New Channel

The first President of the U.S. used the coach-and-four as his main vehicle of communication, traveled 3,000 miles during his first three years in office to carry his personality and policies to the people who counted. Abraham Lincoln used the personal letter for much of his communication with the press. As an institution, the presidential press conference was not established until Woodrow Wilson was in the White House, and was not energetically exploited until Franklin Roosevelt arrived. Last week the institution switched to a new channel--which would have amazed its founder and fascinated its exploiter.

Four Glaring Eyes. When 218 reporters crowded into the ornate Treaty Room of the old State Department Building across the street from the White House for President Eisenhower's news conference, the glaring eyes of four movie and television cameras stared at the scene from a platform at the end of the room. The cameras began to whir before the President came in and remarked that "we are trying a new experiment," and they kept right on until U.P.'s Merriman Smith cried, "Thank you, Mr. President," and ended the conference. Three and a half hours later, after editing by presidential Press Secretary James Hagerty, the film was released for television.

It was the first time a presidential news conference had been televised, and it would not be the last. Press Secretary Hagerty announced that the innovation would become routine, although he did not promise that the film would always be released. For some old hands in the press corps who objected that television made the affair a production instead of a news conference, Hagerty had a brief answer: "We are in the 20th century -- the second part." President Eisenhower had expressed the hope that the cameras would not be a "disturbing influence." and they did not seem to be. The occasion contributed as much (or as little) to clarification of public affairs as presidential news conferences do without the benefit of camera. Editor Hagerty clipped out some sequences in which the President was not at his best, e.g., on the confusion in the Administration's security risk program (see below), but he left in a slip of the tongue which had the President saying Indonesia when he meant Indo-China. More reporters than usual wore television-blue shirts and eager looks, but the President maintained his customary earnest demeanor as he answered questions ranging from the Tachen crisis in Asia to how he likes his job (its blessings are "not wholly unmixed").

That's What He Said. After the show was beamed into the nation's living rooms, some Democratic politicians were frankly worried. The President had come over fine. Cracked one Democratic leader in Washington: "We demand equal time."

In answer to a reporter's request for an "appraisal of your first two years" in office, the President seized the opportunity to make a little speech (6 1/2 minutes). He ran through a noteworthy list of events: the Korean war had ended, trouble had been eased in Iran, in Egypt and in Trieste, the Communists had suffered a defeat in Central America. Western European Union had moved closer to reality. Despite the losses in Indo-China, he would say that "the foreign situation is more stable, generally speaking," although it is by no means "rosy."

As for the situation at home, said the President, taxes and spending have been cut, the economy has been shifted from wartime to a peacetime basis and is sound and prosperous. For critics who argued that he had failed to keep a promise to balance the budget in a hurry, he just happened to have in his pocket some lines from a speech he made in Peoria, Ill. on Oct. 2, 1952. The key sentences: "My goal, assuming that the cold war gets no worse, is to cut federal spending to something like $60 billion within four years. Such a cut would eliminate the deficit in the budget." Reminding the reporters that his new budget, after two years, is $62.4 billion, and the deficit is down to $2.4 billion, the President said with a happy grin: "I almost can claim credit for being a prophet."

Just What He Wanted. For Ike's team, the beginning of the third year in office was the occasion for a surprise party.

When the President stepped into the Cabinet Room one morning for a meeting of the National Security Council, Vice President Nixon, Mrs. Eisenhower and a whole crowd of well-wishers greeted him with cries of "Surprise." Nixon pushed a package, all done up in gold paper and blue ribbon, toward Ike. Under this set of circumstances, the President of the U.S. acted just the way almost everyone tries to: surprised, delighted, and that's-just-what-I-wanted. When he opened the package and discovered an eight-volume set of The Great Centuries of Painting, Ike exclaimed: "For goodness sakes. Wonderful--this is wonderful." As the President's third year began, he faced a heavy winter schedule of work and a lighter schedule of relaxation than he would like. A friend who has business interests in Palm Springs, Calif., where Ike spent a winter vacation last year, dropped in with a bit of advice: don't go to Palm Springs this year. The friend's reasoning: too many U.S. citizens are disturbed about the President's being away from the White House so much; going as far as Palm Springs--which is heavily populated by blondes, palm trees and convertibles--would be bad public relations for the President.

Even before the friend spoke up, Ike had decided that he would probably have to stick close to Washington this winter.

To meet the insistence of the White House physician, Dr. Howard Snyder, that he continue to get plenty of air and exercise, he will probably use closer retreats than Palm Springs. Preparations are being pushed at the Eisenhower farm at Gettysburg to make it ready for weekending.

So that she could get on to Gettysburg to put the farmhouse in order, Mamie hurried the White House social season to completion last week with three majors--the diplomatic reception, and formal dinners honoring the Vice President and the Speaker of the House. Washington's society reporters, combing the guest lists, dug out a tidbit. Wisconsin's Joe McCarthy was the only ranking Republican member of a congressional committee who was not invited to one of last week's formal dinners. Reporters hurried over to see Mamie's secretary, Mary Jane McCaffree, to ask why McCarthy was not invited. They got a straight answer: because the President and Mrs. Eisenhower did not want him.

Last week the President also: P: Signed the first law of the 84th Congress, a measure restoring special income-tax evasion penalties against narcotics peddlers that were inadvertently eliminated in last year's tax-revision bill. P: Appointed, as his administrative assistant in charge of federal-state government cooperation, Arizona's former two-term governor, Howard Pyle, who was defeated last November. P: Created the Committee on Government Employment Policy, supplanting the Civil Service Commission's Fair Employment Board, to report directly to the President on prevention of racial or religious discrimination in federal employment.

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