Last week, as he had on six previous occasions, John F. Kennedy
displayed near-flawless skills at a press conference. He arrived well briefed on questions he was likely to be asked. He
adroitly parried embarrassing queries, and he projected an image as a
crisp and incisive leader. Indeed, most veteran Washington newsmen
agree that in his press conference techniques Kennedy has never had a
presidential equal. Yet among those same newsmen, there is an
increasing sense of dissatisfaction. Part of the problem lies in the changed press conference format. In
Franklin Roosevelt's day, the press conference, held in the President's
own office, amounted to an informal chat with a handful of regular
White House reporters. Harry Truman held his conferences in an Old
State Department conference room; yet they remained generally breezy
affairs. Dwight Eisenhower relaxed the ground rules, permitting his conferences
to be taped for television as well as radio and authorizing the use of
direct quotations. Jack Kennedy's conferences are full-scale productions, held in a vast
new auditorium and often televised live. Riots for Recognition. The Kennedy conferences generally draw upwards of
300 newsmen—and the result is confusion. As viewed on the nation's TV screens, the reporters' clamor for
presidential recognition sometimes seems riotous. Some of the newsmen
are plainly overcome by the possibilities for personal publicity in the
televised conference. Says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's sobersided
Raymond P. Brandt: “I'm afraid that a few of us are hams.” A star
performer is Sarah McClendon, who represents a group of small dailies
from Texas to New Hampshire, and whose convoluted questions seldom fail
to draw laughs. Asked she last week: “Mr. President, sir. What do
you think of the Air Force and other branches of Government organizing
these sidebar corporations and using taxpayers' money to circumvent
the civil service and pay large scientists and others? Isn't this sort
of incongruous with the call for volunteers for your Peace Corps?”
Understandably, Kennedy's answer amounted to a courteous ahem.
