THE PRESIDENCY: Power & Peace

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The fog had lifted and a sharp autumn wind whistled past the skyscrapers, quickening the pulse of the city. In the Navy Yard in Brooklyn lay the spanking new carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt, ready for a presidential commissioning. Across Manhattan, in the brackish waters of the Hudson, an impressive fraction of the U.S. fleet rode at anchor, ready for a presidential review. There would be a parade for Harry Truman up Fifth Avenue, past the flags and the glittering shop windows. He would make a speech before hundreds of thousands on an open meadow in Central Park.

It was Navy Day for the greatest Navy of the world in the greatest city in the world. The President's speech had been heralded in advance as the most important of his career. It was time for such a speech: relations between the victorious Allies had steadily worsened.

What did Harry Truman make of his opportunity?

"Father of the Navy." He arrived from Washington early in the morning. Democrat bigwigs had to hustle to meet him for an 8 o'clock breakfast on the train. The breakfast was good: orange juice and Persian melon, eggs & bacon, toast and coffee. The talk was good: Harry Truman was assured by the politicians that Democrat Bill O'Dwyer would win the New York mayoralty in a landslide.

Eleanor Roosevelt, still in mourning, and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson were at the Navy Yard. Standing bareheaded on the Roosevelt's flight deck, while others clutched at their hats in the stiff breeze, Harry Truman hailed his predecessor as the "father of the new American Navy."

"He knows," said Harry Truman, "as he looks down upon us today that the power of America as expressed in this mighty mass of steel is a power dedicated to peace." Moments later, 125 of the Roosevelt's planes (based at Floyd Bennett Field) wheeled overhead in the air age's standard demonstration of power.

On his way to Central Park, Harry Truman stopped off at City Hall. When an usher told him that the "girls who work in the Mayor's office" would like to see him, the President replied: "I don't know why. I'm just the same as everybody else."

Along Fifth Avenue the crowds were thick—not as thick as they had been for Generals Eisenhower and Wainwright and for Admiral Nimitz, but good, sizable, cheering, confetti-throwing crowds.

On the Meadow. Perhaps a million (or so New York police estimated) had gathered in Central Park to hear the President. They stretched almost across the width of the park. But they were not stirred by the speech. The President said little he had not said before. As usual, he sounded as if he were reciting from a copybook, not too well-written. But this time the copybook had a new and very impressive binding. Against the background of the seapower in the Hudson and the airpower over Manhattan's skyscrapers, he restated U.S. foreign policy:

¶ The U.S. wants no territory except bases necessary to hold its power advantages.

¶ The U.S. wants cooperation in the Western Hemisphere and no interference from outside.

¶ The U.S. will use its military juggernaut to keep peace and defend itself. (Said Navy Secretary Forrestal: the U.S. will hold its Navy so that others will know that "we have not gone back to bed.")