THE PRESIDENCY: Cabin by the Pines

Purring southward from Washington through a chill morning overcast, the presidential Constellation Columbine headed for Fort Benning, Ga., and landed. President Eisenhower and the First Lady, on their way to a six-day Thanksgiving vacation, had decided to pick up their son and his family at the Army camp where he is a battalion commander. Major John Eisenhower met the plane, but reminded his father of an old infantry tradition: a good officer eats holiday dinners with his men. He would stay until Thanksgiving afternoon, said the major. He bundled his wife Barbara, their three children and Skunky, their fat, aging Scotty, aboard. The Columbine took off for Augusta and the new “Little White House.”

At the Augusta airport David, 5½, emerged, waving a tall black cardboard hat. “He’s a Pilgrim,” explained grandmother Mamie Eisenhower. In an hour Ike was on the first tee in a golf foursome. Playing 18 holes, he was off his usual game (middle 80s), and shooting in the 90s. Then the President settled down in “the Eisenhower Cabin,” as the Augusta National Golf Club officially calls the $75,000, seven-room house it built for Ike. The “cabin,” styled with a white-columned front porch and a steep slate roof with dormer windows, perches on a ridge by a pine grove between the clubhouse and the row of smaller cabins used by other members. Among the interior decorations: a set of 18 photographs showing previous homes occupied by the Dwight Eisenhowers; a painting by Ike of grandson David, his face twisted in concentration, gripping a tiny golf club.

Back for Seconds. Thanksgiving morning Ike, Mamie and Barbara went to church. Because the Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church had been torn down to be built anew, services were held in the Sunday-school auditorium. But the church fathers had carefully placed the President’s pew in its usual spot (seventh on the right). The nation’s first family joined in singing Come, Ye Thankful People, Come and We Gather Together.

In the evening the family gathered together at a candlelit table in the clubhouse’s Trophy Room, for their turkey dinner. Fruit, nuts and corn spilled from a yard-long cornucopia. Before posing with his carving knife upside down on the 39-lb. bird, the President expressed his emotions of the moment: “For the first Thanksgiving in the last four, we sit down to our traditional Thanksgiving feast without the fear of the casualty list hanging over us. We no longer have to worry about the killing in Korea.” Then with a slight quaver he continued: “My wife and I are just exactly like many thousands of other families in America tonight. We have home our son. and what is far more important than that is that our grandchildren have home their Daddy . . . We are very thankful . . . May we never again have to have our loved ones go off to war.”

Ike was on his feet, slicing turkey and spooning oyster dressing, during most of the meal, which also included lima beans, yams, squash, peas, turnips, pumpkin and mince pies. David was back for seconds before the last grownups got firsts.

Family Champion. The next morning the President worked in his clubhouse office. He telephoned Secretary of State Dulles to get the latest on preparations for the Bermuda Big Three meeting and on the Russian offer to hold a Big Four foreign ministers’ meeting. Then on the golf course with son John and daughter-in-law Barbara, Ike took a father’s satisfaction in successfully defending his family golf championship. Week’s end found Mamie, John, Barbara and the children watching the Army-Navy football game on TV. Ike was on the golf course when word came that West Point had won a famous victory (see SPORT). At vacation’s end the Columbine took the President back to Washington, where he would have a few days to polish his arguments for the encounter at Bermuda with France’s Laniel and Britain’s Churchill.