“Order up some coffee, General, if you’d be so kind. I’ll be right there. I need the walk.”
“It’ll be waiting, Mr. President.”
The President hung up and looked at the Secret Service agents.
“Organize the parade,” he ordered. “I’m going across the street to the Foster Lafayette.”
The parade, as Truman referred to his Secret Service bodyguard escort, was waiting when Truman came down the steps of Blair House, turned right, and walked briskly down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Foster Lafayette Hotel.
Truman looked across Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House. There were all sorts of signs of work on the “repairs” under way. It was more than repairs, Truman thought. The building, which had been literally at the point of collapse, had been gutted and was being rebuilt.
He waved and smiled at tourists, but completely ignored the questions called out to him by a dozen members of the press who had joined the parade the moment it was formed.
They were waiting for him at the Foster Lafayette. The doorman held the door open for him, and, inside, four Secret Service agents made sort of a path to an elevator waiting for him.
Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, was standing in the corridor outside the door to his suite.
“Morning,” the President said.
One of the Secret Service agents walked quickly through the door.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Pickering said as the President walked past him into the sitting room of the Marquis de Lafayette Suite.
Two waiters were making final adjustments to an array of food on a table covered with a white tablecloth.
“That’s very nice, General,” Truman said, “but all I asked for was a cup of coffee.”
“Mr. President, if you’d given them another couple of minutes, there would be a steamboat round of beef and pheasant under glass on that table,” Pickering said.
“It’s a little early for something like that, but that pastry is tempting,” Truman said. He walked to the table and spoke to the waiters. “That’s very nice, thank you very much.”
He picked up a white sugarcoated breakfast roll and looked at the Secret Service agents.
“Would you leave us, please?” he ordered.
He took a bite of the roll, then laid it down and poured a cup of coffee from a silver pitcher. He looked at Pickering, asking with raised eyebrows if Pickering wanted coffee.
“Yes, please, thank you, sir,” Pickering said.
Truman poured the coffee and handed the cup and saucer to Pickering. Then he took his own cup and saucer and the breakfast roll and sat down on a couch.
“Please sit down, General,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I just got a message from Ralph Howe,” the President said. “I thought you would like to see it.”
He took the white envelope from his suit jacket pocket and handed it to Pickering.
“Thank you, sir,” Pickering said, and opened the envelope and read it.
TOP SECRET/PRESIDENTIAL
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
0845 TOKYO TIME 10OCTOBER1950
FROM: CHIEF PRESIDENTIAL MISSION TO FAR EAST
VIA: USMC SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS CENTER CAMP PENDLETON CAL
TO: WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS CENTER WASHINGTON DC EYES ONLY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
BEGIN PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM MAJOR GENERAL HOWE
DEAR HARRY
IN RESPONSE TO YOUR REQUEST THAT I SEND WHATEVER I THINK YOU WOULD FIND USEFUL AT WAKE ISLAND
IN RE THE RELANDING OF X CORPS ON EAST COAST OF KOREAN PENINSULA
MACARTHUR GAVE ME A PERSONAL BRIEFING ON HIS PLANS AND INTENTIONS IN WHICH HE CONVINCINGLY SAID THE OPERATION WILL PERMIT HIM TO QUICKLY REACH THE YALU RIVER AND THUS KEEP THE FLEEING NORTH KOREAN ARMY FROM ESCAPING INTO CHINA AND THUS PERMIT ITS COMPLETE DESTRUCTION
HE CONVINCINGLY SAID THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO MILITARY REASON FOR HIM TO CROSS THE BORDER
I RAISED THE CONCERNS OF MAJOR GENERAL OLIVER SMITH OF FIRST MARDIV AS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED TO YOU THAT THE TERRAIN OF NORTH KOREA AND THE
EXTENDED SUPPLY LINES POSE PROBLEMS
MACARTHUR SAID BOTH HE AND GENERAL ALMOND ARE VERY MUCH AWARE OF THE PROBLEMS AND WILL DEAL WITH THEM ACCORDINGLY
I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH MACARTHUR KNOWS ABOUT FIGHTING IN THE MOUNTAINS BUT ALMOND FOUGHT HIS DIVISION IN THE MOUNTAINS OF ITALY IN THE WINTER AND CERTAINLY LEARNED FROM THAT EXPERIENCE
I HAVE THE FEELING THAT MACARTHUR DIDN’T SEEK GUIDANCE AND APPROVAL FOR THE OPERATION FROM THE JOINT CHIEFS BECAUSE HE THINKS HE HAS A MANDATE TO OPERATE WITHOUT IT AND ALSO BECAUSE HE REGARDS AS DO ALMOND AND SMITH THIS OPERATION AS CONSIDERABLY SIMPLER THAN THE INCHON LANDING
THE NAVY HAS NO PROBLEMS WITH THE OPERATION EXCEPT FOR THE ANTICIPATED LACK OF PORT FACILITIES WHICH WILL PROBABLY DELAY THE OFF-LOADING OF HEAVY EQUIPMENT SUCH AS TANKS ETCETERA