A Time for Firmness

Harry Truman strode into his weekly press conference with the wary, tight-lipped air of an actor awaiting the first overripe tomato. Too often, recently, he had gone in poorly prepared, fumbled his answers, and been needled into embarrassing admissions. But this time Presidential Press Secretary Joseph Short had equipped him with a sheaf of prepared statements, briefed him thoroughly on important questions, and even hooked up a wire recorder in the red marble Conference Room to help spot the reasons for Harry Truman's bobbles--and to settle any arguments over exactly what the President said.

"I Believe..." With a grim weariness, the President read off a sharp, carefully worded statement on China: "Ambassador Austin has fully and forcefully presented the views of this Government...toward aggression by the Chinese Communists...Each member of the United Nations must make its own decision on this issue." Then, his voice twanging like a bowstring, the President leaned forward. "For my part," he said, biting off each word, "I believe in calling an aggressor an aggressor...This is the time for clear thinking and firmness."

For the next eleven minutes he handled all questions with the same deliberate care, and the conference went off without a hitch. That night the President, in his old single-breasted tuxedo, and Bess, resplendent in black velvet, had the time of their lives at a fund-raising show for the newly revived U.S.O. at Constitution Hall. Onstage, Cabinet officers, military brass, Congressmen and local society bigwigs wisecracked, caterwauled, sawed away on their fiddles, square-danced, and performed a frantic Charleston, complete with short skirts and rolled stockings.

The Most Important Man. The climax of the show brought the President out of his mood of beaming good humor with a start. When Mrs. Alben Barkley wheeled onstage "the most important man in the U.S.," Pfc. Anthony Troilo, 25, who had lost both legs in Korea, Harry Truman was the first man on his feet, grim-jawed and clapping.

Last week, the President also:

P: Drove through the rain to Union Station, where he met visiting French Prime Minister Rene Pleven, later settled down to a formal conference in the White House.

P: Appointed, as new governor of American Samoa, Manhattan Lawyer Phelps Phelps,* onetime member of the New York Senate (1938-42) and World War II war-crimes investigator on the staff of General MacArthur.

P: Summoned ex-Defense Secretary Louis Johnson to the White House and presented him with the big, leather-bottomed chair Johnson had used at meetings of the Cabinet.

* He will be headquartered in Pago Pago, boss the Fita Fita (a local police unit) and enjoy the Siva Siva (a native dance).

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