Just Plain Harry

Just Plain Harry Harry Truman plays no role better than that of a colloquial, foot-scraping, friendly fella from out there in Missouri. Last week, his 358th week in the presidency, he ran through the part of just plain Harry without missing a cue or flatting a tone.

Bug Under the Chip. At his press conference, when a reporter asked a question which might have brought a sharp reply, Truman managed to drop a homely colloquialism into his answer. Did the President have any comment on the House Judiciary subcommittee's refusal to grant immunity powers to Newbold Morris, his cleanup man? Truman replied that he thought Morris, to do a bangup job, should be able to promise cooperative key witnesses immunity from prosecution. The immunity was his own idea, he said, and there wasn't any bug under the chip (meaning concealed or secret, according to The American Thesaurus of Slang).

In the White House rose garden one morning, Truman chatted with the teenage winners of a radio speech-essay contest on democracy. Dwight Clark Jr. of Fort Collins, Colo, had a message. "Mr. President," he said, "we saw Senator Taft this morning, and he said to be sure to send you 'his very best love.' " Mr. President laughed and said: "We became good friends when we were in the Senate together. We are both on first-name terms. I call him Bob and he calls me Harry. We get along all right except that he's on the wrong side of the political fence."

"I Like It." Another day, the man from Missouri walked four blocks from Blair House to the Hotel Statler for the annual breakfast given by Kansas City's Frank Land, founder of the Masonic Or der of DeMolay. Without a text, Truman chatted about what it's like to be President, and demonstrated his extraordinary talent for the minimizing statement. "The office of President of the United States," said he, "is a public-relations office . . . He spends most of his time talking kindly and giving lectures to people and begging them to do what they ought to do without being begged." The President has to take "bricks and stones and mud and things." Washington, he recalled, was labeled a dictator, Lincoln was called an ass and "old Cleveland . . . was thoroughly and roundly abused, but after he was out of office for about 15 years, they said they loved him for the enemies he had made ... I hope you will love me for that same reason, when the time comes."

As he mused on, Harry Truman dropped a sentence which--coupled with the way he was acting all week--set off a new wave of speculation that he will try to keep the job. Said he: "Just between you and me and the gatepost, I like it."

Last week, the President also:

*The Korean war, ending its 20th month (one month longer than U.S. participation in World War I), has never been technically recognized as a war by the President and Congress.

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