"Aw Forget It"

Newsman Barnet Nover this week brought off the dream assignment of every capital reporter: the first exclusive interview with President Harry Truman. An old friend of the President's, Nover is also the new Washington bureau chief of the Denver Post.

The interview added two footnotes to presidential history. The first was Harry Truman's answer to Russian protests after Winston Churchill's historic speech at Fulton, Mo. The President, said Nover, sat down and penned a personal note to Stalin with his own hand. He offered to send the battleship Missouri to bring Stalin to the U.S., promised to accompany him to the University of Missouri at Columbia (20 miles from Fulton) for "exactly the same kind of reception, the same opportunity to speak his mind." Stalin's answer, as usual: "Nyet."

The other footnote dropped from the final paragraph of the Henry Wallace affair. When the President called the Commerce Department to give Wallace his walking papers, Nover reported, "Wallace's response was so gentle and friendly that he, Truman, was almost ready to say to Wallace: 'Aw forget it, Henry.'"

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