Victory at Sea

To have the President of the U.S. as a captive audience at a time of interservice wrangling over defense funds is the kind of dream that military stuff is made of. Last week the U.S. Navy made the most of every split second of its dream-come-true. At the instant that Dwight Eisenhower was piped over the side of the supercarrier Saratoga at the new carrier base in Mayport, Fla., two F4-D Skyray interceptors were shot off the forward steam catapults at 141 knots to prove the capability of even a dead-in-the-water carrier.

As Lantflex I-57 (code name for the exercise) with its 19 ships set out to sea, Ike's hosts trotted out a dark-blue Mitscher-type cap and a dark-blue foul-weather jacket with "The President" stenciled in gold on the chest. Ike took up his station for hours at a time on the green-tinted, glass-windowed flag bridge of Saratoga.* With him was an all-star Government audience for whom the Navy could hoist its message. From Washington had come Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (who talks up but has seldom witnessed the military muscles of the U.S. in action), retiring Treasury Secretary George Magoffin Humphrey, Atomic Storekeeper Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, Defense Secretary Charles Erwin Wilson and an articulate handful of Navy brass, from Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke to Atlantic Fleet Commander Jerauld Wright.

From the flag bridge they saw the modern Navy put on an impressive, well-run drill. The demonstrations ranged from over-the-shoulder simulated A-bomb tosses to napalm drops, from missile launching to night take-offs and landings. One ensign had trouble with his approaches, was waved away three times before making it on the fourth try. Said the President: "Bet the poor kid was crying his eyes out." The Navy was fairly obvious about its yen to get into the strategic bombing business with, but after, the Air Force's Strategic Air Command. In one notable performance, two A3D Sky Warriors (at 41,000 ft., a top speed of over 600 m.p.h.) and two F8U Crusaders (at plus 45,000 ft., an average speed of 650 m.p.h.) made the first carrier-to-carrier transcontinental flight in history, taking off from Bon Homme Richard at sea near San Diego, landing on Sara 60 miles off northern Florida. Said Ike to one pilot: "You almost got here before you left."

While the President was amazed at the intricacy and microsecond timing of carrier operations (he said, "Saratoga looks good. We know, just as you do, that she is good."), one somber note crept into the good sailing he had enjoyed. Three Navy fighter planes from Cecil Field, Fla. crashed on routine operations in the vicinity of Sara, and operations were suspended or altered to search out the pilots, reducing the presidential task force from 19 to three ships. Two pilots were saved, one lost, and Ike, deeply disturbed, sent .his sympathy to the next of kin.

Last week the President also:

P: Let it be known that he is no longer taking weekly an anticoagulant drug, part of the follow-up therapy of his Sept. 24, 1955 heart attack. Prescribed to retard bloodclotting, the drug had been given three times a week at first, was cut down slowly until a month ago, when Patient Eisenhower was found to need no further regular medication.

P:Went to Capitol Hill for a $1.19 box lunch (cold fried chicken, cold roll, cold potato salad, cold cupcake) with 180 House Republicans whose Minority Leader Joe Martin picked up the tab. In the palm-lined caucus room, Ike spoke for a minute of cheer, saying anyone who followed and worked for the 1956 party platform would find "an ally in me."

P:Joined in tributes to five-star General George Catlett Marshall at Blair-Lee House on the tenth anniversary of his world-shaping Harvard speech that outlined the Marshall Plan. Ike gave his old commander a letter of tribute (signed "Dwight D. Eisenhower"), which said that the Marshall suggestion had prevented "economic collapse and political chaos" in Western Europe.

P: Received a report from his advisory commission on presidential office space, which is sorely strained, recommending that the handsomely grotesque, Charles Addams-like Old State, War and Navy Building to the White House's west be razed and a new presidential office building constructed on the same space. Cost: about $32 million.

P:Approved, to help Communist Poland maintain its modicum of independence from Moscow, a $48.9 million economic-aid agreement providing the Gomulka government with 1) a $30 million line of credit in the Export-Import Bank for the purchase of U.S. farm products and mining machinery and 2) $18.9 million worth of surplus cotton, fats and oils to be paid for in Polish zlotys. Also approved: a draft agreement to give the Poles $46 million worth of additional farm products repayable in zlotys, as soon as Congress provides the necessary authorization.

*Her mascot, recently dipped in green paint by unknown enemies, is a live fighting cock. In the War of 1812, the U.S. corvette Saratoga suffered a hit from a British man-of-war on Lake Champlain that smashed the cage of a fighting cock. The bird flew to the rail, poised there defiantly, ready for battle.

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