THE NATION: Second Inaugural

A Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington looked down upon 52 members of the Eisenhower family, ten Nixons and a handful of old friends and servants gathered in the East Room of the White House. It was a quiet, midmorning group, and yet the occasion was both formal and historic: since their terms legally expired on Sunday (and by tradition the public ceremony could not be held until Monday —see below), Dwight David Eisenhower and Richard Milhous Nixon were about to take the oath of office in private ceremony, i.e., unwatched by public or press.

The Family Circle. At 10:25 the guests hushed as Ike and Mamie, just back from morning service at the National Presbyterian Church, slipped into the East Room and took their places beside Dick and Pat Nixon. Ike and Dick both wore short morning coats and striped trousers; Mamie wore a black taffeta dress, and Pat a two-piece green wool suit. At 10:26 a nonfamily guest, California’s Senator Bill Knowland, stepped forward and administered the vice-presidential oath to Dick Nixon, who swore fealty to the Constitution with his hand resting upon a Bible that had been in his family for five generations. Pat and the Nixon children watched solemnly—eight-year-old Julie sporting a black eye from a sled accident a few days before.

At 10:28 Ike stepped forward, the center of attention for Mamie, his son John in dress blues, and his four grandchildren, including 13-month-old Mary Jean (whom Ike had rescued from an upstairs room to come down to see the ceremony). Another Eisenhower guest was retired Navy Captain E. E. (“Swede”) Hazlett, one of Ike’s good friends from the early days back in Abilene, who once had waxed long and enthusiastically to a happy-go-lucky youngster named Ike about the delights of a service career. (“Calm, frank, laconic and sensible,” Swede Hazlett once termed Ike, “and not in the least affected by being the school hero.”)

The Oath. Then Ike placed his left hand on the Bible his mother had given him when he graduated from West Point in 1915, opened at Psalms 33:12* raised his right hand and intoned after Chief Justice Earl Warren: “I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.”

His second term thus under way, Ike shook hands with all the guests and led them into the state dining room for coffee, sweet rolls and coffee cake. Then, legally reassured of his right to his job, the President buckled down to a hard day’s work putting the finishing touches to the second inaugural address that he delivered next day from the steps of the Capitol.

* “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.”