Five thousand cheering Republicans jammed Commonwealth Armory last night to help General Dwight D. Eisenhower celebrate his seventhy - second birthday and hear him deliver a bitter attack on the foreign policy of the Kennedy Administration.
The former President also condemned the Senate candidacy of Democrat Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy '54, the President's youngest brother, and declared that Kennedy's campaign is based on the "crass, almost arrogant query: Who can get the most out of the United States Treasury for Massachusetts?"
In his first public criticism of the President's conduct of foreign affairs, Eisenhower declared that "the dreary and sad foreign record of the past 21 months the cannot equal any part of the eight-year record of the previous Administration."
"I cannot allow the work and devotion of my many associates during eight years in Washington to be scorned at as long as I have a voice to speak," Eisenhower said, in reference to recent charges by President Kennedy that the Republicans foreign policy drift aimlessly.
Eisenhower declaed that under John Foster Dulles and "your own" Christian Herter "no walls were built, no threatening bases were established, not an inch of ground was lost to tyranny."
Eisenhower arrived at the $100-a-plate dinner shortly after 9 p.m. and was immediately escorted to the Armory stage for the statewide telecast of his speech. As in the 1952 and 1952 Presidential campaigns, the Republican faithful happily chanted "We Like Ike."
Many of Massachusetts' most destinguished Republicans returned to honor the former President last night. Ike was greeted by former United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and former Speaker of the House Joe Martin. He was introduced by Sen. Leverett Saltonstall '44.
In his speech, Eisenhower paid special tribute to Henry Cabot Lodge for "courageously giving national leadership to my own first campaign, thereby jeopardizing his own hope for re-election to the Senate."
Eisenhower also praised Lodge's record as Ambassador to the United Nations and declared, "since his departure we have net heard an American voice there speak out with such clarity and force, such persuasiveness and decisiveness for American leadership."
The General also had words of support for Republican Senatorial candidate George Cabot Lodge '50, who served as Assistant Secretary of Labor in the Eisenhower Administation.
"George Cabot Lodge has the sober judgment, wide experience, and dedication to the good of all Americans to make him a worthy Senator," Eisenhower said. He called for Republicans, Independents, and "discerning Democrats" to answer the "crude and brassy partisan demands of the Democrats" by voting for Lodge.
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