Generations of Peace

The decade that began with the rumble of German Panzer divisions and the whine of Stuka dive bombers came to an end last week with a few words in Washington. It was just ten years after the invasion of Poland, four years after the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, and an appropriate occasion for summing up--the kind that President Harry Truman rarely lets slip by unnoticed.

Of course he had been rather disappointed that a war of nerves had persisted for the last three or four years, Harry Truman told his press conference. But he was hopeful that it would end in surrender, just like the shooting war.

For a moment, the crowd of 130 newsmen thought they had something. What did he mean by the word "surrender?" He meant exactly what he said, replied the President crisply. The war of nerves is slacking off very decidedly, the President said: that's just as plain as it possibly can be and I am hopeful that the war of nerves will cease and that everybody will get in the mood for world peace and then it will just take a short time to get everything worked out as it should be. Then the United Nations will function as it should and I hope that we will have generations of peace.

He was not so cheery on the subject of his bumbling military aide, Major General Harry Vaughan, who stood dully behind him at the press conference. "Mr. President, do you contemplate any change in your military aide?" he was asked. I do not, said Harry Truman. When another reporter tried to get in a further question, the President said sharply that the committee hearing was held down at the Capitol: we will not continue it up here. And that was all.

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