Books: Secretary of the Interior

WHITE HOUSE DIARY (314 pp.)—Henrietta Nesbitt—Doubleday ($3).

"Pshaw, it's only four years. I can stand anything for four years," said Henrietta Nesbitt when she became housekeeper of the White House in 1933. But Mrs. Nesbitt, who was "pushing 60" when she became "First Housekeeper of the Land," stayed in office, like her boss, for 13 years. Unlike the memoirs of other members of President Roosevelt's entourage, her diary of those years has no political importance whatever—for the simple reason that Mrs. Nesbitt was much too busy feeding the politicians to bite off more than...