Prodigious Pen

For years. Jack Romagna, a civil servant who works in Washington, suffered from a recurrent nightmare. In his dream Romagna sat at the elbow of the President of the U.S., transcribing in shorthand a presidential address. But for some reason. Romagna's pen moved without leaving a mark. And as the President talked on, his unrecorded words were lost forever.

The dream no longer disturbs Jack Romagna's repose. After 20 years as the White House shorthand reporter, dealing with everything from Franklin D. Roosevelt's stutter (in search of the right word) to John F. Kennedy's burp-gun Boston twang. Romagna is reasonably confident that his right hand can keep pace with any presidential tongue. The pace is quickening. Roosevelt's top speaking velocity of 200 words per minute scarcely winded Romagna, who can handle up to 240 w.p.m., or four words per second. But Kennedy has been timed in bursts of 327 w.p.m. Such sprints often come when the President skips over a prepared text to strike out on his own--as he did for 47 minutes this month before the National Association of Manufacturers in New York.

Even so, Romagna's nimble pen--a needlepoint Sheaffer Snorkel that writes in violet ink--followed Kennedy's long-distance dash with a fidelity that both the White House and the White House press corps have come to trust. When Kennedy went down to Latin America last week with a batch of speech texts in hand, Romagna went along too; he accurately transcribed not only the slightest presidential departure from the script, but Kennedy's impromptu remarks at public receptions along the route. "Keeping the press happy is my prime objective," says Romagna. "Keeping the official file is secondary."

Moth Bags for Mossbacks. To keep the press happy, Romagna has performed prodigies of rapid transcription. Romagna's wooden attache case, custom-built by the White House carpentry shop, is a portable desk, but in a pinch, Romagna has been known to recruit the nearest back for the same purpose. Recording presidential talks in the White House rose garden --a favorite informal speaking site--is Romagna's pet chore: "Provided the speech is not too long, I can take it down, run the 50 yards to my office and transcribe it. dash into the mimeo room and have 50 copies made, and run back up to the rose garden in time to hand them out to the press as the ceremonies are concluding."

British-born Jack Romagna, 51, earned his place in the White House by an early determination to become the best shorthand reporter in the business. As a boy of 13 in Washington, where his father was butler to the late U.S. Senator Davis Elkins of West Virginia. Romagna learned Gregg shorthand (and typing) in night school, spent 40 daytime practice hours a week taking down everything he heard on the radio. In 1941. when the White House shorthand reporter resigned, Romagna, then working for International Business Machines Corp. in New York, got the job.

Since that time, no President has stumped him, although all four of the Presidents Romagna has served have given him bad moments. On Pearl Harbor night, Roosevelt installed him in a bathroom adjoining the presidential bedroom to record, unbeknownst to the assembly, a secret Cabinet meeting from behind a 2-in. oaken door. Romagna recalls the experience as "ghastly." There was a phone in the bathroom, and assorted Cabinet members popped in to use it--forcing Romagna to hide behind another door. In 1948, on tour with Harry Truman. Romagna transcribed more than 300 of Truman's 536 campaign speeches, missing only an occasional word: when Truman sneered at leaders of the Republican 80th Congress as "mossbacks," Romagna. who had never heard the expression, wrote it down "moth bags."

Seasickness v. Bach. To gird for the New Frontier. Romagna endlessly replayed tapes of the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates, worked up an assortment of new shorthand symbols to fit New Frontier talk. One graceful jiggle of the Romagna pen, for example, expands into 13 words:

"I don't know whether anything is going to be done about those things." Other squiggles stand for anti-missile missile. Common Market, and New Frontier.

The Frontier bustle gives Romagna less time than ever for his other consuming interests: his wife, his two children, chess (he has 140 games going simultaneously by mail), model shipbuilding and music. An accomplished pianist who plays nothing but Bach. Romagna has mastered 672 Bach compositions, sometimes working three hours over a single measure. He practices anywhere, whenever time permits, often going to heroic lengths: he once got seasick practicing aboard Truman's yacht Williamsburg--which was tied up at the dock.

These days, there is only one small sign that Romagna's pen is slowly tiring: the old nightmare has given way to a daydream in which Adlai Stevenson is President. This latter-day reverie has nothing to do with Romagna's political preference. To him, all men, including Presidents, are measured by the quality of their syntax, platform delivery and oral timbre. Using these criteria, Romagna says Stevenson would be a cinch to transcribe. "Adlai's English was made for the shorthand system," says Jack Romagna. "It's marvelous. He has a grand command of the language. And ah, the phrasing!"

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