Making of a State Paper

Of all U.S. state papers, none is more formally conceived or more intricately worked over than the State of the Union message to Congress. In 1955 at least 600 Government officials were consulted during the five months in which President Eisenhower's message was prepared. It was still incomplete the night before its delivery. The chronology:

Aug. 5. Ike summoned his Cabinet to the White House to outline the message he meant to deliver. It would be brief, he said, with an outside limit of 25 minutes' reading time; it would sum up the accomplishments of his Administration to date, and hammer home the need for completing his program. Cabinet members and department heads were instructed to submit by Oct. 15 their lists of achievements and specific requests for new legislation. The man who would coordinate everything: Kevin McCann, 51. president-on-leave of Ohio's Defiance College, Ike's biographer (Man from Abilene), and currently White House Assistant for Speeches and Reports.

Oct. 15. Out of the U.S. bureaucracy came a book-size pile of research. McCann read it all, occasionally marking a paragraph or a thought he considered worthy of inclusion.

Oct. 24. McCann headed west to visit the President, recuperating from his heart attack in Denver's Fitzsimons Army Hospital. Settling back in his plane seat, McCann began to scratch out in pen and ink the first, 400-word outline of the State of the Union message. He put down five subject headings: 1) "World Responsibility," which later grew to "The Discharge of Our World Responsibility"; 2) "National Security," which became "The Constant Improvement of our National Security"; 3) "Fiscal Integrity"; 4) "Our Production Plant," for which the President substituted "To Foster a Strong Economy"; 5) "Human Resources," which became "The Response to Human Concerns." McCann checked his outline with Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams and Economic Assistant Gabriel Hauge, and then set out, in a barren cubicle at the U.S. Air Force base in Denver, to write the first draft of the message. The result: a triple-spaced sheaf of typescript that ran to precisely 30 minutes' reading time.

Oct. 27. McCann read this draft to the President in his hospital room. Ike interrupted at almost every paragraph to make changes. His secretary, Mrs. Ann Whitman, took a shorthand transcription of his ideas. Next day, with only Mrs. Whitman present, Ike spent 90 more minutes revising and rewriting the second half of the speech. McCann flew back to Washington, D.C.

Oct. 29-Nov. 1. Over the weekend, McCann studied the Whitman transcript and turned out a second draft, or "Revise No. 1," which he sent off to the President at Denver. McCann then thankfully took off with his wife for a seven-day vacation on the sunny island of Tobago "to wash the whole thing out of my mind." As it turned out, he had done only about two-thirds of his job.

Mid-November. Presidential revisions and departmental suggestions flooded into McCann's office. So did the rejoinders of consultants and constitutional lawyers, and phone calls from Cabinet members agog to learn whether their fondest projects had caught the President's fancy. To all, McCann responded: "Don't worry. It isn't frozen yet." It wasn't. McCann wrote "Revise No. 2" on Nov. 17, "Revise No. 3" on Nov. 29.

Dec. 2. Under the chairmanship of Vice President Richard Nixon, a long and trying Cabinet meeting was held at the White House. Starting with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the members of the Cabinet commented on the draft of the message, then commented upon one another's comments. "No nit-picking," Vice President Nixon adjured his colleagues, but the Cabinet eventually sent out to the President a file of verbatim reaction that piled 1 1/2 inches high. The Cabinet seemed in agreement. On one important point the Cabinet recommended stronger wording: "So far as the federal share of responsibility is concerned, I urge that the Congress move promptly to enact an effective program of federal assistance to help erase the existing deficit of school classrooms."

Dec. 16. With the President now convalescing at Gettysburg, the pace quickened. More Cabinet suggestions. More presidential revisions. McCann wrote a longer "Revise No. 4." By now it was obvious that the President would not deliver the message in person, so the need for brevity faded. The paragraphs on the farm problem were the most troublesome. Lights burned late at the White House as a special committee--Nixon, Adams, Attorney General Brownell, Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey and Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson--conferred. Rough drafts were handed to Jack Martin and Bryce Harlow, White House liaison men with the Senate and House, for comment and approval of Republicans on the Hill.

Dec. 20. Ike returned to the White House for Christmas, and at once got into a 90-minute discussion with McCann. He reviewed the latest draft of the message, with its countless incorporations and changes, word by word, working on through the holiday. Out of this came "the semifinal draft."

Dec. 28. Leaving the draft of the message with the typists, Ike flew down to Key West. At 1 o'clock, two mornings later, McCann followed with a new, cleanly typed version in his briefcase. With almost no sleep he plunged into another interview with the President, 9 a.m. to noon. Once more the President went over the message line by line, finally dictating two entirely new paragraphs. One significant point: "This record of progress has been accomplished with a self-imposed caution against unnecessary and unwise interference in the private affairs of our people, of their communities and the several states."

Dec. 31. Back in Washington, McCann huddled from morning until 5:30 p.m., with Sherman Adams and several others, smoothing out the whole message to conform to Ike's revisions, teletyping the wording down to Key West. Page by page, as the old year died, the final version was handed out to the typists. The White House executive clerk, William J. Hopkins, supervised the preparation of the two "signature copies," which would be signed by the President and delivered to the Senate and the House.

Jan. 2. While McCann sank back to relax, White House Staff Secretary Andrew Goodpaster flew to Key West with the signature copies. The President worked over them, making new changes, adding a word here and there. Ike finally signed the copies, which Goodpaster flew back to Washington.

Jan. 4. More last-minute changes. More teletyping between Key West and Washington. Late at night, Ike decided that he was satisfied. McCann was told. Stencils in the White House were cut. Mimeograph machines began to hum on 3,000 copies of the State of the Union message for Congress and the press.

Jan. 5. Shortly after 6 a.m., Assistant Press Secretary Murray Snyder arrived at the White House, took one last exacting look at the completed draft, one hour later released it to the press marked FOR RELEASE AT NOON. The signature copies, signed and enclosed in big White House envelopes, were taken up to Capitol Hill. Shortly after noon the clerks began to read the 7,500 words of the message. It took Senate Clerk Edward E. Mansur Jr. 51 minutes and House Clerk George J. Maurer one minute more.

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