A Blow for Boswell

If Harry Truman ever had a faithful Boswell, he was Jonathan Daniels, the even-voiced editor of the Raleigh, N.C. News & Observer (circ. 113,277). Daniels, briefly Truman's press secretary in 1945, was always welcomed at the White House as a friendly reporter. The President read, and edited in galley proof, large chunks of Daniels' The Man of Independence. And he raised no objection when Daniels used Truman quotes to polish off South Carolina's Jimmy Byrnes as a "miserable failure" as Secretary of State (1945-47).

Last week Harry Truman disowned his Boswell. To White House correspondents, Presidential Press Secretary Joseph Short angrily denounced an article by Daniels in Collier's which would do Harry Truman no good with Congress. In it, Daniels attributed to the President some recommendations for reforming Congress. Most notable: limiting tenure to twelve years. Daniels pointed out that such a limitation would lop off such Democratic pillars as Speaker Sam Rayburn, House Majority Leader John McCormack, Texas' Senator Tom Connally and Virginia's Harry Byrd.

"That subject," said Short, reading from notes he and Harry Truman had prepared together, "was mentioned a long time ago in a casual, joking way during a private, confidential conversation between the President and Mr. Daniels. The President never has considered the subject seriously . . . The article is an entirely misleading distortion of a conversation to which the President attached no significance."

Stung at being called a bad reporter, Daniels snapped back: "I wish . . . Joe Short had consulted the White House files . . . Letters . . . will show that the article was not even undertaken until I had written the President about the proposed article, asked him if I could see him to get the story, and had a reply to that letter that he would be glad to see me . . ."

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