Marathon

The phone call came while Presidential Press Secretary James C. Hagerty was dressing. "Dr. Snyder thinks you'd better get down here right away," said the White House telephone operator. Jim Hagerty managed to gulp a glass of milk and two pieces of toast--and rushed off to two sleepless days of a grueling news marathon. While the drama's main actor lay behind the scenes, Jim Hagerty held the center of the stage, almost the only source of public information on the President's condition until Ike was well out of danger.

When Hagerty broke the news of the President's "upset stomach" from his White House office at 8:50 a.m., it was a break for the Associated Press. A.P. Correspondent Marvin Arrowsmith, an early riser, was the only reporter on hand. His reward: a five-minute beat.

Coffee & Scotch. Thereafter, newsmen worked in a swarm around Hagerty's head. He gave 14 press conferences, following virtually all of them with a statement for TV film, plus five radio interviews and two on live TV--and answered innumerable questions by reporters outside the press conferences. Meantime he haunted the doctors, stood attendance on the President's family, kept in close touch with Vice President Nixon and White House Staff Secretary Colonel Andrew Goodpaster. He got home twice, but only to shower and change his clothes. Through the long Friday night vigil, he gulped black coffee, sometimes lacing it with Scotch.

Unruffled at first, Hagerty grew tense as the prospect of an operation drew closer. But under the strain, he worked energetically--and seldom gave way to his short temper as he shot the facts along. In the Saturday dawn, he read a Washington Post and Times Herald editorial righteously observing that "the White House Staff will do well to continue its policy of keeping the people frankly and completely informed." Snapped Hagerty: "What the hell do they think I've been doing?"

Four More Years? Hagerty's most striking feat was in getting out word of the operation's successful completion. Outside the hospital, newsmen were still watching the vague figures of the surgeons through a glass brick window when White House Transportation Officer Dewey Long summoned them inside to the conference room. Hagerty was on the phone from the operating floor, ready to dictate the results through Long. Newsmen--whose papers in some cases were holding their presses for the bulletin--had the news at 4:55 a.m., three minutes after the operation ended, and 16 minutes before the President was wheeled out of the room.

The weary press secretary's tension melted with the good news, but the grind went on. Late that afternoon, in a radio interview with ABC Correspondent Martin Agronsky, Hagerty parried persistent questions on whether he thought Ike would still run for reelection. Finally, in a mixture of relief and fatigue, he gave way. "Do you expect to be around here another four years?" tried Agronsky. Chuckled Hagerty: "I think so." Soon afterward, just 36 hours after the call from the White House, Jim Hagerty finished a job well done and went home to bed.

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