Cares & Crises

Even for John Kennedy, it was an arduous week of activity. It began with word of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's setback in West Germany. Then came the news of Dag Hammarskjold's death. The next day, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko began their cautious, first-round sparring about Berlin. Across the U.S., like malevolent mist, drifted the fallout from the Russian nuclear test shots, which by week's end had reached No. 15.

In this climate of compounding emergency, the President worked late almost every night in his White House office. He was constantly on the phone with Secretary Rusk and U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, sometimes grabbing the receiver as he walked into his office and beginning to talk before he was settled behind his oaken desk. On Tuesday afternoon the Joint Chiefs of Staff slipped secretly into the White House to review the nation's Berlin contingency plans.

Beauty & Business. Adding to such cares of international crisis were more ordinary diplomatic, political, ceremonial, social, and even parental problems. Leaving the J.C.S. conference on Berlin, Kennedy changed into white tie and tails to preside at a state dinner for Peru's President Manuel Prado y Ugarteche (see THE HEMISPHERE). As Hurricane Esther swept toward Cape Cod, he put a call through to his father in Hyannisport, asked if Daughter Caroline and Son John ought to be moved from the summer house to higher ground. At 5 a.m. on Thursday, the President's children, along with six of their cousins, were awakened and driven 18 miles through the rain to refuge at Otis Air Force Base.

For the President, that Thursday was quite a day. He chatted briefly with West Virginia's Jo Ann Odum, 19, who will soon represent the U.S. in the Miss World Pageant. He lunched--after several postponements--with the brass of Advise and Consent, being filmed in Washington (see SHOW BUSINESS). Later, he received a delegation from a businessmen's group headed by U.S. Steel Chairman Roger Blough. Once officially attached to the Department of Commerce with the title of Business Advisory Council, the group had broken away last summer when Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges tried to curb its authority. Ever since, the council has been anxious to ease back into the good graces of the Administration, and the President has been equally anxious to show he is not antibusiness. Kennedy assured his guests that he believed the interests of business and Government were interdependent. Though no formal reconciliation was reached, both the businessmen and the President felt more comfortable at meeting's end.

Write & Rewrite. Next day, hurrying to get away for his regular weekend on Cape Cod (the 13th in a row), he signed 22 bills into law, including the one that gave permanent authorization to the Peace Corps. Recalling the doubts drummed up about the program in Congress, the President expressed his esteem for the political salesmanship of Brother-in-Law Sarge Shriver Jr., director of the Corps, only half-jokingly dubbed him "the most effective lobbyist on the Washington scene."

Esther's murky hangover delayed the President's flight to the Cape and shrouded Otis with a blanket of fog for his arrival. Pilot James Swindal began to put down the Boeing on instruments, banked when he broke through the 300-ft. ceiling, and bounced twice before finally settling onto the runway. Unruffled by the rough landing, the President drove through the drizzle to Hyannisport and went to work writing and rewriting his U.N. speech.

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