Ike: How Quaint

May 31, 1956

President’s Liking for Office Growing […]

Summarizing his politial experience three years after he returned from Paris to seek the Republican Presidential nomination, the President told reporters at his seventieth news conference that he “still didn’t like politics” — in the derogatory sense of the term — but that working with and influencing people in the cause of world peace was “a fascinating business.”

“It is the kind of thing,” he added, working up enthusiasm for the subject, “that would engage the interest, intense interest, of any man alive.”

He continued:

“There are in this office thousands of unique opportunities to meet especially interesting people because the Government here in Washington has become the center of so many things that, again, you have a very fascinating experience in meeting scientists, people that are leaders in culture, in health, in governmental action, and from all over the world.

“There are many things about the office and the work, the work with your associates that are, well, let’s say, at least intriguing, even if at times they are very fatiguing. But they are — it is a wonderful experience.”

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