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A: Everybody that I thought was my friend, and some that I wasn't so sure of.
Q: What was Mrs. Eisenhower's reaction to the decision?
A: Mrs. Eisenhower and other members of my family, at the beginning, have said: "This is your decision. We will conform."
Q: How does he expect the issue of his health to be handled in the campaign?
A: For my part, I am going to try to be just as truthful as I can be. And I believe this: I think even people who would classify themselves probably as my political enemies do believe I am honest—they may call me stupid—but I think they think I am honest.
Q: What does he regard as the major issues of the campaign?
A: I have a record established before the American people: that is my campaign.
Q: Does he intend to work for election of a Republican Congress?
A: The legislative and executive should properly be in the same hands, so that there can be responsibility fixed without crimination and recrimination . . . But this is not to deny that I have had active and vital Democratic support in certain of the programs that I have advanced.
Q: How many people were in on his secret?
A: I think since last evening there has been probably half a dozen.
Q: How about before that?
A: Well, there could have been no one because I didn't know myself.
Q: What had influenced him most in his decision?
A: When you come down to comparisons, I am not certain what influences man most in this world.
After the reporters, finished with their questions, had bolted for the door (see PRESS) the President went directly to his office, took a pencil and memorandum pad and went to work again on the statement he would make to the people. At noon he had a swim, half an hour's rest, lunch, and was back in his office at 2:30, only to find that it was overrun by radio and television technicians setting up for the speech that night. He took his note pad and a handful of pencils into the Cabinet Room and sat alone at the huge Cabinet table. Occasionally Ann Whitman, his personal secretary, went in for dictation of a few paragraphs. Speechwriter Kevin McCann, Aides Adams and Persons and News Secretary James Hagerty moved in and out, but essentially it was the President's own message in his own words. He read the speech aloud three times, timing himself as he did so, making changes each time.
"Suaviter, Portlier." That night, when the President walked into his office with his final draft (which he had edited considerably with black pencil after the last typing), he was relaxed and jovial. On his desk in front of the lectern rested an inch-high plate bearing the Latin motto, Suaviter in Modo, Fortiter in Re, and the translation, "Gently in Manner, Strongly in Deed."* When someone mentioned the motto, which has been on the President's desk for more than a year, he cracked: "Maybe I'd better hide that; that proves I'm an egghead."
On signal from Television Adviser Robert Montgomery, the President was on the air, talking to an audience estimated at 65 million.