The Price of Spice

The sky over Augusta, Ga. was clear and blue, the sun was bright, and the wind was brisk and bracing. Azalea and pink dogwood bloomed along the green fairways of the Augusta National Golf Club.

On the first two days of his Southern vacation, President Eisenhower spent every spare hour on the golf course. His face turned pink with sunburn, his appetite sharpened, and after 18 holes with last year's National Amateur Champion Jack Westland (now a Republican Congressman from Everett, Wash.), word leaked through the golf-score security curtain that Ike stood a good chance of breaking 90 before the week was out.

But first he had to break his holiday to make a crowded, one-day round trip to Washington to deliver his foreign policy speech (see above) before the American Society of Newspaper Editors. And on the eve of his departure, he fell prey to that humiliating and painful malady--a severe case of upset stomach. There was no telling exactly what had caused the attack--although it seemed likely it was set off by the savory, highly spiced bass dish the President ate for lunch--but he suffered sharp abdominal pain, and slept little. Next morning, when Mamie bade him an anxious goodbye at their Augusta hideaway (the green-shuttered, three-room Bobby Jones cottage) he was running a slight (100DEG) fever.*

Sweating Conclusion. He stretched out on a bunk as the presidential Constellation Columbine bore him north to Washington; on arrival he went straight to the White House. He had intended to give his speech a final going-over, but instead lay down on a red satin sofa, pulled a blanket up to his chin, and sent word to the editors that he would arrive just after lunch. He seemed hale enough as he walked into the banquet hall at the Statler Hotel, and stood smiling as Hail to the Chief was pumped out by the Marine Band. His voice was strong as he began speaking. But, during the final quarter of his address, pain made him clutch the rostrum with both hands, his face went chalk-white, sweat stood out on his forehead, and his voice almost failed. Fearful of fainting, he omitted whole sentences from his conclusion.

Afterward, his physician, Dr. Howard M. Snyder, led him quickly into a small reception room, where he slumped, weak and spread-legged, on a chair to rest and sip a little coffee. But an all-but-sacred presidential duty awaited him--an hour later he was at Washington's Griffith Stadium to throw out the first baseball of the season. Rest had improved his color. He spat on his right hand, grinned, and sent a new white baseball flying to the field, watched the game for an inning and a half (with Washington's Pitcher Connie Marrero standing by to cut off any fouls that might threaten to bean him) before heading, a little shakily, back to the plane.

Amazing Resilience. His wearing day was still far from done. He had promised to speak at Salisbury (pop. 20,000), N.C. (site of the famed early-morning back-platform campaign photograph of Ike and Mamie in their dressing gowns), and he insisted on keeping the engagement. Late that afternoon, the Columbine landed at Charlotte. Ike was driven 40 miles along crowd-lined roads, spoke for eight minutes before 12,000 people--gathered to celebrate the 200th anniversary of North Carolina's Rowan County--and drove 40 miles more to Winston-Salem, where the Columbine was waiting for him.

He looked pale and almost dazed with fatigue when he finally got back to Augusta, and he kept to his bed until noon the next day. Then, his temperature back to normal, he got up to soak up the sun and watch healthier golfers banging away.

By week's end, he seemed fully recovered; he attended services at Augusta's Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church, and then hied himself back to the course and played 18 holes with Senator Bob Taft, newly arrived for a two-day visit. The President was mum about the outcome, but fairly exuded satisfaction afterward: "I'll tell you this--I made my best score . . ." Champion-Emeritus Bobby Jones let the cat out of the bag: the President, he reported, had shot an 86, thus breaking 90, as far as anyone knew, for the first time since Inauguration Day. He acted as though he had been fully compensated for the rigors of the week as he prepared once more to face the White House grind.

Last week the President also:

P: Decided that the presidential yacht Williamsburg was a "needless luxury," ordered the gleaming 244-ft. vessel mothballed during his term in office. P: Recommended that the Government's $550 million worth of synthetic rubber plants, created during World War II, be turned over to private industry.

*Exotic food has laid the President low before: during last summer's Republican Convention in Chicago, he ate a Chinese dinner, spent the next two days groaning in bed while his frantic aides, fearful of upsetting the delicate balance of convention psychology, stalled press and politicos with excuses about important conferences.

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