Nixon and on the flood of communications from the public. Eisenhower and Adams agreed that Nixon could come to Wheeling with the assurance he would remain on the ticket. After making speeches in Missoula and at a stop in Denver, and after Eisenhower made his own speech announcing that his running mate had been the victim of an "attempted smear," Nixon arrived in Wheeling late in the day on the 24th. Eisenhower came to the airport to meet the plane, and hurried up the steps to greet the Nixons when the door was opened. The candidates waved at the crowd of 3,000 which had come to meet the plane, and rode together, with Nixon in place of honor, to a rally at City Island Stadium as Eisenhower chatted to Nixon as if the crisis had never occurred. At the stadium, Eisenhower introduced Nixon as a "colleague" who had been subject to "a vicious and unprincipled attack" but who had "vindicated himself" and who "stood higher than ever before". Eisenhower finished by reading two telegrams, one from Nixon's mother assuring Eisenhower of her son's integrity, and the second from Summerfield stating that the RNC had voted unanimously to retain Nixon on the ticket. Nixon then spoke, telling the crowd that this was one of two moments when he was most proud to be an American; the other had been at the victory parade in New York in 1945, when he had seen General Eisenhower go by. He called the Wheeling rally "the greatest moment of my life". Media reaction Editorial reaction to the address was divided. The New York Times, which had criticized Nixon, and had even run stories with claims that he was under criminal investigation for the Fund, praised Nixon's "composure and assurance". The New York Journal American gushed, "He was in our opinion, simply magnificent. We know of no other way to say it." The Pittsburgh Press called the address "an extraordinary speech". The Mobile Register stated that the Fund crisis "confronted [Nixon] with an unsought opportunity which he made the most of." However, some newspapers disagreed. The Baltimore Sun noted that Nixon "did not deal in any way with the underlying question of propriety," while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called the address "a carefully contrived soap opera". Columnist Walter Lippmann called the wave of support for Nixon "disturbing ... with all the magnification of modern electronics, simply