Othman: The White House
By Fred Othman
WASHINGTON – As word of President Roosevelt’s death spread through Washington, hundreds of people gathered bareheaded on Pennsylvania Avenue to stare silently through the dusk at the tulip-bordered White House across the street.
Seven big limousines were parked helter-skelter under the portico, where the paint was scabrous, because the President had ruled no redecorating would be done during the war.
Sad-faced Secret Service agents and uniformed police patrolled the grounds, whio;le a constant stream of disbelieving newspapers reports, photographers, and newsreel men besieged the executive offices.
The cameramen gathered on the freshly-green lawns waiting to photograph Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, who hurried to the White House to sweat in Vice President Harry S. Truman as the Chief Executive.
Inside the office, a drawn-faced Steve Early – close friend and longtime presidential secretary – told the press of Mr. Truman’s immediate plans. With deep circles under his eyes, and his loud-splashed tie askew. Early told how Mr. Truman hoped “to carry on.”
Press room a madhouse
Mr. Early was so distraught that he talked as though he were dictating to his secretary, saying “period” and “comma” as he went along.
The White House press room, meantime, was a madhouse. A dozen phones rang at once, while others were busy as reporters dictated descriptions of the White House and its occupants.
Startled stenographers in the White House executive wing did not, themselves, learn of the President’s death until many minutes after it had been flashed by the news services to newspapers and radio stations.
Slowly it sank in. The hints of tears began to show in the eyes of men and women alike.
A United Press reporter, the fist to reach the White House as the news was being telephoned to press offices, asked the women in Press Secretary Jonathan Daniels’ office for details.
“We don’t know what has happened,” one of them sobbed. “We just don’t know what has happened.”
A dozen telephones rang steadily as the inquiries poured in.
Policeman gives press a jolt
Movie cameramen climbed up on the shining surface of the great, round mahogany table in the main lobby, lit their portable klieg lights, and photographed the only thing to photograph – the hoard of perspiring reporters jammed around the door to the cabinet room.
The radio networks set up their microphones. The moviemen strewed their machinery through the public rooms.
“Gentlemen, please,” cried a White House usher as a maze of cable and storage batteries were strewn across the black-and-white checked marble floors.
The secretary called out representatives of the three press associations to witness the swearing in of the new President. The other reporters, by now numbering perhaps 200, jammed chest-to-back in the corridors, straining to see. But they couldn’t see anything.
The cabinet members paced out slowly into the halls, perspiring in the intense heat.
The uniformed policeman on the door gave the press something of a mental jolt when he said: “The President has gone to the Main House with Mrs. Truman.”