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"I wanted to come into your homes this evening," he said, "because I feel the need of talking with you directly about a decision I made today after weeks of the most careful and devoutly prayerful consideration." Then, reversing the formula that another general, William Tecumseh Sherman, used in 1884, he said: "I have decided that if the Republican Party chooses to renominate me I shall accept the nomination. Thereafter, if the people of this country should elect me I shall continue to serve them in the office I now hold. I have concluded that I should permit the American people to have the opportunity to register their decision in this matter."
Then the President reviewed in intricate detail the medical reports showing that he has made a good recovery, and the physicians' estimate that he is able to continue in the presidency. He pointed out that he might possibly be "a greater risk than is a normal person of my age," but "so far as my own personal sense of well-being is concerned, I am as well as before the attack occurred . . . As of this moment, there is not the slightest doubt that I can now perform as well as I ever have all of the important duties of the presidency . . . I am confident that I can continue to carry them indefinitely. Otherwise I would never have made the decision I announced today."
But he would have to follow a "regime of ordered work activity, interspersed with regular amounts of exercise, recreation and rest." This meant that some of the less vital duties that he had been performing, including some speeches, ceremonial dinners, receptions and correspondence, would be reduced. "All of this means also that neither for renomination nor re-election would I engage in extensive traveling and in whistle-stop speaking, normally referred to as barnstorming. I had long ago made up my mind, before I ever dreamed of a personal heart attack, that I could never as President of all the people conduct the kind of campaign where I was personally a candidate . . .
"I shall in general wage no political campaign in the customary pattern. Instead, my principal purpose if renominated will be to inform the American people accurately through means of mass communication."
Then Dwight Eisenhower uttered what seemed to be the key to his decision: "The work that I set out four years ago to do has not yet reached the stage of development and fruition that I then hoped could be accomplished within the period of a single term in this office. So if the American people choose under the circumstances I have described to place this duty upon me I shall persist in the way that has been charted by my associates and myself."
When the President finished, Mrs. Eisenhower stepped to his side and took his hand. Then he picked up his text, said "Thank you, thank you, boys," to the cameramen and, with the members of his family who had been in the room, went back to his living quarters. There was no doubt that he had on that day decided the Republican nomination for the presidency. And most political observers felt that he had also decided the election.