Word: trumanism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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JUST what information about Harry Dexter White had been given to President Truman by Feb. 6, 1946, when Truman allowed White's appointment to the International Monetary Fund to go through? Did Truman keep White so that the FBI would catch fellow conspirators? On these points there is a public record, and last week Attorney General Herbert Brownell and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover read it before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Salient passages...
...decide, one must look to the evidence. It is clear that White was something of a spy and that Truman was aware at least that he might be a spy. The controversy turns on whether Truman ought to have permitted his appointment to the International Monetary Fund. Truman's first assertion, that he retained White to allow the FBI to collect information enough to convict him is at best dubious, witness Hoover's testimony. Truman's further assertion, however, that he retained White to protect the FBI's extensive investigation then in progress seems much stronger...
...argument suggested by another portion of Hoover's testimony, that protecting the investigation could not have been Truman's reason since several employees were dismissed on security grounds, seems far-fetched. At best, dismissing a bureaucrat or two alerts the espionage system to a danger to a few suckers on the tip-ends of its tendrils; dismissing White, with or without explanation, would alert the entire apparatus. The Government does not ordinarily dismiss high officers for no apparent reason, and, had Truman followed such a course, no espionage ring worthy of the name could have failed to realize what...
...emerging from four years of devastation, full of gratitude for its staunch if irascible ally, full of optimism for peace, and full of the ideals for which its soldiers had just fought, among them the proposition that no man is guilty until so proven. Few people remember today that Truman had all he could do to ward off those who would appease Russia at every turn. They do not remember that such obvious moves as the Greek-Turkish Aid program and opposition to Tito's thrust for Trieste aroused the bitterest condemnation. Few remember the Henry Wallace speech attacking Truman...
Certain lords of the canned comment have demurred to this: they accept the explanation but' hold Truman and his predecessor responsible for the climate of opinion. They have developed a Pied Piper theory of presidential leadership, with a main thesis that a pair of malicious individuals single-handedly bent all of society to their purposes. This is surely fatuous. Roosevelt and Truman may well have been at fault, when viewed with the aid of hindsight, for not restraining the high vintage liberalism of their twenty years in office more efficiently, but no one man can create such a spirit...