The Foreign Service Journal, November 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2018 17 I have scanned in vain a few thousand pages of intimate memoirs of the life and work in the White House under John F. Kennedy for any mention of my day. The most memorable experience of my career to date was apparently just another workday in the lives of Sorensen, Schlesinger, et al. I refer to the visit to Washington of the then Austrian Federal Chan- cellor, Dr. Alfons Gorbach, in May 1962. The planning and preparations for the visit, of course, began several months before. During the final few weeks I was engaged, as Austrian desk officer, almost full time in the drafting and clearing of briefing papers, advising the Office of Proto- col and the White House social staff on preparation of the guest list for the president’s luncheon, selection of gifts to give the Chancellor, etc. A representative of McGeorge Bundy’s White House staff stopped at my office every few days to pick up copies of all available papers. As a conscientious bureaucrat, I pointed out that in many cases these documents were only uncleared drafts which did not yet have the concurrence of my departmental colleagues or superiors, but this did not in the least deter him. He said he wanted to have the original thinking of the desk officer, as well as the final distillation of the entire bureaucracy. When the day finally came, Acting Assistant Secretary Tyler and I rode over to the White House with Acting Secretary [of State George] Ball, arriving perhaps five minutes before the appointed hour of 12:30 to deliver the requested oral briefing. We stood outside the president’s office in a nervously bustling corridor until Atomic Energy Commission Chairman [Glenn T.] Seaborg, General Maxwell Taylor, Mr. Bundy and one or two others whom I could not identify emerged. At about 12:35 we were ushered into the oval office, which was so familiar from countless photographs. The president came from behind his desk, shook hands and invited us to sit on the two couches which extended from either arm of his rocking chair, flanking the fireplace. Mr. Ball and Mr. Tyler took seats on the president’s left, and I sat alone on his right. The president braced his feet on the end of the coffee table between the couches in order to propel his rocker while he spoke. This put his feet almost in my direct line of sight, and I found myself star- ing at them. I had read that the president was not known as a fashion leader, but I was still surprised to see faded blue nylon socks with numerous pillings, which are the customary drawback of such hose. This touch of mundane reality brought home to me that this was just another routine day for the president. —Jack Sulser, from his article by the same title in the November 1968 edition of the FSJ . 50 Years Ago My Day with JFK