Roman Holiday

Harry Truman was--as one correspondent described him--"an incredible combination of Mark Twain, Jim Pendergast and the man next door" as he bounced from relic to ruin through Rome, Naples, Paestum and Pompeii last week. He tested the red wine, ravioli and lasagne, found fettuccine "like spaghetti but with no holes." He slept later than usual, ordered Stateside breakfasts of juice, bacon, rolls and coffee, went sightseeing all day and into the evening.

In Paestum's Greco-Roman ruins, Harry studied an ancient statue, decided since "Mars never smiled" and "Apollo has no beard," the figure must be Zeus. It was. Another statue he identified correctly as Ceres. Freshly coiffured Bess was not amused when Harry remarked that hair styles had not improved over thousands of years. Nor was she when he studied the leaping satyrs and dancing maidens on a vase, insisted, "That girl is wearing falsies." Paestum (founded circa 600B.C.), Harry found, was much like Nashville, Tenn. (1780).

Bride's Bread. At Pompeii, while he and a guide discussed the ruins, Bess wandered unwittingly into a room world-famed for its pornographic friezes. She hastily backed-out again. Truman and a newsman joked about Pompeii as an ancient WPA project. "It was built by slave labor. That's what Republicans called WPA." When the guide showed them rock-hard bread dug from the volcanic ash, Harry agreed that it looked like a bride's handiwork, said: "I'd like to have a piece of that to send to Margaret." Protested Bess dryly: "I'm sure she won't be making any bread."

Only once did the festive mood fail-when the ex-President solemnly stared from a Salerno promenade across the gulf, remarked to A.P. Newsman Fred Zusy that wartime landings there and up the coast at Anzio were "planned by some squirrel-headed general." Returning to Naples, Harry Truman glanced at a copy of the Rome Daily American, found the story boldly bannered HST STIRS UP ANZIO HORNETS' NEST, turned peevish toward the reporters following him.

Wisely Led. The hornets' nest buzzed loud and far. In far-off South Carolina, General Mark Clark, whose Fifth Army carried out the assaults, said: "I received and carried out orders from higher head-quarteris. In Washington, Assistant White House Press Secretary Murray Snyder grinned, referred newsmen to the squirrels on the White House lawn. Questioned at his press conference about Anzio, General Eisenhower said the landing had not been a failure. In Crusade in Europe, Ike wrote: "In the final outcome the Anzio operation paid off handsomely." In London, Britain's Lieut, General Sir Oliver Leese, who commanded the British Eighth Army in Italy, stated: "The man is talking absolute nonsense . . . Field Marshal Lord Alexander was in charge of the operations. To call him 'squirrel-headed' is rubbish." When Truman later attributed the remark to a newsman with him and got his secretary to issue a denial, the press became as peevish as Harry. Zusy said, "I heard him plainly, and he could see I was writing down his comments." The U.P.'s Ed Cornish, who also quoted the "squirrel-headed" comment, said he heard Truman's remarks about Salerno, but no reference to Anzio.

As the Truman party packed bags, pressed crisp new U.S. bills into the porter's hands, and prepared to motor north to Assisi, Venice and Florence, correspondents cornered him a final time on Salerno and Anzio, got him to admit: "After the fact, a man can always find a better way. The objective was won and that's what counts. I didn't come over here to criticize anybody." So saying, Harry Truman, happy tourist, climbed into his Fiat and roared toward new wonders.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.