston could stand no more. In perhaps the sharpest words he has ever written about Dwight Eisenhower, Reston delivered a wholesale indictment of the President's speech:

"President Eisenhower has devised a simple procedure for dealing with his critics and his defeats: he simply ignores the critics and claims victories. The effect of this is serious in a democracy, for it confuses the public, infuriates the political opposition, and leaves mistakes unexplained and uncorrected. As a political device in an election year, of course, this carries great weight. The President is immensely popular. The public does not like to be told that its Government has made mistakes, and when the President in effect denies that mistakes were made, he no doubt helps restore the political balance. He does nothing, however, to restore confidence within his own Government or within the alliance, or to institute any review of the policies that may have gone wrong."

Next day Critic Reston followed up with a scalding satire on the President's report, in the form of a mock letter to Ingemar Johansson, recently deposed heavyweight boxing champion:

"You asked me what you should say in your forthcoming TV report to the Swedish people about the recent regrettable incident with Mr. Floyd Patterson at the Polo Grounds in New York.

"I have three suggestions. The best thing is to say nothing. The next best thing is to deny that you ever went to America. But if you have to make a report, I suggest that you follow the victory-through-defeat system used by President Eisenhower in his report on Japan, speaking—if you are now able to speak—as follows:

" 'My friends:

" 'First, Swedish relations with the United States have been strengthened.

" 'Second, the happiness created among the colored people of America as a result of my appearance there this time was not only heartwarming but surpassed by far their reaction to my last visit.

" 'Finally, as the Marquis of Queensberry once said, it matters not in this life whether you win or lose, but how you play the game, especially when economic rewards are so agreeable.

" 'I have never believed that victory and money were the only things in life, although, as the Americans say in their picturesque way, these things are not to be sneezed at. What matters is the international good will that results from bilateral reciprocal aggression before multitudes of well-heeled savages in the overdeveloped and under-educated areas of the globe.

" 'Now as to the incident at the Polo Grounds, I have been assured that the people there were, in overwhelming majority, anxious to welcome me as a representative of a nation with which they wished to cooperate and have friendly relations.