Press Conference Revisited

A onetime Washington reporter visiting his old beat for the first time in two years, last week attended the President's first 1944 press conference. To friends he wrote:

"Muscling into the White House was an extraordinary process. For five and a half years I wandered in there casually any time, as if it were a city or county build ing, waving to the guards, listening to them exchange race tips. . . . Now I had to have everything but a blood test. I didn't recognize a single guard until the ten-minute grilling and clothes brushing was over and I was inside, with an uneasy feeling that I'd be nudged by a bayonet any minute.

"The President looked fine: vigorous, firm, clear-eyed. But something has gone. That surpassing warmth, that almost electric personal magnetism that was such a tangible things, is dim, or seemed so. He seems more than two years older. Even his polka-dot tie, his lack of vest (as always), his rough, pale grey summer suit seemed too youthful for him. . . .

"The conference was very short, about ten minutes. Nothing searching was asked. We used to stand outside and load those questions like a Continental's musket, with all the old iron, broken glass and pointed rocks we could find -- then march in and fire both barrels. But this was all polite ness and punctilio and namby-pamby questions. Reporters who used to ask questions like rusty razor blades now seemed to figure: with all he has on his shoulders, should I really do this to him? The old rough- & -tumble give-& -take is another wartime casualty."

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