Change of Heart

As Senator from South Carolina, War Mobilizer and Supreme Court Justice, James F. Byrnes was one of the strong right arms that helped Franklin D. Roosevelt fashion his New Deal. After Roosevelt's death, shrewd, spry Jimmy Byrnes stayed on in Washington, became Harry Truman's first Secretary of State. Last week, Jimmy Byrnes was busy at his newest enthusiasm--heaping hot coals on the Fair Deal as "creeping but ever advancing socialistic programs." Fit as a fiddle at 70, Jimmy Byrnes also provided his own story of the heart attack which precipitated his departure from the Truman Cabinet.

"In 1946, just before I was going to Paris to work on the treaties [for the German puppet enemy states]," he recalled, "Mrs. Byrnes insisted that I have a checkup--so I went to the Naval Hospital and they took a cardiogram of me. I'd not been sick in 40 years, but they scared the life out of me. They said the 'V which should have been horizontal was inverted," and told Byrnes he would have to slow up. "The next day," said Byrnes, "I sent in my resignation to become effective when I finished the Paris treaties."

Byrnes did not get back until December. He went to see President Truman and formally resigned. "I had to wait a couple of weeks until Marshall could get back [from China]. So I went to the Naval Hospital again and they made another test. After they got through, a doctor came and said he did not know what to make of it. Everything was now all right. I had not taken any of the pills they gave me or anything. I haven't bothered about my health since."

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