How to Start an Argument

THE TRUMAN PRESIDENCY by Cabell Phillips. 463 pages. Macmillan. $7.95.

Harry Truman will be forever remembered as the President who proved, among other things, that anyone can be President. The evidence of this is rich --and, in this Republic, richly satisfying. He did not go to college, and entered the country's highest office unable to spell: "demigog" was one of his better guesses in the spelling department. His instincts remained proof against the presidency. When the new state of Israel, grateful for Truman's immediate recognition, ceremonially bestowed on him a copy of the Torah, Truman's response did great credit, not to a chief of state, but to the Anyman he was. Said he: "Thanks a lot. I've always wanted one."

Journalists who assess the Truman presidency tend to be emphatic and categorical. This new attempt, by a veteran Washington correspondent for the New York Times, is dedicated to the proposition that Harry Truman was one of the great Presidents, an exclusive company which Phillips otherwise limits to Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Wilson and Lyndon B. Johnson. But that is only Phillips' proposition. He does not prove it; in fact, for all his desperate trying, Phillips does not convince even himself.

Drifting Damnation. The book is full of indigestible encomiums. Truman, says Phillips, "put an indelible imprint of greatness on both the presidency and the history of his time." "History has rarely witnessed a more heartening triumph of the simple virtues of unpretentiousness, honesty and courage." "He left the American presidency a stronger, more effective instrument for human governance than he found it." "Harry S. Truman was a quite ordinary man. But he was also a quite extraordinary President."

For evidence, the author cites the same things that all other Truman appreciators have cited before him. Truman's undeniable decisiveness (Hiroshima and Korea); his vision (aid to Greece, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine); and especially his 1948 victory at the polls, which confounded the pollsters, the press, both political parties, and the nation--nearly everyone, indeed, but Harry Truman himself. With a generosity that not everyone may want to share, Author Phillips declares that in the fields of civil rights and foreign policy, Truman's three successors in office discharged a heavy debt to him.

This is dangerous ground to occupy, and despite his fervor Phillips uneasily senses that it is. Time and again, his Truman testimonials, having run out of plausible foundation, drift lamely into the damnation of faint praise. The fact that Truman increased the White House staff from 600 to 1,200 is listed as one of his achievements; so are his January budget briefings for newsmen and his veto record (250 bills).

Moreover, Phillips' full catalogue of Truman's presidential faults seriously undercuts his basic proposition. He concludes, in retrospect, that the Hiroshima bomb was probably unnecessary--Japan was already suing for peace. He admits that the Potsdam agreements encouraged Soviet imperialism. He blames Truman for an unconscionably rapid postwar demobilization, for a bankrupt China policy, and for all the domestic sins that critics have laid at Truman's door: government by crony, incompetence and corruption in Government, and "the disease of McCarthyism, which began--and got out of hand --while he was in the White House."

No Sweat. This inconsistent recital is further weakened by its setting; it is a very careless and graceless book. Its narrative course defies sensible plotting: after opening, for example, with Roosevelt's death, it leaps ahead to Hiroshima, then back to Truman's first faltering steps as President. It is inaccurate and contradictory; having stated that "no President ever entered the White House with a better understanding of Government finance," Phillips later acknowledges Truman's "deficiency" in the same subject. His writing style, furthermore, might grieve even the New York Times's copy desk: "There was no sweat in being Vice President for Harry Truman; he never had it so good."

For all its shortcomings, The Truman Presidency is bound to ignite controversy. After all, one sure way to start an argument is to say that Harry Truman was a good President, and another sure way is to say that he wasn't. Phillips' book says both.

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