Make Yourselves at Home

Back at work and glowing with good will, Harry Truman wanted the balky members of the 81st Congress to know he was ready to talk things over at any time. To make sure he would be there to greet all callers, he canceled his four out-of-town dates for April--a speech at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology convocation, a trip to receive an honorary law degree at Boston College, a speech at the U.N.'s cornerstone-laying ceremony, a dinner for Israel's President Chaim Weizmann in Manhattan. Reporters at his press conference suggested that this was Harry Truman's way of seeking a "reconciliation" with Congress. There was nothing to reconcile, the President insisted; it was just a simple change in plans to let him catch up on paper work and see all the Congressmen who would like to drop around.

While he waited for company from Capitol Hill, the President put in a busy week, full of official comings & goings. Winston Churchill arrived for the full brandy-and-cigar treatment at a formal presidential dinner in Blair House (see The Nation). There was a little dinner for outgoing Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal and, later, a surprise ceremony to give Jim the Distinguished Service Medal. Incoming Secretary Louis Johnson was eager to take over, so the transfer was moved ahead four days, and early this week he was publicly installed at the Pentagon in the biggest swearing-in ceremony ever held for a Cabinet member.

In between, Harry Truman reluctantly said goodbye to two tired veterans who had long been hoping to move on. One was old (73), corrugated Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy--presidential chief of staff for both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman--who had been ailing, and writing his war memoirs since Jan. 1. In a little ceremony at the White House, Harry Truman awarded Billy Leahy his third Distinguished Service Medal, pinned the medal with two gold stars on his beribboned jacket.

The other was 53-year-old Lieut. General Walter Bedell Smith, who had finally persuaded the President to let him quit as ambassador to Moscow. Weary and homesick after three years of war duty as chief of staff to Ike Eisenhower, and three years of cold-war duty near the Kremlin, "Beedle" Smith will move to New York's Governor's Island as commander of the First Army. The Moscow job, said the White House, was wide open.

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