Media Pull Out of One Combat Zone

White House to Be Free of Embedded Press During Rebuilding

As on the closing night of a long-running play, a lot of the old stars came out for the White House briefing room's finale. There were press secretaries for five of the last six presidents, and reporters who have haunted the building since John F. Kennedy. The current tenant stopped by. And for old times' sake, Sam Donaldson showed up to shout questions again.

After 13,271 days of constant spinning, the broken-down, rat-infested firetrap officially known as the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room was retired yesterday. President Bush took a short walk down the hall from the Oval Office to make a surprise final appearance behind the lectern and bid farewell to his tormentors from the media for the next nine months while the facility is rebuilt for the Internet age.

"You deserve better than this," he said solemnly. But he seemed to be smiling a lot as he contemplated life without reporters underfoot.

For now, the media will be moved to a government building next to Lafayette Square, where press secretary Tony Snow will conduct briefings. Except for a handful of pool reporters kept in a trailer and television correspondents doing stand-ups on the lawn, the White House will be free of the media for the duration.

While nervous about the loss of what little access they still had, reporters were ready for a change. The briefing room looks presentable enough on television from the standpoint of the stage, with its famous blue curtains and White House symbol in the backdrop. But out of camera range, it has evolved into a cramped junkyard of jumbled cables, ladders, equipment, busted seats, ancient desks, falling ceiling tiles and rodents. (The four-legged kind, smart guy.) A mounted camera fell partway in the middle of a Bush news conference this year.

"Everybody has seen the room in Hollywood," said C-SPAN's Steve Scully, president of the White House Correspondents' Association. "If they only saw what it's like in real life -- it's a pit. . . . Nothing's been updated in 25, 30 years. This will bring it into the 21st century."

The president joked about the conditions during his appearance. "I know you've been complaining about the digs for a while," he said. "Let me just say, we felt your pain."

Bush said he looked forward to welcoming the media back. "Six or seven months, is that right?"

"We're setting no timetables, Mr. President," called out Ken Herman of Cox News Service.

Bush was joined by Brady, the Ronald Reagan press secretary who was shot in the 1981 assassination attempt, and former press secretaries Ron Nessen (Gerald R. Ford), Marlin Fitzwater (Reagan and George H.W. Bush), and Dee Dee Myers and Joe Lockhart (Bill Clinton).

Another voice from the past came from the back of the room. "Mr. President, should Mel Gibson be forgiven?" shouted ABC's Donaldson.

"Is that Sam Donaldson?" Bush asked playfully. "Forget it! You're a has-been!"

Of course, Donaldson, Helen Thomas and others spent more time in that briefing room than any president. This was the room where Ron Ziegler declared past Watergate statements inoperative, where Al Haig pronounced himself in charge after Reagan was shot, where Fitzwater announced the beginning of the Persian Gulf War, where Al Gore defended his fundraising by saying there was "no controlling legal authority."

Reporters have been in the White House since Theodore Roosevelt invited them into the West Wing in 1902. Richard M. Nixon did not like their loitering in the lobby, so he covered the swimming pool and created a briefing room. The West Terrace Press Center, as it was called, had four tufted beige suede chesterfield sofas, deep-pile carpets and imitation antique furniture. "This is better-looking than the Hilton," Nixon said after it opened in April 1970.

Reagan had theater-style seats installed, and Clinton renamed the room for Brady. But as reporters pillaged the place yesterday and made off with nameplates from the chairs, its age showed. A New York Times photographer pried open the newspaper's locked desk drawers to discover news releases from 1982.

The new version, scheduled to open in May, will feature plasma screens behind the lectern plus high-speed Internet access and electrical connections at each chair. Gone will be the asbestos and, so they say, the rats. The government is paying but has not disclosed how much.

Snow tried to dispel any fears of a secret plot to never let the press back in. "There will, indeed, be a new press room," he said. "It will be right here in this very spot, and the carpets will be clean, the electric -- the connections will be up-to-date, and it will be a more congenial and helpful work environment for all."

"Better answers?" Thomas asked, provoking laughter.

"In response to better questions," Snow responded.