The Valedictory

Harry Truman worked hard on his eighth and last message to Congress on the State of the Union, determined to speak his valedictory in the calm, reasoning voice of the statesman. At 11:15 one night last week--late by Truman standards--he finished going over the fifth draft, left his speechwriters working well past midnight to buff the rough edges.

Next morning, a White House messenger dropped off copies at the Capitol for reading by clerks in the Senate and House.

After enumerating what he regarded as the triumphs of his years in office, Harry Truman got down to Topic A: the present Communist challenge to the U.S.

New Magnitude. "From now on," said Truman, in implied admission that the U.S. has the hydrogen bomb, "man moves into a new era of destructive power, capable of creating explosions of a new order of magnitude, dwarfing the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . . . The war of the future would be one in which man could extinguish millions of lives at one blow, demolish the great cities of the world, wipe out the cultural achievements of the past--and destroy the very structure of civilization . . . Such a war is not a possible policy for rational men. We know this, but we dare not assume that others would not yield to the temptation science is now placing in their hands." Then Truman moved carefully to the climax of his report -- a climax which he, personally, had suggested, without benefit of speechwriters : "There is something I would say to Stalin: You claim belief in Lenin's prophecy that one stage in the development of Communist society would be war between your world and ours. But Lenin was a pre-atomic man, who viewed society and history with pre-atomic eyes.

Something profound has happened since he wrote. War has changed its shape and its dimension. It cannot now be a 'stage' in the development of anything save ruin for your regime and your homeland.

"I do not know how much time may elapse before the Communist rulers bring themselves to recognize this truth. But when they do, they will find us eager to reach understandings that will protect the world from the danger it faces today."

Happy Ending. Obviously Truman was still willing to hold up the hope that the U.S. could reach some sort of happy understanding with the Communists through negotiation, albeit warning that "the rulers of the Communist world will not change their basic objectives lightly or soon." Beyond that, he even foresaw the day of ultimate peace growing out of Truman-Acheson foreign policies (i.e., containment of Communism and devotion to collective security). "If the Commu nist rulers understand they cannot win by war, and if we frustrate their attempts to win by subversion." said he, "it is not too much to expect their world to change its character, moderate its aims, become more realistic and less implacable, and recede from the cold war they began."

This hopeful promise of a happy end ing was the kind the U.S. likes to hear in any valedictory. Yet it was a dangerously false note by Truman's own clear definition of the all-pervading challenge of Communism. It was built on two fallacies: 1) that containment will somehow force Stalinism into a change of heart or internal collapse--while actually, after six years of containment, Communist power is greater than ever before; 2) that the H-bomb, or at least the little that the world knows about it--will dissuade the Communists from being Communists--any more than the A-bomb prevented the conquest of China or the Korean war.

Harry Truman's Administration proved that there simply is no easy, happy ending flowing from persuasion or negotiation with Communism. If, indeed, the hydrogen bomb turns out to be big enough to threaten total destruction of aggressive Communism and outdate all old lessons, then perhaps it is time to talk in plain, unmistakable terms about the bomb (see below) before the Russians .can use the same terms in talking back.

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