The News from the White House

The President looked fresh in a newly laundered blue-grey seersucker suit, and a cheery blue and white tie. His face still seemed over-thin and deeply lined, but he looked more relaxed than he had the previous week, when he was just back from his long Pacific trip. The 105 newsmen were ushered into the oval, green Executive Office 44 minutes late--even later than usual.

The President said he was sorry to be late, but he had been saying goodbye to the President of Iceland. Again, as last week, Franklin Roosevelt's voice was low. He looked down at his desk, and announced in a scarcely audible voice that he didn't have a thing. The newsmen, a little leary after being snapped at the week before, were quiet. There was a long, uncomfortable pause. The reporters seemed to be wondering what would be a nice, undisturbing question to ask. The President puffed his cigaret thoughtfully, blew a long, blue plume of smoke, kept silent.

"Mr. President," at last came a question, "have you been in touch with Mr. Willkie?" Well yes, privately, said the President, nodding slightly. Another reporter began: "Does privately, sir, preclude any--" Yes, Franklin Roosevelt cut in quickly, laughing and drawing a nervous laugh in return. Could the President say whether he would meet with Willkie, and when? The President didn't know, adding, in an oh-pshaw fashion, that he met a lot of people privately.

Someone tried a new subject: "Mr.

President, are you in sympathy with the secrecy at Dumbarton Oaks?" This, to the man largely responsible for that secrecy, might have been a sizzling question, but it was puffed over the Presidential desk like a toy balloon, and had about the same impact. Oh, said the President, you'd better see Mr. Stettinius . . .

Then came a gentle poke at a furnace-hot issue: "Mr. President, do you contemplate that Mr. Nelson will resume his WPB duties on his return from China?" The President remarked that Mr. Nelson was leaving soon, perhaps that very day, on a very important mission. He thought the question was an iffy one--iffy, he said, in the sense of trying to look ahead so far into the future. Another question floated gently over the big desk: was there any change in Mr. Nelson's status? He's still chairman of WPB, replied the President, barely lifting his eyebrows.

There fell another long pause. Nobody asked the President who was right or wrong in the Nelson-Wilson fight, or what effect it would have on the Army-i;.-civilian production debate (see The Administration). Finally the Chicago Sun's burly Tom Reynolds ended the awkward silence. Balkan regimes seemed to be collapsing, he observed, and what had the European Advisory Commission done to prepare for such developments? The President said he didn't know. Reynolds persisted: Did this mean that it was all being handled in London? The President said not necessarily, he just didn't know what may have been done.

Reporters now seemed to be groping desperately. Would the President say when he thought Germany might collapse? Oh no, replied Franklin Roosevelt; he had been terribly careful, awfully careful; he'd probably been the only person who hadn't said anything on that subject. Could .he say, then, how long the Pacific war might last? That would only be speculation on his part, the President said. Were there any plans for putting Italy on a Lend-Lease basis? The President said he had never heard of it. Then he leaned back and eyed the press speculatively, as if he, too, were contemplating the inconclusiveness of each exchange. Finally one newsman blurted the customary "Thank you, Mr. President," and the press piled out.

The conference had lasted only ten minutes; it had been, perhaps, the most desultory in Franklin Roosevelt's eleven years in office. In a week in which the top two U.S. war-production men had fallen out, in the week that Paris had been freed, this was all that newsmen had asked the President of the U.S., and all he had to tell them.

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