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But Hagerty's backstage role is equally important. Of all the White House staffers, Hagerty has the warmest personal relationship with the President (Ike most admires the efficiency of Staff Chief Adams, but there is little real camaraderie). At Cabinet and White House staff meetings, the President, having listened to arguments on both sides of an issue, is likely to say: "Let's hear what Jim thinks."
Moreover, as no man before him, Hagerty has placed the news systems of all the departments of Federal Government under his sure thumb: he holds regular conferences with departmental press officers, scans departmental news bulletins before they are released—and plays a key part in advising Cabinet members who have got themselves out on limbs and need rescue. Example: when Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson wrote a politically explosive letter to Harper's in praise of a 1956 article condemning farm supports, he and his staff tried to dodge the ensuing political shot and shell by composing a senseless semi-denial. Hagerty hastily called Benson by phone. "Ezra," said he, "you pulled a boner and the thing to do is admit it." Benson did.
Laughter from Ike. "Jim Hagerty," says a Washington newsman, "holds a lens ground to his own prescription over the White House—and outsiders have little choice but to look through it." Such broad influence carries with it heavy national responsibility. Hagerty more than meets it. He is a superb technician, down to the point of knowing by heart the strengths and weaknesses of the 30 regular newsmen on the White House beat as well as the deadlines of nearly all major U.S. newspapers. His loyalty to Dwight Eisenhower puts him in a position of trust, so that he can avoid blundering on points of policy. Although he frankly recognizes his job as that of making the President look good, he keeps both the confidence of the press and the public it serves by dealing in fact. In private Administration councils he does not try to influence policy as much as he tries to keep good policy from being damned by bad timing or inept presentation; when Hagerty snaps out with an "I like it" or an "I don't like it," he is not necessarily speaking of whether a policy is right or wrong. He is thinking of how it will look in print.
For all his skills, Jim Hagerty is an intensely human man with a good many human faults. First of these is a temper that can turn truly mean, resulting in words that are not easily forgiven. Says his wife Marjorie: "When Jim says he's sorry, he thinks the whole thing never happened. Other people don't always feel that way." When New York Herald Tribune Funnyman Art Buchwald parodied a Hagerty press conference during the Paris NATO meeting, Hagerty (whose ulcers were kicking up at the time) blew his stack. He denounced Buchwald. demanded that the Trib print the denunciation on Page One (which it was only too delighted to do). President Eisenhower, who has a famous temper of his own and seems merely amused by Hagerty's, merely said: "Simmer down, Jim, simmer down." Said Hagerty later: "I was so mad I could cry. The President read it and laughed. This made me madder."