Settling Down

While Dwight Eisenhower worried over his state of the Union message, Dr. Howard Snyder, the new White House physician, worried over the state of a presidential cold. No more than a sniffle, without a temperature, it still called for three days of relative isolation. The Chief Executive spent a good part of his workaday hours in the study off his bedroom, pondering and polishing his address to Congress.

He was all right again and seeing callers by Friday, which happened to be his first payday. His first check from the Treasury, about $1,800, for the period from Jan. 20 through Jan. 31, minus taxes, arrived on time. Slowly, in the oval, pastel green west-wing office, the Eisenhower personal touch became apparent. The empty bookshelves began to fill, with the Britannica Great Books, a set of the Harvard Classics, miscellaneous reference volumes. On the wall opposite the President hung one of his own paintings, a verdant Rocky Mountain meadowland scene. On his desk he put a gilt-framed photograph of his mother. Also added: a new pen stand studded with two dozen small stones from localities of significance in Eisenhower's life, including one from his Texas birthplace, Denison, others from Abilene, West Point, the Philippines, on through the Normandy beach to the White House grounds.

Among other items of business, the President last week:

P: Met for the first time with the National Security Council, top advisory group on U.S. policy.

P: Said goodbye to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Mutual Security Director Harold E. Stassen as they took off on their European trip. After a White House breakfast, Eisenhower escorted his two colleagues to the front portico, wished them well, and, still worrying about his address to Congress, said to Dulles: "Think of me when I'm out there sweating Monday morning."

P: Received the chiefs of Washington's 76 foreign missions in the White House Blue Room. The ceremony involved about 150 handshakes with diplomats and their wives, paying their first formal call on the new President and First Lady.

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