National Affairs: The Acquittal

Fifteen thousand people jammed Cleveland’s Public Auditorium to hear Ike Eisenhower on the night of Dick Nixon’s radio & television speech. Here too, emotions were wound tight, for Ike was deep in Taft country and, with Taft’s help, had been charming the suspicious and captivating the hostile at whistle stops all along the way. Ike stayed out of sight while the Cleveland audience listened transfixed to the voice of Dick Nixon, piped into the auditorium’s public-address system. When Nixon finished, the audience came to its feet cheering the empty rostrum. The band burst into the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the crowd chanted, “We want Nixon!”

Ohio’s Congressman George Bender, Bob Taft’s braying cheerleader of last June’s Republican Convention, took over as master of ceremonies. He introduced Ohio’s Senator John Bricker, then went down the list to introduce every big-and little-wig in sight. He called for a voice vote on Nixon, got a roar of ayes and a few scattered noes. Then he called for another and got a floor-quaking, indisputable aye. He called for singing and bellowed his way through the band’s repertoire. By this time the atmosphere was electric: the crowd sensed that Bender was playing for time, and that some big change of plans—probably the Nixon speech—was detaining Ike Eisenhower.

The Next Corner. Ike and Mamie watched Nixon on television in the auditorium-manager’s office upstairs. By the time Nixon’s telecast ended, Mamie was dabbing at her eyes and Ike was jumping with fight. He strode into an adjoining room with four members of his staff, threw aside his prepared speech on inflation and began scribbling notes for a new speech. At 10:30 p.m., to Bender’s enormous relief, Ike came into the auditorium. (“Here we go, boys,” he said over his shoulder. “You never know what’s around the next corner.”) The crowd roared its welcome.

“Tonight,” said Ike, “I saw an example of courage. I have seen many brave men in tough situations. I have never seen any come through in better fashion than Senator Nixon did tonight.” He recalled a dramatic parallel. “In [my World War II] command, I had a singularly brave and skillful leader. He was my lifelong friend. We were intimate. He committed an error. It was a definite error; there was no question about it. I believed that the work of that man was too great to sacrifice . . . He has gone before the highest judge of all, but . . . certainly George Patton justified my faith.”

Gradually, as Ike went on, it came to his audience that he was once again the commander, still reserving decision on Nixon until he could talk with him face to face. He was sending Nixon a telegram, said Ike. “. . . To complete the formulation of … [my] personal decision, I feel the need of talking to you, and would be most appreciative if you could fly to see me at once. Tomorrow night I shall be at Wheeling, West Virginia . . . Whatever personal admiration and affection I have for you (and they are very great) are un-diminished.” When Ike was through talking, he ducked his head and walked, grim-faced and squarejawed, from the rostrum. Bob Taft jumped up and shook his hand. The crowd streamed out; it was obviously shaken and affected by a great emotional experience.

Two in a Booth. As the Eisenhower train jogged from station to station across Ohio and West Virginia toward Wheeling, Ike’s feelings about Nixon became plainer at every stop. “He’s going to come in to Wheeling tonight,” Ike said at Kenova, W. Va., “and he and I are going to have a talk. He will come in swinging and he will go out swinging, by golly. You know that.” At Portsmouth, Ohio, the commander demonstrated the communication frailties of a campaign train. He hopped off the train and squeezed into a telephone booth with Chief Strategist Sherman Adams while they put through a call to work out details of the Wheeling meeting.

That night, 45 minutes behind schedule, Nixon’s plane touched down in the chilly starlight at Wheeling at 9:57 p.m. When the door opened, Pat Nixon and the staff left the plane, but Nixon lagged behind to put on his coat. Ike Eisenhower, who had been waiting at the airport for almost an hour, hesitated for a moment outside the plane, then bounded up the steps into the cabin. Nixon was startled. “Why, general, you shouldn’t have come out here,” he stammered. “Dick,” said Ike, “you’re my boy.” Ike had his arm around Nixon’s shoulder as they came down the steps in a flare of flashbulbs.

The two candidates talked alone in the back seat of a big Chrysler sedan as the motorcade sped down from the mountain-top airport, raced through Wheeling and drew up at the Wheeling Island football stadium. There, a crowd of 8,000 had been shivering for hours.

Higher Than Before. Ike read through his prepared speech (on the strength of Republican unity) before he came to the end and went on to what the audience, Dick Nixon and the rest of the U.S. wanted to hear. Finally, in a hoarse voice, Ike began to ad-lib: “Ladies and gentlemen, my colleague in this political campaign has been subject to a very unfair and vicious attack. So far as I am concerned, he has not only vindicated himself, but I feel that he has acted as a man of courage and honor and, so far as I am concerned, stands higher than ever before.” The crowd went wild.

Nixon sat unsmiling on the platform, his eyes fixed on the back of Ike’s head, until Ike said: “And now I give you Dick Nixon.” For 15 minutes, Nixon rambled through an excited speech on Candidate Eisenhower, while Ike watched with a fatherly smile. After Nixon finished, he turned slowly toward his seat, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, then began to weep and buried his head on the shoulder of California’s senior Senator, Bill Knowland.

The crowd started to go home, and suddenly everything was over. Ike and Nixon drove to the Wheeling railroad station and walked slowly through the empty waiting room to a Pullman marked “official.” Nobody followed. Everybody was too exhausted.