By James D. Snyder and Susan E. Raniey
Washington Bureau

Spiro Agnew may be just a heartbeat away form the Presidency, but Heinz H. Bender is just a stomach's growl away. Bender is the President's personal pastry chef - and as such can probably lay claim to the title of the country's " head baker."

Bender is also one of the few " key personal" to take political vicissitudes in stride. Bender has been with President Nixon since he first took the oath, which just may go to prove that the way to political job security id through the Administration's stomach:
He was first approached, and hired, during President Johnson's reign.

"I thought it was all a big joke," admits Mr. Bender. "A friend of mine who knows Henry Haller, the executive chef, called me up one day and asked how I'd like to work at the white house." The Johnsons, after scouring the area for someone to bake Lynda Bird's wedding cake, decided to revive the position of White House Pastry Chef, which had been defunct for some time since John F. Kennedy first introduced the concept of professional chefs to the White House ménage. Heinz Bender qualified with flying colors. After a brief, ten-day security investigation (some take as long as three months) he was offered the plum. "This is strictly a don't- call - us, we'll call you kind of job ," Bender told Baking Industry. "You get a job like this on the basis of your reputation, you don't just walk in and apply without an invitation."

Heinz Bender has been building up a solid reputation ever since he began to work as a baker's apprentice in Germany over 40 years ago. After a few years in cafeterias and pastry shops following his emigration to the United States, Bender switched to the hotel line in 1934, spending nearly 18 years at the Hotel Lexington in New York. Of his next 13 years as pastry chef in Hotel Roosevelt, Bender remarks with a slightly smile, "I always say that Guy Lombardo worked under me," So he did- in the Rose Room, which is right under the hotel's kitchen. "I sometimes had to make three or four or five anniversary cakes a day," he adds. "A lot of people cane back to the Roosevelt every year to celebrate their wedding anniversaries."

But it was while he was at the elite Princeton Club that Bender got the call, which made him the country's number one pastry chef - and one of the few people outside the Presidential family circle who can call the White House "home." Bender actually lived for five months in a kitchenette apartment just below the first family's quarters while his wife was looking for an apartment in the Washington area. But even though he now lives in Sliver Spring Md., the White House keeps his room ready for use in times of emergency - a distinction shared by only two other House staff members, the Maitre'd and executive chef Haller.

Even when there is no emergency, Mr. Bender's hours sometimes stretch from 8 in the morning until 11 o'clock at night, particularly when there's an important State function in progress. (Typical was a sudden request during the holidays to supply Christmas cookies for 2,000 Congressmen and their staffs.) Although he usually gets at least three or four day's notice, it's sometimes cut to as little as 24 hours. Then he was to bake up a storm with just one helper (Eric Martin, a retired Navy baker) in a kitchen dating back to the Franklin D. Roosevelt era. "The biggest problem we have is having the right supplies on hand," says Bender. "First of all, we can only buy from certain approved suppliers; secondary, all purchase have to be cleared from the security office. Then, too, we have to pick all the supplies us ourselves; no delivery boys."

One solution Bender has found is to bake in advance, and freeze the pastries as fast as he makes them. Half the kitchen, in fact, seems to be refrigerator and freezer (set at 20 below 0° F.) space.

But advance baking only takes him so far. "Every day it's a different story," he told Baking Industry. "You never know what you'll be baking for next week." To top it off, the pastry kitchen has been much busier in the last year or so. "Mr. Johnson wasn't much of a pastry man," says the man who knows for sure. "President Nixon isn't either; but the Nixon have a lot more teas and a lot more reception than the Johnsons did.

Clearly, versatility is the White House pastry chef's chief asset. He has to be ready at any moment to bake up a smorgasbord ranging from cookies to cakes to breakfast pastries. Menus are developed by Mr. Haller and selected and approved by the First Lady's social secretary. Mr. Bender takes it from there. Canapes - hundred of them - might be the order of the day for a reception, for example, where they will be borne in on huge silver platters. For church services, which are held under the gleaming chandeliers if the East Room, Bender may bake a batch of Danish Pastries to serve the three or four Hundred people in attendance.

One of Bender's most palatable specialties for teas is a small, crescent-shaped cookie, which he calls "almond horns" (for formula, see below). "We began making these at Mrs. Johnson's request," hey says. "When she first asked me to bake them, I hadn't the faintest idea what 'an almond horn' was. But when she began describing it, I realized it was just a local Texas name for something I had always called a 'small tart.' I guess it all goes to show that there's really n such thing as a new name or a new way of making it."

At the time of BI's visit with Mr. Bender, The Nixon were away for the holidays at the "Western White House" in San Clemente, Calif. Even so, the pastry chef had two others kinds of cookies on hand, several loaves of bread, a batch of pastries, a pride of a gingerbread house, and some appetizing chocolate baskets, waiting in the freezer for their filling of blanc mange and fresh strawberries.

Beside his responsibilities for Presidential parties and banquets, Mr. Bender also takes care of the Nixon Family circle, pleasing their palate with anything from blueberry muffins ("Mrs. Nixon's favorite") to quickie sponge cakes for birthdays. But one of the biggest bakery regulars, we learned, is a special home made Texas bread a legacy from the Johnson Administration. "Mrs. Johnson introduced it to the White House," said Bender, "but the head chef decided to try it out on Tricla and the rest of the Nixon family. They liked it, so now it's practically a staple." (Baking Industry got the formula for bakers who are looking for a new seller. See below.).

"What is your agenda on a typical day? We asked. "There really is no typical day," Bender responded. "Take today, for instance. Right now I'm going to roll out some pastry dough for the Nixon's breakfast tomorrow. Then - excuse me," Bender went to answer the telephone, returning with another example of his non - routine: "I've just been told that there will be a church service Sunday in the East Room." (Baking Industry learned they're expecting Norman Vincent Peale, the Vienna Boys Choir, and about 250 guests.)

"Like I said, it's something different every minute."