THE PRESIDENCY: Waiting

The strains of Star Dust, played by the Melachrino Strings, wafted from the eighth-floor tower room at Denver’s Fitzsimons Army Hospital. An idle glassene oxygen tent was placed outside the door m the flower-banked corridor. Inside the room, the world’s most important hospital patient rested comfortably and listened to the music. A week after his heart attack President Eisenhower was making steady progress toward recovery.

The President’s path of progress was measured in small but significant steps. After four days, the use of narcotics was dropped (although Ike continued to receive anticoagulants, as a precaution against blood clots, and Seconal, a sedative to help him rest). He was gradually “weaned” from the oxygen tent. The periods of dozing slacked off, and the President began to take an alert interest in the outside world. When Press Secretary James Hagerty popped in for a brief visit, Ike asked him how the affairs of the nation were going. “Just fine, Mr. President,” said Hagerty. “Everything is fine.” Items on the presidential chart:

Monday. President Eisenhower ate a good breakfast, his first full meal since the heart attack. His fever subsided to normal. The oxygen tent was removed for brief intervals during the day, and Dr. Paul Dudley White, the famous heart and interview specialist (see below) returned to Boston.

Tuesday. The First Lady and Major John Eisenhower visited the President for two 15-minute periods. Around the hospital and presidential headquarters at Lowry Air Force Base, an air of optimism replaced the tense anxiety of a few days earlier.

Wednesday. Major Eisenhower returned to duty at Ft. Belvoir, Va. Telephone traffic dropped from 500 calls a day to a manageable 200. Although no flowers were permitted in the President’s room, bouquets from well-wishers continued to pour into the corridor just outside (after being carefully inspected by the Secret Service). The previous day, the President had remarked to his wife and son that it would be pleasant to hear some “soft music.” So with a nod from the doctors, Colonel Robert Schulz, the President’s military aide, brought a tape-recording machine into Ike’s hospital room. For an hour Ike listened dreamily to three albums: Moods in Music, Quiet Music, and Music for Daydreaming.

Thursday. The cardiographic checks on the President’s heart showed satisfactory healing, and the doctors reduced the daily cardiograms from two to one a day (just before breakfast). Use of the oxygen tent was discontinued altogether. Ike listened to music by Bach, e.g., Air on the G String, Sheep May Safely Graze, which he had requested, and a pretty Army nurse, First Lieut. Lorraine P. Knox, read to him from the Reader’s Digest. Mamie Eisenhower’s bedside visits became longer and more frequent. The First Lady took her lunch in the President’s room, and read selected news clips—mostly editorial comment about his illness. He was informed on the progress of the World Series, but showed little interest.

Friday. The President’s appetite continued to be good, and at breakfast he asked for, and got, a strip of his favorite beef bacon. But his doctors restricted him to a rigid 1,600-calorie-a-day diet to keep his weight down. During the day two hospital orderlies lifted Ike to a new hospital bed that can be raised and lowered from the floor by an electric motor. The apparatus will make it easier for the President to get in and out of bed when he is allowed to walk. Lieut. Knox read to him from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sir Nigel, one of Ike’s favorite books. Mamie Eisenhower brought one message, from Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov, to Ike’s attention: “I just now learned of your illness and received this news with the deepest feelings of sorrow. With all our hearts my family and I wish you a speedy recovery and long life.”

At week’s end Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams flew into Denver to take charge of the Lowry headquarters, and President Eisenhower resumed his authority as Chief Executive. Adams brought with him two lists of State Department recess appointments that needed the President’s signature. With his doctors’ approval, Ike held the papers in the air and signed them. “Mr. President,” said White House Physician Major General Howard Snyder, “you only have to initial these papers.” Ike looked up and smiled. “Well, Howard,” he said, “I think I know more about it than you do,” and signed his name in full.

The day after his arrival in Denver, Sherman Adams was permitted to see the President for six minutes. The conversation was limited to Adams’ recent trip abroad, and Ike was particularly interested in his fishing expeditions last summer in German streams where Ike himself had fished, and in Turkey, at the headwaters of the Euphrates River, where Adams fished for golden trout.

The Sunday evening medical bulletin described the President as “tired,” but added that his pulse, temperature and blood pressure were normal. As the patient neared the end of the first critical fortnight, Dr. White prepared to fly back to Denver to work out a program of convalescence with the other doctors. If all went well, the President would be flown back to his Gettysburg farm in two or three weeks. After another month of convalescence there, he may be able to return to Washington and full duty.