Man in Motion

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America . . .

--The U.S. Constitution

Twenty steps up to the ninth floor, 20 down: Ike trained for the Columbine's 19-step ramp. When Guatemalan President Castillo Armas arrived to visit Ike, the Washington Post and Times Herald's Eddie Folliard went along, too. Later Folliard told the press corps: "It's obvious that he's lost weight, as the doctors wanted him to. He looks completely lean. His color is good. He has a ruddy look. His eyes seem clear. He was animated, as he always has been, a man in motion . . . lean and sharp."

Down four pounds to his West Point weight of 172, Ike was impatient to get going. Reporters asked Dr. Paul Dudley White when Ike would be in a position to decide his political future. Not until January at least, said White. Even more cautious was Ike's personal doctor, Major General Howard Snyder (who lost 6 Ibs. during Ike's illness). "I kind of think a bit longer," said he, "bit longer." For the rest of his last week in Denver, however, Ike began presidential duties in earnest. He received a stream of reports on the Geneva conference and Middle East crisis, welcomed more visitors, issued more orders. Other presidential work done: P:With Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Marion Folsom, he discussed possible improvements in Administration proposals for federal aid to education, expressed pleasure at the news that the Salk vaccine has reduced paralytic polio an average 75%.

P:To Kliment Voroshilov, chairman of Russia's Supreme Soviet Presidium, he sent a personal letter marking the 38th Soviet national anniversary. P:Significantly omitting a laborious presidential task of personally receiving new foreign emissaries, his staff announced routine receipt of accreditations for the new Ambassadors of Lebanon, Laos, Luxembourg, Iceland and Pakistan. P:Through Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr. he conveyed a plea for restraint in the Middle East (see below). P:With "deepest regret," he accepted the resignation of Bernard M. Shanley, White House appointment secretary and former presidential counsel, who left to "resolve some of my pressing personal problems."

Said the final Denver medical bulletin on Patient No. 3919011, issued the day before discharge: ". . . Laboratory studies and cardiograms are satisfactory. His heart continues to show no enlargement."

"After a Summer's Stay." Freezing and drizzly, Veterans' Day dawned sluggishly in Denver as Ike arose early, scanned newspapers and prepared to go downstairs for the first time in seven weeks. At 8:25 a.m., wearing a camel's-hair polo coat and soft brown fedora, he stepped smilingly out of Fitzsimons Army Hospital, accompanied by Mamie and her mother, Mrs. Doud. As patients shouted goodbye and flashbulbs popped, Ike entered his limousine and was whisked off to Lowry Air Force Base under an unexpected outburst of sunshine.

The sun vanished behind cold grey mist as Ike followed Mamie up the Columbine's ramp. Halfway, he turned, doffed his hat and, in the raw wind, addressed well-wishers: "My friends, again it is time for Mrs. Eisenhower and me to say good bye to Denver after a summer's stay. This time we leave under somewhat unusual circumstances. As you know, I have spent some time in the hospital. Such a time is not wholly a loss.

"Misfortune, and particularly misfortune of illness, brings to all of us an understanding of how good people are . . . Goodbye and good luck."

No Bulldozing. As a military band blared The National Emblem March, the door slammed behind Ike, and the Columbine rolled slowly onto the runway. Then, blinking big red lights, it roared into the murky air. An hour later, at 17,000 ft., the silvery plane droned smoothly through clear blue skies. Ignoring his made-up bed, Ike strolled forward into the cockpit as the Columbine circled over Abilene, Kans., giving him a look at his boyhood home before lunch (steak broiled aboard).

Four hours and 50 minutes after takeoff, the Columbine landed at Washington National Airport. Beaming as he helped Mamie down the ramp, Ike waved at dozens of assembled Government officials, shook hands warmly with Vice President Nixon and onetime President Herbert Hoover, roundly bussed his son John's wife Barbara. Then, turning to the microphone at the ramp's foot, he said:

"I am deeply honored that so many of you should have come down to welcome Mrs. Eisenhower and I back to Washington. It has been a little longer than we had planned, but the circumstances you will understand.

"I am happy that the doctors have given me at least a parole, if not a pardon, and I expect to be back at my accustomed duties, although they say I must ease my way into them and not bulldoze my way into them ..."

As Ike and Mamie drove slowly along Constitution Avenue in a Plexiglas-topped Lincoln, Ike broke his doctors' orders and waved strenuously to thousands of spectators lined along the curbs. Military bands thumped in greeting, while here and there "We Like Ike" signs festooned sober-faced Government buildings. When he stepped into the White House, which seemed drowsy as a pyramid after nearly two months, Washington found its focus again. More than any other President, Dwight Eisenhower had tried to distribute and delegate the awesome powers of his office. Yet, as all the world knew, the responsibility even in ; illness remained his. His return to Washington meant that he had shouldered the burden again.

Next day, resting before Gettysburg, Ike was out back in the autumn sun, putting on the lawn, as if he had never been away.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.