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On May 13, 1955, President Eisenhower told his Cabinet that a balanced budget was his great objective. If he achieved that goal, he said, he would consider his task in the White House largely accomplished. In the fiscal year just ending—based on the third budget prepared by the Eisenhower Administration—the U.S. budget has a surplus of $1.8 billion.
A-BOMBS ON BRICKERITES?
Entering the White House, Ike felt sure he could quickly smooth out presidential relationships with Congress. It was not that easy: in 1953 came the thoughts of a third party—and the conflicts with congressional diehards continued in 1954. At a Cabinet meeting, when the furor over Republican Senator John Bricker's proposed amendment (to limit the President's treatymaking power) was at its raucous height. Civil Service Commissioner Philip Young facetiously suggested that perhaps a few A-bombs "could be used now to good effect." Says Donovan: "The President took him to task for this. He said sharply that he did not wish to hear any talk of a 'Pride's Purge.' "* Through patience and persuasion (along with, on at least one occasion, a threat to take his case to the U.S. public), President Eisenhower managed considerable improvements in his relationships with Congress. Despite John Bricker and Joe McCarthy (of whom Ike, when urged to attack McCarthy publicly, snapped: "I will not get in the gutter with that guy"), Congress approved most of Ike's massive legislative program in 1954. In 1955 Congress was Democratic—and the Eisenhower program again met with a large measure of success. Then came the September night in Denver when Mamie Eisenhower called Dr. Howard McCrum Snyder to her husband's bedside.
IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT
"Snyder," writes Donovan, "listened to Eisenhower's chest with a stethoscope and took his pulse and tested his blood pressure . . . It took only two or three minutes for Snyder to come to the grave conclusion that the President of the U.S. was suffering from a coronary thrombosis." Snyder immediately began specific treatment for a coronary.
The doctor, says Author Donovan, did not tell Ike of his diagnosis, but "the President knew he was very ill . . . To avert shock to Mrs. Eisenhower, who has long suffered from valvular heart disease herself, Snyder sent her back to bed without telling her the President's true condition. Also, he put aside the idea of a public announcement because he feared that it would cause great excitement which inevitably would permeate the Doud house and might possibly kill the President. Sitting alone in the dead of night with his slumbering patient, therefore, Howard Snyder was the only man in the world who knew that the President was stricken with a damaged heart."
Twelve hours elapsed before old (75) General Snyder told Acting Press Secretary Murray Snyder that the President had suffered a coronary. After that, says Donovan, the U.S. public was kept informed of the President's condition with "thoroughness and candor."
AN EXTRAORDINARY MEETING