History Lesson

Harry Truman had been acting just as benevolent, kind, homespun, cheerful, charming and chipper as could be. But he had been deluged all week by a rain of dead cats as big as tigers. As he strode into his press conference, he was fairly busting to tell the world that his heart was pure and that he was true to the red, white & blue. There had, he said right off, been a lot of hooey about seizure of the press & radio. The thought of seizing them had never occurred to him, and he couldn't imagine it happening. Then, stepping into his familiar role as a history tutor, Harry Truman undertook to lecture the newsmen once again on some facts of world affairs.

Face set & serious, he told the assembled reporters that the country was in one of its greatest emergencies. In 1945, he said, it faced similar emergencies. In fact, he had personally sent an ultimatum to the head of the Soviet Union, ordering the Russians to get out of Iran. The Russians had done so, said the President, because the U.S. still had the wartime muscle to back up its demand. A little later, Yugoslavia decided to take Trieste. The President had sent for General Eisenhower and General Marshall and the Navy; he had ordered the Mediterranean fleet into the Adriatic, and three divisions moved into Northern Italy. There was no march on Trieste.

Triumph of Strength. The President smoothly cited other instances where U.S. strength--and presidential determination --had triumphed over Soviet scheming: in thwarting Communist attempts to take over Greece and Turkey, in saving Berlin by the great airlift. Now, he said, the U.S. is trying to arm the NATO countries, to prevent Koreans from being shot in the back--things that can only be done with the benefit of all-out steel production. He had simply tried to meet the emergency.

Wasn't there any limitation at all to a President's action during an emergency? asked one newsman. Well, answered Truman, everyone had better read his history and find out. There were lots of Presidents who could be mentioned. Pressed to name some, the President adopted his tartest professorial tones. Well, he said, there was a gentleman by the name of Jefferson who paid $15 million for the greatest addition to this country that has ever been made. They tried to impeach him for that, said Harry Truman, if he remembered correctly. Then there was a gentleman by the name of Tyler who agreed to annex Texas. And there were other gentlemen by the names of Polk, Lincoln and Roosevelt who exercised their powers to meet emergencies.

Telling Off Stalin. It was a fine, organ-like performance. But by this point, the newsmen were anxious to get back to the breathtaking disclosure that Truman had once, by ultimatum, told off Stalin and well-nigh carried the country into war with Russia. Had the ultimatum been published before? The President said no, but it is in the record. When was the ultimatum delivered? The President first said 1945. After a whispered consultation with Press Secretary Joe Short, he agreed that maybe it was 1946. But the dates were not important, said Harry Truman. The facts were that he had sent Stalin an ultimatum setting a certain day on which the Russians were to get out of Iran.

Out rushed the newsmen with what looked like a sensational scrap of history from the secret archives. They were soon summoned back for the kind of session that is getting to be a White House habit--a "clarification" meeting with White House Press Aide Roger Tubby.

Fast Backtracking. Embarrassed, Tubby explained that the President had used the word "ultimatum" in a "nontechnical, laymen's sense." The fact was that Historian Truman had his history all balled up. No U.S. troops or warships had been ordered to Trieste. There had never been an ultimatum about Iran at all. There had been a State Department note to Moscow reminding the Russians that they really should pull out of Iran as the U.N. had recommended. The date was not 1945 but March 6, 1946. And the note had been published the day after it was sent.

Backtracking fast on two other subjects, the President also:

P: Denied that he wanted to shift the flood-control functions of the Army engineers to the Interior Department, as recommended by the Hoover Commission. He had changed his mind about sending the plan to Congress since his press conference announcement the week before.

Why had he changed his mind? He hadn't changed his mind, said the President. He had never been for the plan at all. P: Made public a long letter he had written to Aviator-Farmer C. S. ("Casey") Jones of Washington Crossing, Pa., explaining that the Administration did not actually claim unbounded executive power--as the Department of Justice was trying to prove in court (see above). The gist of the letter: the steel seizure, though "very drastic" and within the President's constitutional powers, did not mean the executive authority was unlimited. "The powers of the President are derived from the Constitution, and they are limited, of course, by the provisions of the Constitution, particularly those that protect the rights of individuals."

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