NEW PARTY IN U.S.

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28008, 30 June 1956, Page 13

NEW PARTY IN U.S.

Reported Plans Of Eisenhower (N.Z Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON. June 28. President -Eisenhower once became so angered oyer the actions of Rightwing Republicans that he gave ‘‘prolonged thought” to the idea of heading a new political party, a new book reports. The President dropped the idea finally, but his dissatisfaction with the same elements of the party played a major role in his decision to run a secon d term, the book says. The book is “Eisenhower: The Inside Story,” by Robert J. Donovan, who took leave of absence as White House correspondent for the New York “Herald-Tribune” to write the book. Its jacket says it was written with White House co-operation but without official censorship. The book quotes directly and indirectly from apparent notes or minutes on dozens of Cabinet meetings and other high-level Presidential conferences. The tactics used by Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican Wisconsin) “disgusted and infuriated” the President and would cause him to "go up in an utter blaze.” When pressed by associates to give Senator McCarthy “both barrels,” the President told his staff in late 1953 that “I will not get in the gutter with that guy.” Four months later, the President said at a Cabinet meeting that the "bad' thing about McCarthy is that he is impeding this work” against subversion.

It is already a centre of controversy.

Senator John McClellan (Democrat. Arkansas) has demanded that the White House explain why Donovan was given secret documents from executive files when the Administration has refused to make similar documents available to Congresional committees for use in investigations.

The book says that in considering the third party idea, Mr Eisenhower “even went so far as to think of a name” for the party, but never hit upon one. The President later dropped the idea in favour of efforts to “modernise and unify the party” by bringing into it “younger Republicans devoted to his philosophy ” the book says.