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What the ileitis did do was to throw even greater doubt on Dwight Eisenhower's availability for renomination, and for months the Washington press asked about little else. Hagerty knew when Ike was ready to run again, but he still had to fend off questions. Finally, at Gettysburg, Hagerty talked to Ike in a cattle pen near the gabled farmhouse. "How are things in the outside world?" asked the President. "They're driving me crazy about re-election," said Hagerty. "Let's break the logjam." replied President Eisenhower. "Jim, why don't you go back and grin at them?" Jim Hagerty did just that, and his grin made national headlines. It was confirmed a week later when the President subtly revealed his intentions to visiting Senate Republican Leader Bill Knowland and Knowland was allowed to break the news.
Washington's flap is eternal, and no sooner had Ike made his availability known than a storm brewed about Richard Nixon as his running mate. Harold Stassen, who was supposed to advise the President on international disarmament, urged dumping Nixon in favor of Massachusetts' Governor Christian Herter. Hagerty, who liked Nixon and thought he was the strongest candidate for Vice President, consulted the President, issued a statement pointedly reading Stassen out of the official Eisenhower family in his fight against Nixon. Later, when Nixon announced that he wanted a second term, Hagerty again went to Ike, came out to describe him as "enthusiastic" about Nixon's decision. When Stassen's dump-Nixon campaign fell completely flat, he publicly blamed Press Secretary Jim Hagerty for knifing him. "You're goddam right I was shooting him down," says Jim Hagerty. "It's no secret that I was for the Vice President for renomination." It is no secret that Eisenhower was for Nixon, too.
Bending a Rule. The exertions of the winning 1956 campaign, piled on top of the President's two illnesses, dampened the Administration's drive in the second term—and made Jim Hagerty's job that much harder. Although the slowdown was yearlong, it got talked about most during the President's frequent vacations and long Gettysburg weekends. Hagerty struggled valiantly and, to a point, successfully in stressing work over play. He took with him on trips briefcases full of executive orders, appointments, etc., and parceled them out daily to make news under the Augusta or Gettysburg dateline. He encouraged feature stories on the Army Signal Corps' elaborate setup to keep Ike in close touch with Washington. He produced Cabinet members in wholesale lots. (Does Hagerty really call for Cabinet members? Says he: "Maybe sometimes I do.") He did anything and everything, in short, to keep the subjects of golf and fishing far down in the daily stories about the President.