The World & Georgia

In the warm air of southern Georgia, a pair of English setters dubbed Art and George stretched their legs after a ride down from Gettysburg, Pa., and sniffed curiously at the Southland smells. In Washington, clearing his desk in anticipation of two weeks of quail hunting, golf and bridge, the setters' master sniffed now and again in anticipation of a vacation in the same Southland. But whenever Dwight Eisenhower wandered, he was quickly pulled back from Georgia to global strategies. For the mood of Washington last week was wrapped around world affairs. At Ike's press conference, correspondents, subject to the tensions, put to the President some of the roughest global questions he has faced.

"Oil Must Flow." In view of lagging oil shipments (see BUSINESS), asked a correspondent, what was Ike going to do about a refusal by the Texas control board to step up production? Said the President: "I think the Federal Government should not disturb the economy of our country except when it has to. On the other hand . . . the business concerns of our country . . . should consider where do our long-term interests lie. And certainly they demand a Europe that is not flat on its back economically . . . Oil must flow in such a quantity as to fill up every tanker we have operating at maximum capacity, and if that doesn't occur, then we must do something in the way, first, I should say, of conference and argument, and, if necessary, we would have to move in some other region or some other direction, either with our own facilities or with others', but it must be done."

Would prolonged Senate consideration of Ike's proposals to spend up to $200 million for economic aid to the Middle East and stave off Communist aggression in the Middle East with U.S. troops impair this new doctrine's effectiveness? "I certainly have never quarreled with the right of the Congress of the U.S. to examine every proposal seriously, earnestly, and dig to the bottom of it, and contemplate its possible effects," said the President. But "time is important in this area because we know of certain developments going on that are not certainly in our best interests."

"Oh, for Goodness' Sake." Did he agree with a Senate subcommittee report that U.S. vulnerability to Soviet attack "has increased greatly during the past decade"? "The vulnerability of any nation is probably greater than it ever was because one bomb today can do the damage of probably all that we dropped on Germany in World War II. But ... we have in all fields of the military activity, developed our weapons, our weapons systems, our doctrine, our plans and our equipment to the point, I think, where relatively we are in as good a position as we have ever been in time of peace . . ."

Midway in the conference came a blockbuster: Was a Soviet attack on the U.S. possible, even imminent? "Oh, for goodness' sake," he exploded, "of course, anything is possible in this world in which we live . . . but I say this: the likelihood that any nation possessing these great weapons of massive destruction would use them in an attack grows less, I think, every year. I believe that as their understanding of them grows, then the less the chance that they would go on an adventure that brought these things into play, because, as I see it, any such operation today is just another way of committing suicide."

"The Grim Reaper." To a correspondent's suggestion that Vice President Nixon's assignments from the White House (as typified by his African trip next month to witness the christening of the Gold Coast colony as the British Commonwealth member of Ghana) were still largely ceremonial, the President replied: "Even if ... Mr. Nixon and I were not good friends, I would still have him in every important conference of government, so that if the grim reaper would find it time to ... remove me from this scene, he is ready to step in without any interruption . . ."

Conference over, Ike resumed desk-clearing, paused to pay a ceremonial goodbye to departing King Saud. But even before Saud was airborne on his trip home to Saudi Arabia, the President himself was winging southward to join Art and George at Thomasville. Stepping out of his plane into balmy weather ("My," commented Mamie Eisenhower, "this sun feels good"), Ike drove to Treasury Secretary George Humphrey's 600-acre plantation, "Milestone." Next day he climbed into a mule-drawn hunting wagon and to the soothing clop-clop-clop of two white mules, drove to the dry brush where the quail were hiding. And there, within the hour, the President almost forgot the tensions of the world outside.

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