Harry S. Truman
Goldberg, Joyce
"philosopher-gladiators" at RAND, there were all these bright young Harvard grads speed-reading great books, speed- hearing great music, speed-viewing great art at all hours of the day and night and...
...In many ways Margaret Truman affirms her esteem for her father...
...The gap between promise and performance, between a j/ha~ for freedom and the war in Indochina has proven disheartening...
...The Alternative April 1973...
...His dismissal of General MacArthur is once more succinctly justified...
...Fairlie says it so well: Kennedy "in fact achieved so little that the people could hardly be blamed if they concluded that their political processes were inade- quate to their tasks...
...This she illustrates by revealing the man known not as Mr...
...His devotion to party loyalty as the bulwark of demo- cracy is similarly laudable...
...Crisis-man- agement is not a good substitute for pol- icy, although crisis options are usually simpler and more ciear-cut than policy choices, and the mandate that eluded one in an election can be gotten tempor- arily in response to crisis...
...No one will fault Margaret Truman for justifying all her father's actions or concluding that her father was an exceptional man...
...The admira-tion, affection, and respect which she shows for her father is evidence enough "SEEN AT THE PENTAGON, shopping for a slightly used B-52: Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan...
...Johnson carried out what Kennedy started, in Vietnam and in a variety of domestic programs, yet he received the vilification of that constituency which had been John F. Kennedy's, the intel-lectual establishment...
...The minds that wanted to bring their brand of the good life to nations all over the globe have tired of that, but not of imposing this vision on their fellow Americans...
...This is a very dangerous belief to be held by the president of the United States, especially by a president who adds in his brief tenure five divisions to the army and five tactical fighter wings to the Air Force...
...Pretentiousness is usually self-deception, and hypocrisy is a sin unto oneself as well as others...
...Kennedy, Johnson, McGovern --all were in tune with the zeitgeist of the liberal-intellectual elite of their times, and their failures were not merely due to their personal shortcomings...
...This sentimental biography is also a revealing and intimate portrait of a president...
...The ability of government to in- crease the happiness of its citizens is very limited, and promises to that effect can lead only to failure, disillusionment, discontent, and upheaval...
...Add to this the complex and mystifying role of father, and the man who can still be true to himself is a gifted and rare individual...
...His early criticism of Senator McCarthy for "reckless accusations" and "gutter tactics" confirms his hatred of demo-goguery...
...Unfortunately, John F. Kennedy believed it when he said, "Great crises produce great men...
...President Kennedy was allowed to make it seem desirable...
...If a leader of such exceptional vigor, commanding an ad-ministration of such unusual talents could not achieve his purposes, there must be something at fault with the poli- tical institutions which balked him...
...I could boycott...
...The Ken- nedy years bi'ought promise and youth and vigor to the White House, and little in the way of legislative accomplish-ment...
...Such a man was Harry S. Truman, as his daughter Margaret Truman Daniel attests in a recent collec- tion of memories entitled Harry S. Truman...
...The scope of this book might indicate a long-involved political and psychoanalytical biography, but such is not the case...
...Not allowing Castro to have nukes was wise...
...philosopher-gladiators" at RAND, there were all these bright young Harvard grads speed-reading great books, speed- hearing great music, speed-viewing great art at all hours of the day and night and ruling the country besides...
...Margaret Truman is interested in portraying her father first as a man, then as the .political leader...
...Beginning with the election of 1948, Margaret Truman, largely from personal correspondence and recollection, retells her father's political career and reminisces about family life...
...The Eisenhower years seem now to have been years of tranquility...
...Seems the men ot Liechtenstein have done it again: voted 2,128 to 1,675 (a much wider margin than two years ago) to deny women the vote...
...Truman's dim view of newspaper objectivity accurately foreshadows pres- ent-day controversy...
...senate years and the Truman Committee, the Roosevelt-Truman ticket af 1944, the brief months as vice-presi-dent, the bequeathed presidency, termination of the war, postwar confer- ences, cold war origins and policy, and life in retirement...
...Quite prophetic...
...Cri-ses" were handled through the choice of appropriate "options...
...Then such a president might scare the hell out of all of us by issuing a last-min- ute ultimatum to the Soviets that in-volved intercepting their ships on the high seas...
...Kennedy's plans made real did not cure the ills of Amer- icans, and Johnson and The System were blamed...
...The tribute Fairlie tries to dissociate the Kennedys' failures from those of liberalism, unconvincingly...
...His efforts in behalf of civil rights show a commendable dedication to equality and justice...
...The author concludes about the Ameri-can people, "Round and round they went, between 1961 and 1968, when they all fell down, tired of building nations, tired of stabilizing regions, tired of global con-flict...
...and the nation, ennobled by their example, rriust consecrate itself in turn...
...What was done with the power...
...No one should expect this book to be objective...
...Everyone smiles kindly upon a daughter who insists that "father knows every-thing...
...It will do much to place the Kennedy years in proper perspective, and it helps explain the mood of many Americans today...
...The rhetoric Harry S. Truman by Margaret Truman Morrow $10.95 The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset once remarked that a real hero is a person with the strength to be him- self...
...And the unfortunate fact that President Roosevelt snubbed and belittled Truman perhaps best ex-plains his being thrust into the presidency unprepared and ill-advised for the challenges which awaited him...
...She wants us to know that Harry S. Truman, burdened with enormous re-sponsibilities yet considerate of the far-reaching effects of his decisions was moved by sincere intentions...
...Having this faith in the character-building efficacy of crisis, hav- ing beefed-up the military, and being concerned with image, such a president might ignore Senator Keating's warnings about the build-up of missile bases in Cuba until the situation seemed critical...
...She is intent on describing human elements: emotions, convictions, loyalty, wit...
...President but as "Dad...
...Fairlie's book is well-written, engros-sing, well-substantiated...
...To be president of the United States, in part responsible for the future of the world, yet main-tain a sense of self-honesty as well as sanity, is a difficult task...
...She in-cludes the Truman heritage, youthful experiences, military involvement in the First World War, short -lived business ventures, association with the Pender-gasts, involvement in local politics, of crisis and mission has its uses, how- ever: "If the zeal and the intelligence of the Kennedys were not to appear to be harnessed to personal ambition alone, they must be seen to be consecrated to a loftier and more strenuous ideal...
...The expectations raised by the Kennedy Ad- ministration far exceeded what they or anv government could accomplish, and the disillusionment brought the erstwhile believers to the streets in the latter sixties...
...In Eisenhower's farewell address in which he warned us of the "military-industrial complex," he also warned against the distortions of education produced by government research contracts and "the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite...
...D. W. Cooper paid to General George C. Marshall is a necessary acclamation of an often ignored but distinguished statesman...
...The fact that he was not, from day to day, exercising any political leadership within those institutions went unnoticed...
...Fairlie pro-tests, "Power is no doubt necessary...
...E, 150 E. 35 Street, N. Y. 10016...
...In fact, sentiment is what makes it delightful and enjoyable...
...And the hell ot it is, they don~t export 8 i For a free ~:apy of single thing we NATIONAL RE-VIEW, write: Dept...
...handling it "'a minute before midnight" a bit risky...
Vol. 6 • April 1973 • No. 7
