The Presidency: Isn’t It Great?

President Kennedy flung wide the French doors of his office, stepped out into the spring twilight, inhaled deeply. The fresh scent of thick bluegrass and moist earth, the sight of grape hyacinth bordering the flower garden (which has been replanted by a new White House gardener), the hues of cherry blossoms and forsythia across the yard made him smile. Off to his right. Caroline’s swings and slides lent a touch of outdoor domesticity. Said the President, with an expansive wave: “Look at that. Isn’t it great?” The President’s mood seemed to reflect the nation’s: for the moment, at least, the U.S. seemed far less interested in the TFX squabble, the NATO nuclear force, tax cutting, or even taxpaying. than in crocuses, curve balls and convertibles.

Don’t Worry. Issues seemed somehow remote. Said Atlanta Journal Editor Jack Spalding: “People aren’t concerned about foreign aid. What the hell, it’s out of their hands.” Said a San Francisco architect: “As far as De Gaulle and the Common Market are concerned, I tend to shrug my shoulders and hope it will work itself out somehow. And I don’t much care whether they waste money on the TFX in Seattle or somewhere else.” Michigan’s Republican Representative Gerald Ford, chairman of the House G.O.P. Conference, says he has received only three letters advocating a tax cut. He reports about 1,000 criticizing the Kennedy Administration’s big-spending proposals—but notes that in the past he has had a lot more letters on a lot of lesser issues. Clint Hakel, Minnesota secretary of the liberal Farmers Union, echoed the general feeling about Kennedy’s tax cut proposals: “A tax cut isn’t very exciting to me.”

Not even Cuba was generating much heat except in Florida. There the Communist presence on Castro’s island is felt more bitterly than in most places, and the general attitude is best expressed by a legend on auto-bumper stickers: “Don’t Worry—They’re Still 90 Miles Away.”

In this climate. President Kennedy had a most pleasant week. He and Jackie toured Maryland’s Antietam battlefield (his guide dutifully allowed as how the President was quite an expert on the bloodiest day of the Civil War). It took some frantic negotiations by Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz to get striking hot dog and soda pop vendors at D.C. Stadium to pull off their pickets so that the Democratic President could enter to watch the Washington Senators’ opening game. Kennedy threw out the first ball and very nearly beaned a photographer.

“We Stood Together.” For the President, perhaps the most pleasurable occasion of the week was in presiding over the ceremony in which honorary U.S. citizenship was conferred on Britain’s Sir Winston Churchill. In the White House flower garden, Kennedy paid high tribute to Churchill: “Indifferent himself to danger, he wept over the sorrows of others. A child of the House of Commons, he became its father. Accustomed to the hardships of battle, he had no distaste for pleasure. Now his stately ship of life, having weathered the severest storms of a troubled century, is anchored in tranquil waters.”

Winnie did not attend the ceremony, but viewed it on television via the Relay satellite in his London home. Standing in for him, his son Randolph read his acceptance of the unique honor. “It is,” read Randolph, “a remarkable commentary on our affairs that the former Prime Minister of a great sovereign state should thus be received as an honorary citizen of another. I say ‘great sovereign state’ with design and emphasis, for I reject the view that Britain and the Commonwealth should now be relegated to a tame and minor role in the world . . . In this century of storm and tragedy, I contemplate with high satisfaction the constant factor of the interwoven and upward progress of our peoples. Our comradeship and our brotherhood in war were unexampled. We stood together, and because of that fact the free world now stands.”

President Kennedy had planned to set out at midweek for an Easter holiday at Palm Beach. But then came word that a small steel company had announced a price hike (see U.S. BUSINESS). Kennedy postponed his leavetaking, called in Administration officials for consultation, finally came out with a statement that, compared to his savage 1962 assault on U.S. Steel, seemed downright benign—and gave the stock market a general lift. Then the President and a few friends jetted to Florida.