"I Summon All Citizens"

"I am talking to you tonight about what our country is up against and what we are going to do about it."

With those words, President Truman moved the nation last week into a quickened mobilization to prepare the country either for World War III or a highly armed, wary era of uneasy peace that might last for years. On that night of Dec. 15, the President of the U.S. formally and finally recognized Communist Russia as a "great danger" to the peace of the world and the security of the U.S. In the 24 hours that followed, the President:

P: Proclaimed a state of national emergency, unsheathing for the second time in less than a decade the extreme powers granted to a President only in times of crisis.

P: Created a supreme Office of Defense Mobilization and chose as its boss--answerable only to the President--Charles E. Wilson, president of General Electric and one of the world's top industrialists. In doing so, Harry Truman seemed to be abandoning his prized, tidy plan for operating mobilization through the old-line Cabinet departments (TIME, Dec. 18).

P: Ordered a 1,000,000-man increase in the armed forces, to a total of 3,500,000 by spring.

P: Intervened in a crippling strike of railroad workers.

P: Froze automobile prices as of Dec. 1, canceling price boosts just announced by Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and Nash (see BUSINESS). The President's Economic Stabilization Agency therewith took the first big step toward selective wage and price controls. Others expected: steel, aluminum and copper. ESA begged the rest of industry and labor to adopt voluntary controls. Such pleading had never worked before, and would not this time, but ESA was simply not prepared to police a nationwide control order.

More Work, Fewer Goods. There would be other big steps, the President made clear, as fast as the blueprints, the manpower and the administrators could be assembled and kinks straightened out. One step would be "a very rapid speedup" of military production. Salient items: five times as much aircraft production within a year (present rate: about 3,000 a year), four times as many combat vehicles, 4 1/2 times as much electronic equipment. Taxes would be much higher. There would be a longer work week for production workers, fewer civilian goods.

Although he was asking for less than the nation had been prepared to expect and many willing hands were anxious to give, the President, speaking in the mood that currently grips Washington, talked as if the U.S. public still had to be persuaded that there was a crisis on. It seemed a time for the trumpet call to meet imminent danger, but the trumpet note was never heard. The President's words were simple and clear, but the message--like so many of Harry Truman's non-political utterances--had a thin, overworked and flat quality. His speech, in fact, had gone through ten draftings and it showed it.

More Weapons, Stronger Allies. "Here are the things we must do," said the President. ". . . We will continue to uphold the principles of the United Nations . . . We will continue to work with the other free nations to strengthen our combined defense . . . We will build up our own Army, Navy and Air Force and make more weapons for ourselves and our allies . . . We will expand our economy and keep it on an even keel."

The North Atlantic army was about to become a reality (with General Dwight D. Eisenhower as its supreme commander). At home the Navy and Air Force were powerful and the Army had a strong nucleus to build around. "But measured against the danger that confronts us," Mr. Truman said, "our forces are not adequate.

". . . Many of you who are young people will serve in the armed forces . . . Many others will have to work longer hours in factories or mines or mills . . . All of us will have to pay more taxes and do without things we like. As I speak to you tonight, aggression has won a military advantage in Korea. We should not try to hide or explain away the fact . . ."

Next day, Mr. Truman put his call to action in a formal emergency proclamation: "I summon all citizens ... I summon our farmers, our workers . . . and our businessmen ... I summon every person of every community to make, with a spirit of neighborliness, whatever sacrifices are necessary for the welfare of the nation . . ."

More Rigors, More Vigor. Even without the formal proclamation, the President had most of the powers necessary for severe mobilization. Some had been given to him by Congress since Korea, others had been put on the books before or during World War II and remained in effect because the state of war with Germany and Japan has never been ended. The proclamation was intended to be a rallying cry at home and a notice to the rest of the world that the U.S. would once more rise to its calling as democracy's arsenal.

But for the present, President Truman had decided to invoke only part of his powers. The mobilization that he decreed would fall far short of total mobilization, with its millions in uniform and 24-hour-a-day factories, its censorship and brownouts, its ration books and black markets. Partly, this reflected some of the lingering doubts inside Harry Truman's own Administration on the wisdom of a total commitment now to a garrison state. Partly, the apparent caution merely recognized the inevitable lag between intent and performance. With Charlie Wilson on the job, more rigors and more vigor could be expected. On performance, not alone on words, would the U.S. be able to judge how well Harry Truman and the rest of the nation understood the urgency of his own words: "The future of civilization depends on what we do--on what we do now and in the months ahead."

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