New Life

It had been a long, hot, crisis-filled summer; and President Kennedy had shown the strain. But last week, more than at any time since the crisp, hopeful days of last January, the President seemed to be having fun again.

Returning from Newport, R.I., and his first real presidential rest, Kennedy clearly felt that he was on top of his job. His confidence showed through as he attacked matters of state and as he handled the chores of routine and ritual. In his end-of-week confrontation with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko over Berlin, the President was cool and collected, making it clear that the U.S., while willing to negotiate, would not be bludgeoned to the conference table. Meeting Thailand's Foreign Minister Nai Thanat Khoman, Kennedy expressed his blunt concern that some Southeast Asian nations seemed less than enthusiastic about fighting in defense of their own freedom.

Conscience & Courage. The President's zest was evident at a luncheon observing the publication of the first four volumes of the papers of President John Adams and his descendants. To Adams' great-great-great-grandson, Thomas Adams, a hotel executive from Boston, Kennedy said: "It is a pleasure to live in your family's old house, and we hope that you will come by and see us." Showing a scholarly familiarity with the Adamses, the President noted that John and John Quincy were the only two Presidents in the nation's first half-century who were not reelected. "So when posterity gives them something better than reelection, it does present a heart-warming thing to some of us who face the hazards of public life ... We can consider that they have bequeathed to us two extraordinary and important qualities: conscience, Puritan conscience, and courage--the courage of those who look to other days and other times."

Shakespeare & Shelters. To the White House also came the eighth visiting head of state this year. He was General Ferik Ibrahim Abboud, who took control of the Sudan--Africa's largest nation--in a bloodless 1958 coup. Abboud, Moslem-born -and English-trained, is a genial man and an avid gardener, who leads his nation on a careful path between East and West. He visited Moscow last summer, attended the recent neutralist conclave in Belgrade. "You have set an example of a country with eight neighbors, all of whom live at peace with you and with each other," said President Kennedy in a warm welcoming statement. In extensive private chats, Abboud indicated that he was hopeful of obtaining U.S. financial aid, but added that he was willing to have his country pay for part of the projects. "Let's cooperate," said Abboud--striking what any U.S. President could only consider a refreshing note.

Abboud's visit produced a historical footnote. After a state banquet, the Kennedys led Abboud, a lover of theatricals, and other guests into the East Room of the White House, where, on an improvised stage, the American Shakespeare Festival troupers presented excerpts from Macbeth and four other plays. It was Shakespeare's first visit inside the White House, although earlier troupers had declaimed the Bard for Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft on the White House lawn.

Last week the President also:

sbAttended the swearing-in of Lawyer Fowler Hamilton as head of the Agency for International Development, which will oversee U.S. foreign aid spending. sbSigned the last of the 685 bills passed by the 87th Congress in its first session. He had vetoed eight, signed the stripped-down $900 million school-aid bill "with extreme reluctance." sbAppointed a bipartisan commission to study better ways of financing presidential campaigns. sbUrged, in a message to the Governors' Conference Committee on Civil Defense, "fallout protection for every American as rapidly as possible"; enlarging on this theme, he revealed at a luncheon with 19 New Jersey newspaper publishers that the White House will soon publish plans for family fallout shelters costing only $100-$150 (as against roughly $2,000 for commercially available shelters), which would supplement the Administration's $207 million program for group shelters. sbGreeted 120 members of the United Presbyterian Church, told them, "There have been great Presbyterian Presidents in the past, and I'm certain there will be great Presbyterian Presidents in the future."

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