It's Going to Be All Right

But for Korea, Harry Truman would have joined the vacation exodus from muggy Washington; he had planned a cruise off New England in the yacht Williamsburg.

Instead, he was out of sight and up to his elbows in defense matters (see above). How was he getting on in the second week of Korean war? Unless you were a Congressman, a member of the Cabinet or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there was only one way of finding out last week, and that was to go to the President's only public appearance: his press conference.

Huff. It was a grey day, with just enough rain to annoy but not enough to refresh; in the musty conference room, of Andrew Carnegie decor, it was just as depressing. Then in strode Harry Truman with his usual cheerful step. For a man deep in fateful decisions he looked singularly unruffled. Never the worrying kind, since war broke out in Asia, the President had, nevertheless, on several occasions, seemed weary. Last week, even the weariness was gone.

With scarcely any warmup, he promptly went into his weekly political huff. The previous week his target had been Ohio's Robert Taft. Last week it was the Republican opposition to his renomination of Sumner Pike to the Atomic Energy Commission. That opposition seemed to him foolish. He was perfectly aware, he said, that the ground was political; yes, party political; Republican Party political, if you please. It was no surprise to Truman that Colorado's heretic Edwin C. Johnson--a Democrat, of all things--had voted with the Republican Senators against Pike, for Johnson, the President observed, votes more Republican than Democrat.

Caution. It seemed to Harry Truman that there were an awful lot of armchair experts in this country who knew just what ought to be done in Korea. In answer to a question, he said that of course he was still hopeful about Korea, and that it would turn out all right. Despite the headlines, over the weekend he expected a change for the better.

Next day, in as unobtrusive a fashion as he could, Harry Truman sent a request to Congress for $260 million more for atomic energy and the hydrogen bomb. The request had been scheduled for ten days earlier, but the outbreak of war in Korea had postponed it: the President had feared that people might think a hydrogen bomb would be used in Korea. His gingerly caution was typical of the Administration's determination, while fighting to win in Korea, to let all provocative acts come from Russia, not the U.S.

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