Artful Dodger

Artful Dodger When White House jester George Allen saw an Eisenhower-for-President story in the papers, he lost no time writing his good friend Ike a little note: "How does it feel to be a presidential candidate?" Ike merely scrawled across the bottom of Allen's note: "Baloney! . . . . I furiously object to the word 'candidate.' I ain't and won't be." That was in 1943, Ike was in England, and D-day was still eight months away.

But by last week the Eisenhower bandwagon, having been given a pull here and a push there, was beginning to roll. "Ike for President" buttons were sprouting in growing numbers. George Allen, whose first loyalty is to Harry Truman, was anxiously stamping out rumors that he had his shoulder to the wheel, that he was even starting to work on an Eisenhower campaign fund. Then, on the day before New Year's, while General Ike was vacationing in Florida with his wife, Cissie Patterson's Washington Times Herald--which likes a sensation--gave the wagon a hefty shove.

Under a splashing eight-column headline it reported that Ike had told fishing companions he was ready for a draft call. The Times Herald quoted Ike: "I will run for President if the people of the country want me to run."

Angrily Ike tried to slam on the brakes. Said he to a Florida newsman: "You know it's a lie. I never said anything of the kind." But then his foot slipped on the pedal. His next words sounded more like a dodge than an answer: "A man with no party affiliation could not even discuss running for President."

Three days later, he sounded even less convincing. On an inspection trip to the Pratt General Hospital at Coral Gables, he said that talk of his political future "is not good for the great organization I command."

Neither were Ike's denials good enough to convince skeptical Democratic and Republican politicos. Until they got a more emphatic brushoff, the professionals would lump him in with such other artful dodgers as Bob Taft, Tom Dewey and Harry Truman.

"We Reject"

Not all members of the U.S. political Left were impressed by the gleaming pink fac,ade of Henry Wallace's hybrid Progressive Citizens of America (TIME, Jan. 6). In Washington last week 150-odd intellectuals, labor leaders and New Deal disciples got together to form a new organization of their own. They had been called together by the Union for Democratic Action, a militant pressure group of ardent "liberals."

After an evening of warm-up speeches, they went into closed session in the Willard Hotel's Congressional Room. When they emerged they had a name (Americans for Democratic Action), a bankroll ($9,-300), and a 25-man organizing committee, loaded with headline names: labor leaders Walter Reuther and Dave Dubinsky; A.V.C.'s chairman and Rhodes Scholar Charles Bolte; ex-OWI Boss Elmer Davis; U.D.A.'s Chairman Reinhold Niebuhr; Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. (Eleanor Roosevelt was present, but she begged off serving on the committee). As cochairmen, the committeemen picked old New Dealer Leon Henderson and ex-Housing Expediter Wilson Wyatt.

Then A.D.A. issued a manifesto which distinctly set it apart from the PCAsters and other left-wingers who fear the tag of Red-baiting more than they fear the Reds themselves. Said A.D.A., with a defiant glance at P.C.A.: "We reject any association with Communists or sympathizers with Communism in the U.S. as completely as we reject any association with Fascists or their sympathizers."

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