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CHAPTER XIII

WORLD FORUM

AS CASUALLY AS first-of-the-month bills coming to a member's home or his office desk, an announcement such as the one above will tell him that some notable figure of national or world importance will appear for him to see in person to hear discuss vital issues to hold in memory for the rest of his life. For at no other place have so many great figures of earth made their bows.

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Aforetime it was said that one had but to wait at Charing Cross, on the Rue de la Paix or at 42nd and Broadway and sooner or later all the world would pass by. To that list must be added the National Press Club. It is here that the Captains and the Kings arrive and, what is especially notable, nearly always when they are at the very apex of their power or fame. And not infrequently it is from this rostrum that they utter policies and doctrines which sway the affairs of nations.

During the Club's earlier history, many great men appeared as guests but in a somewhat informal atmosphere. Thus Theodore Roosevelt had visited the Club, after his presidency, to tell of his effort to lead a volunteer division to the First World War. President Taft made no formal addresses on his calls at the Club; he came as a friend of the members rather than as a high official.

The visits of President Woodrow Wilson were almost gossipy rather than formal appearances. True, members did listen while Admiral Peary told of his discovery of the North Pole, but the set speech was the exception. Presumably, the guests enjoyed their visits and, sometimes, the members gathered news. For example, Andrew Carnegie (in answer to a question as to the secret of his financial success) confided to Bascom Timmons: "I had a saving wife." At a later date Mr. Timmons was offered as a Club speaker a rising British politician, but this was in the very depth of the Great Depression when the Club had no money to spend and Mr. Timmons felt he already had disbursed more than his share in entertaining, so Mr. Winston Churchill was not invited.

When Mr. Timmons gave a dinner for President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 22, 1932, such a crowd pressed for admission that Raymond P. Brandt, upon becoming president in 1933, undertook to have the Club give formal luncheons in the auditorium. The long series of such luncheons which has resulted in making the Club an international forum should be dated from that time. In 1933 three such notable affairs took place. When Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, head of the British Labor Party and perhaps the most eloquent speaker the Club ever heard, was the guest there was a world-wide radio hook-up, in those days quite an achievement in communications. Maxim M. Litvinov, Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, delivered a tactful address and Fiorello H. LaGuardia, Mayor-elect of New York, spoke to the members, large numbers of whom he had come to know well from his service in the House of Representatives.

From then on, the formal luncheons became a fairly standard part of the life of the Club. While many of the speakers at this period were officials of the Roosevelt administration there were also such figures as George M. Cohan and Cecil B. DeMille; Upton Sinclair, then running for Governor of California; Dr. Frank E. Townsend, the champion of the elderly; and George Gallup the poll-taker

The pace grew livelier and in President George Stimpson's administration in 1936 reached a new peak in interest. While major party candidates for the Presidency made addresses at the Club, Mr. Stimpson invited such minor but spectacular competing figures as Norman Thomas of the Socialist Party, William Lemke of what was called the Union Party and Earl Browder the candidate of the Communist Party. There was wide variation in speakers then as today. For example two great labor leaders, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers and William Green of the American Federation of Labor spoke from the same rostrum as Fernando de los Rios, Ambassador of the Spanish Republic and Fulvio Suvich, Ambassador of Mussolini's Italy, which then was supporting General Franco in the bitter Spanish Civil War. And then came His Eminence Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, Papal Secretary of State, later to succeed to the Holy See as Pope Pius XII.

In the earlier years, the addresses of distinguished speakers, especially those holding official or otherwise sensitive positions and always if they so requested were off the record; that is, not to be quoted or, in some cases, not even paraphrased. This proved impractical as audiences grew larger and as the general public became increasingly interested in the Press Club forum. Thereafter, a speaker was on notice that what he said was for the world to hear.

Progressively, a pattern of arrangements has grown up for the conduct of these affairs. At first the Club's Entertainment Committee was sufficient but to this was added a special Speakers Committee, now become one of the important standing Committees of the Club. It has had a number of chairmen, Ernest K. Lindley, chief of the Washington bureau of Newsweek, having filled the position longer than any other, nine years. William Hillman, Luther Huston, Arthur Sylvester, John O'Brien, Nat Finley, John Madigan, Cecil Holland and others also contributed to the remarkable presentation of a long list of speakers comprising a political and social bluebook of the world.

A luncheon at the Mayflower Hotel, co-sponsored by the Club and other news organizations, featured Winston Churchill, shown here escorted by the Club's Paul Wooton and Charles H. Campbell.

From its inception, the Club has kept a book for guests' signatures, known as the Gold Book. It is strictly guarded in the Club's safe, not merely because of the immense commercial value of these autographs but for the reason that they are mementoes of great men and women who were the guests and, in not a few cases, the friends of the members.

There have been cases, especially after the Club became famous for its luncheons, when proponents of political movements, causes and public figures have suavely sought to obtain an invitation for their hero. Even official pressure has not been wholly absent from efforts to produce invitations. It is seldom indeed that such efforts meet with success. The Club hears whom it wants to: not who is ambitious to address it.

A procedure has developed which is sedulously followed in the immediate arrangements. Notice cards go to all resident members as many days in advance as possible. The member must then purchase his ticket for himself and his male guests. When announcement is made of appearance of some person known to command wide attention, the member knows from experience that he had better buy his ticket at once for often the capacity of the auditorium will be exhausted in the first day or two after announcement; even in a few hours.

Guest speakers are coached sternly in advance that they must be on time. Members gather in the main lounge of the Club anywhere from an hour to a few minutes before 12:30. At that hour the doors are opened to the auditorium and the audience files in, taking tables at random as no specific reservations are practicable.

Meantime, the guest speaker, often with a retinue, arrives at the Club quarters and is taken upstairs to the Board Room, there to meet members of the Board of Governors and other distinguished guests and have a cocktail. After fifteen minutes or so, the President of the Club escorts the speaker downstairs and they take their places at the High Table. There have been invited to sit at the High Table other very important guests. For example, if a Prime Minister of France or Italy or Great Britain is the speaker, the ambassador of his country is at the High Table and also some official from the State Department, the same general pattern being followed dependent on the official position of the guest speaker.

At 1 o'clock or shortly afterwards, the president introduces first the notable persons at the High Table and finally. the guest speaker himself. Over the years, presidents of the Club have shown an ever-increasing talent for urbane and often witty introductions. This recalls that, long years before the club had gained its prestige, Avery Marks, then president, asked the British Embassy to furnish him with an outline of what should be said in introducing the Ambassador at a Club affair. The Embassy (not then having the services of a Charles Campbell, a Frank Mitchell or a Paul Scott Rankin) ignored the request. Whereupon, Mr. Marks stood at the podium (this happened in Keith's Theater), placed before him a conspicuous copy of Who's Who and began reading: Geddes, Sir Auckland, and so on in the staccato style of that book of reference. It was an immensely successful introduction.

Addresses vary in length and, of course, style of delivery determines how much a speaker can say in the time allotted. He is expected to speak about 20 minutes but sometimes this is exceeded. Then there is a question period. Members send written questions to the president who selects germane ones and reads them to the speaker or, in some cases, to a translator. The time of answering depends upon whether or not they must be translated to the speaker and the answer back again.

There have been cases in which answers to questions have been more important as news than the set speeches, notably when George Meany had made a carefully prepared address on the position of organized labor, its aspirations, what legislation was needed and so on. Among the questions asked was one for a frank opinion as to what Mr. Meany, President of the American Federation of Labor, thought of the present position of organized labor. He replied: "We never had it so good."

At the close of the proceedings, the guest is presented with a "Certificate of Appreciation Awarded in Recognition of Meritorious Service to Correspondents of Press Radio and Television in the Nation's Capital." In a surprise return gesture, Commander Anderson of the U.S.S. Nautilus presented the Club with an invaluable souvenir of the first successful voyage under the North Pole, a plaque made especially for the occasion and sent by all officers and crew of his ship.

What these introductions lead up to is the important matter. While many memorable statements were made by earlier speakers it probably was the address of Dean G. Acheson, Secretary of State, made in January, 1950, that marked the Press Club luncheons as events which must be watched by all the political world. He chose the Club in that troubled time to announce the Far Eastern policy of the Truman administration. It is of special interest today that he then specifically excluded Formosa from the American defense perimeter. The speech of Secretary Acheson is cited in chancelleries everywhere as the Press Club address. It also was at the Club that another Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, in January, 1958, announced the United States position on the subject of a "conference at the summit," the burning issue of the day.

Commander William R. Anderson, skipper of the nuclear submarine Nautilus, is applauded by Admiral Arleigh Burke as he rises to tell the Club of his pioneering voyage under the Polar ice cap.

The circumstance that such utterances, of deep import to Foreign ministries everywhere, are identified as Press Club pronouncements has done much to enhance the importance of all appearances of speakers at the Club. This places an increased burden of responsibility upon the Speakers' Committee and, indeed, upon the entire Club administration.

The Club is first an organization off newsgatherers, actively concerned with the spot news of the moment. Where some other type of club might select its speakers with a view to avoiding controversies and, perchance, offending the sensibilities of some members, a contrary policy is followed here. One sometimes might feel that speakers would need special guards and, indeed, at times, the State Department and foreign governments concerned do impose security precautions.

For obvious reasons, no foreign rivalry has raised higher temperatures than the perennial struggle between the State of Israel and the Arab nations. A series of especially tense Club luncheons were digested to the accompaniment of voices from the Middle East. There was Mrs. Golda Meir who came here in December 1956 as Foreign Minister of the State of Israel, a grim, determined figure of great dignity. David Ben Gurion, the Prime Minister, had also been before the Club but not even he gave the impression of such dedication as Mrs. Meir.

When two days later Dr. Mahmoud Fawzi, Foreign Minister of Egypt, appeared he was wrapped not in Arab burnoose but in the impeccable habiliments of an Occidental statesman.

The week following the appearances of Mrs. Meir and Dr. Fawzi the Club heard the Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.

Television and newsreel cameramen crowd the auditorium balcony as they broil cameras on Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Menshikov.

Few appearances at the Club have been more dramatic than that of Sir Harold Anthony Caccia out November 15, 1956. But a few days earlier he had presented at the White House his credentials as British ambassador and this, his first American address, was made in the midst of international turmoil not a little reminiscent of the troubled period that was the immediate prelude to World War I. Only a week before, President Eisenhower had been re-elected after a stirring campaign in which war dangers had been an issue. The seizure of the Suez Canal by President Nasser of Egypt had thrown the political and maritime worlds into dismay, the day before the American longshoremen had begun a strike which had moored even more shipping than the blocking of the Canal had immobilized, the United Nations had begun its peace mission in the Middle East and Hungary was torn by revolt. No new envoy could be faced by a more trying situation for a first appearance in a new country. That is the type of situation often presented at the Club luncheons.

Although military action had not yet been taken when M. Herve Alphand, the French ambassador, came to the Press Club on October 17, 1956, the diplomatic atmosphere of the Western Powers had the brooding quality that presages storm. As with Sir Harold, M. Alphand was a newly named envoy, choosing the Club for his first public appearance. Aware as Sir Harold had been that his audience was affected by the American policy which was frankly antagonistic to British and French Suez Canal attitudes, M. Alphand attacked the subject uppermost in everyone's mind at once, saying: "We can not deny that in the Suez affair my Government and the Government of the United States have not followed parallel lines." He went on ardently to defend the French position not only as to Suez but in relation to Algeria. That is a great merit about most of the speakers before the Club. They are aware that the Club does not want to hear idle discussion, mere platitudes nor courteous glossing of heated subjects.

Not since Sir Winston Churchill, speaking on that occasion before a joint meeting of the National Press and Overseas Writers Clubs, had urged upon the West a policy of tolerant co-existence with the Soviet power, had that tender issue been so strikingly presented to the world as when M. Christian Pineau, Foreign Minister of the French Republic, appeared before the Club in June, 1956 to explain why France found it expedient to embrace the doctrine.

And so the story has gone, each year building up a richer body of historical material of utmost value to not only the politicians and statesmen of today but to the chroniclers of the future. For at no central place have so many and so varied a number of great men set forth their official positions and their personal views.

Space does not allow what only a book can do justice to but members cannot fail to recall the immense dignity surrounding the appearance of a man like Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of a Germany risen from the ashes of war, and the suave diplomacy of his Foreign Minister, Heinrich von Brentano. The aging Count Sforza, Italian Foreign Minister, evoked the past of Renaissance high politics, while all the pageantry of the East has come into the Club auditorium with Eastern potentates, robed in their gorgeous embroidered garments of state.

Head Waiter Russell Munroe, accustomed to great names for three decades, serves Canada's Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. Arthur Sylvester sits at Prime Minister's right, President Ted Koop to his left.

There have been several Soviet diplomats as Club speakers. After Maxim Litvinov, the Club heard Ambassador Alexandor Troyanovsky. Constantine Oumansky, his successor, in his earlier post as Counselor, twice agreed to speak and then cancelled the appointment. In 1958 Mikhail Menshikov spoke to the Club on on "peaceful co-existence" and the need for a "conference at the summit."

All the smooth advance arranging does not mean that the performance invariably is faultless but when there is a departure from protocol it invariably has been at the door of the guest speaker. There was a John A. Costello, Prime Minister of Ireland, who had made a good start with his prepared address when, in embarrassment, he stopped and exclaimed: "Oh, this is the speech for the Senate" and, shifting papers rapidly, then proceeded with the address written for the Club.

Eamon de Valera, a founder of the Republic of Eire and former Prime Minister, was another Irish guest speaker who, like all his countrymen, received an enthusiastic welcome. Robert Briscoe, whose somewhat curious position as a Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin aroused special interest, was another guest who delighted his audience with his wit.

Members could scarcely conceal laughter when Crown Prince Abdul Jelah of Iraq, upon being introduced, said that his ambassador would deliver his address for him. Whereupon the ambassador was constrained to beg off on the ground that he had forgotten his glasses, calling upon his next in rank to proceed with the reading. So the Club at length heard what the prince had to say at third hand!

And when the Italian Prime Minister, Amitore Fanfani, was a guest such a misunderstanding arose about how certain phrases should be translated that, at one time, four excited Italians simultaneously were speaking to a large audience, each giving his version. It was a little like the quartet from Rigoletto!

Misadventures happen to others than speakers, too. Dr. Paul Dudley White, the 70th-year-old heart specialist attending President Eisenhower, arrived at the Club building escorted by the president of the Club, Ben Grant. Mr. Grant was leading the distinguished guest to the elevator held in waiting when Dr. White suggested walking upstairs as good exercise for the heart. Whereupon, the elderly but vigorous physician walked the amazed President Grant up 13 flights of stairs arriving at the top in gay mood.

When Vice President Nixon, in the course of a Latin American goodwill tour, was greeted with insults and, at Caracas, capital of Venezuela, narrowly escaped dangerous physical injury or even death, the entire world waited to hear his account of the events. On May 21, 1958, he told his story at the Club. Elaborate live radio and television arrangements carried his report to all nations.

"While it is true," he said, "that Communists spear-headed the attacks, they had a lot of willing spear-carriers with them." He did believe, however, that Latin American diplomacy should abandon the white tie dinner and cocktail hour approach and concentrate on trying to win the friendship of students and the growing labor movement in Latin America. But he added: "If we allow a bunch of blackmailing bullies to keep officials of the United States from doing what needs to be done to carry out our foreign policy, we had better get off the face of the earth."

Mrs. Nixon, long a personal friend of many Club members and who had shared mob insult and danger with her husband, was present on this occasion, an exception to the usual custom of having only male guests.

If a particular disciple of any of the great men who has been a guest speaker before the Club feels that his hero has not been given adequate attention in these pages, his indulgence is begged and he is asked to accept the assurance that the Club realizes each speaker has been worth a complete chapter and, perhaps, some day a book will be published about those luncheons according that extended treatment.

But, for this limited volume, little more than a listing of names can be given but that listing, in itself, is evocative of entire pages of history. Since 1936 there have never been fewer than 18 speaker's luncheons annually and rarely fewer than 25. In some years there have been 40 and, since the airconditioning of the auditorium in 1954, making summer engagements practicable, more.

Especially dramatic and moving have been speeches of the ambassadors of nations destroyed or captured by Hitler: Vladimir Hurban of Czechoslovakia in March, 1939; Wilhelm Munthe de Morgenstierne of Norway in April, 1940 (Mr. Morgenstierne, who first served in Washington when Theodore Roosevelt was President, went on to become the beloved dean of the diplomatic corps); Henrik de Kauffmann of Denmark, Count Robert van der Straten-Ponthoz of Belgium, and Dr. A. Loudon of the Netherlands, in May, 1940, and Constantin Fotitch of Yugoslavia in April, 1941.

In January, 1940, when Britain was beginning to look for financial aid but "cash and carry" was the American policy and isolationist sentiment was still running high, the new British ambassador, the Marquess of Lothian, astonished the Club, perhaps less by what he said than by the way he said it. Despite the delicacy of his mission, he spoke without a note and answered questions with ease and candor.

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillian asked himself a question at the conclusion of his luncheon talk, and answered it "I don't know, but I enjoyed it."

Among other eminent Britishers in addition to nearly all ambassadors who have spoken, in many cases more than once, at the Club are: Prime Minister Harold Macmillan; Clement Attlee, both as wartime Deputy Prime Minister and as postwar Prime Minister; Foreign Ministers Anthony Eden (who came first in 1938 as an ex-Foreign Minister), Ernest Bevin, and Herbert Morrison; Chancellors of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps and R. A. Butler; Defense Minister Emanuel Shinwell; Sir William Henry Beveridge (later Lord Beveridge); Lord Woolton, Chairman of the British Conservative Party; and Sir Hartley Shawcross, Chief British Prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials.

One event in 1956 proved that the Club could lose news as well as make it. On February 3, Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden held a news conference attended by more than 350 reporters. Admission was strictly controlled and no one was allowed to leave until the meeting adjourned. Doors were locked, and the Prime Minister answered questions very frankly.

As the conference ended newsmen rushed to file their stories. To their amazement and consternation they found the story already on the news tickers. The scoop was simply explained: BBC had been broadcasting the conference direct to London and the story was being relayed back by wire services to the United States, thereby appearing on the machines right outside the conference doors.

The British Commonwealths have been represented on our programs by such men as Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies and John Curtin of Australia; Prime Minister Louis G. St. Lauren of Canada; Prime Minister Peter Fraser of New Zealand; Lester B. Pearson, Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs; Douglas C. Abbott, Canadian Minister of Finance; Richard G. Casey, first Australian minister to the U. S., later Minister for External Affairs; and Sir Leslie K. Munro, New Zealand ambassador and President of the twelfth session of the U. N. General Assembly; Sir Percy Spender, Australian ambassador to the U. S.; and Walter Nash as New Zealand minister to the U. S.

Our eminent speakers from France have included: Vincent Auriol, President of the Republic, the only French President ever to come here during his term; Premiers Rene Pleven, Guy Mollet, Pierre Mendes - France, and Rene Mayer; Foreign Minister Christian Pineau; Ambassadors Henri Bonnet, Couve De Murville (later Foreign Minister), and Jean Monnet, famous French economist and planner and chief architect of the European Coal and Steel Community; and Gen. Lattre de Tassigny.

Among our distinguished speakers from smaller European countries have been: Paul Van Zeeland, both as Prime Minister and as Foreign Minister of Belgium; Paul-Henri Spaak, of Belgium, as Secretary-General of NATO.

From China we have had a succession of special emissaries and ambassadors, including Hollington K. Tong and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. From Korea, we have had Ambassadors John M. Chang and You Chen Yang. From postwar China we have heard Prime Ministers Shigeru Yoshida and Nobusuke Kishi, and Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu.

The roster of eminent speakers from the nations of Asia and Africa is a long one. Among Chiefs of State it includes the Shaha of Iran, and Presidents Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, Diem or South Viet Nam, and Sukarno of Indonesia. Among Prime Ministers it includes Jawaharlal Nehru of India, U Nu of Burma, Luang Pibul Songgram of Thailand, Liaquat Ali Khan and Huseyen Shaheed Shurawardy of Pakistan, his Royal Highness Sardar Mohammed Daoud of Afghanistan and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Sir John Kotelawala of Ceylon, and Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran. Among other important Near and Middle East speakers have been Mahmoud Younes, Egyptian Managing Director of the Suez Canal Authority; Capt. A. W. Beale jr., a Suez Canal pilot under the old regime; Moshe Sharett, Israeli Foreign Minister; Abba Eban, Israeli ambassador; Abdel Rayman Azzam Pascha, Secretary-General of the Arab League; His Royal Highness Amir Abdul Ilah, Crown Prince and ex-Regent of Iraq, who was assassinated the following year, 1958, in a military coup; and Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus.

India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru fields questions at a Club news conference in the auditorium.

Our Latin-American guests have included Gen. Eurico Gaspar Dutra, President of Brazil; Juscelino Kubitschek, as President-elect of Brazil; Gabriel Bonzales Videla, President of Chile; Galo Plaza, President of Ecuador; and Ezequiel Padilla, Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs. Also among the international statesmen who have spoken to us must be listed Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

We have heard at our luncheons most of the upper-bracket American and Allied military leaders of the second world war and postwar era. Gen. George C. Marshall, wartime Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army, made his first address on May 29, 1941. We had Gen. H. H. (Hap) Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Corps; Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander-in-chief off the U. S. Navy; Maj. Gen. A. A. Vandergrift, Commander of the U. S. Marines at Guadalcanal; Capt. Joe Foss, of the Marine Corps, later Governor of South Dakota; Lieut. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, Chief of the Army Service of Supply;

Lieut. Gen. Harold L. George, Commanding General of the Air Transport Command; Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, head of the British Joint Staff Mission; and Admiral William F. Halsey jr., and many others. In the postwar years we heard from Fleet Admiral Chester V. Nimitz; Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower (three times); Gen. Omar C. Bradley, first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Mark Clark; Gen. Lucius D. Clay as Commander, U. S. Forces, Germany; Gen. Carl Spaatz, Chief of Staff of the U. S. Air Force; Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault of Flying Tiger fame; Gen. Alfred M. Gruenther, Supreme Commander, Allied Powers, Europe; Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of El Alamein; Admiral Arthur W. Radford, successor to Gen. Bradley as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Generals J. Lawton Collins, Matthew B. Ridgway, and Maxwell D. Taylor, Chiefs of Staff of the Army; Generals Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Nathan F. Twining, and Thomas D. White, Chiefs of Staff of the Air Force (Twining became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs); Admirals Louis B. Denfeld, Forrest P. Sherman, Robert B. Carney, and Arleigh A. Burke, all Chiefs of Naval Operations; and Maj. Gen. William F. Dean, Commander of the 24th Division in Korea. We have heard also from most of the successive Secretaries of Defense and of the separate military services.

Nearly all the other cabinet members and other high-ranking Federal administrators of the last quarter century have spoken. We have had many American ambassadors just returned from various visits to places of crucial interest. In the war and postwar years, we heard frequently from Averell Harriman, who subsequently became Governor of New York. From the Hill we have had Vice-president Nixon, the "Veep," Alben Barkley, Speaker Sam Rayburn, and a long line of Senators including Robert A. Taft (several times), John J. Sparkman, Joseph C. O'Mahoney, Walter F. George, Richard B. Russell, Mike Monroney, Estes Kefauver among many others. Among state governors, several of whom moved on to other public offices, we have had Earl Warren of California, John W. Bricker of Ohio, Christian A. Herter of Massachusetts, G. Mennen Williams of Michigan, Robert B. Meyner of New Jersey. Our miscellaneous speakers have ranged from Charles F. Kettering of General Motors, Kraft Ehricke, Convair missile expert, and Dr. John B. Hagen, Director of Project Van- guard, through Gov. Luis Munoz Marin of Puerto Rico and Walter Reuther, President of the United Auto Workers, and Vice President of the AFL-CIO, to many of our own members on their return from posts or expeditions overseas. We have even had a few women guests. Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first, and others have included Jean Knox, Director of the British Auxiliary Territorial Service (corresponding to our WACs, etc.), Clare Booth Luce, as Congresswoman from Connecticut, Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Mrs. Meir. and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. In her question period, Madame Chiang was asked what she thought of the sack, currently a fashionable garment. She reminded her audience that Chinese women had been wearing a similar garment for five thousand years, but its appearance was somewhat dependent upon what was inside it!

As women are not members of the National Press Club few women guest speakers have been invited. In a few instances women guests have been seated at the High Table, notably Madame Pandit, then Indian envoy to the United Nations, when Mr. Nehru spoke. Also, when Dr. Kinsey spoke on the Kinsey Report, distinguished women psychiatrists were invited to be present. As the news importance of the luncheon meetings increased, there was pressure from women journalists for admittance. An arrangement was made for them to have places in the gallery of the auditorium as well as for active reporters desiring to cover the proceedings but who are not members of the Club.

The lecturn behind which have stood the most eminent men of their period has suffered heavy wear over the years, and moreover, when large crowds are gathered sometimes it is difficult for the presiding officer to induce quiet when the auditorium is crowded through normal pounding with one of the many conventional gavels which have been presented to the Club or its presidents. Learning of this early in 1958, Bowman Gray, jr., Vice President of the Reynolds Tobacco Co., commissioned a new lecturn as a Golden Anniversary gift to the Club.

A lighted lecturn with an "electric gavel" - a genuine telegrapher's bug-and-sounder complete with Prince Albert tobacco tin - is presented to the Club by Gordon Gray and Lyle Wilson at 1958 Candidates' Night.

Made of blond, almost golden wood, it is trimmed with gold facings and is equipped with two adjuncts no other lecture possesses. On the front, facing the audience, is the Great Seal of the Club which, at the touch of a button lights up from within and glows. The second unusual feature is a substitute for a gavel, peculiarly appropriate to a press club: a telegrapher's key and sounder.

With the advent of radio and the teletype, there have disappeared from newspaper offices men of a type who used to be a chief dependence

of all correspondents - the Morse telegrapher. So the new lectern has, at one side, a telegraph instrument which the presiding officer may cause to utter its once familiar stuttering buzz in place of pounding his gavel. Of even greater interest, this particular telegraph key or 'bug' as it was known, is of historical interest. It is the same bug that flashed the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for the Presidency front the Baltimore Democratic Convention of 1912, and in 1917 clicked out the drawing of the first draft number of World War I, and many another great news story. But now it is covered with a plating of gold. It had been used by Robert Knox McCormac, a veteran U. P. telegrapher, and was presented through the good offices of Lyle C. Wilson, a former club secretary, chief of the Washington bureau and vice president of the United Press International.

Closeup of the bug-and-sounder and its tobacco tin amplifier on the new lectern. This equipment telegraphed many important news breaks in its time.

The final perfecting touch is the addition of a Prince Albert smoking tobacco can, a real one but now glorying in gold plate, to fit in the telegraph sound box. An inscription engraved on a gold plate, affixed to the side of the lectern, written by Lyle Wilson explains:

"At events where competing circuits were wired into crowded working press areas, each telegrapher personalized his call by wedging a tobacco tin into his sounder. He bent it at an angle that gave a distinctive pitch to his own dot and dash code. He could read it through the clatter of all the surrounding keys."

President Roosevelt in 1944 fell behind in this Club dues and was assessed the usual $5 penalty, but the Club reconsidered before FDR's protest reached it John C. O'Brien had the honor of waiving the levy.

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