Good-Humor Man

While his armorers, beaters and gun-bearers prepared for the big Western vote hunt, the President took one last look at his problems before leaving Washington, and decided that everything was fine.

At his weekly news conference, the President was asked about Senator Tydings' assertion that it would be remarkable if the U.S. and Russia avoided a war. The Senator, said the President, was unduly alarmed.

Did the President plan a big increase in the defense budget next year because of the growing international tension? No, Mr. Truman answered. The defense budget next year, he went on, will be smaller than this year's $14.2 billion and the Administration will keep on making economy cuts in the armed services where it can. It didn't seem to bother the President that his top military men were crying for more money, not less--or that Chairman Omar Bradley of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a congressional committee last week that things had got worse in recent months. In fact, the President made it clear that he was not alarmed at all. Of course, Harry Truman admitted, it could be that he was an optimist. But he had to be an optimist, he added, to be President of the U.S.

In the judgment of Harry Truman, expert politician, such easy talk obviously seemed wise talk, at least at the moment. But the President had no more basis than his military men or his worried Secretary of State (see INTERNATIONAL) for concluding that the international prospect was more pleasing these days. Nor had he any more basis for ignoring the deadly gamble that the U.S. was taking in cutting back on its defenses. In fact, the President sounded disturbingly like the man at the carnival, happily willing to gamble the farm on the conviction that the pea was under the middle shell.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.