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Oh, sure.

He wouldn't have been really threatened by it, would he? Because it was pretty clear how things would go.

Years later something happened that bore on that attitude of being above everything. When he was in retirement, we did a series of I think four or more backward looks at the presidency, with Eisenhower. Indeed, took him back to Normandy, walked through the battlefield with him, etc. I guess it was [Walter] Cronkite who did the interview, [Fred] Friendly was the producer. But, at any rate, we had some early rushes on the film. This was not video tape in those days, this was old fashioned film, and Paley, who was a close friend of Eisenhower's, had invited him up to look at the film. At lunch that day, Paley was there, Eisenhower was there, I was there, just the three of us, having lunch. Paley got called to the phone by his office, excused himself and slipped out of the dining room. While he was gone, Ike said to me, “Gee, I've got to call and make sure my car will be here to meet me to take me over to Gettysburg,” or, to the airport to go to Gettysburg. He said, “Do you have a phone I can use?” I said sure, because we had a phone under the table we could use. I put it up, and he said to me, “Would you mind dialing it? I've never dialed a phone.”

Wow.

My conclusion, then as it is now, is that the dial phone came in while he was gone. As a senior officer he had ten people to do anything that he wanted, so -- peel me a