Eisenhower replied to Faubus on September 5 with a brief and elliptical message: “The Federal Constitution will be upheld by me by every legal means at my command.” Eisenhower intended this to sound like a thinly veiled threat. Yet no one could be certain how he would act in the face of Faubus’s defiance. Nor did his highly publicized rounds of golf lend any sense of urgency to the issue; every day from 9:00 to noon, with national attention riveted on Little Rock, Ike could be found on the fairways of the Newport Country Club, working on his game with the club pro.
