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was an automatic White House letter that was sent out. And then there were other people-- leading public citizens--who could be appointed by the President.
Did I enjoy that period? No. I might have enjoyed it more--” enjoyed” is the wrong word, but I might have found it more interesting and challenging, had I lived in Washington and gone to the office every day. I went down once a week for a day or two, but I didn't go every day, unless there was some emergency situation. I guess, as my mother used to say, you get out of a thing exactly what you put into it.
Harriman spent very little time down there, but he never--he would drive half-way with his chauffeur. Then at the half-way point a car would come up from Washington and pick him up and take him on down. He didn't fly and he didn't use the train.
Of course, I didn't stand on any formalities like that. I got on the plane and went down and that was it. But I never had living quarters in Washington. If I went down for two or three days at a time, I generally stayed at the Cosmos Club or the Metropolitan Club or something like that.
I enjoyed some of the people--that is, the volunteers--there are some wonderful people in the volunteers. But there are also people that can be rather petty, when it comes to politics and things of that kind. I was impatient with that side of it. They had a convention each year, which was a very, very big affair, and it just drove me crazy, because I didn't think it did--it was more social than meaningful.
We had “ blood” meetings in regional meetings. We had national blood meetings. We got a lot
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