Nonpolitician at Work

Officially, Dwight Eisenhower's cross-country tour last week was nonpolitical --but seldom this year has his personal political magic seemed to work so well. Everywhere Ike visited last week--Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas and California--onlookers responded to the President's ready grin and two-armed wave with the kind of heartfelt affection that neither Jack Kennedy nor Dick Nixon (nor any other living U.S. politician) arouses. In San Francisco, a cheering, confetti-hurling noonday crowd of nearly 250,000 gave him the city's warmest welcome since General Douglas MacArthur came home from Japan in 1951. And Ike, almost visibly proud of his drawing power, loved every minute of it. Many could be heard to say that he could be re-elected today.

The question in politics is whether such popularity can be transferred, and how to go about it. The President's method was to lure independent and Democratic voters with an above-the-battle appeal that nonetheless made clear what side of the battle Ike was really on. Last week's trip was Ike's idea alone: yet the itinerary and the themes of his major speeches were carefully cleared and approved by Nixon's campaign managers.

"Extremists & Evil Propaganda." In Detroit, his first jet stop, Ike began way above the battle, though after careful briefing by Press Secretary Jim Hagerty on the United Auto Workers' crude antibigotry pamphlet (see Issues), he lashed out at "extremists" and "evil propaganda" that besmirched America's name.

But his major address, before a galaxy of industry brass assembled at Cobo Hall for the 43rd National Automobile Show, was a philosophic essay on the nature of U.S. capitalism. His major points: wealthy U.S. allies must do more to help underdeveloped nations, particularly through the United Nations; underdeveloped countries should not forget that the outstanding fact of U.S. capitalism is not its material prowess but its unique sense of social responsibility.

Ike soon took off his nonpartisan gloves. Arriving in Minneapolis next day, the President had a warm greeting for Republican Mayor P. Kenneth Peterson (running an uphill fight for Senator against Democratic Incumbent Hubert Humphrey). To 2,000 people who braved the gusty morning chill, Ike then launched into a spirited defense of his Administration and U.S. prestige, ended with a barely disguised appeal for Dick Nixon's election: "I hope most of you will come to the inauguration to see the next man inaugurated as President--the man of our choice." Ike then flew off to dedicate the new $3,200,000 Hiawatha Interstate Bridge at Red Wing, Minn., looked in briefly at the still-building Eisenhower Library at Abilene, Kans.

"Misguided People." After a day of golf and rest at Palm Springs, Calif., the President landed at Treasure Island for his spectacular motorcade through San Francisco. There, before 1,900 dinner guests at the Commonwealth Club, Ike strode wide and deep into the campaign with an all-but-personal telecast attack on Jack Kennedy's charges against the Republican record. "When in the face of a bright record of progress and development, we hear some misguided people wail that the United States is stumbling into the status of a second-class power and that our prestige has slumped to an alltime low, we are simply listening to a debasement of the truth."

All but spelling out Nixon and Lodge by name, the President then said that the nation needs "experienced and mature leadership"--not a leadership that "insists upon agitating small points to the neglect of the nation's true good." No one had any doubts about the leaders he had in mind. "How lucky we are," he had told a reception for Republican Party chiefs, "to have two such people as Dick Nixon and Cabot Lodge on our ticket in the presidential race."

To help out his ticket, the President announced in Palm Springs later that he was "going into the political field Nov. 2." Ike's entrance: a motorcade into Manhattan with Nixon and Lodge, followed by a party rally at the New York Coliseum, a nationwide TV broadcast.

At week's end hard-swallowing California Democrats were demanding equal TV time to answer the President's broadside --and impolitely wondering aloud whether the $38,000 jet-borne cost 'of Ike's "non-political'' tour ought really to be charged off as a legitimate Government expense.

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