THE PRESIDENCY: New Folks at Home

The new tenants at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had their share of moving-in headaches. Ike Eisenhower found the bookcases empty in his White House office, and the pale green walls all but stripped of their pictures.* When Ike started to open his mail, he had to buzz for a letter opener. A little later he tugged in vain at the drawer of the broad mahogany presidential desk (which once belonged to Teddy Roosevelt). "Mr. Simmons." said Ike to Receptionist Bill Simmons, "is there a key to this desk? I can't get into this drawer." Simmons produced a key, Ike opened the drawer and pawed tentatively through some confidential papers left for him by the man who had just moved out.

Some of Ike's staff members had to ask the Secret Service to lead the way to new offices. Others were temporarily stymied until the old civil-service retainers showed them how to order such basic items as pencils and paper clips. The usually efficient White House switchboard got calls mixed up. And one of Ike's personal secretaries, Wave Chief Yeoman Helen Weaver (who has 20 medals as a crack pistol shot), got lost for a while on an errand between the east and west wings of the White House.

Businessman's Lunch. Ike was out of his new bed at 7:30 on the first morning, even though he had not turned in until 2 a.m. He put on a brown business suit, a white shirt and brown figured tie, sat down in his bedroom to eat a breakfast alone (his usual: a half grapefruit and cup of coffee). He was just two minutes behind his own schedule when he got in his office downstairs at 8:02. (To a staff member who complained mildly about his early starting hour, Ike said jovially: ''You change. You're younger.")

The first item of business was a conference with Attorney General Herbert Brownell about Charles Erwin Wilson's troubles with Congress (see below). After staff conferences and the morning mail, Ike got around to that other eternal function of high office: handshaking. First, a call from Pillsbury Mills Vice President Bradshaw Mintener & wife, who helped Candidate Ike get a big write-in vote in the Minnesota primary last March 18. Then 29 red-jacketed members of the Palomino Mounted Patrol of Colorado, followed by the boys of the Junior Police Band of Denver. Each one expected, and got, the presidential grip.