Jack's Town

His back still aches, and he persists in that rocking chair. His national popularity has been slipping--from a Gallup poll peak of 83% two years ago to 64% last month. Like any U.S. President, he has problems, both domestic and foreign, in plenty. Yet, as have few Presidents before him, John Fitzgerald Kennedy has managed to "project his image"--and upon no place more than on his city of temporary residence: Washington, D.C.

Just 29 months into his presidency, Kennedy sets the style, tastes and temper of Washington more surely than Franklin Roosevelt did in twelve years,

Dwight Eisenhower in eight, Harry Truman in seven. A politician's politician in a city that loves and lives politics, Kennedy is slavishly followed --and more than slightly feared. Last week, as he turned 46, Washington itself was acting his age.

Kennedy represents the coming to power of a new generation, one that was blooded in World War II. A pragmatic generation, it cares more for results than philosophies. Most New Frontiersmen are of this generation, and they follow in their leader's image. President Kennedy, discussing the sort of men he wants around him, recently said: "There's nothing like brains. You can't beat brains." New Frontiersmen may not all have the best brains in the world --but they put up a mighty good show. They can reel off facts and figures about complex issues without ever consulting a note. They approach their jobs with a youthful zest that is almost gung-ho. They love to talk of their official travels, always by jet and generally to some far-off land. They may make mistakes--but they make them efficiently.

In their intense preoccupation, they sometimes seem almost too close to their jobs. Not so long ago, the abiding subject of conversation in Washington's political circles was the desires and problems of the folks back home. But no longer. To the New Frontiersmen, although they are concerned about problems everywhere, everything of final importance happens in Washington. What they talk about is Washington and the White House, and the result is a curious quality of intellectual inbreeding. Sometimes they almost sound as though they had invented the town.

Kennedy's impact on Washington is seen in countless ways. Cigar sales have soared (Jack smokes them). Hat sales have fallen (Jack does not wear them). Bureaucrats show up at work in dark suits, well-shined shoes, avoid button-down shirts (Jack says they are out of style). The more eager New Frontiersmen secure their striped ties with PT-boat clasps--and seem not the least bit embarrassed. The most popular restaurants in Washington are Le Bistro and the Jockey Club, which serve the light Continental foods that Jackie Kennedy features on the White House menu. The less palatable Colony restaurant, tops during the Republican Eisenhower Administration, went broke and has closed.

Reading Rage. Although Kennedy's back prevents him from participating too actively, his ideas about physical fitness have put all official Washington into sweat socks--or at least riding boots. The towpath along the C. & O. canal now has hikers' traffic jams. The Royal Canadian Air Force exercise manual is a hard-to-get item in Washington. Besides touch football, the White House staff has taken to softball--with more zeal than skill. The staff was recently whipped 10-3 by a bunch of newsmen.

On another level, Washington politicians of both parties eagerly collect historical quotations on file cards so they can toss them into their speeches just as Ted Sorensen does for Kennedy. Speed reading is the rage (Kennedy's well-publicized reading rate is 1,200 words per minute). Teddy Kennedy has even started a speed-reading class among his new colleagues in the Senate (the names and number of those participating are a deep dark secret). Bobby runs cram courses for New Frontiersmen on matters sometimes classic, sometimes current, in sporadic seminars in his Hickory Hill home.

Unlike the past two Administrations, in which Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower merely tolerated their roles as First Lady, a White House social affair hosted by Jackie obliterates all other party going in the capital. Her redecorations have sent White House tour attendance soaring. She helped preserve historic Lafayette Park from encroachment by glass-and-steel office facades, chased irksome street photographers and tourist guides off Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalks in front of the White House.

Her hairdos and clothing fashions have long been imitated nationwide. Now she is pregnant--and a favorite greeting among the capital's menfolk is: "Is your wife pregnant? Mine is."

In today's Washington, no one really attacks President Kennedy personally. Respect plays a large part in this restraint. So does fear. The word is around that the Kennedys will exert their vast influence against those who buck them. The summary dismissal of Chief of Naval Operations George Anderson, who had publicly expressed his opposition to some of the policies of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, is still a subject of low-buzzing Washington conversation. It is an open secret that

Commerce Secretary Luther H. Hodges, who at 65 is out of style and step with most of his Cabinet colleagues, will be the next top Administration official to go. Capitol Hill's Democratic liberals often chafe at Kennedy's pragmatic politics, but they do not often express their feelings in public. Neither do Republican legislators, even in private conversations and no matter how strongly they may feel about Kennedy.

Filing the Brandy. It was in such an aura that the President celebrated his 46th birthday. He hurried through an embarrassingly commercial award as Father of the Year, not even permitting photographs of the ceremony. But he did allow some pictures as he chatted with British M.P. Patrick Gordon Walker and quipped to newsmen: "You all look older today."

He also lunched with nine Democratic Governors, accepted a keg of 46-year-old brandy from some New York doctors. Said Press Secretary Pierre Salinger: "We'll probably send it to the National Archives to age." Kennedy took in a show given by Caroline's kindergarten class and attended a party thrown by his staff. There he was coaxed into reading a Ted Sorensen-written speech that began: "Twoscore and six years ago, there was brought forth at Brookline, Mass. . . ." At night he and most of the Kennedys, plus such personal friends as Actor David Niven and Florida Senator George Smathers, cruised the Potomac on the Secretary of the Navy's yacht Sequoia. This party, planned by Jackie, lasted nearly six hours, was enlivened by a thunder and lightning storm. Next day Kennedy placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, then helicoptered with Jackie to Maryland's Camp David for a mountain rest.

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