THE PRESIDENCY: Lame-Duck Power

As the nation’s first President barred by the U.S. Constitution (22nd Amendment) from seeking a third term, Dwight Eisenhower once feared that his lack of a political future might hurt his political present. It seemed all too likely that political opportunists of both parties would declare open season on an Eisenhower deprived of a chance to take his program and his popularity to the polls again. But by last week the President had just about decided that his unique lame-duck position was one of strength, not of weakness.

The reason seemed both simple and sensible: foreclosed from a political future, he can hardly be accused of political motivation in advancing his program. “I’m not talking about politics,” he said recently. “I’m talking about the good of the country, and I’ll fight it out on those terms.” Political opponents, especially those who wear their ambitions on their sleeves, find it dangerous to criticize a President with a clear claim to serving the national interest without hope of electoral reward. If, for example, Democratic presidential hopefuls were to launch a plainly partisan attack, the President, says a White House aide, could “make them look cheap—simply cheap.” And it is from that same vantage point of obviously working for the good of the U.S., not of Dwight Eisenhower, that he has fought —with success, so far—for a balanced budget.

Last week the President: ¶ Held private talks at the White House with the Geneva conference’s Big Four foreign ministers—U.S.’s Christian Herter. U.K.’s Selwyn Lloyd, France’s Maurice Couve de Murville. Russia’s Andrei Gromyko—who were in Washington to attend the funeral of John Foster Dulles. In a pointed warning to Gromyko, Ike told the Big Four that he hoped for enough “measure of success” at Geneva to make a Russia-coveted summit conference “desirable and useful.”

¶ Sent to Congress negotiated agreements to supply nonnuclear elements of nuclear-weapons systems to West Germany, The Netherlands, Turkey, Canada. ¶ Named John Howard Morrow, 49, Negro professor of modern languages at Durham’s North Carolina College, to be first U.S. ambassador to the newborn Republic of Guinea.

¶ Changed by executive order the presidential seal of a growing nation by enlarging the ring of stars to 49 on July 4 (for Alaska), to 50 in July 1960 (for Hawaii).

¶ Led a spur-of-the-moment party out to see the Washington Senators win a close one (7-6) from the Boston Red Sox. got two autographed baseballs (one after a homer) from Senator Slugger Harmon Killebrew to give to grandson David. Ike laughed at a photographer’s suggestion that Press Secretary James Hagerty, a dedicated New York Yankee fan, ought to replace cellar-dwelling Yankee Manager Casey Stengel. Quipped the President: “He couldn’t do much worse.”