Sharp questions of American reporters
needled Premier Khrushchev when he
spoke at Press Club during his U. S. tour.
i
NATIONAL PRESS
Khrushchev exploded,
Truman was flustered
just two examples of VIPs
who found the seat of honor
a hot one at the
National Press Club
Nixon was willing, but Truman refused,
telling the club members he'd be durned if
he'd rub shoulders with "that man," even on
a piano bench.
British Field Marshal Viscount Montgom
ery's imperious ways were recalled in his
presence by an introduction which related
a supposed wartime conversation between a
British chief of staff and King George VI.
Club president Ted Koop quoted the chief
of staff as saying: "I am rather afraid Monty
is after my job," to which the King replied:
"I am delighted to hear it. I was afraid he
was after mine."
Pess club spoofing is bipartisan in nature.
In 1956, club president Frank Holeman
tagged Ike's Secretary of Defense, Charles
K Wilson, as "one of the few men who have
earned more money in one year than Betty
Grable," adding: "He didn't do it with his
legs, either, although he is pretty agile. His
friends say that it's over a year now since
he put his foot in his mouth."
The same year, Holeman described Aver
ell Harriman, then New York's millionaire
governor of New York: "It may be hard to
think of our speaker as a self-made man,
but he is. He just started at a different place.
Very few men with his beginning ever got
to where he is today. It was a real downhill
struggle."
With Khrushchev, President Lawrence
took no more liberties in his introduction
than to suggest the club was happy to take
him out of the kitchen and into the ball-
Most famous photograph taken at Press Club
showed Lauren Bacall inspiring a well-known
amateur pianist to strike up "Missouri Waltz."
if
room, a reference to the famous Nixon
Khrushchev debate at the U. S. model-home
exhibit in Moscow.
Lawrence dealt much less gently a few
months earlier with Everett McKinley
Dirksen, Senate minority leader, who op
posed Ike's nomination in 1952. Noting that
Dirksen's father had been a great fan of
President William McKinley, Lawrence re
marked with accurate candor: "As a mat
ter of fact, our speaker didn't get McKinley
as his middle name until 11 months after he
was born, which was about as belated as his
conversion to Eisenhower Republicanism."
If anyone carries any grudges about the
club, he would do well to consider how
Presidents of the United States are treated.
The club once levied a $5 penalty on Frank
lin D. Roosevelt for late payment of dues.
When Dwight D. Eisenhower received his
membership card last year, he observed
somewhat wistfully:
"I understand possibly erroneously, but
. I hope it is true that members of the press
deal gently with their members. So I hope
possession of this card gives me a certain
immunity that, up to the moment, has not
been mine." When the Press Club members
subsequently grilled him for an even longer
period than Khrushchev and with questions
of similar tough caliber, it became perfectly
obvious that the President of the United
States had no such immunity.
It is even rumored that one problem Ike
and Khrushchev failed to settle was: "Who
fared worse at the National Press Club?"
Family Weekly, March 13, I960
13
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