The Inside Story

Before General Eisenhower took off from Paris for the U.S., the New York Times's Washington bureau chief, Arthur Krock, had an inside prediction for his readers. "The American people may as well brace themselves for the heaviest deluge yet of dope stories about [Eisenhower's] political intentions and future," he wrote. "Nor will there be lacking the 'inside story' with details and quotes to force the conclusion that the narrator was under the bed all the time."

Last week, as Ike flew back to Paris, it was Krock himself who furnished the "inside story" that stirred up the greatest amount of controversy. Harry Truman, said Krock, offered Ike the Democratic nomination for President in 1952. Ike didn't flatly say no, but he implied as much by declaring he could never run on the Fair Deal domestic platform.

Old Campaign. The offer climaxed a long campaign by certain Democrats to capture Ike from the Republicans, Krock went on. One Democratic emissary had gone to Paris within the last five weeks to promise Ike the unanimous endorsement of the Democratic Convention if he would accept. Ike's quoted reply was: "You can't join a party just to run for office. What reason have you to think I have ever been a Democrat?"

Krock had a shocker for the Republicans, too. "Intimates of the general" say that Ike plans to talk with Bob Taft before the convention to see whether they can't reach a middle-of-the-road agreement on their differences. (Biggest difference: aid to Europe.) If they agree, then Ike might support Taft as the nominee.

Whodunit? The whole story gave Washington the political shakes. Harry Truman virtually called Krock a liar. Said Truman: "There's not a word of truth in it--that's my only comment." Snapped a spokesman at Ike's headquarters: "purely fictional." Krock stuck by his guns and identified his source as an "eminent Northern Democrat" who is "thoroughly reliable and informed."

Some suspected that the description might fit Harry Truman, in spite of all the denials. Truman admires and trusts Krock, and might conceivably be trying--out the back door--to persuade his party to drop the Fair Deal in exchange for a candidate who could win and who could heal the split with the Southern Democrats. Next-ranking suspect was Democratic Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch, who dined with Krock at Washington's Carlton Hotel just before he went across the street to visit Ike at the Statler. Baruch categorically denied all.

Gentleman Amateur. Taft supporters were exultant at Krock's hint that Ike might back their man, declared that Taft and Eisenhower were actually close on foreign policy and Ike would wind up "in Taft's corner." On the Democratic side, word got around Washington that Harry Truman was saying privately that Ike was a real gentleman and a great man--but the President hoped Ike wouldn't run because he is an amateur politician and look what happened to Amateurs Herbert Hoover and Henry Wallace.

The Ike-for-President Republicans, with most at stake, went so far as to suggest that Krock had fallen into a Taft ambush. They put their faith in Ike's words at his final press conference. "If I have friends that have been my friends so long they believe they know how I would act and react under given situations," said Ike, "that's their own business, and I have never attempted to interfere with any man exercising his own privileges as an American citizen." He strongly implied that he would never announce his own politics or his intentions as long as he was commander of SHAPE. "If the time ever comes," he added, "when I feel that my duty compels me to say a word of any kind, I will say it ... and it will be stated positively and definitely."

Un-hunh, Un-hunh. Energetic Ikeman Jim Duff of Pennsylvania had another card in the hole that he kept face down. During the Eisenhower visit, both he and New York's Governor Tom Dewey had talked to Ike by telephone from a Manhattan hotel suite. Neither would say what was said (an observer at Ike's end reported that the general said mostly "un-hunh, un-hunh"), but Dewey and Duff felt sufficiently confident to give marching orders to scores of G.O.P. bigwigs and littlewigs who trooped in & out of their suite for 36 hours. Then Duff hopped off to beat the drums in Texas and Louisiana, behaving for all the world like a man who is busting with a secret he can't quite say out loud.

At week's end, the gale of speculation set up by Ike's visit and Krock's column was still blowing. It was a good thing that Krock, in advance, had warned the American people to brace themselves.

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