Schoolboy's Afterthought

President Truman was in a reminiscent mood at his V-J day press conference. Someone asked him about the decision to use the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima and he replied with a little story.

When he was going to school, the President said, there was a discussion of the Battle of Gettysburg and a bright young man stated all the moves that should have been made by General Lee and by General Meade. The old professor said: "Any schoolboy's afterthought is worth more than the greatest general's forethought."

The President paused a moment, then said that the same thing was true in this case. In the interest of saving the lives of perhaps 250,000 American young men, he thought the decision to use the bomb was right when he made it--and he still thought it was right.

That was about all the President had on his mind. All week he dodged the capital's sweltering 96DEG heat by sticking to the air-conditioned White House, catching up on routine business, and doing some thinking on the British crisis (see INTERNATIONAL).

He also dodged one potential political hot spot by turning down a speaking date before an expected 200,000 A.F.L. and C.I.O. members at a Chicago Labor Day celebration. Labor would expect him to blast the Taft-Hartley Act, but he could hardly do that to labor's satisfaction on a law he was now duty-bound to administer.

Almost the biggest news around the White House was the arrival of a pair of elegant black silk garters presented to the President by an anonymous admirer, and monogrammed "HST" on the solid gold clasps. Cost: $84.

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