Nation: FROM THE ROCKING CHAIR

WITH wooden blocks placed under his rocking chair to keep him from jouncing off-camera. President Kennedy faced the U.S. on television. Each of the major networks had asked time for a review of his years in office. Kennedy himself had suggested that newsmen from all three networks meet him in a single session—an updated, visual version of F.D.R.'s folksy fireside chats. The taped interview lasted one hour and 35 minutes, was edited to an hour-long show by the networks. The questions asked him were kindly. Some of Kennedy's views were debatable; he seemed to think, for example, that the great danger during the steel crisis was that he might fail to work his will. No momentous news was made, but the session served to show the President at his informal, confident best. Excerpts:

On the Presidency: "I would say that the problems are more difficult than I had imagined them to be. The responsibilities placed on the United States are greater than I imagined them to be, and there are greater limitations upon our ability to bring about a favorable result than I had imagined them to be. It is much easier to make the speeches than it is to finally make the judgments."

On the Congress: "I think the Congress looks more powerful sitting here than it did when I was there in the Congress. But that is because when you are in Congress you are one of a hundred in the Senate or one of 435 in the House, so that the power is so divided. But from here I look at a Congress, and I look at the collective power of the Congress, particularly the bloc action, and it is a substantial power.''

On Sending Troops to Ole Miss: "I don't think that anybody who looks at the situation can think we could possibly do anything else. I recognize that it has caused a lot of bitterness against me and against the national Government in Mississippi and other parts."

On the Steel Crisis: "Now, supposing we had tried and made a speech about it and then failed. I would have thought that would have been an awful setback to the office of the presidency. Now, I just think, looking back on it, that I would not change it at all. There is no sense in raising hell and then not being successful. There is no sense in putting the office of the presidency on the line on an issue and then being defeated."

On the Bay of Pigs: ''The advice of those who were brought in on the Executive Branch was unanimous, and the advice was wrong. And I was responsible."

On Cuba, 1962: "If we had had to act on Wednesday in the first 24 hours, I don't think probably we would have chosen, as prudently as we finally did, a quarantine against the use of offensive weapons. In addition, that had much more power than we first thought it did, because I think the Soviet Union was very reluctant to have us stop ships which carried with them a good deal of their highly secret and sensitive material. One of the reasons I think that the Soviet Union withdrew the IL-28s was because we were carrying on very intensive low-level photography. Now, no one would have guessed, probably, that that would have been such a harassment."