The Meeting

Dwight Eisenhower watched the balloting on his TV set in his suite at the Blackstone Hotel. He was surrounded by advisers--his four brothers, Paul Hoffman, Senator Frank Carlson, Herbert Brownell. Ike was confident of victory, but he nervously fingered two good-luck coins (a Boy Scout coin and'a Salvation Army piece).

When the Rhode Island vote was announced (six for Eisenhower, one for Taft, one for Warren), he asked sharply: "Did we expect more there?" When Pennsylvania's vote was about to be announced, everyone in the room grew tense, relaxed again when Governor Fine said: "Fifty-three for Eisenhower, 15 for Taft, two for MacArthur." By the end of the roll call, it was evident that he was in, and when Minnesota switched to Ike, giving him a majority, cheers burst out of the suite. Tears came to Eisenhower's eyes. He leaped to his feet, shook hands with Brownell and Carlson. Brownell and his friend Thomas Stephens, another Ike strategist, danced around the room. Eisenhower brothers were embracing all over the place. Ike said: "I want to see Mamie," went into her room (she was in bed with neuralgia).

From her bedside phone, without waiting for advice from the experts, Eisenhower quickly called Taft headquarters: he wanted to drop by for a visit. Then Ike asked for a Scotch & water. "I want to have my one & only drink with my friends. I think I deserve one."

Across Balbo* Avenue in his headquarters at the Conrad Hilton, Taft was also watching the ballot on TV. In defeat, the man who had tried so long and hard to be President was calm and collected. But all over Taft headquarters, women workers were in tears.

Then, out of the elevator into the crowded ninth-floor lobby stepped Ike Eisenhower. He was greeted by cheers and boos. A chant of "We want Taft!" went up. The incident acted on Ike like a slap; he brooded about it hours later. Eisenhower and Taft were alone for five minutes in Taft's suite, came out together to face the TV cameras. Said Taft with a forced smile: "I want to congratulate General Eisenhower on his nomination and say I will do everything possible to assist him in his campaign and in his administration when he is elected President." Said Ike, more ill at ease than Taft: "I came over here to pay a call of friendship on a very great American. His readiness to cooperate in the campaign and afterwards is absolutely essential to the success of the Republican Party."

Then Ike went back across the street, battling his way through cheering crowds. Senator Taft, who is 62, announced he would not run again. "I'll be too old," he said. Then he prepared to go fishing.

*Named in honor of Mussolini's Italo Balbo, who set Chicago on its ear in 1933 when he led two dozen seaplanes in a 6,100-mile, 16-day flight from Orbetello, Italy via Amsterdam and Iceland to Chicago, where they landed in perfect formation on Lake Michigan.

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