THE PRESIDENCY: Trapped

Four years ago, on the theory that all men are vulnerable to the sneaky little task forces of the germ world, authorities at the Army’s Walter Reed Hospital created a presidential suite on the third floor. It boasts a spacious living room done in pastel green, and is equipped with a fireplace, gold draperies, bookshelves and porcelain figurine table lamps, a bedroom, a kitchen and a sunroom. Nevertheless, Harry Truman, one of the healthiest Presidents in history, simply refused to get sick. Except for a one-week visit by Mohammed Mossadegh last year, the suite remained empty.

One morning last week the doctors finally got their chance. The President woke up feeling poorly, and called for Major General Wallace Graham, his personal physician. Dr. Graham found that he had a low fever, decided he had contracted a mild virus infection—his first illness, beyond simple colds, since becoming President. He was asked to stay in bed. Eyeing the patient, the doctor also decided that it was time to make him hold still for a thorough physical checkup.

The President got up the next day and worked stubbornly at a pile of congressional bills. He did the same thing the day following. But the fever continued, and on the morning after that, shaved, dressed and with a faintly defiant air, he allowed himself to be driven to Walter Reed Hospital.

His fever disappeared after the first day. He ate well, slept well, kept trying to whale away at his work, and actually managed to act on 233 bills during his three days in the hospital. But this took some doing. A chest man examined him. An abdomen man examined him. An eye man examined him. So did a heart man. Before he was through, eight different specialists had thumped, pummeled, probed, peered and questioned him.

When he got back to the White House at week’s end he told hurrying photographers who awaited him to take their time, take their time—that was all he had had for a week, he said—nothing to do but loaf. He went inside with the look of a man who had decided not to let it happen again.