THE VICE-PRESIDENCY: In a Position to Help

(See Cover)

In Suite 361 of the Senate Office Building, Vice President Richard Nixon was working on a bulky folder of business letters when the intercom buzzed. Nixon picked up the phone, heard the receptionist announce from an outer office: “Governor Adams on red.” Nixon pushed the red button: “Yes, Sherm?” Came the dry voice of White House Staff Chief Sherman Adams: “Can you come down here soon?” Replied Nixon: “Yes.” Asked Adams, with an uncharacteristic note of urgency: “Could you come right away?” “Sure,” said Nixon. “Fine,” said Adams—and the telephone clicked.

That click sent Richard Milhous Nixon, 44, into a week unique in the history of U.S. Vice Presidents. Twice before, Dwight Eisenhower had fallen suddenly ill, and twice before, Nixon had worked as a key member of the Administration team that picked up the load as best it could. But never before had Nixon or any other Vice President emerged so clearly as a leader during presidential illness.

Within minutes after Sherman Adams called, Nixon’s black Fleetwood Cadillac pulled up outside the White House. Nixon walked up a flight of stairs to Adams’ office (he considers the elevator too slow, rarely uses it). Adams sketched the situation: the President had suffered a chill, had taken a sedative and was sleeping. Asked Nixon: Had a diagnosis been made? Not yet, said Adams, but there would be one by morning. Adams said the White House staff thought that the state dinner for Morocco’s King Mohammed V should go on as scheduled that night and that Nixon should stand in for the President as host.

Next morning Nixon was scheduled to go to the White House for a conference looking toward this week’s meeting with congressional leaders. By routine, he would have dropped by his office first for a quick check of the work on his desk. This time, leaving his new home on Forest Lane at 8 a.m., he ordered his limousine straight to the White House, forgot even to notify his daytime Secret Service agent, who showed up at the Senate Office Building and was embarrassed to learn that Nixon was across town.

By 9 o’clock, Nixon was meeting with Sherman Adams, Attorney General William Rogers, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and White House Aide Jerry Persons around what was to become the week’s center of government: an oaken table in the corner of Sherman Adams’ office. Adams briefed the group on the facts of the President’s illness. Later, the President’s doctors entered the room. Asked Nixon: “How is he?” The answer: improved.

Decision on Missiles. There was a vast difference between the White House mood last week and the reaction to President Eisenhower’s 1955 heart attack. That first time everyone was excited and confused, wondering how—and even if—the Government could carry on in the President’s absence. Few such questions arose last week. Says Nixon: “We had been over it all before.” Bill Rogers was asked if any legal document or procedure was necessary to provide for interim administration. His answer: no. That said, the five-man group got down to business. How the U.S. Government operated last week is best explained in the work of the group’s acknowledged leader, Richard Nixon.

It was assumed from the outset that Nixon could preside over this week’s legislative, Cabinet and National Security Council meetings if President Eisenhower continued absent (in 1955 Ike gave Nixon written orders to do so; this time the assumption was made .before the President’s oral permission came next day). Pressing on all minds was this month’s NATO conference in Paris. Nixon discussed with Dulles the necessity of informing the NATO nations about the President’s illness immediately. But if President Eisenhower was unable to go to Paris, should Nixon attend in his place? Dulles advised the group that the decision should not be made unilaterally by the U.S., but should be put up to the NATO allies. The leaders of NATO answered promptly: they would welcome Richard Nixon.

In that first day after the President was stricken, Nixon met with U.S. military leaders to work out a key decision of defense policy. Defense Secretary Neil McElroy, Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Quarles, Pentagon Missile Director William Holaday and Presidential Science Adviser James R. Killian Jr. had come to the White House to resolve the controversy between rival intermediate-range ballistic missiles, the Army’s Jupiter and the Air Force’s Thor. Lengthy discussion had already been held with President Eisenhower, and lines of decision had been laid out. Nixon agreed with the preliminary decisions; the U.S. needs IRBMs in quantity and quickly, even though it means making two different models. Next day Defense Secretary McElroy announced the unanimous decision: put both Jupiter and Thor into production.

Order from Confusion. Still another problem confronted the Vice President before he left the White House: Sherman Adams and Jerry Persons thought he had better speak to the press, which was clamoring in protest against the confused information given out by Acting Press Secretary Anne Wheaton (see PRESS). No sooner had Nixon stepped out of the Executive Wing than he was set upon and jostled about by eager newsmen. “I was only a third-string end,” he said later, “not a college fullback, and I couldn’t break through.”

In the uproar, tempers rose. Yelled a TVman to a newspaper reporter who was obstructing the camera’s view: “There’s more in life than a goddam bunch of pencil pushers.” When order came, Nixon said of the President: “I am confident he will fully recover and resume the duties of his office … I would be less than frank, however, if I didn’t say that all of us who know the President are obviously very distressed. We realize that here is a man who has gone through a great deal. He has gone through two crises from a physical standpoint. He has been working very hard. It is our responsibility at this point to see his programs carried forward.”

Finally, Nixon broke away, returned to his office and the work he had left there the previous morning. “I want to get out of here by 6:15,” he said. “The girls want me home.” It was nearly 7 :30, and Nixon’s family was waiting dinner when he got home. He was soon in his study for three hours of work that his secretary. Rose Mary Woods, had brought to his house. During that period came a relaxing interlude: his daughters, Patricia, 11, and Julie, 9, came into the study to show off the Christmas-season skirts of white wool with red Santa Clauses that their father had bought for them.

Five O’Clock Shadow. Nixon went straight to the White House next morning, sat in on a round of conferences, talked to President Eisenhower for about 15 minutes, slipped out a back door of the White House just in time to get to a luncheon for Mohammed V at Anderson House. Then he rushed to the Capitol, tried to get in a few minutes of undisturbed work in his unnumbered Capitol office. He realized that he had better get shaved for another dinner with Mohammed V (Nixon’s heavy blue beard, the delight of cartoonists, was showing five o’clock shadow). He made one of his rare visits to the Senate gymnasium, shaved, showered and stepped on the scales. His weight: 166, down 20 Ibs. in two years by grace of careful calorie counting.

Back at the White House, Nixon stepped into a news conference in Presidential News Secretary James Hagerty’s office. Clearly and carefully, Nixon spelled out the operation of government during Ike’s illness. What was his personal part? Said Nixon: “My role at the present time, I think, is best described by my title. I am the Vice President.” Said a newsman: “Now I realize this may be a somewhat embarrassing question to put to you …” Nixon broke in: “No questions are embarrassing.” Continued the reporter: “Do you have any reason to believe that the President may be considering resigning?” Replied Nixon: “I would like to scotch once and for all, if I can, any rumors to the effect that the President, first, is in a condition which would make it necessary for him to consider resigning, and, second, that the President himself or anybody in the President’s official family have discussed or are considering the possibility of resignation.”

By the time the conference ended, Nixon had less than an hour to get to Mohammed’s dinner. Standing before television cameras outside the White House, he said over his shoulder to a Secret Service man: “I’m all shaved, so just tell them to lay out the tails and white tie.” He made it to the Mayflower Hotel affair almost on time, looking fresh, with an optimistic reply to the question on everyone’s mind. Passing Nixon in the reception line, Pakistan’s Ambassador Mohammed AH asked about President Eisenhower. “Much better,” said Nixon. “I saw him today. The King saw him, too. He’s much better.”

Holiday at Home. After seeing Mohammed off on Thanksgiving , morning (and presenting a “Miss America” doll from his daughter Patricia for Mohammed’s daughter Amina). Nixon stopped briefly at the White House, then went home. Pat Nixon had roasted the 9-lb. turkey; Nixon’s mother, Mrs. Hannah Nixon, had baked an apple pie; daughter “Tricia” had made paper nut holders shaped like Pilgrims’ hats. Daughter Julie had worked all morning making place cards of yellow paper, taken from the work pads in her father’s den, brightly colored with crayon. The Vice President’s read: “Be Strong Be Wise Be Thoughtful Be Kind.” After dinner, Nixon and U.S. Attorney General Rogers watched football on television (Texas 9, Texas A. & M. 7). Late that afternoon, returning from a walk down Forest Lane, Tricia wanted to play basketball, hunted around until she found a soccer ball given Nixon by an Israeli soccer team on a visit to Washington. But they had no hoop—so the Vice President and his daughter tossed the ball back and forth to each other in their backyard.

Against the Wind. The rest of Nixon’s week was given over mainly to hammering out the Administration’s program for presentation to legislative leaders. Friday morning the conference was with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare; that afternoon the Agriculture Department proposals were discussed; next morning it was the Mutual Security program. The style of the sessions was informal, generally on a first-name basis, although some officials, e.g., Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson, alternated between “Mr. Vice President” and “Dick.”

At each conference, the involved department argued its case, Budget Director Percival Brundage gave cost estimates and advice, Sherman Adams offered pithy guidance, and Richard Nixon summed up the discussions. He used President Eisenhower’s recent Oklahoma City speech—which laid down the rule that nonessential spending must give way to defense in Sputnik’s day—as a broad outline. Did the proposed program meet the requirements of that speech? If so, it was approved. If not, more work had to be done. At the meeting on Mutual Security, Nixon repeated a phrase he has come to use with increasing frequency: “Let’s not lean with the wind,” i.e., the Administration should not take the easy political way out by sacrificing vital foreign-aid funds.

Then & Now. At one point during the week, Richard Nixon stepped from the White House into the crisp night air, paused for a moment to chat about his job. “I have no new duties,” said Vice President Nixon, “but because I have been working more in the fields of foreign policy and defense, I am in a better position to help. The job changes. Five years ago the concentration was more on politics; now it’s more on the Administration problems. Five years ago I wouldn’t have been in such a position.”

Five years ago Nixon had some of the world’s most articulate enemies. They criticized him for his key role in the congressional investigation of Communist Alger Hiss, for the “Nixon Fund” in California, and for the “Checkers Speech” that he made defending himself. They continued to criticize him for the way he campaigned against Democrats in 1954. But Nixon stuck to his job, began to win respect for his diligence, his conduct during the first two presidential illnesses and on trips abroad as President Eisenhower’s representative.

Responsibility & Confidence. From the beginning, Dwight Eisenhower had given Nixon more participation in Government than any other Vice President before him. During the second term, Nixon’s responsibilities were notably increased. Example: Ike recently gave him the personal assignment of pushing both the Mutual Security and the Reciprocal Trade programs, both vital to the nation’s security. The job amounted to more than mere advocacy: Nixon was told to “develop an approach” to foreign aid and foreign trade. Nixon’s self-confidence grew with added responsibilities. He never clears a speech ahead of time with the White House. Thus, even after Sherman Adams had dismissed the satellite race as an “outer-space basketball game,” Nixon knew he was on sound ground in going to San Francisco and speaking out loud and clear on the deadly seriousness of the Sputniks. Said he later: “I thought somebody ought to say it, and I did.”

The Nixon-Adams relationship has become one of considerable discussion—and misinterpretation. Headlined the Toronto Globe and Mail last week: POWER FIGHT WAGED BY NIXON AND ADAMS. The real situation: Nixon and Adams sometimes disagree as to method but rarely as to purpose. Adams thinks of the executive branch as being able to do what it thinks is right without worrying too much about public opinion; Nixon, as an aide explains, knows that “the people run the country, and if you don’t know what the people think, you’re in trouble.” Nonetheless, Dick Nixon and Sherman Adams have a mutual professional respect, and last week, far from struggling for power, they were working together.

During Nixon’s years as Vice President, his efforts to serve and to learn have brought him into contact with experts in every field of governmental activity. One recent week, surveying the scope of U.S. missile programs and potentialities. Nixon talked to Air Force Missile Chief Bernard Schriever, Army Rockets Boss John Medaris, Army Scientist Wernher Von Braun, Physicist Edward Teller and Presidential Science Adviser Killian. That same week he surprised Dr. James G. Miller, head of the University of Michigan’s Mental Health Research Institute, with his knowledge of behavioral science (Nixon is convinced that the U.S. is substantially ahead of Russia in the field). All the time he was acquiring such knowledge, Nixon brought to the job the analytical and sternly disciplined mind that has made him, in just eleven years in public life, one of the nation’s most seasoned veterans in public affairs.

As Nixon worked at his job, a change took place in public opinion. The old cries against him died down to subordinate-clause reiterations of dislike. By last week the new feeling toward Nixon was evidenced in the press at home and abroad (see JUDGMENTS & PROPHECIES).

Working to Be Ready. Plainly, Richard Nixon had come a long way, proved himself a precision instrument for President Eisenhower’s decision, at first term’s beginning, that his Vice President should be truly a Vice President, not just the voiceless presiding officer of the U.S. Senate. Recently, confiding to a friend. Richard Nixon looked back over his career as the new-style Vice President, tried to decide if there had been any turning point. He recalled the telephone call from Jim Hagerty in Denver two years ago, telling Nixon that the President had suffered a heart attack. Nixon put down the telephone, walked back into his living room, sat down on a sofa. “Suddenly.” he told his friend, “I realized the awesome responsibility. It was not fear—you’re never afraid of a job. But the awesome responsibility.”

At that moment in 1955, Dick Nixon was not sure he was ready to handle such responsibility. He worked and worked at being ready. By last week there was widespread confidence in Washington and across the U.S. that the Vice President had worked well.