President Truman, tanned by the
sun and sea winds, and at the peak of his energies, today is far out in
the Atlantic, aboard the United States warship, well on his way toward
his early morning "Big Three" conference with Prime Minister
Churchill and Generalissimo Joseph Stalin.
The chief executive, together
with Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and a small party, left
Washington quietly last night, to begin the 4,000 mile journey to
Berlin.
Early Saturday morning,
"The President's ship sailed from Army Port of Embarkation Dock,
Newport News" and today is well on the way to the historic post V-E
Day "Big Three" meeting on which will depend the pattern of
the peace treaty, the post war settlements throughout Europe, and the
peace of the world for generations to come.
President Truman, who has
met Prime Minister Churchill before, during the statesman's conference
in Washington, will meet Generalissimo Stalin for the first time when
they come together in the palace of the former German Kaiser at Potsdam,
historic suburb of the German Capitol. The "Big Three" meeting
should get underway within another week.
The Chief Executive
brought with him the smallest staff that a President has ever taken to
one of the
great war conferences. With him are only Secretary of State
Byrnes, his personal chief of staff, Admiral William D. Leahy; two top
State Department advisors, H. Freeman Matthews, chief of the division of
European affairs and Charles H. Bohlon, Russian expert; Ben Cohen, an
advisor Byrnes brought with him from the State Department Office of War
Mobilization and Reconversion; his Naval and Military Aides, Capt. James
Vardaman and Brig. Gen. Harry Vaughan; his press officer Charles G.
Ross; and a Naval Physician, Capt. Alphonso McMahon, also a small Secret
Service detail headed by James Maloney, assistant chief of the Secret
Service, and George Drescher, head of the White House detail. This
correspondent and two others accompany him also from the other major
news services, a representative from the radio networks, one still
photographer and two newsreel photographers.
General George C.
Marshall, the Army's Chief of Staff; Admiral Ernest J. King, the Chief
of Naval Operations; other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, War and
Navy Departments, will meet the President at Berlin, they are flying to
the Conference.
President Truman's own
wish was to fly to and from his meeting with Churchill and Stalin, as he
did on his transcontinental journey recently to and from the closing
session of the United Nations Conference, but he was finally dissuaded
by worried congressional advisers, mindful of giving him the utmost
protection on his journey.
The Conference at
Berlin is expected to last least two weeks, after that, the President
may make some side trips but plan for these, as yet, are tentative,
including London. He also may visit some of the battlefields where
American and British troops made their final decisive smashes that
over-whelmed the German armies and brought their unconditional
surrender.
The President is traveling
to his European meeting on a historic American warship, the identity of
which must remain undisclosed for the present (webmaster's note:
This is a very curious statement in light of the obvious clues which are
dropped later in this article which would clearly identify the
"warship" as the USS Augusta, especially references to the
Atlantic Conference where Roosevelt and Churchill met in August of
1941!).
The cruise, thus far, has met
with ideal weather. The Atlantic has been, day after day, as smooth as a
mill pond. Occasional light rains whipped the seas Sunday. Otherwise it
has been sunny and almost tropically warm.
The President has benefited
tremendously by the rest and relation afforded by the cruise. It is
virtually his first moment of rest since entering the White House. But
he has been one of the most
energetic persons aboard ship. He has been
up at the crack of dawn each morning, and had breakfast by seven a.m.
then out on deck for a brisk walk, talks with crew members, and as a
field artilleryman in World War I, to look at the ship's manning of
eight inch batteries, secondary five-inches and its many
forty-millimeters or anti-aircraft guns. He made an inspection of the
ship from topmast to fire-room and boiler rooms, climbing up and down
perpendicular ladders with the agility of the youngest crew member.
He has sunned on the decks in between
conferences with Secretary of State Byrnes and his Naval Aides, Capt.
Vardaman and Admiral Leahy on the war situation. After lunch he takes a
brief nap, and sees a movie in the evening. He sat with crew members in
the church chapel and heard Kenneth D. Perkins, of Savona, N.Y. pray for
the nation's safety and guidance under his leadership to world peace.
He dined with the ship's junior
officers and will dine with the warrant officers -- later with the chief
petty
officers and the crew. Members of the crew have one description
for him that sums up their admiration: "He's a Great Guy".
The President has been a good
sailor. He had one slight touch of seasickness the first day out, but a
pill from his doctor fixed that up in a hurry, and he was back
on deck
within an hour. Under a bright sun, the President watched from the
ship's topmast high above the main deck level, as the ship's main and
secondary batteries and anti-aircraft guns thundered salvos at a
practice target.
The chief executive is
voyaging across the Atlantic in this heavy cruiser in which the late
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill held their Atlantic
Charter meetings off Newfoundland in August 1941. She is part of the
history of the first American landings in French North Africa and the
D-Day cross channel invasion of German-occupied France.
The President is
occupying the same quarters used during the Atlantic Charter meetings,
and his living room is the one in which most of the conferences then
took place.
The time of arrival
and the port of debarkation may not yet be disclosed (webmaster's
note: Truman debarked Augusta on 15 July 1945 at Antwerp,
Belgium). The President
sailed from the Army Port of embarkation at Newport News, VA at 7.am
last Saturday.
On arrival at the port
city, the President and his party are expected to leave by plane immediately
for Potsdam.
|
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| Photos of Truman debarking from Augusta at Antwerp |
The President will fly in
a special four-engine C-54 transport plane, affectionately known as the
"Sacred Cow", in which he made his recent transcontinental
journey to and from the United nations Conference in San Francisco.
The ship is under the command of
Capt. James H. Foskett and is part of a two-cruiser task force commanded
by Rear Admiral Allen R. McCann. The other ship is under the command of
Robert L. Boller.
Log of the President's Trip to the Berlin Conference
6 July to 7 August 1945 (140 pages)
