Smoking Out

Cigarettes and chitchat, it was agreed at a White House staff conference, can spoil the efficiency of any office. Out went the word to the 49 typists, stenographers, receptionists, filing clerks, etc. under the over-all eye of Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams: no smoke & gossip sessions when on the job in the White House.

Newsmen quickly pounced on Press Secretary Jim Hagerty and asked him to explain the new rule.

Q. Do the secretaries smoke at their desks?

A. Yes.

Q. They do?

A. Yes . . . There is nothing mysterious about it. It's just that they don't like any of us to hang around or go around smoking.

Q. Have you been having trouble with that?

A. No. They are not going to.

Q. What were they instructed specifically against?

A. They were not instructed specifically against anything.

Q. You said they don't like them hanging around corridors and sitting around?

A. That's right. This is a working office.

Q. How did they find out about it?

A. I don't know.

Q. How did you find out about it?

A. I happen to know.

Q. Who told you?

A. I told myself.

Q. Have you passed the word along?

A. To my own people, certainly.

Q. Would that mean it was discussed at a meeting with Adams?

A. Yes.

Q. At a staff meeting?

A. Yes.

Q. Was Eisenhower present?

A. No.

Q. What brought this thing up?

A. There was a discussion we had with our own people, with our own staff, that we are going to try to make the White House a working office.

Q. American Tobacco won't like that . . . How about the coffee hour? . . Can they drink coffee at their desks?

A. (wearily). I don't know.

To one of his visitors during the week the President, who does not smoke, said: "I think it is a sensible order." He added that he does not want people who come to the President of the U.S. to have to walk through lobbies or offices where the secretaries are bunched around smoking. What it boils down to is that a smoke alone at a desk is tolerable, but smokes in a cluster around any one desk are taboo.

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