The Presidency

Milestone

Outside the crimson-hung windows streamed the traditional Inauguration Day rain. Inside the crystal-and-gilt East Room streamed 200 friends, relatives and distinguished guests. Franklin Roosevelt's twelfth year as President had begun.

Since 1933, the President has observed each March 4 with religious services. Usually he has gone to St. John's Episcopal Church, just across Lafayette Square. Last week St. John's came to the East Room for the second time. A mixed choir sang an anthem ("Get not far from us, O God; cast us not away in time of stress). The President's old friend and Groton schoolmaster, the Rev. Dr. Endicott Peabody, 86, led three other ministers in asking divine help for "Thy servant, Franklin". . . and to "save us from all false choices." The President's face was grave.

That night, at an informal dinner given by White House correspondents, the President threw back his head and guffawed at Comedian Bob Hope's pointed prattle: "I've always voted for Roosevelt as President. My father always voted for Roosevelt as President. . . ."

Back at Work

Bow-tied and fresh after a week's rest, the President leaned back behind a vase of red carnations and casually dropped a bombshell that rattled chancellery chandeliers from London to Berlin to Ankara.

At the tag-end of a Friday press conference a reporter had wondered out loud about that mysterious question Joseph Stalin sent to the White House a fortnight ago. Oh, that, said Franklin Roosevelt absently. It was very simple, really. Soviet Ambassador Gromyko had come around to find out exactly how many ships the Soviet Union would get from the approximately 100 units of the surrendered Italian fleet. Because the U.S., Britain and Russia had jointly accepted Italy's surrender, the Soviet Government would, of course, eventually get its rightful one-third of the ships.

This bit of news aroused men in a dozen nations, from the Italian sailors who pondered serving under Stalin, to the Turks who wondered if the U.S. were going to press for Russian access to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. Frenchmen, Yugoslavs and Greeks suddenly realized that they, too, had a claim to some of Italy's ships. But for once Franklin Roosevelt had scooped Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin on a big piece of news.

Last week the President also:

P: Intimated he might veto the much-mauled Soldiers' Vote Bill, which finally emerged from a closed-door House & Senate compromise committee. The President pondered whether more servicemen could vote under the 1942 soldiers' vote law than under the new bill.

P: Sat down to lunch with tough, young looking (47) Major General Albert C. Wedemeyer, Deputy Chief of Staff to Admiral The Lord Louis Mountbatten, to hear the news from southeast Asia at first hand. Those who were not asked to lunch plunged headlong into weighty speculations on present and future Allied strategy in Burma. General Wedemeyer, emerging from the White House, said nothing. Said the President: Supplies are reaching China over the Himalayan Hump in a "satisfactory" manner.

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