The Days Ahead

In the sticky-hot, soundproofed little White House broadcasting room, Harry Truman smiled a quick, reassuring smile toward Bess and Margaret. Then the President of the U.S. stepped up to the solitary rostrum in the glare of the floodlights, flipped open his loose-leaf notebook, and swam into the radio and television focus of the world.

"My fellow citizens," he began, "tonight I want to talk to you about Korea, about why we are there and what our objectives are."

He was wearing a blue necktie patterned with tiny oak-wreathed globes: the design of the U.N. flag. For 22 minutes he talked in his flat, monotonous voice, some-time's with a painfully deliberate slowness, occasionally with a breakaway rush to the end of a jumbled phrase. It was a speech that read better than it sounded. To the world it was, in essence, a restatement of America's desire for peace and determination to resist aggression. To the nation, the President's message was a warning that that desire and determination will have to be paid for not only with dollars, but also with harder work, with economic pinches and restrictions and the giving up of "many things we, enjoy."

Three Million Men. In Korea, said he, the U.S. and the United Nations had met the "brutal attack" of "Communist imperialism," had curbed it and were now confident "that it will be crushed." The U.S. wants nothing from Korea--or any part of Asia--except a chance for the people to be "free, independent and united." "The battle in Korea," he went on, "is the front line in the struggle between freedom and tyranny."

With a blunt finger he probed behind the front. "The Soviet Union has repeatedly violated its pledges of international cooperation," he said. "It has destroyed the independence of its neighbors. It has sought to disrupt those countries it could not dominate. It has built up tremendous armed forces far beyond the needs of its own defense . . . Communist imperialism preaches peace but practices aggression."

To meet the "larger struggle," the U.S. needs strength "over and above the forces we need in Korea," needs to "work with other free nations to increase our combined strength." This means boosting U.S. armed forces from the present 1 1/2 million to close to three million--"and further increases may be required.

"Hitler and the Japanese generals miscalculated badly, ten years ago, when they thought we would not be able to use our economic power effectively to defeat aggression." The President slowed down to let the next sentence sink in: "Let would-be aggressors make no such mistake today."

Dark & Bloody Path. Then, just so that everyone would know that Navy Secretary Matthews had spoken out of turn (TIME, Sept. 4), the President added: "We do not believe in aggressive or preventive war . . . We are arming only for defense against aggression." He wanted all Communist satellites to draw a lesson from the prospective fate of the North Koreans. "There will be no profit for any people who follow the Communist dictatorship down its dark and bloody path." Then, simply and solemnly, Harry Truman asked God "to purge us of all selfishness and meanness, and to give us strength and courage for the days ahead."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.