National Affairs: The Underscored Blunder

Walking confidently out of a three-day visit with Harry Truman in Key West last week, Democratic National Chairman Frank McKinney faced correspondents with the air of a man who has been so close to the horse's mouth that he could count the teeth.

Is the President going to run? McKinney implied strongly that the answer was hinged to peace in Korea: if peace is achieved, the President "will have considered his job well done . . . It may be wishful thinking on my part, but it is hoped that the Korean situation can be resolved either by convention time or at the latest by election time." Atop this startling intelligence McKinney threw two more tips: 1) he hoped the President would declare his intentions by May 15, when the Democrats must make final arrangements for the July convention, and 2) if Truman decides against running, he will not dictate the choice of his successor. "It will be an open convention," said McKinney. "I am not quoting him but I can say that I voice his sentiments."

Next day the horse bit McKinney's head off. In a restrained snarl, the President told a press conference that Korea does not enter into the politics of this country at all. It has no bearing whatsoever on what the President decides to do. Was McKinney close on the May 15 date? The President will announce, snapped the President, when he has got good & ready—at his own time and behest. Will there be an open convention? He can't answer that question, said the President, until he decides—. Then Harry Truman carefully rephrased: The President can't answer that question until he announces what he is going to do himself—and if he announces for the nomination it will not be an open convention. There never has been an open convention, he went on, when a President made up his mind he wanted the nomination.

At week's end, organization Democrats were still shivering. It was bad enough for McKinney to have timed the Korean war with the calendar of Democratic politics. But it was twice as bad to have Harry Truman underscore the blunder, compound the confusion, and all but destroy the effectiveness of the national chairman just four months before the convention.