Busy Week

The morning was sunny and cool. The doors of the President's oval office stood ajar. Through the screens, the green lawns and flowered garden paths looked inviting. On the table behind the President's desk stood a pink jar with a bouquet of red roses.

The President himself was relaxed and smiling as he exchanged chitchat with the vanguard from the press associations who always lead the correspondents into the office. He did not have long to wait for the "all in" signal. Attendance at the President's newsless conferences has been dwindling since Truman entered the "cautious phase" of his relations with the press. But today, for the first time in months, the President's news conference made news.

Loud Blast. Harry Truman said that he had a couple of announcements to make and a statement to read. For the big job of administering the $300 million aid-to-Greece, he had named Midwest Republican Dwight P. Griswold, onetime Governor of Nebraska. For the job of administering the $350 million foreign relief fund, he had picked Richard F. Allen, a fellow Missourian and onetime director of foreign relief for the Red Cross.

Then, a little hurriedly, stumbling now & again, the President read a carefully premeditated blast against Senator Bob Taft. Taft had charged that the Administration had quit talking about keeping prices down in favor of spending abroad, which would keep prices up. Taft preached the boom & bust philosophy, said the President, adding: "I utterly reject this defeatist economic philosophy."*

Then the President lashed out at the Communist coup in Hungary (see below).

Sudden Bounce. Next day Harry Truman flew back to Missouri, dropped in at Grandview to see his mother. She was feeling better. Then he joined his old 35th Division, which was holding a reunion in Kansas City. Next day, smiling, he rode with his aides in an open car at the head of the 35th's parade. At the last mile, he bounded into the street to lead the marchers on foot. After him, in some confusion, bounded portly General Harry Vaughan, his military aide, General Wallace H. Graham, White House physician, and Admiral James H. Foskett, his naval aide.

Later, the President rose in Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium to read his Midwest audience a speech about the cuts which the Republican Congress had made in funds for river control and agricultural programs. He also discussed foreign relations. "Japan struck at Pearl Harbor," he said, "because she thought the United States was too weak to fight back." Glancing up from his text, he ad-libbed: "What a mistake she made!" The audience cheered. Encouraged, Harry Truman added a simple line readily translatable into Russian: "Well, I can say that for any other nation who gets that notion."

At week's end, the President prepared to buzz up to Ottawa for a good-will visit (see CANADA). Action on the tax cut and labor bills might well await his return. For the tax bill, a veto was believed certain. On the labor bill, Harry Truman had simply not made up his mind.

*Next day Bob Taft fired back: "Every policy of his Administration has increased prices." Clearly, both were against high prices. Just as clearly, Truman had picked Taft for his campaign target. As Franklin Roosevelt had always campaigned against Herbert Hoover, no matter who the Republican candidate was, Harry Truman meant to run against Bob Taft in 1948, whoever the Republican candidate might be.

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