Stag at Bay

Washington's social season was opened last week at a white-tie dinner given by the President and Mrs. Eisenhower for the Cabinet, the first of a series of six dinners and five receptions that will mark the biggest, most formal White House season in twelve years. Three nights later, Ike wined & dined 21 prominent men at the seventh of his stag dinners for U.S. leaders--and landed in a hassle with an angry newshen who thought he was being unfair to women. At his press conference, the President was confronted by Columnist Doris Fleeson, who wanted to know why he hadn't invited any prominent women to dinner. "How do you square that with your anti-discrimination program?" she demanded. Well, said Ike, he had tried to give two or three dinners for women, but he had been told that he had better watch out because the women could not decide who should come. "Did women tell you that or did men tell you that?" snapped Feminist Fleeson. He got the advice from women, Ike quickly assured her. He would never take a man's advice on such a thing. But he thought it would be wise not to identify his feminine advisers.

Last week the President also: P: Issued an executive order abolishing the Truman Administration's secrecy code, restricting the use of secret classifications in 17 departments and agencies and forbidding them altogether in 28 others, e.g., the Fine Arts Commission, the Committee on Purchases of Blind-Made Products. The new code will make information more easily available to the press, will eliminate excessive and absurd classification of most Government documents.

P: Spent 18 minutes with Mamie and members of his staff in a new, $750,000 White House air-raid shelter during a mock A-bomb raid. Afterward, Civil Defense officials reckoned that, had the raid been real, the President would have survived, although 120,000 Washingtonians in the neighborhood would have been casualties.

P: Denounced Senator William Jenner's reiterated attack on General George Marshall as a "front man for traitors." Marshall, the President told his press conference, is one of the greatest patriots, one of the ablest men and certainly one of the most dedicated men he had encountered.

P: On the eve of his state visit to Canada this week, gave executive permission to New York State to join with the Dominion in building the $600 million St. Lawrence River power project.

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