11 JULY 1945.
WITH
PRESIDENT TRUMAN, SOMEWHERE IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC:
President
Truman, tanned by sun and sea winds, and at the peek
of his energies, today is far out in the Atlantic,
aboard a United States warship, well on his way
toward his early and momentous "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 Friday 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 V-E day "Big
Three" meeting on which will depend the pattern
of the peace treaty, and 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 British statesman's conferences 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 German
suburb of the German capital. 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 the 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 E,
Bohlen, Russian expert; Ben Cohen, an advisor Byrnes'
brought to the State Department with him form the
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; a Naval physician, Capt. Alphonso McMahanon,
and a small secret service detail headed by James
Maloney, assistant chief of the secret service, and
George Drescher, head of the White House detail.
He is also
accompanied by his correspondent and two other major
news services, a representative from the radio
networks, one still photographer and two newsreel
photographers.
General George
Marshall, the Army's Chief of Staff; Admiral Ernest
J. King, Chief of Naval Operations; and advisors from
the State, 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
advisors, mindful of giving him the utmost protection
on his journey.
The conference
is expected to last at least two weeks. After that,
the President may make some side trips but plans 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-wheeled the German armies and
brought their unconditional surrender.
The President is
traveling to his European meeting on an historic
American warship, the identity of which must remain
undisclosed for the present.
The cruise, thus
far, has met with ideal weather. The Atlantic has
been, day after day, as smooth and unruffled as a
mill pond. Occasional light rains whipped the sea
Sunday. Otherwise it has been sunny and almost
tropically warm.
The President
benefited tremendously by rest and relaxation
afforded him 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 breakfast by seven a.m. then out on the
deck for a brisk walk, talks with crew members, and,
as a field artillaryman in World War I, to look at
the ship's manning of eight-inch batteries, secondary
five-inchers and it's many forty millimeter
anti-aircraft guns.
He made an
inspection of the ship from topmast to fireroom and
oiler rooms, climbing up and down perpendicular
ladders with the agility of youngest crew members.
He has sunned on
the decks in between conferences with Secretary of
State Byrnes and his naval aide, Captain Vardaman,
and Admiral Leahy on the war situation. After lunch
he takes a brief nap, and sees a movie in the
evening.
With crew
members, he sat in the church chapel and heard
Chaplain 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 case of
sea-sickness the first day out, but a pill from his
doctor fixed that up in a hurry, and he was back out
on the deck within an hour.
Under the 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 the
heavy cruiser in which the late President Roosevelt
and Prime Minister Churchill held their Atlantic
Charter meetings off the coast of 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 conference took place.
The time of
arrival and the port of debarkation may not be
disclosed. The President will fly in the special
four-engine C-54 transport plane, affectionately
known as the "Sacred Cow", in which he made
his transcontinental journey to and from the United
Nations Conference at San Francisco.
The ship
carrying the President is under the command of Capt. James H. Foskett and is part of the
two-cruiser task force commanded by Rear Admiral
Allen R. McCann. The other ship is under the command
of Capt. Robert L. Boller.
