An early presidential press conference, According to Washington legend, was held involuntarily by John Quincy Adams. While swimming bare-buff in the Potomac, he was spied by an intrepid woman reporter, Anne Royall, who sat on his clothes on the bank and would not let him out until he had answered her questions.
The presidential press conference nowadays is more formal and better attended. Last week, when President Truman faced 180 reporters in the old State Department building, he carefully read a prepared statement, then was bombarded by 31 questions. It was all over in...
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