After Truman's March 29, 1952 announcement that he would not be seeking an additional term, a number of people in the federal government began making considerations for the impending presidential transition.

For instance, in the weeks following the announcement, numerous staffers in the Bureau of the Budget began circulating staff papers on the topic of transition.

For part of Stevenson's White House visit, he met in the Cabinet Room for a meeting with numerous administration officials, including as Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Omar N. Bradley, Director of Central Intelligence Walter Bedell Smith.

Soon, Bradley released a statement in which he took responsibility for his failure to have promptly carried out Truman's earlier orders to make arrangements with Eisenhower regarding briefings.

[13] Upset that Eisenhower had declined his offer for a White House meeting, Truman sent him a hand-written letter on August 16 urging him to change his mind.

[8][15] After receiving a concession message from his Democratic opponent Adlai Stevenson, Eisenhower delivered his victory remarks at approximately 2pm Eastern Time on November 5, 1952 (the day after the 1952 election).

[8] In his 1960 analysis of presidential transitions, Laurin L. Henry would write that its headquarters presented, "by far the most systematic staff activity ever at the disposal of a President-elect".

[23] Other key figures in the transition included James Hagerty (its press secretary) and Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr.[19] In early December, Sherman Adams named Roger Steffan to be an advance agent for Eisenhower at the White House.

[35] Ahead of meeting with the outgoing president on the day of the inauguration, Eisenhower expressed, to associates, his displeasure at the prospect of interacting with Truman.

"[34][35] Each presidents' later accounts in their memoirs would differ on some of the conversation they had in their car ride to the Capitol Building, however, both acknowledged that Eisenhower had inquired to Truman as to who had ordered his son John to return from service in the Korean War to attend the inauguration.

[36] The quick pace was attributable to Eisenhower setting the objective of naming designees to the top posts prior to his trip to Korea.

[21] Advisors Brownell and Clay were joined by Thomas E. Coleman on a three-man committee tasked with looking at prospects for top positions in Eisenhower's administration.

[40] Two-time Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey, considered the leader of the party's moderate wing, opted to remove himself from consideration for a position in Eisenhower's administration.

[41] Taft was also unhappy that Eisenhower disregarded the past practice of presidents-elect providing U.S. senators of their party with the courtesy of being consulted about potentially appointees hailing from the states they represented.

[21] A very key selection would be assistant to the president, as, Eisenhower, intended on to implement a military-style chain of command structure in his White House, with the role acting as his chief of staff.

[23] He also held a meeting with Arthur W. Radford, who had, after the Korean trip group arrived in Guam, flown directly to Pearl Harbor instead of joining Eisenhower aboard the USS Helena.

[23] During Eisenhower's trip, Douglas MacArthur happened to have delivered a speech in which he claimed to have a plan to end the war that he would be willing to share with the president-elect.

[68] Eisenhower met with Prime Minister of New Zealand Sidney Holland on December 16, and discussed the possibility of forming a pacific-focused defense alliance similar to NATO.

[67] In December, in order to avoid a rift with the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which was largely led by Robert A. Taft, Eisenhower had Frank Carlson, one of this top United States Senate allies, endorse the candidacy of Taft for Senate majority leader, which was perceived as an implicit endorsement from Eisenhower.

[74] After the January 12–13 meeting at the Commodore Hotel, many department heads traveled to Washington, D.C., where they reviewed briefing materials, consulted with outgoing officials, and looked at prospective appointments they had the authority to make.

[75] Shortly after the election, Truman instructed White House staff and heads of federal government departments to begin preparing their own briefing documents for the incoming administration.

[76] Dodge also arranged for most Cabinet designees to visit the Bureau of the Budget to meet its top staff members and receive a briefing on budget-related matters.

[78] Eisenhower's designee for secretary of defense, Charles Erwin Wilson, met with his outgoing predecessor, Robert A. Lovett, he only did so cursorily.

In addition, Eisenhower's designee for deputy secretary of defense, Roger Kyes, disregarded the advice of his outgoing predecessor, William Chapman Foster.

[78] These reports had been commissioned by then-businessman Harold E. Talbott in May 1952, and provided incoming appointees with information about the subordinate positions they had the authority to fill.

[81] On December 20, Eisenhower's designee for attorney general, Herbert Brownell Jr., went to the Department of Justice headquarters and met with the outgoing officeholder, James P.

[82] In advising him in his role of selecting top State Department figures, Dulles arranged a small assembly of retired Foreign Service officers to provide him recommendations.

There was a high level of trust and mutually strong regard between the incoming team and John Wesley Snyder, the outgoing secretary of the treasury.

Steelman worked with Adams' liaison Roger Steffan to hammer-out many of the procedural aspects of the transition, including the handling of files, security arrangements, plans for how to reorganize the clerical staff in order to make space for the secretaries being brought in by Eisenhower.

[8] In 1987, historian Carl M. Brauer wrote that one of the mistakes Eisenhower made during his transition had been not developing a substantial legislative agenda, arguing that, "without a presidentially backed program to keep it busy, Congress found it much easier in 1953 to get into controversial, negative, or largely symbolic issues in which the Eisenhower administration often found itself in holding actions, trying to prevent a weakening of the presidency or a repudiation of existing foreign policies.