THE PRESIDENCY: Prelude to History

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His appetite was good, his taste for game still as keen as when Mrs. Roosevelt said he liked any food "that flies through the kitchen." Sea food was still his favorite dish, terrapin in any form his prime favorite, with a gastronomic nook always reserved for kedgeree, a dish of flaked white fish, rice, hardboiled eggs. He is a cheese connoisseur, but likes ice cream to the point of second helpings. He honestly likes hot dogs. One Scotch highball at teatime is his usual ration, but on a night out he ups that limit: often at banquets the flower vases before his place conceal as many as four Old-Fashioneds, which he downs before one can say "Jack Garner."

His day begins around 8:30 a.m., with a leisurely breakfast in bed, a review of news and the day's work with Secretary Stephen T. Early, a careful check through New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Baltimore newspapers; a look at overnight cables. Often, these days, there are also quick conferences with State Department chiefs. Languid, shrewd Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins often sits in, listening more than talking, unmindful of smoke curling into his eyes from a forgotten cigaret. When the grandchildren are on a visit, one is usually climbing around the bed (Franklin III or Sara).

Dressed, he sits on a little wheelchair that looks like a typewriter table—no arms or back—and an attendant places his hand on the President's broad shoulders, pushes him to the elevator, down the pillared outside passage (if the day is fair) and into the Oval Room to his desk. Walking is still a difficult, lurching task to him, only possible with a cane and an aide's arm.

At 10 or 10:30 appointments begin. Lunch is a conference over desk trays. The President is not skillful with his hands: they fumble with papers, with spectacles; the wood matches he uses often break under his heavy fingers. When he appears casual, easy, charming, his hands are still. He likes to laugh, even these days —a delighted roar that shakes him up & down—and still in the hoarded minutes of his day finds time to write lusty wisecracks in memos to his aides; to think up little gags to spring on his press conferences.

In more than seven years in the White House he hasn't spent 30 days in bed. Dr. Ross Mclntire vows his ward could pass his 1930 life-insurance examinations ($560,000) at his 1930 ratings. Only his family, anxiously aware of the mortality rate of Presidents, is not sure he can beat the averages.

He has one priceless attribute: a knack of locking up his and the world's worries in some secret mental compartment, and then enjoying himself to the top of his bent. This quality of survival, of physical toughness, of champagne ebullience, is one key to the big man. Another key is this: no one has ever heard him admit that he cannot walk.