Back around 1947 my World War II veteran Dad worked as a reporter for the San Rafael Independent, a daily newspaper in the San Francisco Bay area. That year the newspaper lent my Dad to the Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for San Rafael and Marin County. Dad said it was a good primer for his Washington career yet to come, and that he also had to tell the Congressman not to use arcane Congressional language in his press releases and letters to constituents -- put it in language people understand.
The Congressman took Dad along for a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House. When the main business had been concluded the Congressman introduced my Dad to the President -- "I'd like to introduce my press aide, a veteran of WW II."
Harry S. Truman showed Dad the copy of the "Dewey Defeats Truman" front page of the Chicago Tribune he had hanging in the Oval Office. He told my Dad, "Young man, I hope during your newspaper career you don't do to others what these guys did to me."
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