No Change
BY RICHARD ROVERE New A T the moment, some thirty-six hours after the firs6 riannouncement that the President was suffering an intestinal disorder, the political situation appears unchanged' Mr. Nixon, Mr. Leonard Hall, and most of the rest of Mr. Eisenhower's political managers are talking and act1' as if nothing serious had happened, and their highly inexpert views seem to be confirmed by the most expert medical opinion, which is that once he has recuperated the President will be no less and no more fit than he has been at any time between September and now. His present ailment —assuming, as everyone does, that it is exactly as reported in the bulletins from Walter Reed Army Hospital—does not e constitute an additional disability. Recuperation, howe'vr, will take time, which is never more of the essence than f June of an election year, and there is a large question o what will go on in voters' minds during the days or weeks in which the President is hospitalised and bedridden. Judging by the experience of last autumn, nothing much will go in the voters' minds. That experience showed that those who approved Mr. Eisenhower's stewardship grasped for the most sanguine available estimates of his future and shut their minds to all others, while those who disapproved seized upon the darkest possibilities and affected to be deeply shocked at the Illousness of those who encouraged him to seek re-election. if that experience can be projected and if the medical intelli- gence can be accepted, then nothing is, or at least nothing should be, changed.
But the possibility cannot be discounted that two seizures lo nine months, though they are unrelated and though one of them may not in the least increase the hazards to the President's life, may have an impact on public opinion—and on some Private opinion—that the first did not have. Many of us have felt that the real test of the wisdom of the President's decision and of his supporters' confidence would come when he and they observed the effects that even the slightest indisposition Would have. It was plain that anything that kept him from Meeting his appointments schedule would be related to the heart condition by the press and by sections of public opinion and was therefore bound to have an unsettling effect, whether or not there was any basis for making the connection. No doubt Mr. Eisenhower and his advisers thought carefully about this before the decision to run again was made public. but now they and all their friends throughout the country have a real instance rather than an imagined one to take into account, and it may alter their convictions. Unfortunately, the American system does seem to require a kind of assurance about the chief magistrate that other systems do not require and that life itself cannot provide. If the situation continues to be unchanged, if the President accepts re-nomination in August and wins re-election in November, he will do so in the knowledge that he is fairly certain to provide the country with a good many more shocks of the sort it sustained yester- day morning—though it may be hoped and perhaps expected that their causes will be less grave and discomforting than that of yesterday's shock. At this writing, however, it seems entirely possible that the experience will give him pause and that he will ask to be excused from his commitment of February 29. Or that the leaders of his party will be given pause and will advise his withdrawal. It seems certain that it will be several days before anyone will say anything of importance on the subject.
Meanwhile, Adlai Stevenson has bounded back into first place among the Democratic candidates. His victories in the Florida and California primaries have cancelled out Senator Kefauver's victory in Minnesota on March 20. They have not cancelled out Senator Kefauver, who remains an obstacle to Stevenson while not himself standing any considerable chance for the nomination. But the 1952 candidate is now well in the lead for the 1956 nomination, and since there are no more primaries of importance between now and the Chicago con- vention on August 13, this situation at least has, as the diplo- mats say, elements of stability. Though the withdrawal of President Eisenhower would make the Democratic nomination more of a prize than it has seemed these past two or three months, it would do nothing that one can now foresee to change the balance of forces within the Democratic Party. It would not be imprudent now to wager even money on Stevenson's nomination on any ballot but the first.
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