From testimony being given before the House Un-American Activities Committee by a woman named Elizabeth Bentley and a Time magazine editor named Whittaker Chambers, both former Communists, it also appeared a major spy scandal was unfolding.
Visitors to the President’s office found him looking tired and preoccupied. Bess and Margaret having made their annual summer departure for Missouri, he was feeling particularly alone again. “It is hot and humid and lonely,” he wrote the night after putting them on the train. “Why in hell does anybody want to be a head of state? Damned if I know.”
He had had no change of heart about Berlin. American forces would remain. That was his decision, he said again, meeting with Marshall and Forrestal on July 19, and he would stand by it until all diplomatic means had been tried to reach some kind of accommodation to avoid war. “We’ll stay in Berlin—come what may…. I don’t pass the buck, nor do I alibi out of any decision I make,” he noted privately. He was convinced, as was Marshall, that the future of Western Europe was at stake in Berlin, not to say the well-being of the 2.5 million people in the city’s Allied sectors. Stalin was obviously determined to force the Allies out of Berlin. “If we wished to remain there, we would have to make a show of strength,” Truman later wrote. “But there was always the risk that Russian reaction might lead to war. We had to face the possibility that Russia might deliberately choose to make Berlin the pretext for war….” The Allies had all of 6,500 troops in Berlin—3,000 American, 2,000 British, 1,500 French—while the Russians had 18,000 backed by an estimated 300,000 in the east zone of Germany.
With the airlift now in its fourth week, heavily laden American and British transports were roaring into Berlin hundreds of times a day, and in all weather. They came in low, one after another, lumbering just over the tops of the ruined buildings, as crowds gathered in clusters to watch. German children with toy planes played “airlift” in the rubble as the real drama went on overhead.
It had been General Clay’s initial estimate that possibly 700 tons of food could be delivered to the beleaguered city by air in what would be a “very big operation.” Already some days the tonnage was twice that and now, too, almost unimaginably, coal was arriving out of the sky by the planeload. Pilots and crew were making heroic efforts. At times planes were landing as often as every four minutes—British Yorks and Dakotas, American C-47s and the newer, much larger, four-engine C-54s, which had been dispatched to Germany from Panama, Hawaii, and Alaska. Most planes averaged three flights a day from Frankfurt to Berlin’s Gatow or Templehof fields, a distance of 275 miles. Ground crews worked round the clock. “We were proud of our Air Force during the war. We’re prouder of it today,” said The New York Times. Already, three American crewmen had been killed when their C-47 crashed.
Still, the effort was not enough. On July 15, a record day, 1,450 tons were flown into Berlin. Yet to sustain the city 2,000 tons of food alone were needed every day, plus 12,000 tons of fuel and supplies. In winter, the demands for fuel would be far greater. The mayor of Berlin had said it would be impossible to provide the necessary food and coal supplies by air. “But every expert knows,” reported a London paper, “that aircraft, despite their immense psychological effect, cannot be relied upon to provision Berlin in the winter months.” Allied officials in Berlin worried about the increased activity of Russian Yak fighter planes in the air corridors.
Secretary of the Army Royall ordered General Clay to fly home to Washington to report to the President, which Truman thought a mistake. (“My muttonhead Secretary [of the] Army ordered Clay home from Germany and stirred up a terrific how-dy-do for no good reason,” he wrote to Bess.) At a National Security Council meeting on July 22, Clay said the people of Berlin would stand firm, even if it meant further hardships. Probably the Russians would try to stop any attempt by an armed convoy to break through at this stage, but they were not likely to interfere with air traffic, unless, of course, they were determined to provoke a war. Did the Russians want war, Truman asked. Clay did not think so. No one could be sure. Truman rejected the convoy idea.
When Truman inquired what problems might result from increasing the airlift, General Hoyt Vandenberg, Air Force Chief of Staff, voiced concern that American air strength elsewhere in the world would dangerously be reduced. But that was a risk Truman would take. The airlift would be vastly increased, he decided, expressing again his “absolute determination” to stay in Berlin. More of the big C-54 transports would be sent. Clay ordered another Berlin airfield built and in response to his call, 30,000 Berliners went to work to clear the rubble and grade the runways.
“There is considerable political advantage to the Administration in its battle with the Kremlin,” James Rowe had written in his effort to outline a political strategy for 1948. “In time of crisis the American citizen tends to back up his President.” So by such reasoning, the Berlin crisis, if kept in bounds, was made to order for Truman. Yet in nothing he said or wrote is there a sign of his playing the situation for “political advantage.” Rather, the grave responsibilities he bore as President at this juncture seem to have weighed more heavily on him than at any time since assuming office. He felt the campaign and its distractions, the drain it put on his time and strength, could not be coming at a worse time, as he told Churchill in a letter on July 10:
I am going through a terrible political “trial by fire.” Too bad it must happen at this time.
Your country and mine are founded on the fact that the people have the right to express themselves on their leaders, no matter what the crisis….
We are in the midst of grave and trying times. You can look with satisfaction upon your great contribution to the overthrow of Nazism and Fascism in the world. “Communism”—so-called—is our next great problem. I hope we can solve it without the “blood and tears” the other two cost.
Only the day before the National Security Council meeting about Berlin On July 21, at the meeting arranged by Forrestal to discuss the custody of the atomic bomb, Truman had looked dreadful and in a moment of annoyance revealed as vividly as he ever would how much more he dwelt on the horror of the atomic bomb than most people, even those close to him, imagined, or than he wished anyone to know.
“The President greeted us rather solemnly. He looked worn and grim; none of the joviality that he sometimes exhibits, and we got right down to business,” wrote David Lilienthal in his diary that night, when the whole scene and everything said were still fresh in his mind.
It was an important session, and a kind of seriousness hung over it that wasn’t relieved a bit, needless to say, by the nature of the subject and the fact that even at that moment some terrible thing might happen in Berlin…. I rather think it was one of the most important meetings I have ever attended.
Present besides Truman, Forrestal, and Lilienthal were the four other members of the Atomic Energy Commission, plus Secretary of the Army Royall, Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington, and Donald F. Carpenter, an executive of the Remington Arms Company who was chairman of the Military Liaison Committee of the National Military Establishment.
It was Carpenter who opened the discussion by reading aloud a formal letter requesting an order from the President that would turn custody of the atomic bomb over to the Joint Chiefs, on the grounds that those who would be ultimately responsible for use of the weapon should have it in their possession, to increase “familiarity” with it and to “unify” command. Truman, who did not appreciate being read to in such fashion, cut him off, saying curtly, “I can read.” He turned to Lilienthal, who said the real issue was one of broad policy and that the bomb must not be the responsibility of anyone other than the President, because of his constitutional roles as both Commander in Chief and Chief Magistrate. Civilian control was essential, Lilienthal said.
But then Symington spoke, delivering an incongruously lighthearted account of a visit to Los Alamos where “our fellas” told him they should have the bomb just to be sure it worked, though one scientist had s
aid he did not think it should ever be used.
“I don’t either,” Truman interjected, his face expressionless. He went on. “I don’t think we ought to use this thing unless we absolutely have to. It is a terrible thing to order the use of something that…[and here, as Lilienthal recorded, Truman paused and looked down at his desk “rather reflectively”]—that is so terribly destructive, destructive beyond anything we have ever had. You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon. [“I shall never forget this particular expression,” wrote Lilienthal.] It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannon and ordinary things like that.”
In times past Truman had spoken of the bomb as a military weapon like any other. In times past he had spoken of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as military targets. Not any more. It was an extraordinary declaration, refuting absolutely—as Lilienthal understood—any thought that Truman was insensitive to the horror of the bomb or took lightly his responsibilities as Commander in Chief.
Yet Symington seemed not to understand Truman’s point or the mood of the moment. “Our fellas need to get used to handling it,” Symington repeated, referring now to the military.
They had to understand, Truman said sternly and solemnly, that he had other considerations to weigh. “This is no time to be juggling an atom bomb around.”
He rose from his desk. He had had more than enough. The discussion was ended. The others stood and departed.
“If what worried the President, in part, was whether he could trust these terrible forces in the hands of the military establishment,” wrote Lilienthal that night, “the performance these men gave certainly could not have been reassuring….”
Two days later, at the close of a Cabinet meeting dealing with domestic issues, Truman held Forrestal a moment longer than the others to tell him the bomb would continue in civilian custody.
Privately, Truman had been expressing concern about Forrestal, who, as Truman said, seemed lately unable to “take hold.”
“I went down the river on the yacht Friday at noon and slept around the clock,” Truman wrote to Mary Jane first thing Monday morning, July 26.
I sure enough needed it. And I’ll need some more before November. It’s all so futile. Dewey, Wallace, the cockeyed southerners and then if I win—which I’m afraid I will—I’ll probably have a Russian war on my hands. Two wars are enough for anybody and I’ve had two.
I go to Congress tomorrow and read them a message requesting price control, housing and a lot of other necessary things and I’ll in all probability get nothing. But I’ve got to try.
On Capitol Hill, the special session of Congress opened and later that same day Truman sprung another surprise. Without warning, he announced executive orders to end discrimination in the armed forces and to guarantee fair employment in the civil service.
His reception when he appeared before Congress the next day was noticeably cool. (As a show of their resentment, some members did not even rise from their seats as he entered.) He called for action on an eight-point program, including civil rights—controls on consumer credit, an excess profits tax, strengthened rent control, price controls, action on housing, farm support, aid to education, an increased minimum wage, and change in the Displaced Persons Act that discriminated against Catholics and Jews—all that he had asked for before and had been denied.
From his office in Albany, Governor Dewey said nothing one way or the other, but through his campaign manager, Herbert Brownell, encouraged Republican leaders in Congress to give careful consideration to the President’s program. Taft absolutely refused, saying, “No, we’re not going to give that fellow anything.” To Taft, as to most Republicans and much of the public, the whole affair was a cheap political ploy.
The two-week session accomplished little, as Truman had anticipated, except to make his point that a Republican Congress was the great road-block to social progress for the country and to show the gulf between Republican promises and Republican performance.
“They sure are in a stew and mad as wet hens,” he told Bess. “If I can make them madder, maybe they’ll do the job the old gods used to put on the Greeks and Romans….”
On August 4 on Capitol Hill, testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Time editor Whittaker Chambers charged that Alger Hiss, president of the Carnegie Foundation and once one of the “bright young men” of the New Deal, a former official in both the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, serving fourteen years in the State Department, had been his accomplice in a Communist network. “For a number of years, I, myself, served in the underground in Washington, D.C.,” said Chambers. “I knew it at its top level…. A member of this group…was Alger Hiss.” The news rocked the city. Official Washington was described as “stunned with anger and disbelief.” Speaking off the record, Sam Rayburn told a reporter, “There is political dynamite in this Communist investigation. Don’t doubt that.”
But when, at his press conference the following day, Truman was asked whether he thought the “spy scare” on Capitol Hill was only “a red herring” to divert public attention from inflation, he said he agreed. The hearings were “a ‘red herring’ to keep from doing what they ought to do…. They are slandering a lot of people that don’t deserve it.”
Could they quote him, reporters asked. Yes, Truman replied, adding further to his troubles.
A week later, with the special session of Congress ended, he was fed another line by another reporter, but this time to his benefit. Did he think it had been a “do-nothing” Congress? “Entirely,” Truman said. He thought that was quite a good name for the 80th Congress.
Upstairs at the White House the decline and fall of the old building was no longer theoretical. The floor of Margaret’s sitting room, across the hall from his study, had caved in beneath her piano. His own bathroom, the President was informed, was about to collapse. Nothing of this was disclosed, however, nor would it be until after the elections. “Can you imagine what the press would have done with this story?” Margaret would recall. “The whole mess would have been blamed on Harry Truman.”
“Margaret’s sitting room floor broke in two but didn’t fall through the family dining room ceiling,” he reported to his sister on August 10. “They propped it up and fixed it. Now my bathroom is about to fall into the Red Parlor. They won’t let me sleep in my bedroom or use the bath.”
He was sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom, in “old Abe’s bed,” he added, and finding it quite comfortable.
14
Fighting Chance
It will be the greatest campaign any President ever made.
Win, lose, or draw people will know where I stand….
—Truman to his sister, autumn 1948
I
The Ferdinand Magellan was the only private railroad car ever fitted out for the exclusive use of the President of the United States. Eighty-three feet in length and painted the standard dark green of the Pullman Company, it had been built originally in 1928 as one of several luxury cars named for famous explorers—Marco Polo, David Livingstone, Robert Peary—then taken over by the government for Franklin Roosevelt’s use during wartime, in 1942, when it was completely overhauled to become a rolling fortress.
The windows were three-inch, bulletproof glass, the entire car sheathed in armor plate—sides, top, bottom, ends, and doors—with the result that it weighed a colossal 142½ tons, or as much as a locomotive, Special trucks and wheels had to be built to carry the weight.
For security reasons during the war, only the word “Pullman” appeared on the outside, and still, in 1948, the only distinguishing exterior features were the presidential seal fixed to the rear platform and three loudspeakers mounted on top of the platform roof.
Inside everything was designed for comfort. At the forward end were galley, pantry, servants’ quarters, and an oak-paneled dining room, which doubled as a conference room for the President, th
is furnished with china cabinets, a mahogany dining table, and six matching chairs upholstered p in gold-and-green striped damask. Beyond, down a side aisle, were four staterooms, marked A, B, C, and D, the two middle rooms, B and C, forming the Presidential Suite with joining bath and shower. Stateroom B, for the First Lady, was a pale peach color. Stateroom C, the President’s room, had blue-green walls and carpet and satin chrome fixtures.
Past the staterooms, at the rear, was the observation lounge with blue and brown chairs and a blue sofa, walls covered with an attractive light brown tufted material resembling leather, blue velvet curtains at the windows and at the door opening onto the rear platform. The carpeting was dark green.
The whole car was air-conditioned—to its immense weight under way were added some 6,000 pounds of ice for the cooling system—and each room had a telephone that could be hooked up to a trackside outlet whenever the train was standing at a station.
To Truman, who loved trains and loved seeing the country, it was the perfect way to travel, and one he had enjoyed frequently since becoming President. There had been the memorable night of poker with Churchill on the way to Missouri for the “iron curtain” speech, the long “nonpolitical” swing west in June. More recently, he had made a quick one-day tour of Michigan for a Labor Day speech at Detroit’s Cadillac Square, to open his campaign for reelection. Yet for all the miles covered, the days and nights spent on board the Magellan, these prior expeditions had been only prologue to the odyssey that began the morning of Friday, September 17, 1948, when the Magellan, at the end of a seventeen-car special train, stood waiting on Track 15 beneath the cavernous shed of Washington’s Union Station. In June, he had gone 9,000 miles. Now, on what was to become famous as the Whistle-stop Campaign, he would travel all told 21,928 miles, as far nearly as around the world—as far nearly as the voyage of Magellan.
David McCullough Library E-book Box Set Page 498