"The Best I Can"

Walking into his press conference last week, President Eisenhower stepped right into the furor growing out of his budget troubles. "Your Administration program in Congress is running into some stormy weather among Republicans as well as Democrats," said the United Press's Merriman Smith, referring to the biting Senate attack delivered by Arizona Republican Barry Goldwater. "Do you think it is possible that this may be due to some diminution of political power on your part .....?"

Ike thought a few moments, then said quietly: "I don't think that is it." To the President's way of thinking, clamor on Capitol Hill illustrated a simple maxim: "American politics is a history of a clash of ideas." But he was not averse to voicing some clashing budget-area sentiments of his own: "We have got to adapt the great principles of the Constitution to the inescapable industrial and economic conditions of our time, and make certain that our country is secure, and our people participate in the progress of our economy."

A Matter of Prestige. Was the President being shielded from controversies by his staff "on the ground that they make you mad and that, therefore, they menace your health?" asked ABC's Edward P. Morgan. With a laugh, Ike replied: "If I have been protected, I, certainly, for one, have not been aware of it . . .1 don't believe that criticism that is honest and fair hurts anybody ... I think I am old enough and philosophical enough to try to separate the personal attacks from those that are honest differences of opinion and conviction. The latter I respect, and the first I ignore. And that is the way I try to conduct my life, because I have just got one thing to do . . . my duty."

Congress last week was irritating President Eisenhower in areas beyond mere personal attack. He had been privately nettled at the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee for opening itself up to blame in the suicide of Canadian Ambassador to Egypt Herbert Norman (see HEMISPHERE); Ike tried to calm the Canadian uproar with words of sympathy. Nettling him also was continued congressional delay in an area where presidential prestige was at stake. After last autumn's Hungarian uprising, the President made outright and definite commitments to secure regular refugee status for about 25,000 Hungarians admitted to the U.S. as parolees. Warned Ike last week: "We have about exhausted the possibilities of the parolee method, and without some congressional action, we will certainly be handicapped." But on the mechanics of obtaining faster congressional action, the President mustered only a soft promise: "I certainly do hope, and I will try to do my most, the best I can, to see that it does get up in this Congress."

Play Ball. Soft words last week also met seven U.S. mayors who marched into the White House in the company of Housing and Home Finance Administrator Albert M. Cole. The mayors had a simple demand that typified Ike's budget problems, i.e., they wanted the President not only to fight for the $75 million in federal slum-clearance funds that Cole voluntarily cut from his budget but to release a $100 million housing reserve fund as well. Ike praised the mayors' announcement that cities were spending $10 for every $2 in federal aid. At the same time he lamented that the states, "the agencies with which the Federal Government is traditionally supposed to deal, have not entered this field very materially." The President said he was "very heartily" in favor of slum clearance, hoped reserve funds could be utilized to continue the program. But he made no promises to fight for the program stricken from Cole's budget.

From all indications, Ike declined to let his week's problems interfere with his springtime mood. One day he practiced golf shots on the White House lawn; another day he drove to Burning Tree for 18 holes. With Mamie and granddaughter Susan, 5, he planted a six-foot Illinois black walnut tree on the White House lawn, happily called his energetic shoveling "more fun than anything I'm doing in the office." told Susan she would "be an old lady before this is a big tree." At week's end he drove to Gettysburg, there inspected his prize herd of Black Angus cattle and attended Palm Sunday services at Gettysburg Presbyterian Church.

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