The Korean Trip

In the starlit stillness of 5:30 a.m., a lonely New York policeman stamped his feet and tried to beat off the chill as he stood watch outside Ike Eisenhower's upper Manhattan residence at 60 Morningside Drive. A black Cadillac limousine rolled through the empty streets and pulled up at the curb. Two U.S. Secret Service men got out. One walked up to the cop, chatted with him and drew him away from the door. The other slipped inside. A moment later, with the cop's back turned, a quick striding man, with his felt hat drawn low and the collar of his camel's-hair coat turned up, hurried out of the house and into the limousine. Then the two agents hopped in, and the Cadillac pulled away into the night.

Ike Eisenhower was on his way to Korea, muffled in the most elaborate cloak of security the U.S. Secret Service could stitch together. As his car rolled toward Mitchel Air Force Base, the rest of his party materialized from their quiet "fadeaways" from everyday life. The three reporters assigned to the trip met at Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station, then headed out for Long Island with the Secret Service in charge. Ike's Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson strolled slowly out of the Waldorf-Astoria without any luggage, took a cab to the southeast corner of 58th Street and Fifth Avenue. He waited only a moment before a sedan picked him up and whisked him toward Mitchel Field. There crewmen worked rapidly around two Constellations.

One by one, Ike's guests and staff tramped aboard his plane. There was his old friend and West Point classmate, General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Ike's Defense Secretary Wilson, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Major General Wilton B. Persons (ret.); and James Rowley, chief of the White House Secret Service detail. Ike swung up the ladder with a greeting to all hands, and at 5:55 a.m. his Constellation took off. Ten minutes later the press plane followed. Both planes carried double crews.

Who's That Guy? From New York, the two Constellations hopped nonstop to San Francisco, then to Honolulu, then to Midway Island. They traveled under false identification and flight numbers; over water, they were never more than 100 miles from a ship or another plane. During the fuel stops, nobody was allowed to get off. Beyond Midway, the press plane developed engine trouble. When it messaged its plight to Ike's plane, security permitted only a cold response of "message received." The press plane limped into Wake Island for repairs. Ike went on to Iwo Jima, landed in time for an evening pilgrimage to the Marine Corps' famed battle monument on Mount Suribachi.

When the press contingent caught up with Ike in the morning, photographers begged him to repeat his trip to Suribachi. He agreed. On the way out, the official party transferred from a Chevrolet sedan to a jeep for the last steep part of the climb. Said Charlie Wilson, soon to resign as president of General Motors: "Why are we changing to the jeep?" Replied the driver: "That hill's too steep for the Chevrolet to make it." "Are you sure?" pressed Wilson. "I'm damned sure, sir," said the driver. When Wilson was gone, the G.I. snorted: "Who's that guy?" "Why," said Herb Brownell with delight, "he's the man who makes Chevrolets." The driver swallowed. "Oh, lordy, I put my foot in my mouth, didn't I?"

Brass in the Laundry. Just after 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the two Constellations put down on an icy runway at a little-used field outside Seoul. Only a bird colonel was on hand for the reception: G-2 had learned that 135 Communist agents had recently slipped into Seoul, feared that a reception by high brass might be a tipoff to Ike's arrival. Ike, bundled in an overcoat, climbed into a sedan and the convoy rolled quietly into Seoul through the windy, subfreezing (18DEG) night. When his car pulled up at Eighth Army headquarters, U.N. Commander Mark Clark and the Eighth Army's James Van Fleet stepped out of the shadows for a handshake and an old friends' greeting. Then they hustled Ike inside for a turkey sandwich, a cup of hot chocolate and a bull session.

That night Omar Bradley slept in Van Fleet's room, which faced on the street. Ike--on the insistence of the Secret Service--slept in a room off the street and facing the compound. And four-starred Jim Van Fleet, outranked all around, moved to an Army cot in the laundry.

They awoke to a clear, bitter-cold Wednesday. Ike put on his old battle jacket--with no rank insigne, but still sporting the flaming-sword shoulder patch of SHAPE --and wool Army trousers, then added a fur-lined Army field parka and a pile hat. First, he flew off in a little L19 Cessna for a look at the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing (where he asked about the capabilities of MIGs), then on to a briefing at the 1st Marine Division's command post, six miles from the front and well within ground-shaking distance of Marine artillery and aerial rocket fire. In the afternoon, he arrived at I Corps headquarters, put on his gold braid NATO overseas cap to take a salute from the shivering troops of 15 U.N. nations. Finally that night Ike got a little time alone with his son, Major John Eisenhower of the 3rd Infantry Division, who was detached from his unit to serve as Ike's aide during the Korean trip. Grandfather Eisenhower passed along the latest reports on John's three youngsters, and confided that he had bought John's wife a fur coat for Christmas.

Many Ikes. The next two days--Thursday and Friday--were packed tight with briefings and conferences. Ike the strategist got up for an 8 a.m. talk with Major General William Chase, the U.S. military adviser to the Chinese Nationalists on Formosa. Said Chase later: "I frankly think he learned more about the situation in Formosa than he'd heard before." Ike the world-soldier stopped by to see an old friend, Britain's Major General M. M. Alston-Roberts-West (said West later: "He knew as much about my division and what it has on the line as I did myself"). Ike the President-elect told South Korea's General Chung Il Kwon: "As far as I'm-concerned, you ROKs are going to be a lot bigger & better." Ike the general visited an Army mobile hospital and chatted briefly with the patients.

It was Ike the old soldier who hunted up his old outfit, the 15th Infantry, in which he served as a lieutenant colonel at Fort Lewis, Wash, more than twelve years ago. He stood in the chow line of B Company, 1st Battalion, then sat down on an old ammunition box with three G.I.s to eat pork chops and sauerkraut off a plastic plate. They chatted about the news--Ike freely, the enlisted men with awe at their guest--and Ike made a surprising confession: "I don't read the papers," he said. "I wait until they come out and tell me. If it is bad enough, I'll hear of it." When a messenger came down to invite Ike to join the other generals in a tent, he said: "You mean all the brass is in there? O.K., but is it all right if I bring my friends along?" It was and he did.

Ike the diplomat caught one last hot potato. During his visit, he met three times with South Korea's President Syngman Rhee (and publicly said that Rhee "shows every qualification of a great leader"). But on Ike's last crowded afternoon, Rhee's agents buzzed around headquarters insisting that Rhee would lose face if Ike did not pay a return call on the presidential mansion. The Secret Service was against going about in Seoul, but finally Ike gave in, and changed his schedule. Back in his rooms within an hour, he packed up, left a $20 tip for Suzy, Van Fleet's Korean maid (who said later that she still thinks Cardinal Spellman the nicest American), and said goodbye all around. At 8:01 p.m., just three days after his arrival, Ike's planes took off for Guam.

An hour later, the Army released the story of his trip.

"No Panaceas." What did Ike get out of his trip to Korea? He tried to give an off-the-cuff summary to 125 correspondents who crowded into the Eighth Army's war room for a press conference on his last day. Said he: "We have no panaceas, no trick ways of settling any problems . . . How difficult it seems to be in a war of this kind to work out a plan that would bring a positive and definite victory without possibly running the grave risk of enlarging the war. There are many limitations in a war of this kind, but this much is certain: here we are realizing that freedom is an indivisible thing . . . We are all here to see it through. Much can be done, in my opinion, to improve our position. Much will be done."

Some correspondents were miffed because Eisenhower allowed no questions; many tried hard to read hard promises and plans into his statement (e.g., Ike will not extend the war to China), but the readings were premature because Ike himself had not had time to digest the enormous mass of facts accumulated on his trip. The only substantial gleaning was the news that in Korea the commanders had urged him to:

P: Reinforce the ROKs and send more American troops.

P: Attack the Communists by land and sea.

P: Keep U.S. forces in the front line until the Reds have been pushed farther back.

P: Only then consider U.S. troop withdrawals.

Ike kept his feelings to himself as he flew toward Guam. At Guam, he, Wilson, Brownell and the correspondents left the planes and boarded the Navy's U.S.S. Helena, a heavy cruiser, for the trip back to Pearl Harbor. The Helena's wireless crackled, and when the cruiser hove to off Wake Island, a helicopter brought aboard Ike's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Treasury Secretary George Humphrey, Interior Secretary Douglas McKay, General Lucius Clay, Budget Man Joe Dodge, Emmet Hughes, campaign speechwriter who is to be on Eisenhower's White House staff, and C. D. Jackson, boss of the Ike speechwriting team during the campaign. Meanwhile, Wilson flew off to join Bradley at the military conference at Pearl Harbor.

Ike expected to stop over briefly at Pacific Fleet headquarters at Pearl Harbor, then fly on home to close the circle of a 22,000-mile journey without precedent in U.S. history.

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