This public retreat disheartened both the Republicans in the Senate who had been working hard to pass the bill and their liberal Democratic colleagues. Senator Richard Neuberger of Oregon, an outspoken liberal, said in exasperation after Eisenhower’s press conference that the president “revealed, first, that he is not thoroughly familiar with the contents of his administration’s bill, and second, that he is not enthusiastically in favor of what he does believe the bill to contain.” It was a harsh indictment, one now widely shared in the Senate. Ike had thrown in the towel on Section 3.
