THE PRESIDENCY: This Won't Hurt a Bit

Tony Vaccaro, Associated Press correspondent, was looking forward to his trip to Rio next month with President Truman. But he did not want to take a yellow-fever shot, just the same. He had been told that shots were optional. Now, as he was shoved into the White House clinic, he cried, "I don't believe in shots!" A White House physician stared at him coldly. Vaccaro was told that the President had changed the rules; all reporters had to be immunized.

With reluctant resignation, Vaccaro obeyed instructions. He lowered his pants to half mast, climbed dismally up on an operating table, lay down with his head turned to the wall.

"I didn't know you gave them in the rear," he muttered.

"You have to have a sensitivity test," a soothing voice explained.

The door opened and President Harry Truman slipped in, beaming. He was handed a veterinarian's hypodermic syringe—a horrible weapon with a needle as thick as a pencil and huge glass cylinder full of a gummy looking red fluid. He prodded the recumbent reporter. Vaccaro winced and the President said, "This won't hurt a bit, Tony."

At the familiar voice, Vaccaro rolled over, saw Harry Truman grinning from ear to ear. He stared at the awful needle, suddenly realized he was the victim of a practical joke. Then he sighed with relief and got off the quote of the week: "Mr. President, I do not usually greet Presidents of the United States from this position."

The President, chuckling delightedly, went back to his budget conference.

The President also took time last week to ponder a French farmer's advice, sent to him along with a gift of two live chickens. "What the world needs," the farmer wrote, "is more to eat."