Guided Tour

Proud as a Missouri farmer showing off a new silo, Harry Truman took newsmen on a surprise tour last week of the $5,500,000 renovation job begun in 1949 to save the aging White House from collapse. In a jaunty powder-blue suit, the President was at his folksy best as he ducked and weaved among workmen who had seen him around so much that they scarcely bothered to glance up.

The party went first to the vast, white-tiled kitchen, a gleaming expanse of stainless steel refrigerators, steam tables and ovens, fluorescent lighting and an electrical control board big enough for a theater. This, said the President, is where the housekeeper keeps the groceries. Next, he pointed out what he called the tooth carpenter's place--a three-room medical-dental suite--and warned the reporters to behave themselves, else he might send some of them in there for a major operation.

A Bottle of Beer. Moving on to the diplomatic reception room, Truman explained that the presidential seal over the door had been moved from the floor of the main hall upstairs; he thought it was wrong for people to walk on it. Incidentally, he added, this is one of the old seals with the eagle looking the wrong way, to its left. The mistake originated years ago, he explained, and was continued until he had it fixed in 1945. Since then, by executive order, the eagle in presidential seals has faced to its right.

When the party visited the Pennsylvania Avenue porch built by Andrew Jackson, Truman said he thought that old Jackson had put on too much porch, and he revealed that he had considered chopping some of it off. In view of the public uproar in 1948 when he added a balcony to the south portico, he said, he guessed it was a good thing he gave up the idea--the Washington newspapers would have had a hemorrhage.

It was not true, by the way, that he wanted the balcony for lounging on a summer evening; it was a matter of architectural balance. He promised to take the reporters out there some time and buy them a bottle of beer.

A Real Dinger. Back in the main lobby, Truman said he had frightened the builders (John McShain Inc. of Philadelphia) into putting up a new chandelier. The old one looked like a livery-stable lantern, and he threatened to knock it down with a baseball bat if they put it up again. The state dining room is also getting a new chandelier, he said--a real dinger.

Upstairs the job is so well-advanced that the decorators are due this week to install draperies and carpets. Truman recalled a legend that the Civil War President still walks the Lincoln Room. Once, when two school friends of the baby (Margaret Truman) were sleeping there, he said, he suggested to the madam (Bess Truman) that he might arrange for the ghost to really appear. (He didn't say how.) Bess thought it would scare the girls to death, and vetoed the idea.

On another occasion, the tub in his old bathroom began to sink through the floor when he was in it. He asked the madam what she would have thought if he had fallen into the Red Room when she was having one of her receptions for the ladies of the D.A.R. She didn't think it was funny, and wanted to slap his face.

The renovation was originally scheduled for completion in March 1951. When the builders announced the most recent postponement, from Jan. 15 to May 15, Truman said, he put his foot down. They were fiddling around so he took a curry comb to them, and now he is after them all the time with a shotgun. He said he hoped to move in from Blair House by early April. The newsmen hoped that by then the President would stop fiddling around himself, and decide what he wants to do about renewing his four-year lease.

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