Shadowboxer

The President had hardly got back to Washington from his long Pacific tour before he was on the road again; this time on a sleeper jump to Long Island to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the United Nations. He made no triumphant entry into Manhattan, thus avoiding an official greeting by Acting Mayor Vincent Impellitteri, the backslid Democrat. Instead, his private car, the Ferdinand Magellan, crossed Manhattan Island underground during the night and was sidetracked at Belmont Race Track. At 6:45 the President went out for a fast walk through the neighborhood. He looked rested and relaxed when in mid-morning a 113-motorcycle police escort led him to Flushing Meadow.

But when he rose to speak before members of the U.N. General Assembly, a trick of lighting lent him a certain omi-nousness--his shadow stretched straight out at Russia's Andrei Vishinsky on his left. The delegates watched it with frank fascination. When he made his familiar, chopping gestures, the shadow appeared to be boxing Vishinsky's ears unmercifully, an illusion which was intensified by the President's words. His plea for a "foolproof" disarmament was obviously meant to offset Russia's phony peace talk.

Champagne & Vishinsky. Afterwards, however, when he was taken into the yellow-walled U.N. dining room for a reception, he did his best to make up for his shadow's overzealousness. The Russian delegation had pointedly refrained from applause, and Vishinsky, when the President was introduced to the delegates, hesitated until the last second before shaking hands. But after a U.N. birthday cake (a rum and butter cake which bore five candles) was cut, and champagne poured, Truman walked across to the Soviet Foreign Minister, shook hands with him again and spent seven minutes in animated and obviously pleasant conversation.

The atmosphere of correctness and studied pleasantry went on during a luncheon at the Forest Hills home of U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie. Even the orchestra stayed neutral. It played both The Sidewalks of New York and the Red army's march Meadowlands, and, at the President's request, Edvard Grieg's I Love You. But Harry Truman extricated himself as soon as possible. He headed straight for the nearest military hospital --in this case St. Albans Naval Hospital--to visit men wounded in Korea.

He moved from bed to bed for 45 minutes. Said Press Secretary Charlie Ross, who alone accompanied him: "One of the most moving things I ever saw." Then Harry Truman set out by automobile to catch his train at Manhattan's Penn Station, halting on the way for his first look at his daughter Margaret's apartment on upper Madison Avenue. Margaret was away, keeping a singing date at Hartford, Conn., but the President, after exploring, told her over the telephone that her piano was out of tune.

The next day, back in Washington, Old Soldier Truman dropped in for an informal talk to men attending the 72nd conference of the National Guard Association. He asked their support in trying to get a universal military training law, called the nation's high rate of draft rejections "a disgrace to the richest nation in the world." Then striking a familiar note, he looked enviously at the decorations and campaign ribbons before him.

"I wish I could sport some of them," he said. "About all I ever receive is the bricks. It's a good thing I have got a pretty hard head or it would have been broken a long time ago."

At week's end, the President decided to hit the road again--to fly to St. Louis for his one frankly political speech of the campaign, and then to go on to Independence to vote the Democratic ticket.

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