THE PRESIDENCY: Zip Without Zing

Harry Truman’s personal zip was still there, but suddenly the political zing was gone. His bearing was jaunty and his socks and ties were still as carefully matched as ever. He could still snap a decision, find time for a handshake with an old friend, or smile cheerfully for photographers at the inescapable White House ceremonials. But the truth was that Harry Truman, for the first time in anybody’s memory, was just plain bored.

He hinted at his boredom when he told Connecticut’s lame duck Senator Bill Benton that the presidential calendar was loaded with speaking engagements up to Jan. 20—and that he was sorry he had accepted so many. A few days later he failed to show up for a luncheon date with the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Then, on Armistice Day, he sent Navy Secretary Dan Kimball off to do the presidential honors at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He canceled his regular press conference on the grounds that he had nothing to say, refused to let his press secretary chronicle the arrivals and departures of relatives and in-laws who are swooping down on the White House for an eleventh-hour visit.

The President did turn up at the National Press Club’s Founders’ Day party. He helped himself to a bourbon & water, dutifully watched the floor show. When the time came for a few presidential remarks, he said simply that he always has a good time at reporters’ gatherings, although he can’t say as much for his meetings with the publishers. He knows the Press Club and how it operates, said Truman, adding: The members do as they damn please—and so does Truman.

Then he manfully made a confession about election night, 1952. He went to bed early aboard his campaign train, he said, but woke up about midnight to listen to the radio. What had he heard? Harry Truman lapsed into his famous mimicry of Radio Commentator H. V. Kaltenborn. For four years Truman has regaled his friends with his imitation of Kaltenborn’s broadcast on election night, 1948, when Kaltenborn was stubbornly insisting that Tom Dewey was winning. Now the President’s zip was undiminished as he mimicked the 1952 Kaltenborn hailing an Eisenhower victory. Only this time, said Harry Truman with a wry grin, the old boy turned out to be right.