THE PRESIDENCY: Spilt Milk

Between his week’s more important chores, Harry Truman did penance for his hotheaded note to Washington Music Critic Paul Hume (TIME, Dec. 18). To his intimates, the President’s moments of glum self-appraisal seemed mostly concerned with his daughter’s instant reaction to the first news of the letter—her “absolutely positive” belief that her father would never use such language. The President was also a little taken aback at the worldwide sensation his mule skinner’s phrasing had set off.*

During a conference with a committee from the National Association of Broadcasters, Harry Truman bemoaned the “handicaps and burdens” of his office—particularly the handicap of living the lives of two men, that of a President and that of a human being. “I recognize that in the eyes of the world the office of President is the greatest a man could hold,” he said. “Sometimes the frailties of the human get the better of me. Sometimes I have to work awfully hard on the human being.”

Mail Call. But such contrition was not enough to undo the damage. The impact of the Hume note had given all the President’s private correspondence an enormous curiosity value and had prompted the world to expect the worst. A letter to Louisiana’s Congressman F. Edward Hebert, which ordinarily would have aroused only passing interest, made Page One and caused a second round of lugubrious headshaking.

Hebert, a Dixiecrat, a foe of the President and a crony of Louisiana’s dictatorial Political Boss Leander Perez, had asked the President to proclaim a day of prayer for “guidance and wisdom.” The President thanked him politely for the suggestion, but rejected it on the grounds that his Thanksgiving proclamation had already accomplished Hebert’s aim. Then, in a more acrid tone, Harry Truman added:

“I am extremely sorry that the sentiments expressed in your letter were not thought of before Nov. 7, when the campaign in your state, Utah, North Carolina, Illinois and Indiana was carried on in a manner that was as low as I’ve ever seen and I’ve been in this game since 1906.”

On top of this, capital newsmen began hearing of an H-bomb among letters which the President had written last summer to Political Columnist Frank Kent of the Baltimore Sun—a letter so scorching that Harry Truman regretted it almost immediately, and wrote again, apologetically asking Kent to destroy it. Kent returned it instead, got a note of profuse thanks for the gesture.

Enchanted Evening. The President’s embarrassments prompted many newsmen to eye him with more than usual beadiness when he arrived at the National Press Club with Margaret to attend the club’s annual father-daughter dinner. But both Harry Truman and his daughter seemed more relaxed and carefree than usual. The President broke one of his self-imposed rules and autographed scores of menus for girls who crowded around his table. He announced that he had spent a pleasant evening and added: “And I haven’t had many good ones in a long time.”

* Critic Hume, who started the whole thing by calling Margaret’s singing unprofessional, began a review of another recital last week: “If I may venture to express an opinion . . .”