Old Soldier

When in trouble, says an old Army maxim, do something--anything. In the clutch of the steel crisis last week, on the eve of his 68th birthday (May 8), ex-Artilleryman Harry Truman busied himself doing something.

One of his diversionary efforts was aimed at an old and familiar adversary: Congress. He touched it off by refusing to turn over to a Senate subcommittee the unpublished personal papers of the late Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal. "Not in the public interest," said a sharp White House statement. Another coincidental but useful diversion was unprecedented for a U.S. President. Displaying his familiar folksy charm, he conducted a national television audience on a tour of the newly renovated White House (see RADIO & TV).

At his weekly press conference, the President was alternately sweet & sour. On questions about steel (see above), he was the model of patient reasonableness. But when he was asked if he would serve if he were drafted for another term, the Truman jaw jutted out, the presidential voice snapped: he would not accept the nomination, and that ends that. What about the smear rumor that General Eisenhower is in poor health? Eisenhower is in perfect health, said the President with earnest conviction, and as fine a man as ever walked. Then he relaxed and chuckled that the general is just beginning to find out what happens to a candidate.

Next evening Truman was back at the barricades in another sector: he turned his attention to the "hypocritical" and "frantic" critics of corruption and disloyalty in government. In a nationally broadcast speech to the Civil Service League, he accused his critics of "a ruthless, cynical attempt to put over a gigantic hoax and fraud on the American people" to distract attention from the real issues of the day. Said Truman: "Political gangsters are attempting to pervert the [loyalty] program into an instrument of intimidation and blackmail, to coerce or destroy any who dare to oppose them . . . They have not hesitated to lie, under cover of congressional immunity, of course . . . They're worse than Communists, and I think they're partners with them."

Between skirmishes last week, the President also:

EUP: Greeted 2,500 guests with champagne punch at the first diplomatic reception since the White House was reopened. P: Learned that the publisher of the best-selling Mr. President has insured his life with Lloyd's of London for $150,000, on the theory that there would be less of a market for Harry Truman's posthumous memoirs.

P: Received a certificate formally retiring Colonel Harry S. Truman from the Army Reserve "by authority of the President. His 26 years of service entitle him to a monthly pension of $95-66, but he has not applied for it.

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