THE NATION: Curtain Going Up

It was the beginning of what Sir Winston Churchill might call one of the grand climacterics of history. As his new presidential jet sped toward Western Europe this week, Dwight Eisenhower was reforging chains with the past; he was the soldier returning to the scene of his greatest triumph, the popular hero returning to visit old friends. But the President of the U.S. was also moving into the future, opening a new door on the cold war’s long, frosty corridor and entering into a series of personal diplomatic confrontations that could only, for better or worse, change for years the relationship between the free and Communist worlds.

Forty years before him, another U.S. President had traveled over the same sea lanes, full of hope and high ideals. But Woodrow Wilson had promised “solutions.” In “open covenants of peace openly arrived at,” he hoped to “make the world safe for democracy;” he was chewed up by France’s Georges Clemenceau and Britain’s David Lloyd George, political heads of lands that, while victorious in war, were brought to their knees by the winning of it. Dwight Eisenhower’s journey to Europe was far different: he promised no solutions but was rather seeking, in intimate discussions, to achieve a climate in which solutions might some time be reached; he sought merely to make the world safe, period. He would be seeing Germany’s Konrad Adenauer, Britain’s Harold Macmillan and France’s Charles de Gaulle, the political leaders of lands that were once again strong and prosperous.

Enormous Stakes. In the streets of Paris, London and Bonn, Ike would encounter a tumultuous emotional welcome that should make it very clear to him that he carries the hopes and dreams of the free world with him. In the chancelleries of allies who favored a Big Two meeting, but were not optimistic about it, he faced many a difficult decision. In the weeks ahead, Ike will be playing for enormous stakes. “Why are you doing it?” he was asked last week. Because, the President replied, if he accomplished his mission and found a pathway to peace, he would fulfill his greatest ambition as President. It was, Ike said, his “last real fling.”

But the outpouring of emotion and enthusiasm for Dwight Eisenhower in Europe would not be entirely because of his personal popularity, vast as it is. Much of it would come for the nation he represents as President, the nation that through its own strength had helped Western Europe become what it is today. In his trip to Europe, in his dealing with Nikita Khrushchev during the Soviet Premier’s visit to the U.S. next month. Ike will be dealing not from weakness, but from the strength of abundance and the power of freedom. The U.S. that Dwight Eisenhower left behind him this week was one in which fear and fretting were made ridiculous by the facts of national life.

Hawaii Too. It was a bigger nation than ever before. In a solemn White House ceremony last week the President formally proclaimed Hawaii a sovereign State of the Union and unfurled the nation’s new 50-star flag. This week the two Senators and the single Representative of the nation’s southernmost state would take their oaths of office and their seats in Congress.

It was a bountiful nation. Under a harvest moon that filled the August sky, the wheat and corn and cotton were ripening, and the U.S. prepared to bring in the biggest crop ever. Detroit proudly unveiled its sporty 1960 automobile crop, and giant commercial jets were becoming so commonplace that the average man no longer turned his face up to look at them when they cast their falcon shadows over the land. Factories hummed, production figures zoomed, the economy rocketed upward toward the stratosphere.

It was a nation that could afford to enjoy itself. On terraces high above torpid Manhattan, in screened lanais in Dallas and Miami, and in cattle camps along the Mexican border, Americans grilled their steaks and warded off the heat with long, cool drinks. Caravans of tourists swarmed to the mountains and national parks. Ten thousand pleasure craft were anchored in California’s San Diego and Mission bays, and beaches everywhere were jammed. Minneapolis braced itself for 50,000 fun-loving American Legionnaires on convention bent. Almost every event seemed to draw big crowds: thousands of Chicagoans tensely watched the league-leading White Sox play ball, and in Los Angeles, more than 85,000 watched an exhibition football game between the professional Los Angeles Rams and the Washington Redskins.

Deep Thoughts. The U.S. was also a land willing to cope with its problems, private and public. Labor Day was at hand, there was a tang of autumn in the air, and the children had to be outfitted for school. The glare of U.S.rockets had mostly quieted the nervous outcry that arose after the Soviet’s Sputnik I, and U.S. missile progress was continuing apace. The U.S. Capitol, seething with the great labor-reform battle, was buried in a Niagara of mail from the home folks. Western Union’s Capitol branch put its employees on a twelve-hour overtime schedule to handle the torrent of telegrams. (Higher above Capitol Hill, workmen discovered that the Goddess of Freedom on top of the dome was coming apart at the seams, and a bronze girdle was ordered to pull her together again.)

Unlike Nikita Khrushchev’s Russia, the U.S. could thrive on its differences of opinion—and the fact of Khrushchev’s visit itself brought on such differences. Boston’s Richard Cardinal Gushing denounced all Russians as spies, urged Catholics to recite the rosary and pray during Khrushchev’s twelve-day visit. The leaders of Congress hastily moved toward adjournment so they could avoid the necessity of asking Khrushchev to address a joint session.

But despite such misgivings, most citizens agreed with Ike that it was worth a Sunday try. “I think it’s damned healthy,” said Minneapolis Contractor Don Knutson as he thought about the visit. “Whether it’s Government or business, you’ve got to evaluate your competition.” Added Mel Costa, a proprietor of a Detroit steakhouse: “If he means peace, I say O.K., let him come. If he doesn’t mean peace, the hell with him. We got to show these people we mean business.”

Across the land, Americans sensed the venturesomeness and the drama in Ike’s meetings, first with his allies and then with his antagonist. And they knew that the importance of the meetings lay precisely in the fact that they were initiated by

Ike and that at each gathering he would be the principal party—a seasoned world leader clothed in enormous and rising prestige, the President of a country at the height of its powers and on its way toward greater strength.