Dangerous Vacuum?

"It has been four months and eight days since President Eisenhower last met with the press to answer questions," wrote Columnist Roscoe Drummond in the New York Herald Tribune last week. Freeing Ike from the strain of press conferences has been justified, said Drummond, but by now the absence of direct contact between President and press has created a "dangerous vacuum"--harmful to the President, the public and the functioning of the Government. Drummond suggested that Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams might hold weekly press conferences until Ike is ready, or that Presidential Press Secretary James C. Hagerty could accept a weekly sheaf of written questions for the President to answer.

Next day Pundit Walter Lippmann suggested that the written-question method be made a permanent part of Ike's conferences when he resumes them. Answers could be prepared by executive departments and "edited" by White House aides. "Even before the President's illness," argued Lippmann, "it was fair to argue that the oral questions and answers were not sufficiently informing--especially on intricate matters--and that they needed to be supplemented by written questions and written, that is to say deliberate and fully informed, answers." Columnist David Lawrence also advocated the written-question method as a permanent change. "The press conference of today," he wrote, "is an ordeal to which no President should be subjected." He thought it was the "biggest single strain" borne by Eisenhower since entering the White House.

But veteran White House correspondents--and Press Secretary Hagerty-- sharply disagreed with the pundits. They thought that Ike had come increasingly to enjoy the give-and-take of press conferences and to relax in the process. "It's not a strain on him," pooh-poohed Hagerty, "any more than it is on the reporters." The idea of submitting questions in writing (as newsmen did for Presidents from Wilson to Hoover) sent a shudder through the press corps at Gettysburg. "You might as well get speeches out of a guy," said Hagerty. "How many do you answer? The system never worked before, and I don't see why it ever would." Said Francis ("Stevie") Stephenson of the New York Daily News: "Under that system a President can answer just what he feels like and ignore the tough questions."

Drummond's "dangerous vacuum" failed to excite much concern in Gettysburg. At week's end, Press Secretary Hagerty told newsmen that Ike would begin holding press conferences again (though how regularly is not yet decided) "shortly after the first of the year."

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