Steady On

It seemed clearer than ever last week that there is no use guessing what Harry Truman can or will do. Post-election predictions that the President would purge Cabinet members who had failed to fight for him in the campaign had proved so far about as accurate as the election forecasts.*

Eventually there might be some jettisoning of Cabinet members not in full sympathy with the "Second New Deal." But nobody knew better than Harry Truman that for the four-year term he had earned for himself he would need tough and able men high in public confidence. A vengeful victor might have kicked out Jim Forrestal, who had not raised a finger in the campaign. But the man Truman had appointed as the nation's first Defense Secretary was deep in a complex military budget and other defense matters that must soon go to Congress. Last week, Washington heard that Truman had asked Forrestal to stay and would not let him go unless Forrestal insisted.

Secretary of State George Marshall had remained scrupulously aloof from politics, as Truman knew he would. There had been friction between them--especially over Palestine and the Vinson Affair. But Harry Truman has never lost his great respect for Marshall, nor is he unmindful of the prestige and authority Marshall carries on Main Street as well as in Moscow. Last week, Marshall yearned more than ever for retirement, but the President pleaded with him to stay, fully aware, however, that some time, probably in a matter of months, the old soldier would have to be given his well-earned rest at last.

As long as Marshall stayed, Under Secretary Bob Lovett would stay, too--although the post-election guessers had quickly banished him back to Wall Street. Washington heard last week that the President had called Lovett to the White House and told him that he had great confidence in him.

Other able men would stay on. ECAdministrator Paul G. Hoffman, who has Cabinet rank, emerged from a White House conference and told reporters: "The President told me he wanted me to stay on the job. I didn't ask him--he told me." Was that agreeable? Said Hoffman: "Whether it's agreeable or not, I'm staying. I have no complaints but I like my California climate better."

One addition to the Administration would be Washington's lame-duck Governor Mon C. Wallgren, who had sat right behind Harry Truman in the Senate. The word was that the President would employ Wallgren as a liaison man between the White House and his old friends in Congress.

*A Chicago market researcher dug up last week this 1944 note from Senator Harry S. Truman: "Replying to your questionnaire regarding [political] polls, I am not familiar with them, don't know anything about them, and have no opinion on them except that most of them are inaccurate."

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