National Affairs: Howard's Happy Day

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Grinding the end of a cigar in his teeth, the Attorney General trudged into the White House one morning last week for a Cabinet meeting. The look on Howard McGrath's Irish face was as dark as his derby. Reporters had just one question: Was he resigning? "That question is almost as important as what's going to happen in the Democratic Convention next summer," said McGrath wryly.

In November, Harry Truman had fired one of McGrath's top assistants, Theron Lamar Caudle, the influence-peddlers' buddy, without asking the advice of the Attorney General. Around the White House, there was talk that a vigilant Attorney General would have caught some of the wrongdoers before congressional committees got the scent. Last week Truman began casting around for a new Attorney General. His patronage assistant, Donald Dawson, sounded out Justin Miller, chairman of the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters, former federal judge, onetime dean of Duke University law school. This activity was reported on the nation's front pages. That was the setting for Howard McGrath's walk-on at the Cabinet meeting.

Ninety-five minutes after he plodded into the White House, Attorney General McGrath pranced out, a changed man. "Things are not always what they seem on the surface," he sang out, grinning. "No change in my status is contemplated."

At the Cabinet meeting, Harry Truman had assured all that "Howard" was staying on. One lively theory was that McGrath owed his job to the front-page stories which had reported that he would soon be out. Harry Truman, a stubborn man, has always resented advance newspaper notices of his hirings and firings.