The President's Week

Harry Truman was in a holiday mood from the moment he stepped out of the presidential DC-6 Independence at Boca Chica airport near Key West. He paused on the loading ramp, grinned and held his broad-brimmed tan hat high for the photographers. Then, coming down, he shook hands with white-uniformed Captain Cecil C. Adell, commander of the naval base to which he was bound, and demanded:

"Tell me what the temperature is right this minute. It's 81, isn't it?" Then he added, with a nod toward his daughter Margaret: "She owes me one dollar if it's 80 or over." The captain flushed, looked as though he wished he were dead, but refused to form an alliance with the President: the temperature was 70.8 degrees. "I'm afraid," said Captain Adell in a barely audible voice, "she doesn't owe you a dollar." the "Winter White House," and as he was driven up Truman Avenue (formerly Division Street), the citizenry lined the sidewalks to welcome him back. Then, with three weeks of vacation ahead, a blue sky above the palms, and a white beach, an airy house and a green lawn at his disposal, he began doing almost nothing at all.

Day after day, while Mrs. Truman lazed and read detective stories, and Margaret, a photo fan, experimented with her four cameras, the President concentrated on swimming, sitting in the sun and taking long afternoon naps. He got up early, as usual. One morning he teamed up with his naval aide, Rear Admiral Robert L. Dennison, beat Clark Clifford and Dr. John R. Steelman at horseshoes, 21-9 (the President got two ringers).

For almost the first time on a vacation he did virtually no paper work--only one White House pouch left the base during the week and it contained routine documents. There were nightly motion pictures at the cottage, but the President, no movie fan, seldom stayed up to watch.

This week the atmosphere at the Winter White House began to quicken. Mrs. Truman and Margaret prepared to return to Washington. The President and his advisers got ready to draft the State of the Union Address, the Budget Message and the President's Economic Report. Written within sight of the sand, sun and sea, they would still have to bear, for delivery in January, the proper tone of heaviness and contention, so necessary to state messages.

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