Camera Shy

John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson spoiled news photographers assigned to the White House. Nowadays the cameramen are thinking wistfully of the good old days: of shots of John John playing under his father's desk, of a husky Kennedy in bathing trunks on a Southern California beach, of L.B.J. raising his shirt to show his surgical scar or hoisting his beagles by the ears.

Richard Nixon is not about to be caught by anyone's candid camera. Laments one White House photographer: "We pretty much do the ceremonial stuff in the office--bill signings, Cabinet meetings. The photographic image of Richard Nixon is of a man taking a shower with his suit and vest on."

That is precisely the way Nixon wants it. He may be the most exceptionally private President since Calvin Coolidge --and of course he may be scarred by a 1960 campaign memory of what a camera can do with his image. These days, even Ollie Atkins, the official White House photographer, pleads vainly for some "humanizing" shots of Nixon boating off Key Biscayne. The President may be inhibited here, too, by the memory of a 1955 fishing expedition in the Florida Everglades when he fell overboard and was pictured for posterity hauling himself out of the drink. Last week when Nixon clambered ashore at Key Biscayne from a boating trip, he sported a small bandage over his left eyebrow, having apparently banged his head when the boat pitched. The forlorn photographers were left to dream about yet another shot that they had missed.

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