THE PRESIDENCY: Operation Exodus

In bright mid-morning sunshine one day last week the Presidential C-54, the Sacred Cow, put down at an airfield several miles from Plymouth. Harry Truman had insisted that his homeward trip from Potsdam include a visit with England’s King.

He bounded out of the plane briskly, setting foot on English soil for the first time in his life—and for the first visit of a U.S. President to Britain since Woodrow Wilson’s triumphal tour in 1919. There were few Britons on hand to cheer Harry Truman. “Operation Exodus” (the military-code designation for the visit) had unavoidably run into a snafu. Ground haze prevented the scheduled landing at another field. Thus the route that Harry Truman took into Plymouth was largely unpeopled. From Queen Anne’s Battery, near the spot from which the Pilgrim Fathers departed for America in 1620, the President and his party went promptly to the U.S.S. Augusta, the battle-tested cruiser which had carried him to Europe. Soon a gleaming, mahogany-trimmed barge from the newly painted battle cruiser H.M.S. Renown chugged alongside. The President shoved off in it, with Secretary of State James Francis Byrnes and Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy.

As Harry Truman came up the Renown’s ladder, the Stars and Stripes was broken out alongside the Union Jack at the mainmast. The bosuns piped shrilly. King George VI, in his uniform of Admiral of the Fleet, stepped forward, gave Harry Truman a hearty handshake, said: “Welcome to my country, Mr. President.”

There was little more formality. For the next 20 minutes George VI and the President talked alone.

“I Want to Get That Man.” At lunch in the Renown’s operations room, the President sat at the King’s right, Secretary Byrnes at the left. At leave-taking the band played again. Said Harry Truman to the King: “Your Majesty, I want to get that man to teach our bands how to play The Star-Spangled Banner.” (European bands usually play the U.S. national anthem slower and with more feeling than U.S. bands.)

The goodbyes said, age-old protocol called for the King to return the visit. Less than half an hour later, the President greeted him aboard the Augusta. George VI, knowing the Augusta’s sailing schedule, hurriedly inspected the guard. But Harry Truman was a good host, took him below to his quarters. There was a decanter of bourbon on the buffet. There was no doubt that the King and the President enjoyed each other’s company: George VI had timed his visit for ten minutes; he stayed for 30.

Then he was off to the Renown, to stand on a stool high on her bridge as the Augusta passed by. On the Augusta’s bridge, the President stood alone. The ships’ blinkers exchanged farewells.