Word: mccanns
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...radio and television technicians setting up for the speech that night. He took his note pad and a handful of pencils into the Cabinet Room and sat alone at the huge Cabinet table. Occasionally Ann Whitman, his personal secretary, went in for dictation of a few paragraphs. Speechwriter Kevin McCann, Aides Adams and Persons and News Secretary James Hagerty moved in and out, but essentially it was the President's own message in his own words. He read the speech aloud three times, timing himself as he did so, making changes each time...
...McCann read this draft to the President in his hospital room. Ike interrupted at almost every paragraph to make changes. His secretary, Mrs. Ann Whitman, took a shorthand transcription of his ideas. Next day, with only Mrs. Whitman present, Ike spent 90 more minutes revising and rewriting the second half of the speech. McCann flew back to Washington...
...Over the weekend, McCann studied the Whitman transcript and turned out a second draft, or "Revise No. 1," which he sent off to the President at Denver. McCann then thankfully took off with his wife for a seven-day vacation on the sunny island of Tobago "to wash the whole thing out of my mind." As it turned out, he had done only about two-thirds...
...While McCann sank back to relax, White House Staff Secretary Andrew Goodpaster flew to Key West with the signature copies. The President worked over them, making new changes, adding a word here and there. Ike finally signed the copies, which Goodpaster flew back to Washington...
...More last-minute changes. More teletyping between Key West and Washington. Late at night, Ike decided that he was satisfied. McCann was told. Stencils in the White House were cut. Mimeograph machines began to hum on 3,000 copies of the State of the Union message for Congress and the press...