In two more days I complete my first year as President. As I look back on my hopes of a year ago, I have mixed feelings. In some instances progress has been greater, associations more agreeable, and problems really easier than I had anticipated. In many other instances, the exact reverse has been true.
It would be difficult in a hurriedly written memorandum accurately to classify as satisfying or disappointing all of the incidents of the past year, or the personalities with whom I have dealt. However, since events and personalities are rarely disassociated one from the other, it would perhaps be easier to talk about personalities--individually and collectively--and in so doing speak both of the gratifying and the discouraging parts of my year's experience.1
First, to be completely personal in the sense that the vertical pronoun implies.
When Mamie and I came to the White House, we probably had a fairly good understanding of what living in it would be. The prominent military positions I had occupied for some years had given me some experience that definitely, even though faintly, resembles that through which a President is compelled to live. This was especially true when I was abroad Commanding at SHAEF in World War II, and later as Commander at SHAPE. In both those positions, I led a fairly lonely life, the first time living only with my aides, and the second time with Mamie at Marnes-La-Coquette. We could not visit in restaurants, theatres, or other public places with the same freedom that is enjoyed by the ordinary citizen; problems of security, of protocol, and of autographing were always with us. The finding of time necessary for health and recreation was always difficult.
We knew all of these difficulties would be multiplied in White House existence, but at least we were psychologically prepared for them.
The other side of this particular picture is that after discharging normal hospitality and entertainment obligations, the President and his Lady have the privilege of inviting anyone to the White House and have accomodations there to take care of quite a number of people. Since most people like to visit the place at least once, it is normally easy to call upon old friends to come in and share a bit of personal life with the occupants.
So much for that.2
The members of the Cabinet and heads of principal supporting agencies were selected before the Inauguration. The only one of my selectees of last year who proved to be a disappointment to me was Secretary Durkin.3 He could never free himself of the feeling that he was placed in the Cabinet to be a "trade unionist." He referred to his conferences here as "collective bargaining." I liked him personally and did my best to get him to adopt an attitude of serving the entire people, and to do so with his rich background and experience in the whole labor movement. This he could not do, and so I suppose it was inevitable that finally he should become unhappy and leave. His replacement, Mr. Mitchell, measures up, in my opinion, to the caliber of the other members of the Cabinet.4
As for the Cabinet as now constituted, I cannot think of a single position that I could strengthen by removal of the present incumbent and appointing another. I trust this will be so for the next three years, but, of course, in human affairs of this kind one is sometimes compelled to change his mind.
By no means do I mean to imply that anyone of my associates is perfect in his job--any more than I deem myself to be perfectly suited to my own. I merely mean to say that I have had a good many years of experience in selecting people for positions of heavy responsibility, and I think that the results so far achieved by this Cabinet and by other close associates, justify my conviction that we have an extraordinarily good combination of personalities.5
This group has played a big part in legislative accomplishments of the past year. The list of those accomplishments is rather long and in many respects very gratifying. The record has been given in numbers of talks; I mentioned them specifically in a television talk only a couple of weeks ago.6 For the record, I list below--taken from that talk--what I consider the major achievements of the last year:
"1. The fighting and the casualties in Korea have come to an end.
"2. Our own defenses and those of the free world have been strengthened against Communist aggression.
"3. The highest security standards are being insisted upon for those employed in Government service.
"4. Requests for new appropriations have been reduced by 13 billion dollars.
"5. Tax reductions which go into effect this month have been made financially feasible by substantial reductions in expenditures.
"6. Strangling controls on our economy have been removed.
"7. The fantastic paradox of farm prices, on a toboggan slide, while living costs soared skyward, has ceased.
"8. The cheapening of inflation of every dollar you earn, every savings account and insurance policy you own, and every pension payment you receive has been halted.
"9. The proper working relationship between the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal Government has been made effective.
"10. Emergency immigration legislation has been enacted.
"11. A strong and consistent policy has been developed toward gaining and retaining the initiative in foreign affairs.
"12. A plan to harness atomic energy to the peaceful service of mankind, and to help end the climate of suspicion and fear that excites nations to war, has been proposed to the world."
Above and beyond those achievements, everybody has worked tirelessly to have a program ready for submission to the Congress when it convened this month. I outlined that program in my State of the Union speech on January 7th, and special parts of it have been amplified in almost daily messages sent to the Congress.7 All in all, I deem it to be a program that is sound and progressive, and I believe that a large part of it will be enacted by the Congress.
Beyond all this, I think that the individuals in the Cabinet and in other important offices like each other. At least I can detect no sign of mutual dislike among the group. I know that I like them all; I like to be with them; I like to converse with them; and I like their attitude toward their duty and toward governmental service. All together, therefore, my experiences with the Cabinet members have been gratifying officially and most satisfying personally.
It could not be expected, of course, that my relationship with legislative leaders would be on quite as satisfying a plane as those with the Cabinet. In the latter case, I was personally responsible for the selections, and naturally chose no one whose political philosophy I found to be diametrically opposed to my own, and certainly I chose no one whose personality I thought would clash with those of his associates. On the other hand, legislative leaders, being elected in their own right, feel a certain independence in thought and in indulging their own particular theories of government. Particularly in late years the ties of party allegiance have been weakened. Occasionally, during the year, differences with members of my own party were even more pronounced and deep-seated than with some of the others.8
Having said this, it is, however, only fair also to say that relationships with these people have been on the whole better than I anticipated. Before I announced publicly (January 1952) that I adhered to a Republican philosophy (which admittedly may have been my own interpretation of Republican philosophy), I was quite well aware of some of the deep-seated differences that would separate me, in the event of a successful election, from some of the House and Senate leaders.9
Others were aware of these deep-seated differences. In the years between 1946 and 1952, whenever I was approached by Democrats urging that I declare political allegiance to that party, one of their arguments was that I would be further separated in political philosophy from such people as Senators Jenner, McCarthy, Millikin, Bridges, Langner10 and others than I would from the Democratic leaders.
Of all the legislative leaders with whom I thought, in advance, that I would have constant trouble, there was none with whom incessant difficulty seemed more probable than with Senator Taft. While Senator Taft was, as I saw him, far more personal in his attitude toward politics than I could ever be, yet in his case the exact reverse came about.11
For many weeks before he died last July, I considered him my ablest associate on the Hill, and indeed one of the stalwarts of the Administration. His loyalty was given as a matter of intellectual agreement and, as he once told me, in the spirit of fair play and in his conviction that we were in general trying to travel the same road. I found him to be far less reactionary that I had judged him to be from a reading of his speeches and public statements. In some things I found him extraordinarily "leftish." This applied specifically to his attitude toward old-age pensions. He told me that he believed every individual in the United States, upon reaching the age of 65, should automatically go on a minimum pension basis, paid by the Federal government. He wanted us to proceed more rapidly than we actually did in revising military planning and policy and resulting organization; nevertheless his actual recommendations closely paralleled the conclusions that we reached as a body. The difference is that we feel we have statistical analyses for sound conclusions on which to base our program, whereas he wanted to do it because it was "different" from what "that man Truman advocated."12
In actual practice, whenever differences developed between the White House and some of our Republican Senators on matters of importance, we could count on Senator Taft to assert his great influence to bring them into line.
After his death no one of real strength has shown up on the Senate side. Knowland means to be helpful and loyal, but he is cumbersome.13 He does not have the sharp mind and the great experience that Taft did. Consequently he does not command the respect in the Senate that Senator Taft enjoyed. Senator Dirksen seems radically to have changed his attitude toward international affairs and is now seemingly disposed to go along with the Administration as its supporter and lieutenant.14 If this continues, he may well soon become the most effective man, from our standpoint, in the Senate. Senator Bridges, Senator Millikin, Senator Saltonstall and other experienced legislators are men of good will toward the Administration, but they are not natural leaders--and their theory of legislation is by "trading" and therefore modifying and placating. They do not seem to realize when there arrives that moment at which soft speaking should be abandoned and a fight to the end undertaken. Any man who hopes to exercise leadership must be ready to meet this requirement face to face when it arises; unless he is ready to fight when necessary, people will finally begin to ignore him.
In the House the situation is considerably different. People there are more organizational-minded and seemingly look with some scorn on the "individualistic" attitude of the average Senator. We have two splendid men in Joe Martin and especially in our Majority Leader, Charlie Halleck. He is smart, capable and courageous. On top of this he is a team player and is a loyal one. A number of the Committee Chairmen are far below his standard, but so great are his powers of persuasion that it is rarely indeed that he cannot produce for us a good showing on any proposition that is important to us.
One third of the Senate and all of the Congress will be up for election this fall.15
Right now it seems to me that the Republicans are going through an anxious period. They are watching the public to see how it reacts to the program that has been sought by the Administration and whether, through that program, my personal popularity will suffer a decline in the country. By and large they will soon have to make the choice to support or to defy that program--which means to support or to defy me.
This is a tough one for some of them because the program cannot please everybody, and no attempt was made to have it do so. But the entire Administration is devoted to the task of selling this program to the people in general--we hope that we shall be sufficiently successful so that these hopeful Congressmen and Senators will see that their bread is buttered on the Administration side.
Another group to be considered is the Press Corps, in which I include not only representatives of the newspapers, but of television, radio and newsreels. The members of this group are far from being as important as they themselves consider, but on the other hand, they have a sufficient importance--and particularly in the eyes of the average Washington office holder--to insure that much government time is consumed in courting favor with them and in dressing up ideas and programs so that they look as saleable as possible. (For example, I am right now scheduled to go to a cocktail party--something I have not attended in twenty years--for the Washington Press Corps and given by the Senatorial Committee on Elections. I am to drop in for the purpose, I suppose, of showing that I am not too high hat to do so.)16
On the whole the press group violates the old adage "Always take your job seriously, never yourself." This old saw they largely apply in reverse. As a result they have little sense of humor and because of this they deal in negative criticism rather than in any attempt toward constructive helpfulness.
I once heard that human minds are divided into three great classes, depending upon the kind of subject in which the greatest intellectual interest is taken. The essayist contended that the highest type of mind was concerned with philosophies and ideas and their application to the problems of life. He thought the second class of mind was concerned with the physical things about us, the products of our industry, the natural resources of the country, the machines we use, the food that we eat, and so on. The third class he thought was concerned primarily with personalities. This kind of mind is the one, he said, that enjoys gossip.
If this kind of thing has any semblance of truth in it, I would say that it does not speak well for the average writer of the press. They love to deal in personalities; in their minds personalities make stories.
I suspect that most of these men took up writing as a career for a peculiar purpose. Everybody loves distinction. If a writer can achieve a by-line in the paper for which he writes, he gets a certain thrill out of seeing his name in black type at the head of his own column every day. Beyond this, everybody likes the feeling of authority. There is a quality that has been described as an authorial omnipotence. When the author succeeds in having his words published, there is normally no chance for refutation by anyone. Consequently, the author feels that his word is authoritative and that as a result he has a great influence on world events. (At least both words come from a common root.)
If any or all of these things are true, it could account for the extraordinary amount of distortion and gross error that characterizes so much of what appears in the newspapers. For more than 12 years I have been, in one capacity or another, at spots in the world that have been considered newsworthy. Consequently I have seen, when they occurred, the actual incidents reported, or I have clearly understood the motives of the individuals written about. Rarely is such writing accurate.
I have had opportunities in the busy years to read only a few newspapers, so I do not generalize too far. In the papers that I have read it seems to me that the Herald Tribune of New York observes higher standards in this regard than do most others.17 From what I have seen of the Philadelphia Bulletin, it has very high standards too--and there are undoubtedly others in the country. But the Herald Tribune is one that I have had the opportunity to watch closely.
Other papers--the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and many others--have larger and more wide-spread reporting staffs, have bigger circulations, and in many ways are more elaborate and better done newspapers than is the Herald Tribune.18 But in this one basic qualification--the degree of accurate reporting--these others do not, in my opinion, approach the Herald Tribune.
As there are differences in papers in this regard, I think there are, of course, differences in individuals. I have known some people whom I consider very great reporters. Some I have known only slightly; some almost intimately. In Washington today I think certain ones observe the very highest standards of fairness, accuracy and objectivity. Among them are Drummond, Krock, Arrowsmith, Clark, Lucey, Darby, and a chap named Donovan. Others who seem to me to be very good are Merriman Smith, Leviero, and one or two more.19
In past years I have known such people as Virgil Pinkley, Charlie Werternbecker, Thor Smith, Wes Gallagher, Drew Middleton, and a few others who I always felt were unimpeachably honest and straight-forward.20 The fact remains, however, that today I believe that the newspaper profession and the public it serves are getting a very poor return in accurate reporting out of the very great amount of money that they must devote to meeting, in the aggregate, the costs of the Washington Corps.
Most Washington officials learn enough eventually that they stop reading articles about themselves and their departments, whether favorable or unfavorable.
I think I might recite a story that I heard yesterday from my minister, Dr. Elson.21
"Some years back, a prominent Bostonian felt that he had been maligned by a writer in a local newspaper. He was angry and determined to avenge himself against the offender. To determine what action to take he went to see his friend, Dr. Edward Everett, and told him of the circumstances.
"He ended his account with a question, really several questions. He asked, `Should I call the man out? should I sue him? should I sue the newspaper?--just exactly what is the best way to go about the matter?'
"After some thought Dr. Everett answered, `Do nothing. Ignore him.'
"He went on. `This paper is not very widely read. Of those that read it, half will not read this story. Of those that read the story, half will not understand what this man is driving at. Of those that understand it, half will not believe it. Of those that believe it, half will be people whose opinion means nothing whatsoever to you. So why worry?'"
Scarcely could I end this particular memorandum without saying something of my personal staff. Yesterday someone brought to me an article by a man who criticized my staff severely (me also, of course). His castigation of the staff was that it was completely undistinguished and lacking both color and wisdom. Moreover, he said that it was nothing but an assembly here in Washington of the various characters who had travelled my campaign train with me in '52. In a sense this last may be true. But I wonder if the writer thought that I should have selected for travelling on my campaign train people whom I despised and for whom I had no respect intellectually or otherwise.
Actually the staff--(and I have been used to for many years really brilliant staff work)--has performed magnificently. Sherman Adams has grown into the job that he has, and in a very definite sense has created it as he went along.22 Honesty, directness and efficiency have begun to win him friends among people who initially were prone to curse him because he had no time for flattery or cajolery, or even pleasantries over the telephone. Supporting him is a group composed of Persons, Shanley, Hauge, Stephens, Hagerty, Cutler and Jackson.
Each of these men is an extremely capable individual, apt, loyal and energetic. Immediately supporting them is another layer of such people as Martin, Morgan, Harlow, Minnich and so on.23
Going even further, I have, so far, heard not a single complaint as to misconduct, disloyalty or any other kind of indiscretion or offense on the part of any of the people that we brought to the White House with us last January. On the contrary I have heard them consistently praised and complimented by legislators and by a vast army of friends throughout the country.
(So again I must ignore the conclusions of the critical writer.)
During the year we lost Emmet Hughes, who was very capable in assisting me in all the chores having to do with reports, letters and public talks.24 Soon we are to lose C. D. Jackson, who has been my personal adviser in the field of psychological warfare.25
A real tragedy has been the sickness of General Carroll.26 Liked and respected by every member of the staff, he was responsible for establishing a secretariat, which the White House had never had and which was badly needed. Now he is in the hospital with a heart attack and will probably be away from duty for a matter of several months. But no matter how long I have to wait, I shall still have a place for him.
