The Face in the Lamplight

Twice before, in deep predicament, Harry Truman had gone looking for a man of honesty, dignity and prestige. Both times he turned in the same direction. Last week the rays of Mr. Truman's lamp fell once again on the homely, sorrowful, willing face of General George Catlett Marshall.

The President had seldom been in a worse political fix. At its center was Louis Johnson, the Democratic Party's chief fund raiser in the 1948 presidential campaign, whom Mr. Truman had rewarded with the job of Secretary of Defense. But by now it was clear that to keep Johnson in the Cabinet was to risk the Democrats' political neck, perhaps even jeopardize the country's security. Mr. Truman had to do something. The general, whom he venerates, was the answer to his prayers.

That Man Louis. Harry Truman's decision to fire Louis Johnson was not a sudden one. For months his Defense Secretary had been a problem. White House conferences had been frequently blue with the complaints of colleagues who had suffered from Johnson's undercutting, ham-handedness, blooper-blowing. With his customary loyalty to his staff, Mr. Truman had defended him before the country.

There was an argument of sorts to be made for Louis Johnson. He had knocked heads together and brought actual unification into the strife-torn Department of Defense. His economy program had been strictly in line with the policy laid down by the President.

But then the President began hearing new complaints. It was Johnson, he heard, who had leaked confidential statements and afterwards blandly denied making them. It was that man Louis, trying to build his own empire, who had taken aim on Secretary of State Dean Acheson, publicly praising him, privately slurring him, lambasting Acheson's Asian policy to the point where the feud was threatening all the nation's international policies.

The Unpardonable Sin. Then came the last straw. Johnson was reported to be hobnobbing with Maine's Republican Senator Owen Brewster and feeding him with ammunition to be fired against Acheson. In Harry Truman's code, political double-decking is the unpardonable sin.

Several weeks ago, Mr. Truman got in touch with George Marshall. Marshall had resigned as Secretary of State because of ill health in 1949. Since then, fully recovered, he had been serving energetically as president of the American Red Cross, living on his Leesburg, Va. estate. The President asked the general if he would take the job. Marshall asked his wife what she thought of his becoming Secretary of Defense. Mrs. Marshall did not mind a bit; it was just the general's sort of thing, she thought. Quite happily, George Marshall accepted.

So one day early last week, in one-two-three order, the President accepted the resignation of Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Early (clearing the way for the new Secretary to appoint his own man), sent able, weary Steve Early off with a grateful thank-you note--and without warning called Johnson to the White House and told him he was through.

"Terribly Regrettable." Shocked and humiliated, Louis Johnson wrote his resignation: "It was inevitable, in the conscientious performance of my duties as Secretary of Defense, that I would make more enemies than friends." With Harry Truman's consent, Johnson drew to the President's "thoughtful attention" the name of a man whose very stature would promote harmony: George Marshall.

"My dear Lou," the President wrote, "... I salute you. In the terribly regrettable circumstances which have arisen, I feel that I must concur in your judgment and accept your proffered resignation ..." The "recommendation" of Marshall, the President added, "betokens the same spirit of patriotism."

That night, the news broke. Johnson's resignation and the President's deadpan answer were given to the press. The man whom, only a fortnight before, Harry Truman had insisted he would not fire, was fired.* White, choked up, Johnson faced photographers on his way in to one of the last Cabinet meetings that he would attend.

Back to a lawyer's private life went Johnson. Back into public life marched 69-year-old General Marshall.

Legal Hurdle. There was one legal hurdle to clear. The National Security Act of 1947 provides that a military man may not legally be Defense Secretary unless he has been out of active service for ten years. In one breath the President asked the Senate to amend the act for this special case and confirm the general (who retired as Chief of Staff five years ago).

Republicans had watched the President's entire maneuver with a wary and disappointed eye. In the sacking of inept Louis Johnson and the appointment of Marshall, a political issue was being snatched right from under their noses. When Virginia's Harry Byrd, a Democrat but no Administration man, rose to plead for the amendment ("I challenge any man who opposes this nomination to propose a better one"), Republicans leaped.

The law is the law, they said. "If this principle [of a civilian Secretary] is violated once," thundered California's William Knowland, "it will be a case of the camel getting his nose under the tent."/- Ohio's Taft added two other points: General Marshall, almost 70, was not up to the grueling assignment; the appointment of Marshall was "a reaffirmation of the tragic policy of this Administration in encouraging Chinese Communism." Taft was talking about Marshall's mission to China in 1946 to effect a truce between the Nationalists and the Reds--an errand that, though doomed from the start by the essential nature of Communism, was carried out so doggedly by Marshall that it left China naked to the Reds.

"Horrifying Hoax." These were reasonable objections by responsible men. Less responsible Republicans leaped in to the assault. Indiana's William Jenner jauntily took the floor and let loose a raging, spluttering diatribe.

"[This is] a staggering swindle, a horrifying hoax" he cried. ". . . General Marshall is not only willing, he is eager to play the role of a front man for traitors . . . Marshall is a living lie . . ."

He spoke for one hour while Senators listened stony-faced, gripping the arms of their chairs. Massachusetts' Republican Leverett Saltonstall, shaking, almost speechless, managed to say: "If any man in public life is more above censure than General George Marshall, I do not know of him. I wish I had the vocabulary to answer the statement that the life of George Marshall is a lie."

Saltonstall and nine other Republicans joined 37 Democrats in voting to amend the act. The real surprise was that 20 Republicans and one Democrat (Nevada's McCarran) held out. The House, after almost as bitter an argument, passed the amendment by 220 to 105 (100 Republicans, five Democrats).

The general still had to run around the track again while the Senate argued whether to confirm him. But there could be no doubt that Congress would agree to place the burden of maintaining the nation's military security once again on George Marshall's soldierly shoulders.

This week Munitions Board Chairman Hubert Howard, who had done his best to step up lagging stockpile procurement in his short first year (see BUSINESS), became the first Johnsonite to resign from the Defense Department. Most likely to follow: Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Griffith and Special Assistant Brigadier General Louis Renfrew, both old Johnson cronies.

* Making President Truman's 21st Cabinet change in five years. /- Though U.S. military men had served as Secretary of War before. Among them: Major General Henry Knox, Secretary of War after the Revolutionary War, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman.

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