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and a number of others.

Were all 500 guests seated?

Oh, no. There were about 40 tables, but nobody was seated. It was a reception, and they danced and sat at the tables at it suited them. Here are the Medal winners -- Edward Steichen. As Mrs. Betty Beale said in the evening Star, “The President . . . Mrs. Johnson, in the course of the evening, either she or the President greeted Paul White, composer Aaron Copeland, Marian Anderson, the Thomas J. Watsons, Edward Steichens, Peter Hurd, the artist, and Mark Rothko, also the well-known American artist, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Bunche, Mr. and Mrs. Cabot Lodge, Anna Moffo, the opera singer, . . .”

The room used as a ballroom was the Benjamin Franklin room, which had tables around it covered with pink tableclothes and pink and white and pale yellow carnations in pyramids on high goblets. Well, they were on things that high, and piled like that. Very colorful, and the whole room looked extremely pretty. Really, nobody had ever had as pretty a party in Washington as far as anybody could remember.

What was the lighting?

The lighting was just dim, with vigil lights on the tables.