Hot Line from Augusta

To newsmen on the White House beat, Augusta in the midst of a Jordanian crisis seemed to be the wrong place for major decisions of state. Isolated both from President Eisenhower and from familiar White House sources, they groused to one another that Ike's place during a new Middle East flare-up was in Washington, not Georgia. At the White House the President would have been available for National Security Council briefings, in closer touch with diplomatic and military aides, in a position to contribute to the give-and-take of policymaking. Countering this was an obvious accomplishment: from Augusta nothing that should have been done appeared to be left undone.

The President, in his tiny grey-walled office over Augusta's golf shop, was on top of the situation. Twice a day he conferred with Secretary of State Dulles over a maximum-security telephone line. At the Bon Air Hotel a few miles away, Army Signal Corpsmen decoded incoming intelligence estimates and sped them to the office. Courier planes dipped into nearby Bush Field with locked and guarded leather diplomatic pouches. Grudgingly aware that from all this was coming a set of certain decisions, newsmen gave up on their "Should he return?" stories, relaxed and enjoyed the combination of a busy presidential week and vacation under a southern sun.

Short Game. In the vacation department, Ike's face was burned cherry red, his cough cured, his humor high, and he tackled Augusta's tough and tantalizing course every afternoon. He found his drives booming, his short game mediocre but good enough to score him in the high 80s. Evenings, in a long-established vacation ritual, were spent around the bridge table at "Mamie's Cottage." (Mamie herself took to her bed for a two-day rest, flew back to Washington at week's end to get ready for a heavy social week.)

Twice during the week high-level aides flew south to see the President, but under oddly different circumstances. Flying in for a 90-minute conference on the labor racketeering mess exposed by the Senate's McClellan committee hearings, Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell got red-carpet treatment. With Ike's approval Mitchell will throw the Administration's weight behind: 1) passage of legislation (which Ike has already requested three times) that would require union pension- and welfare-fund statements to be filed with the Justice Department and made public; 2) a move to seek congressional authorization for the Labor Department to make public the 38,000 union financial statements filed each year under a Taft-Hartley provision. Predicted Mitchell: "The labor movement will emerge from this period of trial stronger and cleaner and more responsive to the welfare of its members than ever before."

Sharp Eye. Unlike Mitchell, Disarmament Assistant Harold Stassen was hustled in and out of Augusta like an un predictable relative. Arriving one night to report on his London disarmament talks, Stassen was met at Bush Field by Press Secretary Jim Hagerty, had dinner under Hagerty's hawk-sharp eye, was tucked into bed by Hagerty, while newsmen got the red light when they asked for interviews. Next day Stassen was taken by Hagerty to see Ike, then by Hagerty directly to his plane. A statement on his 75-minute conference with Ike was read--by Hagerty--who explained Harold's unusual silence: since the London talks are continuing, nothing can be discussed yet. But newsmen thought they knew another good reason: on previous occasions Stassen news conferences have turned to domestic politics and evoked some impolitic remarks by Childe Harold.

Last week the President also: P: Decided to take a two-day cruise next month on the spanking-new 60,000-ton Saratoga to observe simultaneous launching and landing, operations aboard the angled-deck carrier, latest of the Forrestal class. Another reason for the trip: to point up the Navy's current show-the-flag role and the potency of its air arm. P: Ordered an inquiry into what can become a touchy political issue: whether, as Office of Defense Mobilization Director Gordon Gray suggested last week, a rise in crude-oil imports represents a threat to national security. Some U.S. companies that produce only domestic oil have complained that the jump in imports--from a recommended 10% of total domestic production to 17.4% during this year--is a security threat: i.e., too much reliance is placed on overseas sources of petroleum that would be cut off in wartime; too little incentive is generated for exploring for new U.S. fields. But lower imports may raise prices for U.S. consumers, affect the economies of friendly oil-producing nations.

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