THE SCENE<br >OF THE CRIME<br >At 11:34 A.M. on January 20， 1981， I walked into the White<br >briefing room for my 1，245th and last briefing as<br >House press secretary. Unlike most of the others，<br >this briefing was short， to the point， and there were no questions<br >to be "taken" and dealt with later in the way. It was also an al-<br >together fitting way for it all， or at least my part of it all， to end.<br > The press room was as packed for that final， less than earth-<br >shaking announcement as it had been on numerous other occasions<br >when a crisis somewhere in the world focused attention on the<br >President of the United States and the aides， advisers， and support<br >personnel who surrounded him. All of it has come to be referred to<br >as the White House， a grammatically incorrect term for an institu-<br >tion that is both more and less than the President himself， or the<br >government of the United States， or the executive branch.<br > I glanced briefly around the room， waiting the usual minute<br >or two for conversation to cease and the inevitable few reporters<br >caught on the phone in the back to hang up and race into the<br >briefing room. I instinctively looked for familiar faces. There were<br >a few. Those who would no longer be assigned to the White<br >House， either by choice or because they had been replaced by a<br >colleague who had covered the winning Reagan campaign， were<br >there， along with a few who had been covering the Iran story so<br >long from that briefing room that they just couldn t bear not to be<br >there when it ended. The rest of the White House regulars were<br >up on Capitol Hill， in effect already covering the President-elect，<br >who would become the fortieth President of the United States in<br >twenty-six minutes.<br >