The Press & the President

Huddled deep in their paper-cluttered examining rooms, the pundits of the press, those professional diagnosticians of the body politic, scrutinized the big, double-barreled question: Will and should Ike run? The President's words at Key West were examined like smears beneath a microscope. The circuitous comments and no comments of his close associates, even the guesses of fellow journalists, were treated as seriously as lab reports. But the diagnosis was so tricky that each diagnostician found himself in the end relying on his own instincts, usually curved to his own political bent:

P:In the Republican New York Herald Tribune, Columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop reported: "Now almost everyone with access to the President believes that he means to run, bar unusual fatigue or a medical red light."

P:New York Times Washington Correspondent James ("Scotty") Reston, more often a critic than an applauder of the Administration, ventured no prediction, but concluded three pro and con articles on "The Big Question" with more cons than pros. Reston reasoned that none of the President's most trusted advisers would want to play the devil's advocate in urging Ike not to run. Stepping into the breach, Reston listed nine reasons why Ike should not run, against six for running.

P:The pro-Eisenhower Dallas News thought that the President's failure to protest when his name was entered in the Illinois primary "indicates that [he] will consent to run if he gets the nod from his medical advisers ... It seems reasonable to interpret it as [his] hope."

P:The Washington Post and Times Herald, self-classified as Independent but leaning in a Democratic direction, assessed a poll of heart specialists who voted 141 to 93 (without the benefit of an examination of the patient) that Ike could be regarded as physically able to serve a second term. "The most significant conclusion to be drawn from this," said the Post, "is that heart specialists tend to be Republicans by a preponderance of about 3 to 2."

P:Right-Wing Columnist David Lawrence argued that Ike's reference to the danger of an "unexpected" change in governments in the U.S. could refer to more than the risk of a President's death in office. Contended Lawrence: "Whenever he says he doesn't intend to run again, the news will come as a shock . . . The 'unexpected' will then develop with intensity. American leadership will suddenly become uncertain and perhaps frustrated. [This] type of change would produce far more damage to world affairs in general and to the economic situation in the U.S. National policies toward business . . . would be left uncertain till a new President took office ten or twelve months later."

P:New York City's pro-Eisenhower Daily News was irked by the "tender concern"' Shown for the President since his illness by "practically all the New-Fair Deal" politicians and journalists. "It would be a sin and a shame, according to these folks," said the editorial, "for this lovely character to be high-pressured and dragooned by callous G.O.P. politicians into running for a second wearing, tearing White House term . . . he's earned a rest . . . and sob, sob, sob. What puzzles us is that you hear no similar moans and groans about Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. Senator Johnson had a heart attack, too ... Yet it seems quite okay with the New-Fair Dealers for Johnson to work like a horse as the heavily burdened leader of the Senate Democratic majority. How do you explain that, please?"

Reading the experts, the Louisville Courier-Journal summed up: "There are some who think their ears to the ground have found certain intelligible rumblings. The great chance is that they are hearing only what they want to hear."

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