ZINDLER Summers in The Buffalo Evening News. Berryman in The Washington Star. Zindler in The New Orleans States. 1946 Mule Skinner and the Elephant Herd." 1946-"The 1947-"Turnabout! Harry's Now Riding the Horse!" and Democratic defeat at the polls. THIRD PHASE-The days of Truman's emergence as Truman and of new prestige. giving out its rays, is a circle captioned different technique. And so he has, in Senate, on whom the President relies for prevalent a quality, and sentimentality is "The President" and the rays indicate the effect, turned from both. greasing the Presidential ways on Capitol something that exists largely in songs intricate executive structure-the execu- Hill. imported from Broadway. tive office, the emergency agencies, the T HIS business of ranking Presidential Fred M. Vinson, Chief Justice of the Cabinet, the various commissions. advisers is a tricky one. There are United States, who has been close to the C LARK CLIFFORD is, therefore, some- The President will point out that chart always myths about the men around the President for many years and still sees thing of a phenomenon in the capital. He is to the visitor and indicate how the Execu- White House. And the columnists and him frequently. a genuine and unabashed sentimentalist. tive now functions. "We have a good commentators, for whom gossip is manna, W. Averell Harriman, Secretary of He tells you of his deep affection for Harry team now," he will say, with pride. In a if not exactly from heaven, delight in con- Commerce, on whom the President relies Truman; the more he sees of the Presi- way that chart is symbolic of the change cocting Warwicks, Sancho Panzas and for his contacts with the business world. dent, he says, the more he admires him. that has come over him; now he seems to Straw Men. Thus it is difficult to rank Will Clayton, Under-Secretary of State His mission, as he views it, is simple; know the workings of his job, he feels more confident about it, he is no longer the Truman advisers in any hierarchical for Economic Affairs, to whom the Pres- to make the country see Harry Truman as order; but it seems correct to describe the ident turns for advice on foreign economic he sees him. lonesome. All this is immediately apparent to the intimate group as including these: matters, to complement Marshall on for- Clifford sits in the office that Rosen- visitor who has seen him at intervals in General Marshall, Secretary of State, eign political matters. man used to occupy and he tells you he is the two years. You ask him how he feels who, even though he is a latecomer, al- Of these advisers, two deserve special amazed that he is there; that, eighteen and he laughs and says: "Fine, I haven't ready occupies a very special niche. attentionClifford and Marshall. months before, he had never set eyes on a had a crisis in four days." He talks about John R. Steelman, expert in labor rela- President (he was a coming, but still na- many things and with a new positiveness. tions, who is now officially "assistant to ASHINGTON, in atmosphere and tionally unknown lawyer in St. Louis), You remark to yourself as you look around W and here he is now next door to the the President," the ranking title. ambition, is not unlike Hollywood. -and there are no more furniture or Clark Clifford, who is Judge Rosenman's There is the same artificial setting, the President and seeing him constantly, tak- gadgets than there were-that the office successor as Presidential counsel and same relentless limelight, the same sense ing part in affairs of state and in af- no longer seems empty. of people not being people but playing fairs of the world. You feel, as you talk whose relationship to Truman is much as Rosenman's was to Roosevelt. roles. There is the same kind of striving with him, that this fresh approach he has T press conferences, too, this new Charles G. Ross, press secretary and for prestige-in Hollywood, prestige at the age of 40 will not wither under the A confidence is reflected. A year ago former newspaper man, who is a close measured by money; in Washington, pres- Washington heat. the President was trying the debonair personal friend and confidant of the tige measured by power. In both there are It is Clifford more than anyone else, Roosevelt approach, but he gave the im- President. caste systems, there are pariahs, and as far as this reporter can make out, pression of a hesitant and harassed man. Leslie L. Biffle, former secretary of the there is protocol. Loyalty is not too who convinced the President that he should be not Franklin Roosevelt, but Harry Tru- He used to venture extemporaneous com- ments on subjects on which he was not man, that he should no longer try to speak in Harvard accents, but with a Missouri fully informed and they got him into trouble. Today he cannot be pressured or twang; that in place of oratory he should offer his own brand of "common sense." cajoled into saying more than he wants; "no comment" is the crisp stop he uses. That was the trick-as simple as that- The stream of personal friends which and thus far it seems to be working. flowed steadily into the executive offices in the early days is vanished. Most of the callers now are Government officials, T HEN there is General Marshall, for whom Mr. Truman has always had a members of Congress, diplomats or repre- complete admiration. The President has sentatives of large national groups. often expressed the opinion that the for- There has been, too, a significant shift mer Chief of Staff is the "greatest living in the White House advisers. In the early American." Whenever he has had the need days they consisted of two groups at op- of someone for a particularly tough job, posite poles, opposite both in their philoso- he has turned to Marshall-as for exam- phies and their counsels. On the one hand ple, after Hurley's blast on China. were the former Roosevelt lieutenants, In his relationship with Marshall, there urging him not to discard the Roosevelt is another decorationlike the organiza- mantle; on the other was the group of tion chart-that has a kind of symbolism. intimates, many of whom looked upon the It is a painting by George P. A. Healy White House as a combination of Elks' showing President Lincoln and his mili- clubhouse and State Capitol. The Presi- tary leaders in conference during the last dent felt comfortable with neither group; TODAY-In the White House with Lewis W. Douglas, new Ambassador to Britain. days of the (Continued on Page 66) apparently he sensed that his had to be-a 9 MAGAZINE, MARCH 16, 1947.