THE PRESIDENCY: Change Anything?

THE PRESIDENCY Change Anything? What with the Christmas spirit and the nostalgia that beset him whenever he thought about leaving the White House, Harry Truman was in a generous and forgiving mood last week.

To Philleo Nash, his 43-year-old adviser on racial minorities (vice David Niles, deceased), Truman gave a promotion from assistant administrative assistant ($11,000 per year) to full-fledged administrative assistant ($15,000 per year). Nash will lose his new job come Jan. 20.

As another act of Christmas charity, the President granted pardons to former Democratic Congressman Andrew May of Kentucky and New Jersey's Republican ex-Congressman J. Parnell Thomas. May served nine months in prison for accepting bribes during his World War II stint as chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee. Thomas, onetime chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, served nine months for taking salary kickbacks from his congressional office staff. Both men have been free since September 1950, but the presidential pardon restores their citizenship rights.

To a handful of newsmen who have covered the White House since he first took office, the President gave a series of individual "farewell interviews." Christinas spirit or no, Old Pol Truman could not resist the opportunity to repeat his charge that General Eisenhower had indulged in "demagoguery" during the campaign. He devoted most of the interviews, however, to proud reminiscences of his Administration. "Suppose you had it all to do over again, would you change anything?" asked the New York Times's Tony Leviero. "No," said Harry Truman.