ONE LETTER OF support which my father received around this time especially pleased him. It was from Henry Wallace. He enclosed a statement he had issued defending the decision to resist aggression in South Korea. “When my country is at war and the U.N. sanctions that war, I am on the side of my country and the U.N.,” he wrote. “. . . I cannot agree with those who want to start a propaganda drive to pull United Nations troops out of Korea.”

Dad replied:

Dear Henry:

I certainly appreciated yours of the eighteenth, and the enclosed personal statement. We are faced with a very serious situation. I hope it will work out on a peaceful basis.

Among the most serious aspects of the situation was the President’s relationship to Congress. In the course of the June 30 meeting, not only Senator Wherry, but Senator H. Alexander Smith of New Jersey, a moderate Republican, brought up the question of obtaining approval from Congress before Dad committed American ground troops on a large scale. My father, who had already achieved so much by working closely with Congress to create a genuinely bipartisan foreign policy, assured them he would seek congressional support for any decisions he made. But he never said he would seek congressional approval because he believed the powers of the presidency were at stake in this issue, and these powers were in turn related to the very survival of the United States of America. A President without the power to make the swift decision he had made in Korea could not protect the United States in a world of jet aircraft and surprise attacks.

On July 3, at the President’s request, the State Department prepared a memorandum, which listed eighty-seven instances in the previous century when the President as commander in chief had taken similar action. At this time, moreover, there was little need for my father to seek congressional support. He already had it, in overwhelming amounts. Letters and statements poured into the White House from all but a small group of die-hard right-wing Republicans. Around the country and the world, the same air of euphoria prevailed.

But our hopes of swiftly repelling the North Korean “bandit raid” were not realized. The American troops flung into battle from Japan were not much better equipped than the South Koreans. Few of them had combat experience, and they were cruelly mauled by the tank-led North Koreans. Americans gasped with shock as reports poured in from the battlefronts about the superiority of North Korea’s weapons and the combat readiness of their well-trained troops. American soldiers finally established a perimeter around the port of Pusan at the heel of the Korean peninsula, and for the rest of the summer maintained a tenuous grip on this beachhead, beating off ferocious North Korean attacks.

The desperate fighting, the heartbreaking casualties were only part of my father’s woes during this summer of 1950. He had to get congressional permission to shift the economy from a peace to a war basis. Six hundred thousand men had to be added to the armed forces in the shortest possible time. Four National Guard divisions were activated, the draft was expanded, and a massive recruiting program launched. By raising taxes and restricting consumer credit, my father tried to avoid the painful imposition of price controls, which had been the most unpopular government measure of World War II.

The lengthening struggle in Korea inevitably complicated my father’s relationship with Congress. The reactionaries began ranting sarcastically about Truman’s “police action.” Rumors about Communists in the government ballooned, upsetting moderate congressmen in both parties. The emotional situation led to one of the most distressing political defeats my father ever suffered in his warfare with the reactionaries. If there was one of these negative thinkers whom he disliked both personally and politically, it was Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, which controlled 40 percent of the Senate’s business. My father first tangled with him over the displaced persons bill, which he had hoped to see passed early in his second term. Dad wanted to admit 339,000 refugees, who were still languishing in camps in Europe, five years after the war had ended. Senator McCarran refused to have anything to do with the administration’s bill. Instead, he introduced his own which was worse than the one that had been passed by the Eightieth Congress. Only after a tremendous thirteen-hour debate did the Senate finally reject McCarran’s ideas and vote for the Truman bill, sponsored by Harley Kilgore of West Virginia.

This victory, on April 5, 1950, left Senator McCarran thirsting for revenge, and he got it when the Korean War aroused the nation to anti-Communist frenzy. My father was trying to prevent the government’s loyalty program from turning into a witch-hunt. For over a year, Senator McCarran had introduced into appropriations bills numerous riders giving government department heads the power to fire any employee on security grounds without the right of appeal. My father asked for legislation to give every accused person a fair hearing. In response, Senator McCarran introduced an internal security bill which set up a government within the government, the Subversive Activities Control Board, with sweeping powers to hunt down suspected Communists everywhere. My father promptly vetoed the bill, because, he said, it gave the government “thought control” powers the framers of the Constitution never intended it to have. “There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never for the opinions they have,” Dad wrote.

Within twenty-four hours, in spite of heroic efforts by a forlorn little band of senators led by Hubert Humphrey, Congress overrode the veto by crushing majorities. Even Scott Lucas, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, voted to override, because he was worried about his reelection in November.

Congress was by no means the only legislative body with which Dad had to cope during this agonizing summer of 1950. The United Nations was also restive and frightened by the large-scale fighting. The British and the Indian governments suggested peace plans which involved large concessions, such as the immediate seating of Communist China and the trading of Formosa for a withdrawal from Korea. They were politely informed this was unacceptable to the United States. My father also had to fend off critics such as Bernard Baruch, who demanded immediate and all-out national mobilization, which would include price, wage, and rent controls, as well as rationing. Lengthy reports were made to Congress and the American people in mid-July, explaining why such drastic measures were unnecessary. Although the term was not yet in use, my father was already formulating the concept of a limited war. Any lunge toward the posture of an all-out war might inspire a Russian attack and launch World War III.

Simultaneously, Dad had to keep the more headstrong members of the armed forces under control. Early in July, he learned the air force was planning high-level photo reconnaissance missions over Dairen, Port Arthur, Vladivostok, and other Russian Far Eastern bases, to see if Stalin was planning to move into Korea. My father immediately ordered the cancelation of these missions. It was the first appearance of a problem that was to vex him throughout the war in Korea - the clash between the global view of our security and interests which Dad maintained in the White House and the needs and desires of local commanders in the war zone.

To my father’s dismay, the focus of this clash soon became the man in supreme command of the UN army, General Douglas MacArthur. Dad was not an admirer of the MacArthur style of generalship. MacArthur’s fondness for personal publicity, his rhetoric to describe his own accomplishments, his petulant conduct during World War II, when he constantly badgered Washington for more support for his theater of war - all these things were against the code of Harry S. Truman, who put humility, giving credit to others, and teamwork at the head of his list of personal values. But my father recognized these differences between him and General MacArthur for precisely what they were - essentially differences in style. Such personal opinions had no place and no influence in the relationship between President Harry S. Truman and General Douglas MacArthur. In fact, as a student of military history, Dad was an admirer of General MacArthur’s strategy in the South Pacific during World War II.

At the same time, my father was very aware General MacArthur had political ambitions. He had allowed himself to be put forward as a candidate in the Wisconsin presidential primary in the 1948 election. He took a drubbing, and that was the end of his candidacy.

Even before the Korean War began, some rather strange things had happened in Tokyo which made my father suspect General MacArthur was still working rather closely with the right-wing Republicans who had backed him in Wisconsin. When Chiang retreated to Formosa, it looked at first as if the Communists would follow him and swiftly capture the island. We had no plans - or desire - to defend Chiang, and with White House approval, the State Department sent instructions to MacArthur’s headquarters, advising him how to deal with the press on the subject, so that he would say nothing that contradicted his superior in Washington. The memorandum was leaked and was soon raising a hue and cry in the anti-Truman press and among the “animals,” as Dad called the right-wingers in Congress.

On the other hand, my father was encouraged by General MacArthur’s praise of his decision to resist aggression in Korea. When Dad appointed him United Nations Commander, the General sent the following radio message: “I have received your announcement of your appointment of me as United Nations Commander - I can only repeat the pledge of my complete personal loyalty to you as well as an absolute devotion to your monumental struggle for peace and goodwill throughout the world. I hope I will not fail you.”

But before the month of July was over, my father and General MacArthur had clashed again over Formosa. On July 19, Dad had carefully spelled out his policy toward Chiang Kai-shek: “The present military neutralization of Formosa is without prejudice to political questions affecting that island. Our desire is that Formosa not become embroiled in hostilities disturbing to the peace of the Pacific and that all questions affecting Formosa are to be settled by peaceful means as envisaged in the Charter of the United Nations. With peace re-established, even the most complex political questions are susceptible of solution. In the presence of brutal and unprovoked aggression, however, some of these questions may have to be held in abeyance in the interest of the essential security of all.”

On July 27, at a National Security Council meeting, my father decided to send a survey team to Formosa to estimate Chiang’s military needs. This decision was not caused by any change of heart or mind on Dad’s part toward Chiang. Intelligence reports indicated the Communist Chinese were concentrating a large army along the coast opposite Formosa, and my father was determined to resist another apparently imminent act of aggression. The plan was to send Chiang the military aid he needed, quietly, with a minimum of mention in the press. Dad was irate when he picked up the newspaper on August 1 and discovered that the previous day, General MacArthur had made an unauthorized trip to Formosa to do his own survey of Chiang’s needs and explain why we could not use his troops in Korea. The glare of publicity which followed MacArthur everywhere made it look as if we were negotiating a mutual defense treaty with Chiang. The Generalissimo, no slouch himself in undercutting American policy, had urged in a public statement a few weeks before the General’s visit that “no difficulties . . . will arise if United States relationships are placed in the hands of Douglas MacArthur.”

Soon after MacArthur returned to Tokyo, Chiang announced “the foundation for Sino-American military cooperation has been laid.” There was no doubt, he declared, of “final victory in our struggle against Communism.”

My father was appalled, and immediately dispatched Averell Harriman to Tokyo to explain in detail our policy toward Chiang and Formosa, as well as the entire Korean involvement. Dad also wanted to get from one of his most reliable associates a wide-ranging report on MacArthur’s view of the war. When Harriman explained our Formosa policy, General MacArthur demonstrated an alarming ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth. He agreed that Chiang personally was a liability and at one point in the conversation, suggested letting him land with his army on the Chinese coast, where he would be swiftly annihilated. Much troubled, Ambassador Harriman reported, “He did not seem to consider the liability that our support of Chiang on such a move would be to us in the East.” Ambassador Harriman came away with the worried feeling that he and General MacArthur had not come “to a full agreement on the way we believed things should be handled on Formosa with the Generalissimo.” At the same time, MacArthur had assured Harriman that he would “as a soldier obey any orders that he received from the President.”

On August 26, Charlie Ross laid on Dad’s desk a copy of the statement which General MacArthur had sent to the commander in chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who were holding their annual convention. It was to be read to the convention on August 28, but a news magazine was already on the stands with the full text. The message was a lofty criticism of the American government’s policy, with special emphasis on Formosa. He compared the island to “an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender” which threatened our bases in Okinawa and the Philippines. “Nothing could be more fallacious than the threadbare argument by those who advocate appeasement and defeatism in the Pacific that if we defend Formosa we alienate continental Asia,” the General declared. “Those who speak thus do not understand the Orient.”

Only the day before, my father had ordered our ambassador to the UN, Warren Austin, to assure Secretary General Trygve Lie that we had no desire to incorporate Formosa within the American defense perimeter and were prepared to have the United Nations investigate our actions on that island. MacArthur’s statement created consternation in the UN and in the capitals of our allies around the world.

My father immediately met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Defense. Grimly, in a manner that was totally foreign to his usual style of conducting these meetings, he asked each man if he knew anything about MacArthur’s message before it was released to the press. All of them said they were as surprised as the President. Dad ordered Louis Johnson to order MacArthur to withdraw the message. To my father’s amazement, the Secretary of Defense hesitated to obey this direct order. Instead, he suggested issuing a statement that would have been little more than a light tap on General MacArthur’s wrist - an explanation that his message to the VFW was “only one man’s opinion.”

When my father heard about this timidity - a shocking example of the awe with which General MacArthur was regarded by the Department of Defense - he called Johnson and dictated the following message: “The President of the United States directs that you withdraw your message to the National Encampment of Veterans of Foreign Wars, because various features with respect to Formosa are in conflict with the policy of the United States and its position in the United Nations.” Dad followed this up with a long letter once more carefully explaining our policy and enclosing Ambassador Austin’s letter to Trygve Lie.

This episode was close to the last straw in my father’s efforts to be patient with Louis Johnson. The Secretary of Defense had become an obstructionist force in the government. He had used the outbreak of the Korean War to sharpen and widen his feud with Secretary of State Acheson. He went around Washington making sneering remarks about disloyalty in the State Department and intimating the Department of Defense was the only reliable force for a constructive foreign policy in the government. He had even discussed with opposition senators the possibility of his supporting a move to oust the Secretary of State. On September 11, at 4:00 p.m., Johnson came to the White House for an off-the-record meeting. “Lou came in full of pep and energy,” Dad says. “He didn’t know anything was wrong. I told him to sit down and I said, ‘Lou, I’ve got to ask you to quit.’

“He just folded up and wilted. He leaned over in his chair and I thought he was going to faint. He said, ‘Mr. President, I can’t talk.’”

In Congress, the right-wing Republicans were attacking Johnson, as the man responsible for the poor showing of our army in the first months of fighting in Korea. Dad told Johnson that Democratic members of Congress had come to him and sworn that Johnson’s continuance in the Cabinet would beat them in the November elections. This was a polite lie which, Dad knew, made him look timid. He did this to make it as easy as possible for Johnson to leave.

Frantically, for a few moments, Johnson tried to argue with Dad. He cut him short. “I have made up my mind, Lou, and it has to be this way.”

Minutes after Johnson left, my father walked into Charlie’s office and said, “This is the toughest job I have ever had to do.”

A few days later, Dad told George Elsey: “I had one hell of a time with Lou Johnson. I’ve never had anyone let me down as badly as he did. I’ve known for months - ever since May - that I would have to fire him, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. You know that I would rather cut my own throat than hurt anyone. I’ve known Lou for thirty years and I hated to have to do this to him, but the worst part about this job I have is that I can’t consider my personal feelings. I have to do what is right and I just couldn’t leave Johnson there any longer. The terrible thing about all this is that Johnson doesn’t realize he has done anything wrong. He just doesn’t seem to realize what he’s been doing to the whole government. I couldn’t let it go on any longer.”

Johnson proceeded to prolong the agony by handing Dad his letter of resignation the following day, unsigned and expressing the hope he would not be asked to sign it. Dad’s jaw tightened, and he said, “I’m afraid it has to be signed, Lou.”

The Secretary of Defense signed and left the White House. My father immediately telephoned General George Marshall at Leesburg, Virginia, and asked him to become Secretary of Defense. Once more, this great man and soldier instantly obeyed his commander in chief.

My father also considered relieving General MacArthur, when he issued his flagrantly insubordinate statement about Formosa. But he decided against this move because he had already approved the daring plan General MacArthur had conceived to break out of our Pusan beachhead and seize the offensive in Korea. It called for an end run by sea around the North Korean army and a lightning amphibious landing at Inchon, on the west coast of Korea. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were deeply worried by the dangers involved in the plan. MacArthur’s landing force at Inchon was small - only two divisions - and the harbor was extremely tricky, with huge tides that rose and fell as much as twenty feet leaving miles of mud flats to be negotiated by our amphibious troops, if our timing went awry. But my father called it “a bold plan worthy of a master strategist,” and backed MacArthur to the hilt. To make the plan possible, he had withdrawn troops from Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Mediterranean, and handed them over to General MacArthur. Dad knew from his long study of military history that relieving a commander on the eve of battle inevitably damaged an army’s morale. He believed in General MacArthur’s ability to win the tremendous gamble at Inchon.

Win he did. On September 15, while everyone in the White House and the Pentagon sweated and prayed, the 1st Marine Division and the army’s 7th Infantry Division stormed ashore, achieving complete tactical surprise. Simultaneously, our troops inside the Pusan bridgehead took the offensive. By September 29, Seoul had been recaptured. Dad sent General MacArthur a telegram that communicated not only his congratulations but the close and knowledgeable attention he had paid to his tactics and strategy.

I know that I speak for the entire American people when I send you my warmest congratulations on the victory which has been achieved under your leadership in Korea. Few operations in military history can match either the delaying action, the way you traded space for time in which to build up your forces, or the brilliant maneuver which has now resulted in the liberation of Seoul.

The disintegration of the North Korean army was swift, as a result of General MacArthur’s smashing blow. All opposition below the 38th parallel evaporated. Unfortunately, many of their men succeeded in fleeing across the border into North Korea, although they had to abandon most of their weapons while doing so.

A major decision now had to be made. Should we cross the 38th parallel in hot pursuit of the enemy’s disorganized but by no means destroyed army? Was it possible that, by destroying this army, we could unite North and South Korea and create a free independent nation? The United Nations declared this was their goal, and on October 7, they voted resoundingly for a resolution calling for “a unified, independent and democratic government” of Korea.

This goal was in harmony with traditional military doctrine, that the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces was the only way to end a war. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, therefore, recommended MacArthur be authorized to operate in North Korea. But he was warned that this permission depended upon one enormously vital fact - that “there has been no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcement of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily in Korea.” At the same time, General MacArthur was requested to submit a plan of operations - a request which, he made it clear, he resented. He was also explicitly told by the Pentagon: “No non-Korean ground forces will be used in the northeast provinces bordering the Soviet Union or in the area along the Manchurian border.”

General MacArthur finally presented a plan of operations that was in entire harmony with these directives. He proposed to attack north until he had established a line about fifty miles above the enemy capital of Pyongyang. From there, if the situation warranted it, he would commit South Korean troops to occupy the remaining sixty miles of Korea between that point and the Yalu River.

Meanwhile, in Washington, ominous warnings filtered into the State Department from nations who were in contact with China. They all reported that the Communist government in Peking had declared they would send troops into Korea if American troops crossed the 38th parallel. My father immediately sent this warning to General MacArthur. The Chinese repeated the warning over their official government radio a few days later. General MacArthur, and his intelligence chief, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, dismissed it as political blackmail, designed to frighten the United Nations and prevent them from voting overwhelmingly in support of the resolution for a free unified Korea.

The more my father thought about the complex situation, and General MacArthur’s difficult personality and strong political opinions, the more he became convinced the President should have a personal talk with his Far East commander. He wanted to find out exactly what MacArthur planned to do in Korea. Above all, he wanted to give the General a realistic appraisal of what he and his administration were thinking about the whole world. He worried about the tendency of the General and his staff to think too exclusively of the Far East. They had been away from home too long.

At first, Dad thought of flying to Korea to visit the troops. But he decided this would take him away from Washington for a dangerously long period of time. He did not want to bring General MacArthur to Washington because that would separate him from his troops for an equally dangerous period. So the decision was made to meet at Wake Island, in the Pacific. It was a decision that gave General MacArthur only 1,900 miles to travel, and Dad 4,700.

Before he left, my father discussed with his aides the possibility of bringing along something General MacArthur might not be able to buy in Japan - some small present that would please him. Charlie Murphy found a young man in the Pentagon who had been MacArthur’s personal aide. He advised Charlie to take some Blum’s candy for Mrs. MacArthur. She was very fond of it and could not get it out there. Charlie bought five one-pound boxes and took them along on the plane. In Honolulu, Averell Harriman decided a five-pound box was better and bought one. So Dad’s party arrived bearing ten pounds of Blum’s goodwill candy.

Coming in to land at deserted, dusty Wake Island, they wondered for a moment if they had wasted their time. Dad, knowing General MacArthur’s imperial tendencies, thought the President should be the greeted, not the greeter. He had flown twice as far, and according to every standard of rank and protocol, General MacArthur, as the Far Eastern commander, should be on hand to welcome his commander in chief. Dad told the pilot of the Independence to check with ground control and find out if General MacArthur had already arrived. When this was affirmed, my father issued orders to land.

The plane taxied to the operations building, and everyone waited to see what would happen next. For a moment, their suspicions seemed to be realized. There was no sign of General MacArthur. Then he strolled out, wearing his famous battered hat and fatigues, the shirt open at the collar. He and Dad shook hands and drove to the office of the airline manager where they talked for an hour, alone.

My father summed up their conference in this memorandum which he dictated to his secretary, Rose Conway:

We arrived at dawn. General MacArthur was at the Airport with his shirt unbuttoned, wearing a greasy ham and eggs cap that evidently had been in use for twenty years.

He greeted the President cordially and after the photographers had finished their usual picture orgy the President and the General boarded an old two door sedan and drove to the quarters of the Airline Manager on the island.

For more than an hour they discussed the Japanese and Korean situation.

The General assured the President that the victory was won in Korea, that Japan was ready for a peace treaty and that the Chinese Communists would not attack.

A general discussion was carried on about Formosa. The General brought up his statement to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which had been ordered withdrawn by the President. The General said that he was sorry for any embarrassment he’d caused, that he was not in politics at the time and that the politicians had made a “chump” (his word) of him in 1948 and that it would not happen again. He assured the President that he had no political ambitions.

He again said the Chinese Commies would not attack, that we had won the war and that we could send a Division to Europe in January 1951.

My father now brought the General over to meet his advisers, who included Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, General Omar Bradley, Philip Jessup and Dean Rusk from the State Department, and Averell Harriman. There General MacArthur repeated much of what he had told Dad in private about Korea. By happy coincidence, we know exactly what he said in this much-debated meeting. Miss Vernice Anderson, Ambassador Jessup’s secretary, had been brought along to help in the drafting and final typing of a communiqué Dad planned to issue at the end of the meeting. Miss Anderson was waiting in the next room for this assignment, and the door was partially open. She could hear everything being said and took shorthand notes. Not because anyone ordered her to, but because she thought it would not hurt to have a record of the meeting.

“What are the chances for Chinese or Soviet interference?” my father asked.

“Very little,” General MacArthur said. “Had they interfered in the first or second months it would have been decisive. We are no longer fearful of their intervention. We no longer stand hat in hand. The Chinese have 300,000 men in Manchuria. Of these probably not more than 100 - 125,000 are distributed along the Yalu River. Only 50 - 60,000 could be gotten across the Yalu River. They have no air force. Now that we have bases for our air force in Korea, if the Chinese try to get down to Pyongyang there would be the greatest slaughter. . . . The Russians have no ground troops available for North Korea. The only possible combination would be Russian air support of Chinese ground troops. . . . I believe Russian air would bomb the Chinese as often as they would bomb us. . . . I believe it just wouldn’t work.”

General Bradley asked: “Could the 2nd or 3rd Division be made available to be sent over to Europe by January?”

“Yes,” General MacArthur said. “. . . I hope to get the Eighth Army back by Christmas.”

General MacArthur oozed optimism and goodwill. He urged Dad to proclaim a Truman Doctrine for the Far East, and told reporters, “No commander in the history of war has had more complete and admirable support from the agencies in Washington than I have during the Korean operation.”

My father gave the General the Blum’s candy for Mrs. MacArthur, they shook hands, and both climbed aboard their planes and headed back to work. In San Francisco the following day, Dad called the conference “very satisfactory.” In a speech at the San Francisco Opera House, he said that he talked to General MacArthur to make it perfectly clear . . . that there is complete unity in the aims and conduct of our foreign policy. . . . I want Wake Island to be a symbol of our unity of purpose for world peace. I want to see world peace from Wake Island west all the way around and back again. The only victory we seek is the victory of peace.

He called on the Soviet Union and its satellites to join in the search for peace by living up to the principles of the United Nations Charter.

Meanwhile, in Korea, alarming things began to happen. On October 26, a Chinese prisoner was captured. On October 30, sixteen Chinese were captured near Hamhung and they told an interpreter they had crossed the Yalu River on a train on October 16 - the day after the Wake Island conference where General MacArthur had dismissed the possibility of Chinese intervention. On November 1, the 8th Cavalry Regiment was attacked by masses of Chinese after receiving fire from mortars and Russian Katusha rockets. Fighting continued all night; the following day, when the regiment tried to retreat, they found more Chinese blocking the road. The regiment all but disintegrated in the chaotic fighting that ensued. Men fled into the hills and found their way south in small units. One battalion was trapped and almost completely annihilated. General Walton Walker, commander of the Eighth Army, sent a telegram to Tokyo describing “An ambush and surprise attack by fresh well-organized and well-trained units, some of which were Chinese Communist forces.”

The only response from Tokyo was an order to resume advancing.

Absorbed by the drama in Korea - and deeply concerned by the appearance of Chinese soldiers - my father paid little attention to newspaper stories reporting trouble in Puerto Rico. On October 29, fighting and shooting broke out in San Juan. The troublemakers were the tiny Independence party which numbered approximately 1,500. They had attempted to seize the government by armed force, but the insurrection - if it even deserved that word - was swiftly suppressed. It never occurred to Dad or to anyone around him that this outburst of violence would soon reach all the way to Washington.

For one thing, Harry S. Truman was very popular in Puerto Rico. On October 16, 1945, he had told Congress, “It is now time, in my opinion, to ascertain from the people of Puerto Rico their wishes as to the ultimate status which they prefer and within such limits as may be determined by Congress to grant to them the kind of government they desire.” Dad did not exclude the possibility of complete independence. On February 20, 1948, during a visit to San Juan, he said: “The Puerto Rican people should have the right to determine for themselves Puerto Rico’s political relationship to the United States.” Thanks to his urging, Congress passed laws which permitted Puerto Ricans to elect their own governor and other executive officers and create a constitution which gave the people of Puerto Rico control over their local affairs.

This did not satisfy fanatics of the Independence party. Overwhelmed at the polls by Muñoz Marin’s Popular Democratic Party, which favored the commonwealth status for the island, and the Statehood party which wanted Puerto Rico to become the forty-ninth state, the Indepentistas preached hatred of the Yanquis and called for violent revolution.

On October 31, two members of this party, Oscar Collazo and Girsel Torresola, came to Washington, D.C. The following morning, they took a tour of the city and learned, apparently for the first time, that my father was not in the White House but in Blair House. Both were armed. After lunch, they went back to their hotel, and Torresola gave Collazo a lesson in how to use a gun. Dad, meanwhile, had returned from a busy morning at the White House to lunch at Blair House with Mother and Grandmother Wallace. He then went upstairs to take his usual afternoon nap.

Ever since we had moved into Blair House, the Secret Service had worried about its exposed position. Fronting right on the street, it created nightmarish security problems. They did their best with a bad situation, stationing guards in booths at the west and east ends of the house. Secret Service men were stationed inside the house, and a White House policeman was always on the steps leading up to the front door.

At about two o’clock on the afternoon of November 1, Torresola and Collazo approached Blair House from opposite directions, Torresola from the west, Collazo from the east. They planned to meet at the house steps and charge inside together. When Collazo was about eight feet from the steps, he whipped out his gun and began firing at Private Donald T. Birdzell, who was stationed on the steps. The pistol misfired on the first shot, but the second pull of the trigger hit Private Birdzell in the right leg. He staggered into the street, drawing his gun. Collazo bolted for the front door, which was wide open. Only a screen door with a light latch on it was between him and the interior of the house. But the guards in the east booth were, thank God, on the alert, and their shots cut Collazo down on the second step. From the west booth, Private Leslie Coffelt fired another shot as Collazo tried to rise, and he toppled face down on the sidewalk.

A moment before he fired, Private Coffelt was struck in the chest and abdomen by two bullets from Torresola’s gun. Crouched in the hedge in front of Blair House, Torresola began blazing away at everyone. Another shot struck Private Birdzell in the left knee, toppling him to the street. Private Coffelt, in spite of his mortal wounds, managed to fire one more shot. The bullet struck Torresola in the head, killing him on the spot.

In three minutes, twenty-seven shots were fired. Upstairs in the front bedrooms, Dad and Mother were dressing to attend the dedication of a statue of Field Marshal Sir John Dill, the British member of the World War II Combined Chiefs of Staff. Mother, hearing the noise, strolled to the window and saw Private Birdzell lying in the street, blood streaming from his shattered leg. “Harry,” she gasped, “someone’s shooting our policemen.” My father rushed to the window while gunfire was still being exchanged with Torresola. A Secret Service agent looked up, saw him, and shouted: “Get back! Get back!”

Dad obeyed with alacrity.

Washington was swept by panicky rumors that the President and seven Secret Service men were dead. Dad remained perfectly calm and departed on schedule for the dedication of Field Marshal Dill’s statue in Arlington Cemetery. “A President has to expect these things,” he said.

Those words may be true enough, but a President’s daughter does not expect such things. I was scheduled to sing that night in Portland, Oregon. One firm rule I always followed on tour was seclusion on the day I sang. This practice was not my invention. Every concert singer shuts out all distractions and uses his or her voice as little as possible for ten or twelve hours before facing an audience. I spent that day following this routine, going over my program with my accompanist, having a light lunch of soup and toast and lying down after it, mentally rehearsing the phrasing of my selections. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book. I avoided the radio because I did not want to be distracted by music other than what I was planning to sing - or by more bad news from Korea. Toward the end of the afternoon. I got a phone call from Mother. She had decided it would be better if I didn’t hear about the assassination attempt before I sang that night. “I just wanted you to know that everyone is all right,” she said.

“Why shouldn’t everyone be all right?” I asked, immediately alarmed. “Is there anything wrong with Dad?”

“He’s fine. He’s perfectly fine,” Mother said.

I hung up with an uneasy feeling something was wrong. I don’t blame Mother for trying to keep the news from me. Fortunately, Reathel Odum and my manager talked it over and decided it would be a mistake to let me go to the concert hall without knowing the truth. If a local reporter started questioning me, minutes before I stepped on the stage, the shock would inevitably have a devastating effect on my singing. Not without some trepidation, they told me the news and showed me the afternoon papers. As soon as I found out Dad was all right, I was quite calm. But the thought of someone trying to kill him made me uneasy for days.

I learned in the course of my research for this book that there had been other attempts on Dad’s life, which he never mentioned to me. One of the most serious - at least it was so regarded by the Secret Service - was a warning they received from the mayor of a large city. His police had received a tip someone would try to kill Dad with a high-powered rifle as he crossed the field at the Army-Navy football game. It is customary for the President to sit on the Army side of the field during one half and on the Navy side of the field during the other half. The Secret Service watches the White House mail closely, and they can often relate such a warning to other crank threats which have not been carried out and can, therefore, to some extent at least, be disregarded. But this one was obviously from a lone wolf - the most dangerous kind. Dad insisted he was going to walk across the field, come what may. So the Secret Service men could only double their usual precautions. They had men stationed at every conceivable point throughout the stadium where a rifleman might position himself. Dad strode across the field, smiling and waving to the crowd, unbothered by the incident. Surely the Secret Service men held their breath until he was safely seated on the other side of the field.

In the summer of 1947, the so-called Stern gang of Palestine terrorists tried to assassinate Dad by mail. A number of cream-colored envelopes, about eight by six inches, arrived in the White House, addressed to the President and various members of the staff. Inside them was a smaller envelope marked “Private and Confidential.” Inside that second envelope was powdered gelignite, a pencil battery and a detonator rigged to explode the gelignite when the envelope was opened. Fortunately, the White House mail room was alert to the possibility such letters might arrive. The previous June, at least eight were sent to British government officials, including Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and former Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. The British police exploded one of these experimentally and said it could kill, or at the very least maim, anyone unlucky enough to open it. The mail room turned the letters over to the Secret Service, and they were defused by their bomb experts.

Let us return to that equally painful subject, the war in Korea. Throughout the last days of October and the first days of November, the situation continued to slide toward disaster. Other American units began reporting contact with the Chinese. There were obviously large numbers of them already in action. On November 6, the day before the 1950 elections, General MacArthur issued a demand to bomb the Yalu River bridges. Men and material were pouring across them, and he said, “This movement not only jeopardizes but threatens the ultimate destruction of the forces under my command.” With great reluctance, Dad gave him permission to destroy the Korean end of the bridges. But General Bradley pointed out to my father that within fifteen to twenty days the Yalu would be frozen, and the bombardment, so frantically insisted upon by General MacArthur, was hardly worth the risk of bombs dropping in Chinese or Soviet territory. The following day General MacArthur reported enemy planes were engaging in hit-and-run raids across the Yalu and demanded the right to pursue them into their “sanctuary.” Panic reigned in the UN until my father categorically rejected this request, which could only have widened the war. General MacArthur did not seem to realize our planes were flying from privileged sanctuaries in Japan which could have been attacked by Russian or Chinese aircraft if we gave them the pretext by bombing targets in Manchuria.

The Election Day timing of these remarks, and General MacArthur’s subsequent actions, made Dad and many members of his staff wonder if their intention was not largely political. They cost the Democrats votes in the election - a lot of votes. The Senate majority leader, Scott Lucas, lost in Illinois. Senator Francis Myers, the Democratic whip, lost in Pennsylvania, and Millard Tydings lost in Maryland in one of the most scurrilous campaigns in American history. The really evil genius in that election was Joe McCarthy and his aides, who circulated faked pictures purporting to show Senator Tydings conversing with Earl Browder, head of the Communist party. It was a triumph of hatred and of fear.

After sounding the alarm about Chinese intervention in the gravest possible terms, General MacArthur now did a complete flip-flop. He decided he could resume his advance to the Yalu. The Joint Chiefs of Staff nervously asked him to remember he was under orders to use only Republic of Korea troops in these northern provinces. General MacArthur replied he was using Americans for the advance but would withdraw them as soon as he had cleared the area. This was a definite act of disobedience. But the Joint Chiefs were far more worried about MacArthur’s appalling strategy. He had divided his army into two parts, sending one up the eastern side of Korea, the other up the west, separated by a massive mountain barrier that made liaison impossible. He called it “a general offensive” to “win the war” and predicted the troops “will eat Christmas dinner at home.” In one communiqué, he described his advance as “a massive compression envelopment.” In another report, he called it “the giant U.N. pincer.”

During these fateful weeks, my father did not receive the kind of support and advice he deserved, either from the Joint Chiefs or from the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. Dean Acheson admits as much in his memoirs. General Matthew Ridgway revealed, a few years ago, the kind of atmosphere that prevailed in the Pentagon. He told of sitting through hours-long discussions in the Joint Chiefs War Room reviewing the alarming situation in Korea. Everyone feared MacArthur was plunging toward disaster, but no one had the courage to speak out. Finally, General Ridgway, who was not a member of the Joint Chiefs and therefore without a vote, asked for permission to speak. He declared they owed it “to the men in the field and to the God to whom we must answer for those men’s lives to stop talking and to act.” The only answer he received was silence.

Later, General Ridgway buttonholed General Hoyt Vandenberg, commander of the air force. “Why don’t the Joint Chiefs send orders to MacArthur and tell him what to do?”

Vandenberg shook his head. “What good would that do? He wouldn’t obey the orders. What can we do?”

“You can relieve any commander who won’t obey orders, can’t you?” General Ridgway exclaimed.

General Vandenberg gave General Ridgway a look that was, Ridgway says, “both puzzled and amazed.” Then he walked away without saying a word.

Early on November 28, General Bradley called to give my father bad news from Korea. The Chinese had struck the UN army with masses of troops, and so began one of the grimmest days Dad spent as President. Fortunately for history, one of America’s best reporters, John Hersey, was in the White House doing a series of articles on the President and he preserved an accurate record of my father’s reaction to this crisis.

He remained calm. The staff met for their usual morning meeting, and Dad discussed a number of routine problems with them. Then in a quiet voice, he told them what was happening. “We’ve got a terrific situation on our hands. General Bradley told me a terrible message had come from General MacArthur. MacArthur said there were 260,000 Chinese troops against him out there. He says he’s stymied. He says he has to go over to the defensive. It’s no longer a question of a few so-called volunteers. The Chinese have come in with both feet.”

Everyone sat there, stunned into silence.

“I’m going to meet with the Cabinet this afternoon,” Dad said. “General Bradley will be there to discuss the situation. General Marshall is going to meet with the State and Treasury people. Acheson is informing the congressional committees. It may be necessary to deliver a special message in a few days declaring a national emergency. I want to have that meeting with the congressional leaders you were talking about, Murphy. Let’s not wait until Monday; let’s arrange it for Friday.”

It was clear to everyone what a great disappointment this news was to my father. Then in the same quiet voice he went on: “This is the worst situation we have had yet. We’ll just have to meet it as we’ve met all the rest. I’ve talked already this morning with Bradley, Marshall, Acheson, Harriman and Snyder, and they all agree with me that we’re capable of meeting this thing. I know you fellows will work with us on it, and that we’ll meet it.”

Crisply, Dad asked his staff to begin preparing the declaration of emergency, an appropriations message, and a speech to the people. Then he began signing documents while he continued to talk. “The liars have accomplished their purpose. The whole campaign of lies we have been seeing in this country has brought about its result. I’m talking about the crowd of vilifiers who have been trying to tear us apart in this country. Pravda had an article just the other day crowing about how the American government is divided, and how our people are divided, in hatred. Don’t worry, they keep a close eye on our dissensions. . . .”

He finished signing the documents and handed them back to Bill Hopkins, his executive clerk. “We have got to meet this thing just as we’ve met everything else,” he said, “and we will. We will! Let’s go ahead now and do our jobs as best we can.”

During these awful days, my father remained loyal to his Far Eastern commander. On November 30, he wrote on his calendar: “This has been a hectic month. General Mac, as usual has been shooting off his mouth. He made a pre-election statement that cost us votes and he made a postelection statement that has him in hot water in Europe and at home. I must defend him and save his face even if he has tried on various and numerous occasions to cut mine off. But I must stand by my subordinates. . . .”

By now, the terrible truth about massive Chinese intervention in Korea was visible to everyone, including General MacArthur. Only the prudent generalship of his subordinate commanders, especially Walton Walker, leader of the Eighth Army, prevented the Chinese ambush from becoming a gigantic trap that could easily have destroyed the whole United Nations army. Both he and the commanders of the Xth Corps, operating on the western side of Korea, suspected a Chinese ambush and advanced with far more caution and with careful attention to lines of retreat than the supreme commander in Tokyo considered necessary. General Walker was, in fact, showered with rather abusive messages from Tokyo, asking him why he wasn’t advancing faster.

When the Chinese struck in force, General MacArthur again plunged from optimism to panic. “We face an entirely new war,” he reported on November 28, adding, “this command . . . is now faced with conditions beyond its control and strength.” On December 3, he declared, “This small command is facing the entire Chinese nation in undeclared war. Unless some positive and immediate action is taken, hope for success cannot be justified, and steady attrition leading to final destruction can reasonably be contemplated.” He called for “political decisions and strategic plans and implementation thereof adequate fully to meet the realities involved.” Again, he was demanding the right to attack Chinese bases and supply lines in Manchuria.

We now know this panic was unnecessary. Thanks to the skill of his field commanders, the Eighth Army and the Xth Corps executed fighting retreats that enabled them to escape the Chinese trap relatively undamaged. When the Xth Corps evacuated the North Korean port of Hungnam, they took out 105,000 troops, 91,000 Korean refugees, more than 17,000 vehicles, and several hundred thousand tons of cargo. The Eighth Army fell back toward the 38th parallel with the 2nd Division fighting a ferocious rear guard action. We suffered a defeat that cost us about 13,000 killed and wounded - less than 5 percent of the UN army.

My father did not lose faith in General MacArthur because of this defeat. He was the last man in the world to give up on a subordinate because he was in trouble. What dismayed him was the General’s frantic attempts to protect his public image by dumping the blame for the defeat on others - notably the President of the United States. Between November 28 and December 3, MacArthur gave at least seven interviews to various journalists explaining away - or trying to explain away - what was happening in Korea. All these statements only rephrased the story he gave to U.S. News and World Report. His inability to bomb Manchuria was “an enormous handicap without precedent in military history.”

“I should have fired MacArthur then and there,” my father has said. But he had too much respect for the General’s long service to his country and his outstanding military record. He did not want to fire him in the aftermath of a defeat. Instead, Dad ordered the Joint Chiefs to send General MacArthur a new directive, which was applicable to all military officers overseas. It instructed him that “no speech, press release or public statement” about the policy of the United States should be issued without first clearing it with Washington.

In his November 30 press conference, my father defended the General vigorously. Edward T. Folliard of the Washington Post asked Dad what he thought of the criticism of General MacArthur in the European press.

“They are always for a man when he is winning, but when he is in a little trouble, they all jump on him with what ought to be done, which they didn’t tell him before. He has done a good job, and is continuing to do a good job.”

“The particular criticism,” Folliard added, “is that he exceeded his authority and went beyond the point he was supposed to go.”

“He did nothing of the kind,” my father said.

At this same press conference, Tony Leviero asked Dad if attacks in Manchuria would depend on action in the United Nations.

“Yes, entirely,” Dad said.

“In other words,” Leviero continued, “if the United Nations resolution should authorize General MacArthur to go further than he has, he will . . .”

“We will take whatever steps are necessary to meet the military situation, just as we always have.”

“Will that include the atomic bomb?” Jack Dougherty of the New York Daily News asked.

“That includes every weapon that we have,” my father said.

Paul R. Leach of the Chicago Daily News asked: “Mr. President, you said every weapon that we have. Does that mean that there is active consideration of the use of the atomic bomb?”

“There has always been active consideration of its use. I don’t want to see it used,” my father said. “It is a terrible weapon and it should not be used on innocent men, women and children who have nothing whatever to do with this military aggression.”

The press conference wandered off to other matters, and then Merriman Smith of the United Press asked: “Mr. President, I wonder if we could retrace that reference to the atom bomb? Did we understand you clearly that the use of the bomb is under active consideration?”

“Always has been,” Dad said. “It is one of our weapons.”

The truth, of course, as Dad had indicated in his previous comment, was that the atomic bomb would be used only as a last desperate resource. But he hoped the threat of using it would force the Chinese to move more cautiously.

Now the reporters, sniffing a story, really went to work on him. “Does that mean, Mr. President, use against military objectives or civilian?” Robert G. Nixon of International News Service asked. The question penned my father into a corner. He tried to extricate himself by saying that was “a matter that the military people have to decide. I’m not a military authority that passes on those things.”

My father was thinking of the way targets were selected for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. He had ordered his military advisers to select authentic military targets, and they had done so. He was trying to avoid the implication that he or anyone else would willingly drop a bomb on a purely civilian target. He was trying to do this in a nice way, without cutting down Bob Nixon.

“Mr. President,” said Frank Bourgholtzer, “you said this depends on United Nations action. Does that mean that we wouldn’t use the atomic bomb except under United Nations authorization?”

This question tried to pin Dad into another corner. Numerous congressmen, mostly Republicans, were extremely touchy about the agreements which President Roosevelt had made with the British, giving them a say in the use of the atom bomb. When those agreements expired in 1946, Congress had absolutely refused to renew them. In fact, their intransigence had forced Dad to break off all direct relations with British research in atomic energy. Struggling to avoid giving his home-front critics political ammunition, Dad replied: “No, it doesn’t mean that at all. The action against Communist China depends on the action of the United Nations. The military commander in the field will have charge of the use of weapons, as he always has.”

Here my father was trying to say that even a UN army had permission to use all the weapons in its arsenal, if its survival was at stake.

None of the reporters tried to pursue these questions beyond the single answer my father gave them. There was no indication the subject was considered the main theme of the press conference. They again went on to other things, and the conference ended with a plea from Dad for the reporters and the nation to understand that “we have exerted every effort possible to prevent a third World War. Every maneuver that has been made since June 25 has had in mind not to create a situation which would cause another terrible war. We are still trying to prevent that war from happening.”

The reporters departed and within minutes, the UP began carrying the following bulletin: “PRESIDENT TRUMAN SAID TODAY THE UNITED STATES HAS UNDER CONSIDERATION USE OF THE ATOMIC BOMB IN CONNECTION WITH WAR IN KOREA.”

The AP was just as bad: “PRESIDENT TRUMAN SAID TODAY ACTIVE CONSIDERATION IS BEING GIVEN TO USE OF THE ATOMIC BOMB AGAINST THE CHINESE COMMUNISTS IF THAT STEP IS NECESSARY.”

Only much later in the message did the AP explain the context of Dad’s remarks on the atomic bomb and make it clear they were not in the prepared statement which he had made on Chinese intervention, at the beginning of the conference. Charlie Ross hastily summoned reporters to his office and sternly told them the story’s implication - that new consideration of the atomic bomb was in the works, because of the Chinese intervention - was simply not true.

Meanwhile, the AP ticker kept piling distortion on distortion: “HE SAID . . . THE DECISION WHETHER TO DROP ATOMIC BOMB WAS ONE FOR THE COMMANDER IN THE FIELD.”

From New York, the AP sent orders to its Washington Bureau to jump this to the top of the story. It now read as follows:

FIRST LEAD TRUMAN KOREA

WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 30TH – (AP) PRESIDENT TRUMAN SAID TODAY USE OF THE ATOMIC BOMB IN KOREA HAS ALWAYS BEEN UNDER CONSIDERATION – AND WHETHER IT IS USED IS UP TO AMERICAN MILITARY LEADERS IN THE FIELD. . . .

An appalled Charlie Ross hastily put together a clarifying statement - but the damage had been done. The afternoon papers carried huge headlines making it sound as if my father were shipping A-bombs to MacArthur with a carte blanche to use them - the last thing in the world he would have done at such a moment. In Europe, the story created an even bigger sensation. Italian papers declared bombers loaded with atom weapons were ready to take off from Japanese airfields. The Times of India ran an editorial under the heading, “NO, NO, NO.” London went into the biggest flap. The House of Commons had been debating foreign policy for two days, and Churchill and other Conservative leaders had been urging Prime Minister Attlee to go to America and confer with my father on Britain’s numerous problems. When the news of the atom bomb story reached the House, the left wing of the Labour party immediately circulated a petition, which collected a hundred signatures, declaring if Attlee supported Dad’s supposed atomic intentions, they would bolt the party and bring down the government. A panicked Attlee announced he would fly to Washington immediately.

It was all ridiculous, and very disheartening. Douglas Cater in his book, The Fourth Branch of the Government, about the relationship between the free press and the government, called the handling of this story a journalistic lapse that bordered on “complete irresponsibility.”

Naturally, the person on whom this atomic flap took the most terrible toll was Charlie Ross. Inevitably, he felt responsible for his fellow newsmen’s lapse. He thought he should have anticipated the question or asked Dad to clarify his remarks before the press conference ended. Charlie had been press secretary for more than five grueling years. “This job is like a prison,” he wrote a friend on May 2, 1950. But he added, “The work remains, of course, extraordinarily interesting.”

Charlie suffered from severe arthritis, and he also had a bad heart. He was at the top of Dr. Graham’s worry list. After he wrote that letter, Charlie and the rest of the White House staff were plunged into the multiple crises of the Korean War. Then came the exhausting trip to Wake Island and the shock of the attempted assassination. Finally, on Monday, December 4, Prime Minister Attlee came hurtling into Washington for a summit conference which only increased the already impossible pressure - especially on Charlie.

The first day of my father’s talks with the prime minister made it clear Attlee’s trip had been unnecessary. There were no real disagreements on any of the world problems they were facing together. But a very garbled account of the first day’s meeting was published in a London paper. Several reporters asked Charlie to give them a more factual briefing on what was really being said. The following day, Charlie discussed this problem with Dad and got permission to tell the reporters everything that did not endanger our security. After lunch that day, aboard the yacht Williamsburg with leaders of Congress, Dad and Attlee spent the afternoon discussing the problem of maintaining the Allied coalition in the United Nations, in the face of the new Chinese aggression. Charlie arrived back at the White House in the early evening and gave forty reporters a detailed account of the day’s discussions. He did his usual masterful job. Then he was buttonholed by TV newsmen and asked to repeat some of the things he had said for their cameras. Charlie wearily agreed and sat down at his desk, while they set up a microphone on it. His secretary, Myrtle Bergheim, started kidding him, in the usual style of the Truman White House. “Don’t mumble,” she said.

“You know I always speak very distinctly,” Charlie replied.

Suddenly, the cigarette he had just lit fell from his lips. He slumped back in his chair. Miss Bergheim immediately dialed Dr. Graham’s number, and he sprinted from his office in the main part of the White House. In less than a minute, he was giving Charlie oxygen and administering a heart stimulant. But it was too late. “He was gone,” Dr. Graham said, “before I got there.”

Dad was shattered by the news. It seemed at the time like the last possible thing that could go wrong. He knew better than anyone how totally and unstintingly Charlie had given of himself in his job. Sadly, Dad sat down at his desk and wrote out in longhand a statement which is, I think, one of the most moving things he ever put down on paper.

The friend of my youth, who became a tower of strength when the responsibilities of high office so unexpectedly fell to me, is gone. To collect one’s thoughts to pay tribute to Charles Ross in the face of this tragic dispensation is not easy. I knew him as a boy and as a man. In our high school years together he gave promise of these superb intellectual powers which he attained in after life. Teachers and students alike acclaimed him as the best all-around scholar our school had produced.

His years of preparation were followed by an early maturity of usefulness. In the many roles of life he played his part with exalted honor and an honesty of purpose from which he never deviated. To him as a newspaperman truth was ever mighty as he pursued his work from Washington to the capitals of Europe to the far continents.

Here at the White House the scope of his influence extended far beyond his varied and complex and always exacting duties as secretary to the President. He was in charge of press and radio, a field which steadily broadened in recent years with continuous advance in the technique of communications. It was characteristic of Charlie Ross that he was holding a press conference when the summons came. We all knew that he was working far beyond his strength. But he would have it so. He fell at his post, a casualty of his fidelity to duty and his determination that our people should know the truth, and all the truth, in these critical times.

His exacting duties did not end with his work as press secretary. More and more, all of us came to depend on the counsel on questions of high public policy which he could give out of the wealth of his learning, his wisdom and his far-flung experience. Patriotism and integrity, honor and honesty, lofty ideals and nobility of intent were his guides and ordered his life from boyhood onward. He saw life steady and saw it whole. We shall miss him as a public servant and mourn him as a friend.

After the statement was typed, Dad walked down the short corridor to the lounge where the reporters were waiting. They formed a semicircle around him, and he began to read the words, “The friend of my youth, who became a tower of . . .”

He could not go on. “Ah, hell,” he said, and threw the typed words down on the table in front of the reporters. “I can’t read this thing. You fellows know how I feel anyway.”

His head bowed, Dad walked out of the room.