Evening star., 1953-07-12
Eisenhower Leadership
Proved by Events
Writer Declares President
\ Disuppoints His Critics
By Fronk R. Kent

"uSs OSSbOtSS EISSbUSuI
Disuppoints His Critics F!
BY Fronk R. Kent
If President Eisenhower does not soon
show some sign Of cringing, crumbling
or cracking under the daily bartage from
his journalistic and radio critics, some
Of them are going crazy. For, they
seem getting wilder every week. OBJ
viouSly the thing that upsetS them
most is their futility, plus the apparent
unawareneSs of their target.
This Is the toughest thing they have
to bear. It seems hardly possible the
President should not know of this more
or less concerted effort to disparage
him. Yet not once has he lost his tenn
per. written denunciatory letters, called
any one a liar, presented any one with
an iron cross, or, as one of his predeces-
sors frequently did. tried to damage a
writer with his employers or clients by
personal complaints and requests. 1t
is somewhat astonishing that this cam
paign OF disparagement. which has been
going on for more than five months,
has not had at least some effect upon
both the President and the public. Be.
cause, for the most part. the partici.
pating individuals have fairly large
audiences.
Practically all of them were anti
Eisenhower during the campaign last
fall. A large proportion were strong adj
herents Of the late Franklin Roosevelt,
ardent New Dealers and just as ardent
Fair Dealers, passionate supporters of
ex-Gov. Adlai Stevenson, self-styled
liberals" for q generation saturated
with the conviction that anything
Republican was isolationist, reactionary
and evil. Thus. convinced, they are
utterly unreconciled to the defeat of
the greatly overrated Mr.. Stevenson
and naturally have failed to fnd
anything good in Ike. It Is, Of course,
absurd to portray the general, per-
sonally, as either isolationist, reac.
tionary or evil Any attempt to do that
would boomerang pretty badly. Every
thing about the man, as Q soldier, Q
candidate and President, shows the
reverse.
This fact leaves the groups who yearn
for his failure but two alternatives. One
Is to needle Ike into q quarrel with
either Senator Taft or Senator McCar-
thy, or both. The other is to picture
him as a poor fish who does not know
the political score and is completely de-
pendent upon the slightly sinister but
able men by whom he is surrounded.
hover propagandists have worked since
before the inauguration-but without
discernible results so far as public SEN
timent is concerned. The first great
disappointment was Ike's refusal to be
needed into break with Mr.. Taft, plus
the fact that the two are now recog-
nized as not only political but personal
friends. The other was refusal to
"crack down" on Senator Mccarthy.
which would have been stupid in the
extreme. Besides building Mccarthy
up, it would have lost party control of
Senate where the party majority in ex-
actly one.
Failing to create the desired rift.
Ike's ill-wishers have now fallen back
upon daily charges that in this or that
way he has surrendered" either to Taft
or Mccarthy; that there are no intel
lectuals" in his administration: that
there are deep rumblings of discomfort
because of the personalitie Of some
members of his cabinet and some of his
"close advisers" OF course, there are
other complaints, but the really big
one of the moment is that he lacks
leadership About this lack of lead
erShip" there is wide variety of opinion
among his detractors.
~
Some just deplore it generally. Some
want him to be tougher" with Con-
gress; others insist he should read out
of the party all Republicans who dis
agree with him: others seem to think
he ought to put on some sort Of drum
majorette show or go galloping up to
the Capitol, sword in hand. More
friendly observers do not agree with
this lack of leadership" claim. They
assert that Ike is not spectacular fell
low but that the record shows he has
not lacked in leadership in any direc-
ton and has not surrendered" to any
one.
Certainly, the Bohlen nomination
was driven through the Senate; the
supposedly omnipotent Chairman Reed
of the Ways and Means Committee in
the House was forced to let 60 the bill
to extend the excess-profits tax: five
billions have been sliced of the Air
Force appropriations and every other
department has been compelled to re-
duce personnel and prune expenditures.
No such economies in Government have
ever been seen-altogether nearly $40
billion have been cut out of the Truman
budget which Democrats had described
as irreducible. The highly controversial
tidewater oil bill has been enacted. the
amended Taft-Hartley law is about to
come out of Senator Smiths committee
and the trend Of the country toward
creeping socialism" and unrestrained
spending has certainly been checked.
If it is not through Eisenhower leader
ship that these things-and others
have been brought about, whose leader
ship is it?
this person to ascertain what he was
doing there. :. In putting his lantern
iTto the naSSenper'S face the passenger