The First Press Conference

President Harry Truman was sitting in a cane-backed swivel chair, one elbow resting on the Presidential desk. He wore a double-breasted blue suit with a World War I discharge button in his left lapel.

He also wore a tight-mouthed air, as though he were determined to say things about which there could be no mistake.

He was facing his first Presidential press conference -- a democratic free-for-all where Franklin Roosevelt had met the representatives of the people 998 times in his 146 months of office. Now 348 corre spondents were packed in a fat half-moon around Harry Truman's big desk -- the biggest press conference the White House had ever seen. The President rose (he stood throughout the conference), smiled tightly behind his round, gold-rimmed glasses, asked: "Is everybody in? . . ." Then, in quick, clipped sentences he hammered out the news.

Plain Enough. There had been some question, he said, his lips forming a straight line, about where he stood on various things, particularly Bretton Woods. He was for it. We need an international monetary setup, he continued, and he would have supported it had he been in the Senate, and would have done everything he could as Vice President to help Frank lin Roosevelt get it through. He said he was for it all the way, and he said he hoped that was plain enough.

A correspondent asked if that included the stabilization fund. Truman replied quickly that it included the program as sent to Congress by the President (Roosevelt). Again he said that was as plain as he could make it. By now the scribbling correspondents were well aware that friend ly Harry Truman was laying his views clearly on the line.

Asked if he approved of the reciprocal trade agreements, he gave his answer: yes.

When there were questions he didn't want to answer, he said so. And he seemed eager and quick to handle hot potatoes.

Example : the only Negro reporter present asked him what he thought of Franklin Roosevelt's interest in Negroes -- in fair employment practices and the right to vote without a tax. Truman swung around, cocked an eye at the questioner, said he would give him some advice: read the record of Mr. Harry S. Truman on that.

Cheers. When he was asked why he would not attend the San Francisco conference. Harry Truman squared his shoulders, spoke slowly and emphatically. He had a competent delegation to send to the conference and he would back them up from this desk (lightly pounding the Presidential desk). Right here, said Missouri's Truman--right where he belongs.

The day's most provocative question came innocently enough: "Do you expect to see Foreign Commissar Molotov before the [San Francisco] conference?" Harry Truman said he did. Firmly he said that the Soviet official would stop by and pay his respects to the President of the United States. The President of the United States added: he should. It had been a long time since White House reporters had cheered a President's answer, but they clapped and laughed and cheered for a full minute.

Other news: he said he would be very happy to meet other Allied leaders. He mentioned specifically Churchill, Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek and General de Gaulle, too, if he would like to see the President.

At times Harry Truman helpfully asked correspondents to state their questions more loudly so all could hear. He asked to let the fellows in the back row have a chance. When it was over they applauded again, and many of them filed past his desk and shook his hand.

Reported the New York Times's Bertram D. Hulen: "[The correspondents] left . . . impressed with the feeling that Mr. Truman had firmly grasped the reins of office and had demonstrated his ability to meet impromptu questions with sharp and direct replies." The U.S. press agreed.

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