REPUBLICANS WERE CLOSE TO DISASTER

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26868, 22 October 1952, Page 8

REPUBLICANS WERE CLOSE TO DISASTER

ELECTION CAMPAIGN-

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ROSCOE DRUMMOND.

th; Washington New, Bureau of the

Washington, October 3. Few realise by what a narrow marg ‘” General Dwight D Eisenhower and Senator Richard M. -?£S t ‘each out campaigning to help elect eac other rather than to help wreck each Ot TOe fact is that by a combination of untoward circumstances, lack or communication between thetwo ana personal sensitiveness, the general ana bis vice-presidential runrnng mate came within a flicker of emotion to a Darting of the ways. * At one point the question was not whether General Eisenhower was going to dump. Senator Nixon but Whether Senator Nixon was going to jump the ticket.

Little Communication As a footnote to last week’s POWDcal history-most of the events which surrounded and, mounted the Eisenhower-Nixon epi sode can now be pieced together Based upon information possessed by correspondents travelling with both parties, it develops that: (1) General Eisenhower and Senator Nixon each had only the thinnest and scrappiest information of what the other was doing, thinking, feeling, or planning to do. There was an almost total black-out of communication between the two. .. (2) Eighty hours went by news of the Nixon fund first broke before Mr Eisenhower and Mr Nixon had even a brief talk with each other on the long-distance telephone—the general in St. Louis, the senator w Portland, Oregon. "Hot Seat” Reference

(3> Ike’s two background press conferences, In which be permitted his views to be publicised but. not attributed—his view that he thought the senator was on a hot seat ana his view that the senators record would have to be proved as clean as a hound’s tooth”—inflamed the uncertainties and sensitivities of Mr Nixon and all his staff. (4) Two other incidents —one wholly accidental—served to bring Senator Nixon to the brink of a decision which could easily have meant throwing the whole election, including his own. In the first place, the opening sentence of General Eisenhower s telegram to the senator, sent alter listening in Cleveland to the telecast, was missing from the wire Mr Nixon received. The missing sentence read: “Your presentation was magnificent. The rest of the message appeared cold and peremptory because of this omission. It simply said that “Ike

felt he needed to “see you persons!!,, and named Wheeling as his next sul Added to this atmosphere was fact that Ike’s cordial tribute to S' Nixon in Cleveland immediately ah the television show was not naboSn broadcast, and the senator could hear it and did not get any report on it. It is now known that all o f thur the uncertainty of what was goin. happen, the lack of communicate, between the two. Ike's apnarm» reserve, his “hound’s tooth” and "hn seat” references, and finally his sum mons of Mr Nixon to Wheeling—both chilled and later burned Senate Nixon and all his aides.

The result was that Senator Nu™ was outraged by being, as he saw ? kept dangling on the end of a slri„J by General Eisenhower's apparent indecision add. in his view, total!, unjustified lack of confidence g, felt he deserved and should have tea the general’s full and instant backin, from the start. In this state at mm Mr Nixon decided he would not sugti the “indignity” of going “crawling" t» Mr Eisenhower in Wheeling, that ha would meet the general when it was "mutually convenient.” Laot-minute Decision At the last minute—actually in th. last breathless, hectic 10 minute before the senator was to make thi fateful announcement and leave hu hotel for the Los Angeles airportcalming and calmer counsel prevailed At that moment Mr Nixon received a telephone call from Cleveland, g was from a personal and trusted friend who was neither a politician nor a member of the staff of either of the nominees. This friend inmediately sensed what was happening and. more important, what would be the consequences if the senator did or said what he had decided. He persuaded the senator to see that the consequences would be that every black; headline in nearly every newspaper in the country would read the next morning,' “Dick Snubs Ike." with the result of a probably irreparable breach between the two and with “Ike” likely doing what some of his top advisers were arguing, namely, ask for another running mate. It didn’t happen, but it was t-h-a-t close. The foregoing are the circumstances which nearly caused it to happen and which finally averted it Mr Nixon flew to Wheeling and, though he broke down in unabashed sobs several times, he found that it was like coming out of a nightman which never existed. “Dick, you’re my boy,” Ike said.