"A Damned Good Job"

The wail of a child broke up a television taping session in the White House broadcasting room. Jumping to his feet, the President of the U.S. raced through the door, shouting, "Who's crying in this house?" A moment later, he returned, carrying his snuffling, snowsuited daughter. He handed her the first object that came to hand, a plastic Red Cross that he was using in the taping. "Here, Caroline," he soothed, "want a nice red cross? You've got that cap pistol in one hand, you might want this for the other." Caroline Kennedy's tears quickly evaporated, and she scampered off, all smiles, to rejoin her nurse. "Have a very nice walk." her father called after her as he turned back to the cameras. Another small domestic crisis solved.

Life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was like that. Nothing was too trivial for Jack Kennedy to give it at least momentary attention. He could discuss affairs of state with Canada's visiting Prime Minister Diefenbaker (see THE HEMISPHERE) or Australia's Prime Minister Robert Menzies, and then reflect on the future of Dwight Eisenhower's putting green on the White House lawn ("I plan to use it.. You forget I'm a pretty good golfer, too").

"Prodding List." Jack Kennedy pursued his job with zest and frenetic impatience. Once, Special Assistant Kenny O'Donnell returned to his office to find the President reading a stack of O'Donnell's mail. "What have you done about this?" Kennedy asked, flourishing a letter. Replied O'Donnell: "I haven't read it yet."

Each morning the President arrived at his West Wing office carrying an armload of newspaper clippings and memoranda written in his hasty scrawl. One morning, staffers found him in the mail room, opening letters himself and writing instructions across them. In his eagerness to get things done, Kennedy has developed a "prodding list" of matters that he feels he must pursue, has learned, as all Presidents do, that he sometimes has to ask three times to get things done. On his telephone, the President has installed a console of pushbuttons, enabling him to bypass secretaries and instantly reach the inner offices of his top lieutenants. In the same spirit of crowflight communications, Kennedy last week abolished the Operations Coordinating Board, a buffer agency between the White House and national security agencies, and explained that he preferred "direct communications with the responsible agencies so that everyone will know what I have decided."

"Is It Over?" His appointment list was crammed. The President was very available, from breakfast sessions with the Democratic leaders of Congress to moonlight meetings with the airline strike fact-finding commission. He was especially attentive to Congressmen, many of whom were dazzled by the ardent courtship. When Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg hurried to the Oval Room with the airlines' strike settlement in his dispatch case (see BUSINESS), Kennedy greeted him with a broad grin and a question: "Is it over?" By personally announcing that it was, he signaled that he intends to wade deep into national labor controversies.

In his omnivorous attention to detail, the President displayed an unsuspected streak of fiscal conservatism. When Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman presented a draft of the new cotton supports, Kennedy winced at the proposed 90%-of-parity support, and snapped: "Too high." He accepted a compromise 82% level reluctantly. Lesser economies did not escape his attention: acting on a tip from a woman overseas, who wanted to help stop the gold drain, he ordered cancellation of a $200,000 alteration project on an officers' club in France. He ruthlessly slashed a $500,000 budget for U.S. participation in a world air show, cut back the overseas concert tours of military bands.

It was a heady, exciting time in Washington. The days had the tang of high adventure, and the men around him found the President's enthusiasm contagious. He had learned how to take it and catch on quickly, explained Jack Kennedy, for two reasons: "Going through that campaign and being in the Senate." For the young President it was the best of times. "This," he said, "is a damned good job."

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