THE PRESIDENCY: Prelude to History

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The President of the U. S. is a big man, huge-shouldered and long-armed, with sausage-size fingers on his freckled, hairy hands. His greying hair is thin, little hollows dwell on his massive temples, brown shadows sit under his deep, narrow-set eyes, and two big seams hook down from his clear-cut nose to make grim parentheses around his mouth.

Last week he looked tired. But weariness sat on him lightly, like a film of ash over a smoldering fire. Powerful, solid, imperturbable, he sat at his desk with an air of utter confidence—the alert, nonchalant confidence of a skilled worker moving swiftly in a routine task. The crushing responsibilities of 1940 he wore as familiarly, as easily as his speckly seersucker suit, buttoned into thick wrinkles over his paunch.

Even now he slept well, six or seven hours a night. But he slept best on a boat. At near-midnight after his last fireside chat he motored to the Navy Yard in Washington, sailed downriver on the yacht Potomac. Afloat, he slept till 11 a.m., and went back to the White House at noon with all his old bounce.

The President was working hard—incredibly hard—at the job which has broken so many men. Daily he averaged 15 callers (on Thursday he saw 40 men, besides a special press conference); as always, he did most of the talking. To handsome Marguerite (Missy) LeHand, his private secretary, he dictated 15 to 20 letters a day. Constantly reports, documents, State papers, cables, digests, correspondence streamed over his desk. There were speeches to write, messages to plan, policies to determine. Above all, there was a world to watch, a world in which total war looked more & more like world revolution.

The President watched the world. Daily he scanned maps. For three weeks he has discussed battlefield contours in military detail with U.S. experts; again & again they have whistled respectfully at his apparent knowledge of Flanders—hills, creeks, towns, bridges. The President's particular forte is islands: he is said to know every one in the world, its peoples, habits, population, geography, economic life. When a ship sank off Scotland several months ago, experts argued: Had the ship hit a rock or had it been torpedoed? The President pondered latitude & longitude, said: "It hit a rock. They ought to have seen that rock." Naval Aide Daniel J. Callaghan recalled the rock, disagreed: "At high tide, Mr. President, that rock is submerged." No such thing, said the President, even at high tide that rock is 20 feet out of the water.

The family life of the Nation's First Familyman was in abeyance. For the last three weeks he has missed the evening movies in the big second-floor corridor in the White House. But he averaged three swims a week in the pool set between the Mansion and the Executive Offices.