8A
Monday, April 10, 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Truman remembered 50 years later
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — On April 12, 1945, the drumbeat of war news was interrupted by a stunning flash: Franklin Roosevelt was dead of a cerebral hemorrhage, and Americans asked who could possibly take his place.
Many did not even know the name of the new president: Harry S. Truman.
Roosevelt was a patrician, larger-than-life figure to many; a masterful communicator who had brought the country through the Depression and defended democracy against Nazi and Japanese aggression.
Truman, by contrast, had the aura of a Missouri hayseed and product of a corrupt Kansas City political machine who, despite his distinguished service in the Senate, could not possibly be up to the task of running the country.
"Here was this little man who had failed in the haberdashter business," recalls Ken Hechler, who served on Truman's White House staff from 1949 until 1952.
"He had this Middle Western twang. He had difficulty reading speeches, stumbling over words," said Hechler, who is now West Virginia's secretary of state. "The popular image was that he was just too small for the job. The shoes were bigger than the man."
Fifty years later, Americans admire him as one of the great presidents. His legacy — creation of NATO, the Marshall Plan, dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, integration of the armed forces — seems astonishing today.
Even more compelling is the image of Truman as a homespun champion of the common man, an ordinary person who summoned the courage to do extraordinary things — and who was not afraid to make decisions and stick to them.
"He wasn't afraid of political backlash that might occur from things that might seem unpopular at the time." Hechler said.
When Roosevelt died, Truman had been vice president for 82 days. It was a job he had not sought; he had been in the Senate as chairman of a committee investigating defense contractors.
In his memoirs, Truman recalled that on 'the afternoon of April 12, 1945, he was in Speaker Sam Rayburn's office — members often gathered there for drinks and camaraderie — when he received a telephone call from Roosevelt's press secretary, Steve Early, to come immediately to the White House.
"Jesus Christ and General Jackson," Truman remarked, according to David McCullough's biography.
news of Roosevelt's death by Eleanor Roosevelt, in her study.
He reached the White House a few moments later and was given the
"The overwhelming fact that faced me was hard to grasp," Truman wrote. "I had been afraid for many weeks that something might happen to this great leader, but now that the worst had happened I was unprepared for it."
Truman was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone and suddenly, at 7:09 p.m., was the 33rd president of the United States. A short Cabinet meeting followed, and then War Secretary Henry L. Stimson briefed the new leader about a powerful new explosive in the works, the atomic bomb.
Roosevelt had not told his vice president about the Manhattan Project.
"I had only seen the vice president on the occasion of the inauguration," said George Elsey, who worked for both Roosevelt and Truman and in 1945 was an aide in the war map room. "He was not briefed on any aspect of the war. Roosevelt had not involved any of his previous vice presidents in executive branch decision-making."
The next day, Truman revealed how uncertain he was about his own abilities. He unexpectedly went to Capitol Hill for lunch with members of Congress, then appeared before reporters.
"Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me
"now, he said. "I don't know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me."
Shortly after Truman addressed Congress, his mother, Martha Ellen, probably spoke for many in a statement she issued from her home in Missouri in a national radio broadcast.
"I cannot really be glad my son is president because I am sorry that President Roosevelt is dead. If he had been voted in, I would be out waving a flag, but it does not seem right to be very happy or wave any flags now. Harry will get along. He is sincere and will do his best."
As time passed, Truman gained confidence and a nation's grudging respect for his directness, even if some of his decisions were wildly unpopular. Hechler was there in 1951 when Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for disobeying the president's orders in the Korean War.
"If there had been a poll in the country, they would have voted to impeach him after that," Hechler said. "History gradually came around to respect the idea that embedded in our system of government is civilian control over the military."
Truman's approval ratings dropped as low as 23 percent in 1951 and never got much above 50 percent.
Archbishop laments execution of British man in Georgia
The Associated Press
LONDON — The Archbishop of Canterbury expressed regret Saturday at the execution in Georgia of a British-born murderer and lamented the cruelty of keeping him on death row for more than a decade.
The Most Rev. George Carey had appealed for clemency for Nicholas Lee Ingram, 31, who died Friday night in Georgia's electric chair after 12 years on death row.
"It seems such an awful thing and particularly the long wait — 12 years between the sentence and the execution. This seems so cruel," Carey said.
"At this time I want to express the thoughts and prayers of all Christian people in this land for Nicholas Ingram's mother and family," he told BBC Radio.
Igram was executed for the 1983 murder of J.C. Sawyer, who was abducted from his home north of Atlanta, robbed of $60, tied to a tree
and shot in the head. Sawyer's wife survived the attack.
Carey also said Ingram's victims were on his mind.
"There's no doubt about it," he said. "It was a terrible crime."
Though Carey petitioned for clemency, the British government refused to make an appeal for Ingram, saying it did not want to intervene in another nation's justice system.
In Cambridge, Ingram's uncle,
Derek King, said the family was devastated.
"It's the use of this electric chair which we are so against," he said. "If they must kill somebody, surely they could find a much easier way of doing it than that.
"You cannot combat violence with violence," he said, "and the electric chair is violent — very, very violent."
Britain abolished capital punishment in 1965, though it remains on the books for treason.
Ingram held dual citizenship.
"We're worried," said Jody Mechling, 32, a dog groomer who suffers from migraine headaches and vomiting. "We want to know, when are we going to start feeling better? I worry about my two small kids. Who's to say they're not going to be sterile because of this?"
Even pets and farm animals are sick or dying, they say.
Nearly a year later, some still have eye problems they blame on the leak. Others have suffered miscarriages, fetal deaths, rashes and fainting spells.
More than 1,000 people have filed lawsuits claiming the leak made them sick, said Scott Cole, a lawyer for a group of plaintiffs.
Hundreds of residents in the blue collar San Francisco suburb and dozens of Unocal Corp. employees suffered nausea, nosebleeds and headaches.
Unocal took responsibility for some of the illnesses and financed a clinic to treat those affected. The company will not comment on the lawsuits.
Chemical leak blamed for health problems
The company also could face millions of dollars in fines from regional environmental officials and a criminal investigation from the Contra Costa County prosecutor.
There was an initial flurry of concern; an emergency was declared, and the county health department was notified. But bad decisions and missed chances allowed 100 tons of toxic chemicals to leak for 16 days last summer.
The Associated Press
The company admits it made a
mistake not shutting the plant down sooner, according to Unocal representative Lon Carlson.
RODEO, Calif. — The leak began slowly, just a wisp of chemical mist wafting from the top of a tower at an oil refinery near San Francisco Bay.
Unocal notified the county health department as required, but said the leak didn't pose a public threat.
The leak started Aug. 22, when steam, carbon dioxide and traces of a solution called Catacarb began escaping from a small hole near the top of the 180-foot hydrogen processing tower. The solution is used to remove carbon dioxide from hydrogen which, in turn, is used to remove sulfur from gasoline.
The company decided the release was too small to warrant a shutdown.
Various components of the solution can cause blindness and death. But representative Karen Rodgers said the company had believed the release was not dangerous because the chemicals were heavily diluted.
Company managers sent memos to employees seven days into the release, saying the solution was not harmful.
On Sept.4, an employee complained of sneezing and watery eyes and residents noticed a sticky substance on cars and windows.
By then, the leak had grown and employees were ordered to hose the cloud of toxic steam out of the air to prevent contaminants from raining over neighboring towns.
It was only after repeated complaints from employees that managers shut down the plant on Sept. 6.
Six months earlier, the company decided to delay a routine overhaul of the tower from February to October. Rodgers said the equipment had been working fine and had looked as if it would hold up.
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