"Roget, Barflett and Buckle"

Presidential Secretary Steve Early and a little group of White House employes and pressroom regulars clustered in the President's office one noon last week. Mr. Roosevelt buzzed for Assistant Secretary William D. Hassett. Lank, grey, stooped Bill Hassett, 64, got a little flustered, for the President abruptly announced that this was a court-martial; that he, Bill, had been accused of using some very bad language and the group was gathered to see how good a swearer he really was. Forthwith joke-loving Franklin Roosevelt handed Bill Hassett a commission as full presidential secretary, to succeed the late Marvin Mclntyre.

Bill Hassett is a Washington institution. Born in Northfield, Vt., he started his Washington newspaper career in 1909, worked decades as a newspaperman before shifting to a job with NRA and on to the White House. A kindly, gregarious, infallibly obliging gentleman of the old school, Bill Hassett rather likes being called a Victorian. He is deeply versed in English and American history and literature, lives in comfortably Victorian bachelor diggings on Pennsylvania Avenue, only five blocks from the White House.

In recent years Secretary Hassett has subbed frequently for Steve Early as press secretary, especially on the grueling train trips which Early dislikes. But his prime value to the President has been as all-round literary choreman, helping compose some of the most felicitous of Presidential letters, touching up the Presidential speeches and supplying apt quotations and historical facts. One of his prized possessions is an autographed photograph of the President inscribed: "To Bill Hassett -a rare combination of Roget, Bartlett and Buckle."

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