From Boston to Abilene

There are vast, almost cosmic, differences between Boston and Abilene, Kans. But they both like Ike.

The President flew to Boston early last week, at the invitation of Archbishop Richard J. Gushing, to address the 27th national convention of the National Council of Catholic Women. In a bipartisan speech on world peace (see above), Ike made a bipartisan political aside. He said, with real feeling, that he joined in the prayers of Boston that Democratic Senator John Kennedy "be shortly restored to full health."/- After the speech, the President rode through downtown Boston's Washington Street, was greeted by a storm of confetti and a huge, cheering crowd.

Honor by Dagger. After two days back in Washington, the President took off for Abilene to dedicate the new Eisenhower Memorial Museum. Ike himself was surprised at the number of people who waited along highways and streets to catch a glimpse of him. On a tour of the old Eisenhower home he was visibly annoyed when he saw that tourists had gouged pieces of plaster out of the house's walls as souvenirs.

It was only a short stroll across what used to be the family vegetable garden to the new museum. Ike spent an hour looking at the mementos of his own life (everything from a TIME cover portrait to war souvenirs). Pausing before a jeweled dagger given him by Russian Marshal Zhukov, he remarked that it had been a "very great personal honor; when a marshal takes off his ceremonial dagger and gives it to you, that's something." Next day the Eisenhower family went to the Abilene cemetery to look at the graves of the President's parents. David Jacob and Ida Stover Eisenhower. The plain granite headstone marked "Eisenhower" was surrounded by dry, brown grass, and a worried frown crossed Ike's face. "Can't we do something about this old buffalo grass?" he asked.

Straight from Hopalong. Returning East, the President flew off to get in some duck hunting at the Cedar Point shooting club on Lake Erie near Toledo as the guest of Treasury Secretary George Humphrey. Ike, who hadn't hunted waterfowl in 20 years, used a 20-gauge double-barrel rather than the bigger, conventional duck gun, the 12-gauge. Nevertheless, he got his limit of four ducks in only 30 minutes the first morning. Before he left Toledo, the President indulged one of his impulses. He telephoned a twelve-year-old girl, Patricia Gilbert, to thank her for a good-luck medal she had mailed him. He found that Patricia's gift was really heartfelt: she had gotten the medal straight from Hopalong Cassidy.

/- There have been persistent reports that Kennedy, after surgery for an old back injury, is near death in a New York hospital. Last week his father, Joseph Kennedy, onetime (1938-40) Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, said: "Such reports are not in accordance with the facts."

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