Word: factotums
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...Bequest. The dominant figure on the permanent White House staff is Executive Assistant William J. Hopkins, 58, a bald, self-effacing factotum who joined Herbert Hoover in 1931, and has been the presidential office manager since 1943. Hopkins commands a crew of 255 secretaries, stenographers, messengers and telephone operators. He is, says Lyndon Johnson, "an indispensable instrument" to the management of the presidency...
Emblems of Service. In drafting his statement on Viet Nam, Humphrey chose his words with excruciating care. He went through seven drafts of the speech, taped it six times before he was satisfied. James Rowe, a Humphrey campaign aide and a factotum for Democratic administrations since the New Deal, said the wording of the crucial paragraphs "must have been changed 300 to 400 times." When he was ready, Humphrey made certain that the vice-presidential seal and flag-emblems of his service to Lyndon Johnson-were nowhere in sight. "I wanted to speak as Hubert H. Humphrey, candidate for President...
...despite his being unemployed recently. He did well enough at John Muir High School to gain admission to Pasadena City College, but he dropped out. He wanted to be a jockey, but could qualify only as a "hot walker," a low-ranking track factotum who cools down horses after the run. Then he got thrown from a horse, suffering head and back injuries...
...that efficiency, wisdom, gentleness, loyalty and protean energy have been employed by Watson, 43, in his combination job as office manager, political emissary and personal factotum to the President. Officially titled Appointments Secretary, he has been something of an unsmiling, unverbal, unpublicized Jack Valenti...
...hear"; Alice cordially hated him in return. Actually, as Thornton Wilder tells it, "Alice was merely the dragon protecting the treasure." She had enough intuition to recognize Gertrude Stein's talent and made a life work out of nourishing it. She was not just a factotum for Gertrude. She frequently made changes in Stein's writings, and her brevity and staccato conversation were an important counterweight to Stein's discursive, convoluted style...