Thirty Seconds over Truman

When in doubt, many a Hearstpaper's editor turns to the New York Journal-American, favorite of "The Chief," to get his cues. A handy day-by-day echo of W.R.'s policies and moods, it accurately calls his often devious signals. The tabloid Mirror, its morning cousin, can usually hear the quarterback best, being closest. But last week Hearst's Manhattan running mates got their signals crossed.

Splashed across Page Two in the Sunday Mirror was what was billed as "the first of four intimate articles" on President Truman, sympathetically 'slanted by I.N.S. Correspondent Bob Considine (coauthor of Thirty Seconds over Tokyo). How was Harry Truman doing after nine months? Pretty well, said Considine:

". . . The skipper is physically and spiritually strong. . . . Overpowering events . . . have given the grinning, gum-chewing Missourian new stature, new dignity, new confidence--but no pomp. [He] is less of an autocratic figure than any White House incumbent since Taft. There is no 'crackdown' in his system. Even those who have the hatchet out for Truman . . . acknowledge his determined honesty. . . ." There were those who sought to smear him, said Considine, but Harry Truman was a man's kind of man, as American as ham & eggs.

Tomorrow, the Mirror promised, it would tell more.

What Hearstpaper D'Ya Read? Then the editors of the Mirror got their early edition of the Sunday Journal-American --and gulped. Splashed across the top of its front page was a bitter headline:

THE TRAGEDY OF TRUMAN: HE HAS FAILED THE NATION IN CRISIS. The byline: Samuel Crowther, part-time Hearstwriter, onetime literary collaborator of Henry Ford. Sample Crowtherisms:

"Now it stands revealed that Harry S. Truman . . . is President of the United States in name only. . . . We have been robbed of our birthright and stripped of our honor because President Truman and his picked associates . . . have had neither the wit nor the courage to face their duties. . . . This group is at the core Communistic and takes its orders from Moscow. . . . Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Truman plays the piano."

Like Considine's, the Crowther article was No. 1 in a series. But unlike Considine's, Crowther's kept on running. After hasty conferences, the Mirror's Editor Jack Lait tossed the Considine piece out of his later Sunday editions, and New Yorkers heard no more about Considine Parts II, III AND IV. Obviously the Crowther pieces (TRUMAN DIDDING U.S.TO ACCEPT MARXIAN IDEAS ) were the new official Hearst line. Crowed Crowther: "Hearst edited it himself."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.