Ike's Press Secretary

In the bleak early hours after his heart attack, President Eisenhower instructed Dr. Howard Snyder: "You tell Jim for me to take over." White House Press Secretary James C. (for Campbell) Hagerty. who had been vacationing at home in Washington, landed at Lowry Air Force Base that evening and took over. For the next seven days, until Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams arrived in Denver, Jim Hagerty was the only official link between the stricken President and the worried world.

Faced with a pack of more than 100 newsmen, Jim Hagerty, 46, reversed the Administration's longtime policy of reticence about the President's personal life. To give reporters every last intimate detail of Ike's waking and sleeping hours, Hagerty in the past month has had to get by with three hours' sleep many nights, even missed his son's wedding two weeks ago. To report accurately and authoritatively on Ike's condition, Jim Hagerty briefed himself on heart disease. He collaborated with the doctors on four-a-day bulletins that were models of clarity and a major factor in dispelling the shock to the world of Ike's illness.

Mechanic at Work. When the Presi dent was told about the flood of information that was pouring out of the hospital, he told Hagerty approvingly: "I understand you're giving them everything. That's fine with me." Last week the press added its own vote of confidence. Said United Press's Merriman (Thank You, Mr. President) Smith, tough-talking dean of White House correspondents: "Hagerty has done a truly phenomenal job in Denver." Said veteran Eddie Folliard, Washington Post and Times Herald reporter who has been covering the capital since Calvin Coolidge was President: "Hagerty is the best press officer in the world, the best I've ever worked with."

Jim Hagerty, whose bespectacled Irish face and stocky (5 ft. 9 in., 174 Ibs.) build make him look like a good mechanic, is, in fact, one of the ablest technicians at getting out the news that the White House has ever had. Like his father, James A. Hagerty, he was drilled as a political reporter on the New York Times (whose editors gratuitously added a "Jr." to Jim's byline to distinguish the generations). Jim Jr. quit after eight years in the city room and Albany Bureau to become press secretary to New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in 1943. Nine years and three presidential campaigns later, Jim Hagerty joined Ike after Eisenhower received the G.O.P. nomination.

"Come In Any Time." As the President's press secretary, Jim Hagerty, unlike some of his predecessors, e.g., F.D.R.'s Steve Early, Harry Truman's Joe Short, is always available to the press. He is a man of huge energy, is happiest when the work load is heaviest. He is respected by reporters as an expert craftsman who knows precisely what newsmen need and will do everything in his power to deliver the goods, e.g., he 'was out of bed by 6 a.m. each day for the first two weeks in Denver to see the President and issue a bulletin in time for the first editions of afternoon papers.

While reporters seldom question his sure political instinct, his honesty or his refusal to play favorites among the press, newsmen occasionally complain that Hagerty is not equipped to analyze the Administration's ideas or provide interpretative background on policy questions. Hagerty's strength lies in his mastery of technicalities, both political and journalistic, and his closeness to. the President.

Soon after his election, Ike told Hagerty to "come in any time you think it's necessary," has given him greater latitude in releasing White House news than has ever previously been extended to a presidential press secretary. As a result, Hagerty has greatly liberalized White House news coverage, e.g., he introduced regular TV, still-photo and radio coverage of Eisenhower's news conferences, now permits full, direct press quotation of the President for the first time. Hagerty's proudest boast: "I have never attempted to tell a reporter how to write a story."

Nor does anyone in Washington try to run Jim Hagerty's business. On one occasion soon after he joined Eisenhower's campaign staff, Hagerty's temper got him into a hot argument with Ike. Finally Eisenhower walked over to Hagerty, clapped a hand on his shoulder and said: "You don't scare easy, do you?" Eisenhower confided that when he was on Gen eral Douglas MacArthur's staff (1935-39), he had made a point of speaking up when he disagreed with MacArthur, told Hagerty: "You be the same way with me and we'll get along all right."

A Fair Break. In Denver, Hagerty's dander has been sorely tried. For example: On Ike's birthday, United Press Photographer Stan Tretick and International News Photos' Maurice Johnson disguised themselves as patients in blue denim uniforms. They waited on the fifth-floor sundeck, and as Eisenhower was wheeled to the railing on the eighth-floor deck, they whipped out their cameras and took the first closeups of Ike since his attack. The pictures were confiscated. Snapped Hagerty: "If one of those Secret Service boys saw the glint of a camera and fired, no one would have blamed him a bit."

But when things are done Hagerty's way. he makes sure that the President will be pleased and that newsmen will get a scrupulously fair break. Last week, when doctors finally allowed Ike to pose for pictures (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), Hagerty mapped the photo session with military precision. Photographers were told sternly that they could move sideward or backward, but no closer than 9 ft. from a taped line marking the President's position. They were also warned not to raise their voices, give instructions to the President or take last-minute shots after the session ended.

When photographers proposed dropping their plates over the rail to waiting messengers to speed delivery. Hagerty said no. Instead, some of the eleven used Polaroid attachments so they could develop their film in the elevator, on the way to Wirephoto transmitters which had been specially rigged in the hospital basement. As a result, photographers were transmitting photos within five minutes after Hagerty's "O.K., fellows, that's all." Newsmen were well pleased. Looking back over the roughest five weeks in his life, so was Jim Hagerty. Said he : "Aside from bedpans and such, I don't think there's one thing that happened that we didn't put out."

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