Truman(65)

‘I am not a candidate for nomination by the Democratic Convention’, he rather quaintly began.*

‘… I have been in public service well over thirty years, having been President of the United States almost two complete terms.

‘Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson as well as Calvin Coolidge stood by the precedent of two terms. Only Grant, Theodore Roosevelt and F.D.R. made the attempt to break that precedent. F.D.R. succeeded.

‘In my opinion eight years as President is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

‘There is a lure in power. It can get into a man’s blood just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do.

‘This is a Republic. The greatest in the history of the world. I want this country to continue as a Republic. Cincinnatus and Washington pointed the way. When Rome forgot Cincinnatus its downfall began. When we forget the examples of such men as Washington, Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, all of whom could have had a continuation in the office, then we will start down the road to dictatorship and ruin. I know I could be elected again and continue to break the old precedent as it was broken by F.D.R. It should not be done. That precedent should continue—not only by a Constitutional amendment but by custom based on the honour of the man in the office.

‘Therefore to re-establish that custom, although by a quibble I could say I’ve only had one term, I am not a candidate and will not accept the nomination for another term.’2

This was a firm and honest statement of his view that he did not want another term, and did not believe that, even if he did, constitutional propriety entitled him to one. It was a little over-embellished by bombast and self-righteousness. It was ridiculous, after the narrow squeak of 1948, to believe in 1950 that he would be unassailable in 1952. Eisenhower would probably have beaten him as effectively, although half for different reasons, as he beat Stevenson. And it was a little far-fetched and nigglingly antiRoosevelt to equate a third term with the beginning of the end of republican virtue. It was always Truman’s way, when putting his thoughts on paper, to be provocative, mock-modest, and critical of the standards of others. However, there is no doubt that he meant what he wrote and that he had taken the decision for largely unselfish reasons.

Furthermore he had the good sense to keep it to himself. He showed the paper to no one until November 1951. Then, with fourteen months of his presidency still to go, he read it to his immediate staff, whose futures were almost as much affected by the decision as was his own. They kept the secret remarkably well. He made no public announcement until a Jefferson/Jackson Day dinner at the end of March 1952. He wisely delayed turning himself into a lame duck until the last reasonable moment. This was of great benefit, particularly during the year from June 1950, when, with the Korean War at full blast, MacArthur insubordinate, Vandenberg dying and most of bi-partisanship with him, Acheson and even Marshall sufficiently hobbled by McCarthyism to be unable to sustain him at home as they had done in 1947-49, he needed every ounce of presidential authority that he could muster.

Truman flew to Independence at the end of Saturday morning, June 24th. He had to begin the day with a speech for the inauguration of Friendship International Airport in Baltimore. But he had intended the next 48 hours to be a relaxed midsummer weekend of family visiting, both with his wife and daughter, who had already retreated from Washington, and with other less frequently-seen relations.

His plans were blown up. So were the ill-trained and ill-equipped eight divisions of the Republic of Korea which were subject to a full-scale attack from the Communist Democratic People’s Republic of the north, launched at dawn on Sunday, June 25th. Differences of time enabled Acheson to receive news of this at his Maryland farm soon after dinner on the Saturday evening. After an hour’s digestion of the news he informed the President.

Truman’s first instinct was to summon the presidential plane (which was at Kansas City Airport) and make an immediate return to Washington. Acheson dissuaded him. Such a long night flight was, somewhat surprisingly, considered to be dangerous, as well as unnecessarily alarmist. There were still a lot of uncertainties. It was better that he should carry on as though nothing had happened until at least the next day, when the question of return could be reviewed.2

The uncertainties were manifold. They related to the scale of the invasion, to the ability of South Korean troops to repel it, and to the degree of commitment of Russia and China to Kim Il-sung’s adventure. Upon this third uncertainty, there turned the likelihood of the invasion leading to a world conflagration, either because this was already planned by the Soviet union  , with moves against Berlin, or Yugoslavia or Iran or all three likely to follow, or because of a more spontaneous escalation if it became necessary for United States troops to be directly involved.