Administration Lift

Five minutes after Ike arrived at Camp David from Gettysburg 25 miles away, the first of three big helicopters bearing National Security Council members rattled crankily overhead. Yawing in the gusty grey air over the pistachio-green buildings in the Maryland woods, it plumped down on the muddy baseball field. John Foster

Dulles, 67, leaped athletically from the craft, landing ankle-deep in ooze. Presidential Aide Sherman Adams, pale-faced but game, grunted: "Very nice trip." Lifted up from Washington next day, some Cabinet members were less game. Douglas McKay said he had spent the trip trying to estimate what a helicopter costs, concluded that it was "probably too much." Said White House Aide Fred Seaton: "They ought to give them to the farmers to flail wheat." Remarked Sinclair Weeks (who came by car): "I'd just as soon ride in a boiler factory." "Gratitude & Appreciation." Despite the unsettling side of "Operation Banana" --a highly successful exercise in Government mobility nonetheless--Administration leaders last week settled down at Camp David for conferences with the convalescing President. As Secret Servicemen loitered watchfully in the saplings outside Laurel Lodge, Ike's aides sat inside around a green-baize table. One day the NSC conferred with the President for two hours; the next day the Cabinet spent another two hours.

Among the things discussed at the conferences : details of Ike's January State of the Union message to Congress, and a review by Secretary Dulles of the implications of the Geneva conference on U.S. strategy. Between meetings, Ike and Dulles joined Secretaries Humphrey and Wilson over a bridge table in the presidential lodge; they breakfasted next morning with Vice President Nixon.

Ending the Cabinet session, Ike expressed "gratitude and appreciation for the perfection of coordination and cooperation the Cabinet has maintained in carrying on the executive business of the Government with the minimum of communication from the President while I was in the hospital in Denver." Then, after his last airlifted aides had taken off for Washington, 70 miles southeast, Ike motored back to Gettysburg.

Ike last week also:

P: "Regretfully" accepted the resignation of Assistant Commerce Secretary Lothair Teetor. praising his "diligence and talent." Teetor announced last May that he would soon return to his family's Indiana piston-ring business, the Perfect Circle Corp., scene of a violent C.I.O. strike since last July.

P: Appointed Michigan Republican Frederick H. Mueller, 62, an East Grand

Rapids furniture manufacturer, to replace Teetor.

P: Appointed New York State Republican Clifford C. Furnas, 55, chancellor of the University of Buffalo, to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Development, the post recently vacated by new Air Force Secretary Donald A. Quarles.

P: Scheduled a Gettysburg meeting early this week with Republican Chairman

Leonard Hall to discuss party politics--although not, apparently, the President's own political intentions.

P: Made plans to press a button in Gettysburg on Dec. 18, lighting the national Christmas tree in Washington, and to return to the White House (probably until April) about Dec. 20.

These duties over, Ike relaxed for Thanksgiving Day.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.