It was a matter of being senator for only two months and he declined.[265]

A photograph of Hoover in 1958
Hoover backed conservative leader Robert A. Taft at the 1952 Republican National Convention, but the party's presidential nomination instead went to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who went on to win the 1952 election.[266] Though Eisenhower appointed Hoover to another presidential commission, Hoover disliked Eisenhower, faulting the latter's failure to roll back the New Deal.[262] Hoover's public work helped to rehabilitate his reputation, as did his use of self-deprecating humor; he occasionally remarked that "I am the only person of distinction who's ever had a depression named after him."[267] In 1958, Congress passed the Former Presidents Act, offering a $25,000 yearly pension (equivalent to $234,804 in 2021) to each former president.[268] Hoover took the pension even though he did not need the money, possibly to avoid embarrassing Truman, whose precarious financial status played a role in the law's enactment.[269] In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy offered Hoover various positions; Hoover declined the offers but defended Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs invasion and was personally distraught by Kennedy's assassination in 1963.