Lady's Day

Just 90 minutes before Dwight Eisenhower was due to appear at a conference of Republican women in Washington's Hotel Statler last week, the women's publicity director for the Republican National Committee, Mrs. Anne Wheaton. got a phone call from her old friend, Presidential Press Secretary James Hagerty. Everything fine? Jim wanted to know. Anne Wheaton said yes. "Then," said the astonished Mrs. Wheaton later, "he asked me if I had a chair handy." Hagerty had a piece of news: the President had decided (thanks to Hagerty's good word) to appoint her associate press secretary, the job recently left open by Murray Snyder, who went to the Pentagon as Assistant Defense Secretary for Public Affairs (TIME. March 4). To the delight of Mrs. Wheaton and her fellow Republican women, the President made the announcement to the conference an hour and a half later--and hardly ever since the signing of the 19th Amendment had there been so much feminine smiling and burbling in the capital.

For faithful Republican Wheaton, the job was a reward for years of service to the Republican high command. Born in Utica, N.Y., Annie became a newshen for the Albany Knickerbocker Press, started out covering the women's page, eventually took over the legislative beat. In 1924 she moved to Washington as public-relations director for the League of Women Voters, became so involved and well known in political circles that ultimately she took charge of press relations for Mrs. Wendell Willkie, Mrs. Thomas E. Dewey (twice) and Mamie Eisenhower during their husbands' presidential campaigns.

Grey-haired, sixtyish Anne Wheaton can be expected to do a good job in the White House press office. Beyond that, her appointment proves to a lot of women that the White House never underestimates the power of women.

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