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.