Plowing & Politics

On the farm outside Gettysburg, the thermometer stood at 25DEG, and the President's breath blew white in Pennsylvania's crackling morning air. He was the picture of the gentleman farmer, in crepe-soled shoes, brown slacks, soft blue sweater, suede sport coat, cashmere scarf and broad Stetson. From the house he walked 300 yards (the last 100 uphill) to a spot near the barn, there to receive a gift that any farmer would welcome.

Representatives of Farm Bureau Co-operative Associations in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania had brought him a new tractor and deep tillage plow. It was a handsome pair. The 47-h.p. tractor, in fire-engine red and cream yellow, was the first 1956 model off the assembly line of the Cockshutt factory at Bellevue, Ohio. Equipped with a pushbutton radio for standard and short-wave broadcasts, a cigarette lighter on the dash, hydraulic controls, the tractor would retail for $4,000. Commenting that "two-thirds to three-quarters of my top soil now is in the Atlantic Ocean, or somewhere between here and there," Farmer Ike asked if the moldboard plow would cut 14 inches deep, was assured that it would go down 16 inches. He was anxious to ask his doctors how soon he could test his gift. "I always had ideas about what I would do when I got to the farm," he said, "but now I guess all I can do is drive a tractor."

"Mooooo." "Now I'm going to show you something," said the President, after he thanked his friends for their gift. He led them over to the fence of a feed lot where his 18 purebred Aberdeen Angus and two Holstein cattle were chewing their cuds. "Now let 'er go Dick!" he called to his driver Dick Flohr, who was seated in the President's special Crosley runabout. Driver Flohr touched a button and a horn let out a deep "mooooo." While host and guests laughed, the cattle rushed up to answer the call, which the President's farmers often use at feeding time. Said Ike: "When you want to see some of the herd, you just blow it, and by golly, they come up."

A few hours later, the animal population of the Eisenhower farm was increased by one, as the President accepted another gift. J. R. Lackey of Asheville, N.C., and his son Tommy, 14, drove in with a brown and white pony, five years old, in a horse van. The pony, a special breed out of a quarter horse by a five-gaited pony stallion, was a gentle, sensible animal 12 hands high. A present for the Eisenhower grandchildren, it was aptly named Little David.

The "Headlights." For the President of the U.S., the week was by no means all guests bearing gifts. One day he rode 25 miles up to Camp David to meet with the National Security Council. Most of the NSC members were flown to the camp, as the Cabinet was flown the previous week, in Army helicopters. (Asked what he thought of the Army's helicopter technique, General Nathan Twining, Air Force Chief of Staff, waved a big cigar and cracked:"They'll learn after a few years.") The meeting was on military matters-- strength of forces and budget. Next day, in his office at the Gettysburg post office, the President worked over the same subject with Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson and Admiral Arthur Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

All week long, important callers moved in and out of the Gettysburg office, where two-inch, bulletproof glass in heavy steel frames had just been placed over the windows. Marion Folsom, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Budget Director Rowland Hughes went in to talk about the HEW budget. Massachusetts' wise, cowlicked Representative Joe Martin, 71, Republican leader of the House, and California's pin-neat, trim (down 25 Ibs. to 208) William Knowland, minority leader of the Senate, went in for separate conferences on legislation, with incidental attention to politics. Each talked to the President about what Martin called the "headlights" of the Administration's program for the next session of Congress, including highways, school construction, taxes, trade, foreign relations and farm policy.

At week's end the President was out in the open again, carrying a .410 gauge shotgun along a hedgerow, on the hunt for whatever legal game he might flush. Safely behind rode Grandson David Eisenhower in the pony cart.

Last week the President also:

P: Earmarked $1,500,000 in additional emergency funds (previously earmarked: $1,000,000) for relief and rehabilitation in North Carolina areas hard hit by this year's hurricanes.

P: Appointed, as Ambassador to Thailand, Career Diplomat Max Waldo Bishop, 47, who succeeds the late John E. Peurifoy.

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