Thanks for the Memory

As the wire-service man with top seniority at the White House, the U.P.'s Merriman Smith, 45, became a newsmaker of sorts himself. He cultivated his perquisites as dean of the pressroom, delighted in his vested right to end presidential press conferences with "Thank you, Mr. President." He used the phrase as the title of one of his two books on his beat, filed a weekly column called "Backstairs at the White House." Last week, after 17 years of covering U.S. Presidents, Smitty was back on his old Treasury beat, and before this week's press conference, it was up to his successor, Dayton Moore, 49, the A.P.'s Marvin Arrowsmith, 44, and I.N.S.'s Alvin Spivak, 30, to decide who would thank the President for the press.

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