he be cross-examined and publicly reveal his true feelings.100 The "Unshirted Hell" meeting was the most violent disagreement that Taft had with the Eisenhower administration. In late April, Taft began to show signs of illness. He was visibly weak and experienced continual pain in his hips and knees. By May, Taft could no longer cope with his deteriorating condition and checked himself into Walter Reed Memorial Hospital. Initially diagnosed with an anemic condition, Taft left the hospital four days later and resumed his public service. After a round of further tests, his doctors determined that Taft had cancer. The physicians could not determine the point of origin, but the cancer had spread throughout a large portion of Taft's body. On June 10, Taft appointed Knowland as Acting Majority Leader and turned over his day-to- day duties to the California Senator. He told the press that he had a serious illness, but kept the specific details private. He spent the next month in and out of the hospital but tried to keep up with his duties in the Senate as much as possible.101 During the summer of 1953, Taft continued to observe and critique the new Republican administration. The flaws he reported to his associates loomed large in the face of the split between conservatives and liberals within the GOP and revealed Taft's remaining distrust of his factional rivals. He told a friend that "The President is being pulled in two directions, and usually when it is toward socialism I find it comes from what you might call the Dewey camp."102 Brownell's position as Attorney General, Adams role as Eisenhower's Chief of Staff, and the appointment of Durkin as Secretary of Labor placed liberals in high places in the administration. 100 Legislative Meeting Minutes, 30 April 1953. Copy in Folder (L-3 (2) [April 30, 1953]), Box 1, Legislative Minutes Series. 101 Patterson, Mr. Republican, 600-612; William S. White, The Taft Story (New York: Harper, 1954). 102 Robert A. Taft, Quoted in Patterson, Mr. Republican, 608.