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In his renewed vigor, Ike pitched zestfully into the business of politics. To pleased Congressmen came an increasing number of invitations to stop by the White House for drinks and chats, or to ride with the President in his plane. To Capitol Hill came many a warm letter, thanking legislators for help, that was signed "D.E." Arizona's conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, who alone in the Senate had voted against the relatively mild labor-reform bill sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat John Kennedy, was tickled pink when Ike confided: "If I'd been in the Senate, I'd have voted with you." Last month, when labor-reform legislation was at bitter issue in the House, Ike went on radio and television to urge a strong bill. He immensely enjoyed going over the drafts of his speech, and he took special pleasure in trying to outfox the Democratic opposition: he deliberately inserted a statement that, since he was barred from seeking reelection, he could only be speaking in the public interest. Behind that statement was the idea of foreclosing to the opposition the free and equal network time required for answering political speeches. It was in this same spirit of paying attention to political niceties that President Eisenhower, on the eve of his departure last week, called New Hampshire's Republican Senator Styles Bridges. "This is the President," he said. "Be good to [Under Secretary of State] Doug Dillon while I am gone. I'll appreciate your helping him all you can on foreign aid."
Standard-Bearer. It was the announcement of Dwight Eisenhower's European trip, to be followed by his exchange of visits with Khrushchev, that brought a tide of praise for the "New Eisenhower" —a phrase used to describe the Eisenhower who had in fact been around for quite a while. And in its every phase, the trip was a tribute to the presidential recognition Ike had been so long in winning.
In his Air Force Boeing 707 jet, accompanied by Chris Herter, the President left Maryland at 3:57 one morning last week, touched down in Newfoundland for a refueling and coffee stop, swept on across the Atlantic to land at Cologne-Bonn's Wahn Airport at 6:30 p.m. Bonn time. Bundeswehr artillery fired a 21-gun salute; a band played The Star-Spangled Banner and Deutschlandlied. Old Chancellar Konrad Adenauer, erect and brisk, stepped forward to greet the President, hailed the U.S. as "the standard-bearer of freedom." The President replied: "The name Adenauer has come to symbolize the determination of the German people to remain strong and free."