White House Staff Call Off Long Hike

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 13

White House Staff Call Off Long Hike

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12. The much-publicised White House hike, which was to have been led by President Kennedy’s portly press secretary, Mr Pierre Salinger, on Friday, was called off today on the ground that it was too difficult a feat for desk-bound members of the “New Frontier” Administration. Mr Salinger announced that he was taking to heart a solemn warning by President Kennedy’s Council on Physical Fitness that men who were not in good shape should not undertake a 50niile hike.

"My shape is not good,”

he told a press conference, where reporters taunted him with the accusation that he was “chickening out.”

Hiking fever has gripped the United States today. Boy Scouts, high school students and battle-hardened Marines are embarking on 50-mile walks and 12 pretty Congressional secretaries plan to follow suit tomorrow.

The climax was to have come mi Friday when a motley crew headed by the cigar-smoking Mr Salinger was to have set out along the tow path of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal in Washington. A large group of reporters and cameramen had planned to accompany Mr Salinger to see that there was no cheating. Mr Salinger at first hesitantly accepted the President's firm hint that he should demonstrate on behalf at the White House that members of the Administration were as good as a Marine, or at least a Boy Scout But since then he had gone into serious training, including a six-mile walk last week-end in an hour and 45 minutes.

The Congressional girls, who are in better shape than Mr Salinger or the reporters, are busily preparing for their marathon walk tomorrow along the same tow path chosen by the White House group. It all started when the Marine Corps Commandant General David Shoup, presented to President Kennedy a 1908 order by President Theodore Roosevelt requiring Marine officers to take a periodic 50-mile walk in a maximum of 90 hours, with the last half mile at the double and the final 200 yards at a dead ran.

The President an advocate of physical fitness, suggested that the Mannes should try it again, and hinted that Mr Salinger would abb benefit from the walk.