How It Happened

After four days in the semi-rough of Byers Peak Ranch, 8,750 ft. in the high Rockies, the President of the U.S. looked ruddy and fit. It had been a pleasant vacation-within-a-vacation: Ike had taken it easy, fishing in the chilly water of St. Louis Creek, dabbling at his painting, and demonstrating his prowess as a mess sergeant by preparing all the meals for the stag party. He put the camp on a two-big-meals-and-no-lunch regimen. His menus were hearty: a breakfast of fried cornmeal mush with chicken-giblet gravy and sausages, a dinner of spareribs and sauerkraut, corn bread and black-eyed peas. The weather had been perfect: bracing during the day, quite cold at night (12DEG above zero one night). More than a trace of autumn tanged the air: the Rocky massif was already splotched with golden aspens, and on the highest peaks the season's first snow fell.

From Jesters to Letters. On Friday morning the President was out of bed at 5 o'clock, and began clattering around the kitchen at Aksel Nielsen's new guest house, getting breakfast. At 6 a.m., Host Nielsen rang an old railroad bell, summoning the other guests at the ranch--Major General Howard Snyder, the presidential physician, Acting Press Secretary Murray Snyder, and George Allen, jester to Presidents--to Ike's breakfast. As usual, the bill of fare was robust: eggs fried sunny side up, rashers of beef bacon, sausages, and steaming mugs of coffee. At the breakfast table, the President was asked when he intended to drive back to Denver. Right away, said Ike: he was in a hurry, and he would leave his valet, ex-Sergeant John Moaney, behind to clean up. At 6:45 a.m., the presidential motorcade barreled through the ranch gates. A hundred minutes later Ike got out at his mother-in-law's home in Denver--70 miles away.

At 9 a.m. Ike arrived at his Lowry Air Force Base office, with Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin's letter (see Foreign Relations) in a Manila envelope tucked under his arm. After two hours at his desk, much of the time spent in telephone conversation with Washington, he was off again, for Cherry Hills Club. At noon he teed off with "Rip" Arnold, the club pro.

After 18 holes. Ike lunched in the club locker room with Arnold, Allen, and Cherry Hills President David Gordon. President Eisenhower ate hamburgers (the meat only, he skipped the rolls) and a thick slice of raw onion, washed down with a long glass of iced tea. Then he reached over, speared an onion slice from one of his companions' plates and ate that too. There was a half-serious discussion about the indigestibility of raw onion, and Ike remarked that they had once bothered him, but he hadn't been upset by them for a long time.

At 3:30 p.m., Ike and Arnold teed off again for another nine holes. As usual, the President rode most of the way around the links in his electric power cart. On the second tee, he was called off the golf course to take a telephone call from the State Department. In a few minutes he rejoined Arnold, and the two resumed their game. Ike was in a happy mood: his drives were booming along, and his short game had never been sharper.

A Touch of Heartburn. At approximately 4:30 p.m., as the two men approached the eighth hole (their 26th hole of the day. in Denver's 5,280-ft. altitude), the President complained of a little touch of heartburn. "Boy," he said with a grin, "those raw onions are sure backing up on me." But the indigestion--if it was indigestion--seemed minor, and Ike finished the round, carding a flashy 40 (he had shot an 84 on the morning 18). After a quiet dinner at the Doud home that evening, the President retired early. By 10 p.m.--17 hours after he had gotten up--Ike was in bed and asleep in his second-floor bedroom. It had been a long, active day.

Shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday, the President awoke with what seemed to be acute-indigestion pains in his chest. General Snyder was immediately summoned to his bedside. The chronology of events that followed: 2:45 A.M. After an initial examination, General Snyder detected the first symptoms of a heart attack. Upon completion of this diagnosis, eleven hours later, he decided to move the President to Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colo., nine miles away.

7:55 A.M. Murray Snyder told White House correspondents that the President had suffered a "digestive upset" during the night, and if he came to his office at all during the day, it would not be until late.

12 NOON. Murray Snyder, after consulting General Snyder. informed the press that the President's ailment was "stomach indigestion [and] is not serious." The President was resting, he added, and General Snyder planned to leave him soon. "I think you can judge from the fact that General Snyder is not going to remain in constant attendance that he does not regard this as serious." 2:30 P.M. Murray Snyder summoned the press for a terse announcement: "The President has had a mild coronary thrombosis. He has been taken to Fitzsimons Army Hospital." 2:35 P.M. President Eisenhower, supported by General Snyder and Colonel Byron Pollock, chief of Fitzsimons' cardiac section, left the Doud house, walked to his limousine, and was driven to the hospital. Mrs. Eisenhower remained at home.

At the hospital, Ike stepped from his car, sat in a waiting wheelchair, and was taken immediately to the two-room presidential suite on the eighth floor of the hospital's tower. On the way up he politely inquired after the health of the elevator operator, Charles Adams. Ike went right to bed, and was placed under an oxygen tent. The green-and-cream-colored suite is reserved for very important patients and furnished in the style of a hotel room, with upholstered chairs, a carpet on the floor, a desk and several lamps.

3:45 P.M. Murray Snyder held another press conference, told the reporters that President Eisenhower had suffered "an occlusion or thrombosis" during the night, and "that he has been comfortable since the initial pain, and the prognosis is good." Colonel Thomas W. Mattingly, chief heart specialist at Walter Reed Army Hospital, he added, was flying from Washington at once, with Press Secretary James Hagerty.

4:45 P.M. Secretary Snyder announced that Vice President Nixon, members of the President's family, and most of the Cabinet had telephoned Denver, and that no one planned to come to Denver. Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks recalled that he himself had recovered from a heart attack a dozen years ago.

5:10 P.M. Newsmen were told that the President had suffered a "mild coronary thrombosis," not an occlusion.

5:40 P.M. Murray Snyder reported no change in the President's condition. He was asked why the illness had been described originally as indigestion, replied that General Snyder* had wanted to await a complete diagnosis before making an announcement. Murray Snyder himself had not been informed of the President's true condition until General Snyder telephoned him while he was lunching--nearly twelve hours after the attack. At noon--ten hours after the attack--General Snyder called two Army doctors in on consultation, and an hour later a cardiogram confirmed their suspicions. As soon as he learned the true story of the President's ailment, Secretary Snyder called a press conference. 6:05 P.M. General Snyder relayed word that the President was "resting well in the hospital and his condition is good." To a reporter's question Murray Snyder replied that Ike had never had a previous heart ailment.

7:30 P.M. Mrs. Mamie Eisenhower, accompanied by Colonel Robert Schulz, the President's military aide, drove to Fitzsimons Hospital with plans to stay beside her husband indefinitely. Her decision to come to the hospital, said Murray Snyder, was not the result of any change in Ike's condition. The First Lady simply decided "she would be more comfortable" beside Ike, and had moved into a room across the corridor from his suite.

That evening messages from statesmen, sovereigns and people from all over the world cascaded into Lowry Air Force Base.

In Washington the White House switchboard was flooded with incoming calls.

Later, the harassed Murray Snyder was questioned about the elimination of the word "mild" from a hospital bulletin describing the President's thrombosis. "The word 'mild,' " he said, "was not in his [General Snyder's] more recent descriptions." The attack, he added, had been more fully diagnosed as an anterior (frontal) coronary thrombosis.

Colonel Mattingly and Hagerty arrived from Washington in a driving rain, and shortly thereafter Hagerty read a bulletin stating that the President had withstood the heart attack well.

The President awoke several times during the night, was restricted to a diet of fruit juices, and remained under the oxygen tent. The tent, Press Secretary Hagerty explained, was normal procedure for cardiac patients.

At 8 o'clock Sunday morning, Hagerty reported that Ike had spent "a very satisfactory night," that his pulse and blood pressure "continued stable," and that there were no complications.

At 1:18 p.m. Dr. Paul Dudley White, world-famous heart specialist, flew in from Boston on a special Air Force transport plane and was whisked to the hospital in a blue Air Force limousine. Dr. White doubted that either the 27 holes of golf or the heavy food the President had eaten could bring on a heart attack. About four hours after Dr. White's arrival, Major John Eisenhower, the President's son, planed in from Washington.

While the patient in Fitzsimons Hospital ate his first solid food--a bowl of oatmeal--Dr. White consulted with his associates, visited the President, and studied the three cardiograms that had been made up to that time. He and three of the doctors attending President Eisenhower issued a statement which was read by Hagerty: "The President has had a moderate attack of coronary thrombosis without complications." Asked by the press for a clarification of the word "moderate," Dr. White replied, through Hagerty: The attack"was "neither mild nor was it serious."

*General Snyder, 74, is a career Army medic who has been retired and returned to active duty three times, always under the command of his old friend, Dwight Eisenhower. He is one of the President's favorite bridge partners.

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