THE PRESIDENCY: Lunch for Two

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While the blizzard of paperwork swept across Dwight Eisenhower's desk last week, the streams of visitors continued to flow in through the White House front door. There were more liaison luncheons with Congressmen. The Cabinet met as usual, with the now-standard minute of silent prayer to start the meeting, and the Secretaries came to the executive wing by a new route: their cars were brought in through a side gate to the back door, off limits to reporters and photographers. One morning congressional leaders turned up at 8 a.m. for orange juice and coffee, and a briefing by Joint Chieftain Omar Bradley and CIAdministrator Allen Dulles on the military-diplomatic situation the world over. The situation, they agreed afterward, was "grim."

The week's most notable visitor was Adlai Stevenson, fresh from his Manhattan speech (TIME, Feb. 23). Before going to the White House, Stevenson accepted Eisenhower's offer of full official assistance for the forthcoming Stevenson world trip by getting a morning's briefing at the State Department. Then, in a two-hour meeting, the man who won the presidency and the man who lost it sat down to lunch (guinea hen, wild rice), swapped reminiscences of the campaign, chatted as warmly as old friends. Stevenson was impressed by the hospitality: he was beginning to like Washington, "perhaps too much," he confessed.

Last week the President also:

¶Named his Constellation the Columbine, after the official flower of Colorado, Mamie's home state, and after his old SHAPE Constellation, also the Columbine.

¶Named Val Peterson, after brief service (three weeks) as a White House aide, to be chief of the Federal Civil Defense Administration.

¶Made the White House swimming pool, added by Franklin Roosevelt, available to staffers and their families during off-duty hours.