6575 on Your Dial

Harry Truman had to sign two important bills, one providing anti-inflation controls (see above) and one providing funds for interim aid. Otherwise, about all he had to do last week was to take things easy, bask in the family circle warmth of holiday time and indulge his fancy for gadgets.

The gadget that gave him most delight was a radio transmitter no bigger than a pocket tobacco can. Commerce Secretary Harriman sent it over to the White House, along with the information that its electronic components were offshoots of top-secret experimentation during World War II. It was christened the "walkie-no-back-talkie." With his transmitter, Harry Truman, under the duly registered call name "Independence," could broadcast to anyone within a range of 200 feet. His message could be received by any standard receiver tuned to 6575 kilocycles.

Fewer Germs. Another new White House excursion into scientific gadgetry was more successful. Brigadier General Wallace Graham, the President's personal physician (see Investigations), reported that two ultraviolet floor lamps, installed in the White House's Oval Room, had cut germs by 62%. General Graham planned to put germicidal lamps in other rooms; his charge is an easy victim of the common cold.

During the week, the President did a lot of bustling in & out. On Christmas Eve, before a chilled crowd of 10,000 Washingtonians, he appeared on the White House lawn for the traditional lighting of a community tree. Christmas afternoon, he trudged out to the White House garage to shake hands with all the chauffeurs. He drove to the Navy's Bethesda Hospital and the Army's Walter Reed Hospital to greet disabled veterans. He received a cocker spaniel pup named Feller, the first presidential dog at the White House since the Roosevelt Scottie, Fala.

Sellout. Far & away the biggest--and most worrisome--event in Harry Truman's holiday week was a concert at Constitution Hall. The artist: Soprano Margaret Truman. In all paternal pride, the President wanted his daughter's Washington debut to be an unspoiled success--and hers alone. He did his best to keep out of the spotlight.

Socially, the concert was dazzling. The hall, for the first time this season, was a sellout. But Washington critics were tougher than any others have been with the President's daughter. "Most disappointing," said the Post. Said the Daily News: "Margaret's not equipped for serious concert work." Next day, interviewed on the radio by Secretary of the Treasury Snyder's daughter, Drucie, Margaret Truman reported: "Poor Daddy was sitting there quite nervous." But after the first few numbers, she said, he calmed down and started beaming.

The President also:

> Nominated Mark Edwin Andrews, a Texas oilman with four years of World War II service as a naval officer, to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

>Proclaimed amnesty (and thus restoration of civil rights) for 1,523 violators of the wartime Selective Service Act. Still unpardoned: some 13,600 violators. On Christmas Day, 16 of those still unpardoned put on mock prison stripes and picketed the White House for two hours, demanding amnesty for all.

> Appointed Wayne Coy, Washington radioman and onetime assistant to Franklin Roosevelt, to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, succeeding Charles R. Denny, resigned; and upped George E. Sterling, FCC's chief engineer, to be a commissioner, succeeding Ewell K. Jett, resigned.

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