Before he ever became a college president, Dwight D. Eisenhower made up his mind about one thing the U.S. needed: a system for getting the best of the nation's brainsscholars and men of affairsregularly around a conference table to thresh their way to agreement on the nation's most pressing public questions. Last week Eisenhower announced that he was ready to begin. He called his project "The American Assembly." He also called it "the most important step I have taken as president of Columbia University."
Eisenhower's idea is to set up a series of three-to-five-day conferences to take place eight times a year....