Coffee with Congress

Would a Congressman talk at breakfast --at an 8 a.m. breakfast? Harry Truman laughed at the question. "Will he talk? Just give him a microphone and stand aside. "Washington Radioman Bill Herson did. Result: The capital's liveliest, most popular breakfast program, Coffee with Congress, which last week began its second year over Station WRC.

Every Saturday morning, Herson plants a WRC microphone on some Congressman's breakfast table, gives & takes an ad-lib chatter over ham & eggs. The only rule: no politics. Beyond that, Senators and Representatives and their families discuss every subject that should be aired and some that shouldn't.

Mississippi's crusty Theodore ("The Man") Bilbo cooked his own breakfast, gave listeners his pet recipes, then said: "I want a woman." Herson coughed, changed the subject.

Mrs. Joseph Ball, wife of Minnesota's young Senator, described her husband's career as a newspaperman: "He was a damn good reporter--Ooops! I shouldn't have said that."

Mrs. James Morrison told about life with her young Representative husband from Louisiana, said their oldest child was 3 1/2. How long had they been married? Three and a half years. Herson spluttered in his coffee while Morrison apologized hastily: "My wife's a little flustered. We've been married five years."

Herson likes best his interview with Sol Bloom on the Representative's 76th birthday.

Excerpts:

Herson: You are 76 years old today and . . . you don't look a day over 50. What is the secret--women?

Bloom (chuckling): Yes, women.

Herson: Women. . . . How do you do it?

Bloom: Staying away from them.

Herson: You mean it?

Bloom: Well, a couple are all right, once in a while.

In his 52 chats with Congressmen, each lasting 45 minutes, Herson and his Washington listeners have learned a lot about the people's choices. Many a Senator has told his own rags-to-riches success story. Many have chatted about their work in Congress, tried to make it more understandable. And most address their breakfast mike with a speaker's pose, lean back and stroke their napkins as though smoothing a vest in the halls of Congress.

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