During the 1952 presidential election campaign, the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson had complained about "the mess in Washington," apparently referring to the ongoing war in Korea and alleged corruption in the Truman administration.
The Republican campaign adopted a strategy of ignoring Stevenson, and concentrated its efforts on discrediting Truman while positioning the Republican candidate, Dwight Eisenhower, as the candidate who could clean up the mess.
While this was going on, C&P Telephone converted the Washington DC area (including suburbs in Maryland and Virginia) from 2L-4D to 2L-5D. An example that comes to mind: Bethesda's OLympic XXXX became OLympic
9-XXXX.That change really did create a mess in Washington, as contemporary commentators and cartoonists noted. One memorable newspaper cartoon featured a telephone operator speaking with a customer, noting that "that number has been changed to (some NNX code)-OOU2."
Neal McLain