A New Way of Doing Things

President Truman quickly assured the world that he intended no basic change in U.S. foreign policy, and the world believed him.* Yet even as he took the oath, the shudder of inevitable change ran through the whole international fabric.

"We Know Each Other." Gone was the Big Three's intangible, invaluable personal relationship. Nothing that Harry Truman might be or do could mend the ties of shared danger, joint responsibility and constant communication which bound Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. The dead President had described the nature and value of that relationship in his last major speech, his report to Congress on Yalta:

"Since the time of Teheran, a year ago, there had developed among all of us a--what shall I call it--a greater facility in negotiating with each other, which augurs well for the peace of the world. We know each other better. . . . More important even than the agreement of words, I may say, we achieved a unity of thought and a way of getting along together."

Revealing stories about their way together were told last week. Churchill and Roosevelt spoke the same language-in more ways than one--and they were closer to each other than to Stalin. At times the two talked by transocean telephone almost every day. They loved to argue--Churchill heated and impetuous, Roosevelt cautious and soothing. Often, in their conversations and cables Stalin was "U.J." --for "Uncle Joe." Not long ago Churchill wanted to jump all over "U.J." for insisting that his Lublin Polish Government be admitted to the San Francisco conference without change. Roosevelt, equally opposed to Stalin's maneuver, persuaded Churchill to hold off.

One day at Yalta, Stettinius gave a long lecture on the U.S. idea of joint trusteeship for some postwar colonies and bases. Churchill fidgeted, smoldered, finally exploded with a question to Stalin: "Now tell me, would you allow the Crimea to be placed under a mandate?" Stalin chuckled and said: "Well, I think I'd let the Big Three decide." Churchill cooled off, and Roosevelt got the talk back on the rails.

In his messages to Truman and Mrs. Roosevelt, Stalin well defined the Roosevelt role which loomed largest to him. Roosevelt, said Stalin, was the "great organizer" of security, a great "politician" on a world scale. On that basis, Roosevelt got closer to Stalin than Churchill did.

But the world, remembering that unique friendship, could not afford to overestimate it or assume that it was perfect and irreplaceable. It was not perfect, especially for Churchill. A story of a recent conversation between Churchill and his Moscow Ambassador, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, went the London rounds last week. After all the war years, Churchill was impelled to ask the British diplomat closest to the Moscow Government:

"And what about the Russians?"

"Sir," said Clark Kerr, "I just do not know."

New Team, New Ways. A whole structure of personal diplomacy fell apart in Washington. Harry Hopkins had superseded accredited ambassadors, spoken the President's mind more authoritatively than did the Secretary of State. At the moment of Roosevelt's death, his own men were abroad on the world business of the U.S. --Ed Flynn on Vatican-Kremlin understanding, Judge Samuel Rosenman and Bernard Baruch on Europe's torn economy. Pat Hurley, the accredited Ambassador to China, had just left London for Moscow and Chungking on a personal mission for the President. In Rome the President's representative at the Vatican, Myron Taylor, was already speaking of his post in the past tense: "It was a completely personal thing."

Stettinius, sure to stay on as Secretary of State through the San Francisco conference, but sure of nothing after that, unconsciously stated his hope and position when he said last week: "Oh, we're not going to let the President down. When anything comes up I shall say that this I propose, or support, in the name of the dead President: we have made the commitments."

In any event, another man would be Harry Truman's principal adviser on foreign affairs. That man was Jimmy Byrnes (see U.S. AT WAR), whose responsibilities would include many other matters as well. A good deal was known about his world attitude. He was for Dumbarton Oaks, the Yalta agreements, Big-Power leadership ("They have the votes, don't they?"), The Big-Power veto in the proposed World Security Council seemed logical to him. So did the agreement on Poland, because it recognized the fact that Stalin held the top cards. On trusteeship, this same instinct forgetting the votes count themselves made him side with Churchill and the U.S.' Navy, prefer to let each power run its own show in the Pacific and elsewhere. He felt that Mr. Roosevelt, at Yalta and on other occasions, had been too gentle, too patient and reluctant to exert U.S. power.

President Truman's own words in his speech to Congress (see U.S. AT WAR) gave one measure of his world view. His innate interests and his knowledge were domestic; he did not pretend to know the world as Roosevelt knew it, and the world did not know him. When he spoke informally, in American idiom, the world was likely to misunderstand him. Apprehensive Britons, reading that he felt as if a bull had fallen on him, might mistakenly take him for a Throttlebottom. They would feel better if they knew that he had privately had a lot to do with the Senate resolution on world cooperation last year. They would also be wise if they remembered that in all things having to do with the British, Harry Truman would be a man from Missouri.

The First Fruits. Truman told Stettinius and the Senate delegates, Connally and Vandenberg, to run their show--and run it well-- at the San Francisco conference. Characteristically and instinctively, he decided that he had better stay away. Too much of U.S. diplomacy was buried with Mr. Roosevelt. Too much was yet to be absorbed, weighed, reappraised in conversations with Byrnes and Stettinius.

Jimmy Byrnes gave Truman a fast fill-in on the Russians, their reluctance to broaden the Polish Government on Yalta lines, and their decision to send a second-rate delegation to San Francisco. Forthwith, through regular State Department channels, President Truman sent a meaningful message to Stalin:

". . . The coming of Foreign Secretary Molotov to the conference would be welcomed as an expression of earnest cooperation. . . . The President would look forward with pleasure to a visit by Mr. Molotov to Washington. .. ." Forthwith, Stalin ordered Foreign Commissar Molotov to Washington and San Francisco. Stalin, believing all along that the major decisions on the new world organization had already been made, probably attached no more importance to the conference than he had before. But he was undoubtedly curious about the new man in the White House.*

The American who meant everything to the world was gone. His successor, as a person, as yet meant nothing. But already the world was learning that the Presidency did not die with the President.

*Ambassador Gromyko, who was to have headed the Russian delegation, looked tired and harassed the morning after Roosevelt's death, as though he had been working hard on cables to Moscow. The British Embassy sent Churchill a hurried, six-page cable on Truman.

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