The Acting Captain

(See Cover)

When I speak of substituting good government for poor government, I do not mean electing one individual, one symbol, one person to typify the might and majesty of America--by no means. I mean to elect a team, to send to Washington the pick of our men and women chosen according to merit.

--Candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower at Newark, Oct. 17, 1952

In the green-carpeted Cabinet Room of the White House, 21 men sat down one morning last week to consider the most vital aspects of U.S. defense. First to speak at the regular meeting of the National Security Council was the youngest man at the table. Placing his tan leather briefcase beside his chair, Vice President Richard Nixon leaned forward and opened the meeting in a grave, clear voice: "Gentlemen, as we all know, it is the custom of the Cabinet to open with a silent prayer. While this has not been the practice of the Security Council, may I propose a moment of silent prayer of thanksgiving for the marvelous record of recovery the President has made up to this hour?"

While President Eisenhower lay ill in Denver, the team that he had brought to Washington was carrying forward the executive department's business in a manner unprecedented in U.S. history. For 2 1/2 hours the NSC, composed of key U.S. officials who deal with the total problem of defense, e.g., the Secretaries of State and Defense and the defense mobilizer, worked its way through a normal agenda. Next day, with the young (42) Vice President again sitting as chairman, the Cabinet met and pushed through the week's business. Out of the two meetings came a list of recommendations that will be passed on to President Eisenhower when he is well enough to receive them. Every recommendation was unanimous. In many cases, individual Cabinet members, having come to agreement with their colleagues, will be able to act on important matters without waiting for the President's approval.

Old hands in Washington were astonished by the efficiency and dispatch with which the Administration was operating while the President was sick. Explained Vice President Nixon, the acting captain of the Eisenhower team: "The President has set up the Administration in such a way that it will continue its policies, which are well defined, during his temporary absence."

The Rebuilt Cabinet. No President in history has given more attention to efficient organization and delegation of work in the executive branch. Under the Eisenhower reorganization, all major decisions funnel up to the President through a whole chart of special committees, boards and councils* that screen policy ideas. At the top are the NSC and the Cabinet. Matters of defense strategy move up through the NSC, broad questions of national policy in all fields by way of the Cabinet. When a problem reaches the President's desk, the facts presented to him are as reliable as the U.S. Administration as a whole can make them, and the choices before him are clearly spelled out. If possible, the NSC and the Cabinet try to send up an agreed Administration position that he can either accept, reject or revise.

The new kind of organization results from the joining of two streams of U.S. experience: modern military methods and modern business methods. Both have found themselves deeply involved in the problems that arise from the conflict between the increasing need for specialization in parts of their organizations and the continuing need for unity in top policy. Both have answered by an emphasis on coordination, liaison and committee work at many levels. The central idea is to save the man at the top from the near-impossible task of having to choose between two or more recommendations, each bearing the prejudices of a particular field of study, of interest or of bureaucratic function. Inevitably, the new system brought a new and more important status to the Cabinet meeting. Served by a secretary (a Bostonian named Max Raab) who prepares an agenda for each meeting, circulates position papers in advance, briefs the presiding officer and follows up on decisions, the Eisenhower Cabinet meeting has become a truly effective forum for thrashing out policy matters.

This is a very different matter from the "strong" Cabinet of Lincoln's day, which included powerful, independent politicians to whom the President had to sell his policies. On the other hand, it is a far cry from the weak position of the Cabinet under recent Presidents, especially under Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Says an old Washington hand: "In Roosevelt-Truman days, a sure way to get an idea killed was to bring it up at a Cabinet meeting. Any important new plans were taken up with the President privately. If a Cabinet officer brought them up at the Cabinet meeting, the idea would probably be scotched by someone else at the table."

"We Would Miss the Boss." Under the Eisenhower plan, with a complete set of papers that outline major Administration policy, the key officers of the Administration last week quickly set the tone for carrying on. First, they agreed that no delegation of presidential powers was required. Normal Government business would be carried on by each official as usual; issues that necessarily required presidential action would be held in abeyance as long as possible; the Vice President would continue to coordinate the work of the executive departments, as he had done before when the President was away, and as deputy when the President was on hand. It was a plan for government by consensus, with the Vice President acting as the key man in bringing about a consensus.

Operating under this system, the Administration can get along for a considerable time without the President.* Fortunately, at the moment, there is no major crisis facing the Government. To keep up liaison between Denver and Washington, as the President recovers, the NSC and the Cabinet decided to send the President's White House "chief of staff," former New Hampshire Governor Sherman Adams, to Denver. He arrived near week's end, and the staff arrangements for operation during the President's convalescence were complete.

Key men of the Eisenhower Administration realize that maintaining an orderly state of affairs without the Chief Executive on hand can have its limitations. Said Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson: "I think we can get along very well for a reasonable number of weeks or months, but it is impossible to say that after a certain length of time, we wouldn't miss the boss--because we would."

Most Valuable Player. Just as he carefully organized the team and set up a system, President Eisenhower upgraded the vice-presidency and prepared Richard Nixon to run the team if and when it became necessary for him to do so. He expressed his philosophy about the vice-presidency at a news conference last May: "I personally believe the Vice President of the United States should never be a nonentity. I believe he should be used. I believe he should have a very useful job. And I think that ours has. Ours has worked as hard as any man I know in this whole executive department." The President has another judgment about his Vice President: "The most valuable member of my team."

Operating under Ike's philosophy, Richard Nixon has made more of the job than any other Vice President in U.S. history. Before Nixon, Vice Presidents usually were isolated, distrusted and ignored. In his memoirs now being published in LIFE, Harry Truman admits that he was appallingly uninformed when Franklin Roosevelt's death thrust him into the President's office. He did not even know that the U.S. was building an atomic bomb, which was then almost ready to use. As Vice President, Truman was inclined to look upon himself as a member of the legislative branch, who could not expect to share the confidences of the President. Explains Truman: "The President, by necessity, builds his own staff, and the Vice President remains an outsider, no matter how friendly the two may be. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is the fact that both the President and Vice President are, or should be, astute politicians, and neither can take the other completely into his confidence."

With Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, this whole concept was changed. Eisenhower was the first President in U.S. history to give the Vice President important new duties. Last week's meetings marked the tenth time that Nixon had sat as chairman of the NSC, and the third time that he had been in charge of a Cabinet meeting. The President has kept the Vice President fully informed on all aspects of the Administration's policies and actions.

In Washington and elsewhere. Nixon has worked constantly as the President's ambassador, elucidator and troubleshooter. As a key liaison man between Capitol Hill and the White House, he has been highly effective in advancing the Administration's position on big issues, e.g., defense spending and foreign aid, and on less momentous but nevertheless important political problems, e.g., Joe McCarthy. As the President's representative. Nixon traveled 45,539 miles on a trip to the Far East in 1953 to spread good will and absorb information. Nixon was often called when a major speech was needed to set forth the Administration position. Early in 1954 he made the Administration's main reply to Democratic attacks and stated its position on the McCarthy issue; last month he flew out to the National Plowing Contest at Wabash, Ind. to outline the Administration's farm policy.

Checking on Checkers. When the President was stricken in Denver, the Vice President was the first person outside the White House to be informed. He was sitting in the living room of his white brick home in Washington's Spring Valley, reading the evening newspaper, when the call came from Presidential Press Secretary James Hagerty. Stunned, Nixon walked slowly back to the chair that he had been sitting in, and sat for a moment on the edge of it. Then he telephoned his old friend and confidant of his days in Congress, Acting Attorney General William P. Rogers, who immediately left home for the Nixon house. Not until the first news man called to ask for comment did the Vice President tell his wife the news. Overhearing the conversation, the eldest of their two daughters, Patricia, 9, immediately went to her room to color and cut out a get-well card for the President.

Within a few minutes after the first news flash about the President's heart attack, the Nixon telephone began to ring. To make the telephone calls he had to make, the Vice President took refuge at Rogers' house in Bethesda, Md. There Nixon, Rogers and Presidential Aide Wilton B. Persons, occasionally telephoning other key men in the Administration, discussed their plans until 2:30 a.m. When Nixon went to bed in the Rogers' guest room, there was more than concern for new problems to keep him awake. On the third floor directly above his room, the Rogers' son Tony, 15, was participating in a ham radio contest, talking to Canadian hams in Morse code; during the night a call came from Denver to report on the President's condition; then the Vice President's hay fever began acting up. Said Nixon later: "I didn't sleep at all that night."

On his way home the next morning, Nixon realized for the first time that an enlarged detail of Secret Service men (three instead of one) was guarding him.

As he came out of Washington's Westmoreland Congregational Church with his family, newsmen finally surrounded him. "Let's go over to my house," he said. There, in the living room, he spoke his first public words since he had received the news of the President's illness: "I find it rather difficult to express in words feelings that are so deep. I know that you obviously have a number of questions on various subjects, but the only comment I will make is to express the concern that I share with all the American people for the early and complete recovery of the President."

From then on, Nixon's every move and every word were doggedly watched by reporters and given beady-eyed examination by politicians. A bevy of newsmen followed him wherever he went, camped on the street outside his house until he fixed up a basement room for them. Even the forays out of the house by his famed cocker spaniel. Checkers, were faithfully reported.

"We Are Very Grateful." Acutely aware of the delicacy of his position, Nixon was cautious about every move. At no time did he take any step indicating that he was attempting to usurp any of the President's powers or prerogatives. When he wanted to talk to key men in the Administration, he went to them instead of calling them to his office. At the White House, he stayed away from the President's office, worked in a conference room. He arrived early, as usual, for the NSC and Cabinet meetings, made no effort at an "entrance"; he sat in his customary chair, leaving the President's chair empty. Much of his work was done in his rose-carpeted hideaway office on Capitol Hill a few paces from the Senate floor.

As Nixon went about his newly shaped duties, a California politician observed that "what he does in the next few weeks will make or break him." Conscious of this view and sincerely devoted to the objective of keeping the Administration running properly. Nixon by week's end was visibly tired and careworn from the task of trying to be right, though not President.

In the first week, he had won new respect among the older men working with him. At the end of the Cabinet meeting. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles rose and told his colleagues: "I must say that a real vote of thanks is due the Vice President for the way he has handled himself during this period and for the way in which he has conducted this meeting." Turning to Nixon, Dulles added: "We are very grateful to you."

Reputation in Moscow. As speculation about the political effects of President Eisenhower's illness continued to mushroom, Nixon naturally stood in the center of the political limelight. While Nixon's knowledge, experience and position are important political advantages, he has some disadvantages. His age is one; no man so young has ever been elected President.* Another disadvantage is the fact that for months he has been target No. 1 of the Democrats: their constant flow of anti-Nixon propaganda undoubtedly will be used by his opponents in his own party to support an argument that he is a vulnerable candidate.

There are many reasons for the Democratic propagandists' concentration on Nixon. The most obvious is the political disadvantage of attacking a figure as popular as Eisenhower. Normal party antagonism has to find an outlet; Nixon has been it. Many liberal Democrats who changed their minds about the Alger Hiss case never stopped resenting the fact that Congressional Investigator Nixon arrived early at the conclusion they reached much later or that in the campaign Nixon most effectively pressed home the point that Adlai Stevenson was a character witness (by deposition) for Hiss at his first trial in 1952 and again in last year's congressional elections--Nixon used the Communist infiltration issue against the Democrats Since he was a key man in the successful exposure of Alger Hiss, and since there was no trace of McCarthyism in the way he handled that case, he has been effective on the issue.

Furious Democratic spokesmen have charged that Nixon smeared Democrats by charging that they were soft on Communism The record shows that Nixon hit hard and often on the issue, but that he never adopted Joe McCarthy's unjust line that the Democratic Party is the party of treason. Pointing out that he was not charging the party with disloyalty, Nixon made the very different charge that the Democratic Administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman had too often failed to understand and to meet the threat of Communist subversion.

Nixon's reputation on the Communist issue obviously has traveled far. In Moscow last month, Communist Boss Nikita Khrushchev brought up the subject in a conversation with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

Adenauer: But you can't really distrust the Americans. You've met Eisenhower. You know what kind of man he is

Khrushchev: Oh, it's not Eisenhower we are worried about; it's this fellow Nixon.

Adenauer: But after all he is only Vice President.

Khrushchev: So was Truman.

Plugging for Captain. While Nixon is widely known and liked among the leaders of his own party across the U.S he has trouble in the Republican organization of his home state. His rapid rise in politics has not been greeted with any joy by two older hands in California Republicanism U.S. Senator William Knowland and Governor Goodwin J. Knight. Nixon and Knight factions have been feuding for a long time; the odds favor a Knight-controlled delegation to the Republican National Convention in 1956.

Last week Goodie Knight was among the first Republican politicians to start speculating in public about G.O.P. presidential prospects in the light of the President's illness. He listed for reporters the men he considered outstanding possibilities: California's Senator William Knowland, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, United Nations Representative Henry

Cabot Lodge, Illinois' Governor William Stratton, Indiana's Governor George Craig and Illinois' Senator Everett Dirksen Later, talking to other reporters he dropped Dirksen and Craig and added Massachusetts' Governor Christian Herter. In both cases the name of Richard Nixon was conspicuous by its absence When a reporter finally asked why Nixon was not on the list. Knight had a sudden afterthought: "Oh sure he should be on it."

The precedents are against Nixon's chances to move into the White House in 1957. Only three men have moved up directly from the vice-presidency to the White House by election: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Van Buren The last of those moves was made 120 years before Nixon would be trying to make his But such precedents are not the kind to dismay Richard Nixon. He has risen fast and far in politics, to his present high role as acting captain of the Eisenhower team. He aims eventually to be captain of the team in his own right

* Among them: committees on defense mobilization, economic policy, foreign economic policy, international financial policy, water resources, mineral resources, transportation policy, Government organization, operations coordination and federal-state relations.

* Serious constitutional and legal complications surround the delegation of presidential powers when the President is too ill to attend to public business. The Constitution says that "in case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President . . ." But the Constitution fails to define "inability," and does not say who shall determine when it starts and when it ceases. The problem arose during the 80 days that President James Garfield lived after he was shot in 1881, and during President Woodrow Wilson's long illness in 1919-20. The Vice Presidents in both cases, Chester A. Arthur under Garfield, and Thomas ("What this country needs is a good 5-c- cigar") Marshall under Wilson, did not act for the President, and the result was confusion and stagnation in Government.

* Theodore Roosevelt was 42 when he succeeded to the presidency upon William McKinley's death m 1901; he was 46 when elected to a full term. On Election Day 1956, Nixon will be 43.

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