At Home

Never before had one man welcomed so many to a housewarming. Showing off the renovated White House to a TV audience of some ten million, President Harry Truman was dapper and chipper in a light blue double-breasted suit. He also appeared more at ease than the three network announcers (CBS's Walter Cronkite, ABC's Bryson Rash, NBC's Frank Bourg-holtzer) who took turns accompanying him on his rounds.

The Truman tour covered the rooms that are ordinarily opened to the public (that morning 7,263 people filed through the White House for a first-hand look at what the TV audience saw that afternoon). As a guide should, the President spiced his information with folksy stories. The best was about Texas' late Senator Morris (18th Amendment) Sheppard and Calvin Coolidge. Once, at a White House breakfast, Sheppard was surprised to find the Coolidge collie barking at his elbow. Coolidge explained that the dog wanted Sheppard's sausage, so the Senator gave it to him. Concluded Truman with relish: "And, what's more, Sheppard didn't get another sausage."

In the East Room, the President sat down and played a few bars that were later identified by daughter Margaret as being from Mozart's Ninth Sonata.*

The three networks had assembled seven cameras and nearly 100 technicians to put the show on the air. There was no script--only a brief "walk-through" rehear sal. Except for bad timing (the hour-long show ran twelve minutes short), there were surprisingly few blunders. In a week marked by political rebuffs on the steel issue (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), the President could console himself with the knowledge that, as a TV master of ceremonies, he had given at least one outstanding performance.

*Pianist Truman violated no union rules by playing for a network audience. In 1949 James Caesar Petrillo, president of the American Federation of Musicians, gave him an honorary membership card.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.