The President's News Conference

THE PRESIDENT. Please be seated.

I have no announcements to make.

[1.] Q. Mr. President, the American Legion has asked you to oust Secretary of State Acheson. I wonder what comment you can make on that?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, if the young boys who got up that resolution and passed it by a silent vote had the responsibility of furnishing the United States with a Secretary of State, they undoubtedly would--with the responsibility--appoint the best man for the job in the United States, and that is Dean Acheson.

Q. Then your answer, I would assume, is no? [Laughter]

THE PRESIDENT. Well, I can't--the answer that I would make to them is not printable, so I have nothing more to say.

Mr. Short ¹ [To the President]: Your answer is the one you made.

THE PRESIDENT. I made the answer. That doesn't need any elaboration.

¹Joseph H. Short, Secretary to the President.

[2.] Q. Mr. President, I have a couple of questions.

THE PRESIDENT. Fire.

Q. About a month ago, Senator Williams of Delaware sent you a letter pointing out that he asked to look at some tax cases in the Bureau of Internal Revenue. You refused, saying that he would have to have your permission, and he asked for your 'permission in that letter. Are you going to do anything about that--

THE PRESIDENT. Which he did not get, and which he won't.

Q. You are not going to give him--

THE PRESIDENT. Of course not.

[3.] Q. One more, Mr. President. At a press conference the other day, Adlai Stevenson said that, quote, the mess, unquote, in Washington had been proven. Do you agree with him ?

THE PRESIDENT. NO comment. You didn't get what you wanted, did you? [Laughter]

[4.] Q. Mr. President, I have two questions--

THE PRESIDENT. Fire away.

Q.--the first one is, did Congressman Beckworth today ask you for a job?

THE PRESIDENT. Congressman Beckworth was in to talk to me about some things that affected the campaign in Texas.

[5.] Q. I see, sir. The other question concerns the campaign in Texas, in a way. Senator Lyndon Johnson issued a statement today, in which he said he would support the nominees of the party, and he added for Texans that he thought that they stood to lose more by deserting their Democratic colleagues than they would gain by going with the Republicans. What do you say to that?

THE PRESIDENT. I am glad there are still a lot of good Democrats in Texas. [Laughter]

[6.] Q. Mr. President, do you think it is possible to roll back the Iron Curtain to the borders of the Soviet Union without using force?

THE PRESIDENT. I will answer that question at a later date..I can't answer it today.

[7.] Q. Mr. President, did you approve the trip to Iran for Mr. Jones, the oil man?

THE PRESIDENT. He did not need any approval at all. He came to talk to me about going there, and an American has a right to go anywhere he pleases, if he can get a visa for it.

Q. Did you ask him to make a report to you?

THE PRESIDENT. I asked him to do nothing.

Q. Mr. President, I lost the individual's identity--

THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Jones of the Cities Service Company. He is chairman of the board--and a very fine man, by the way.

Q. Do you happen to know his first name ?

Q. W. Alton.

THE PRESIDENT. No, I don't. [Laughter]

Q. Alton.

THE PRESIDENT. I don't happen to know his first name.

[8.] Q. Mr. President, do you believe Governor Stevenson's stand on the tidelands issue has in any way endangered a Democratic victory in Louisiana or Texas?

THE PRESIDENT. No, I don't. Didn't do me any harm before. I carried Texas by more than two to one.

You people don't understand this situation in Texas or Louisiana, or anywhere else in the South. A great many people down there don't own oil wells, are not multimillionaires, and they will vote the Democratic ticket.

Q. Sir, wasn't the Supreme Court decision-didn't that come down after the 1948 election ?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't know, but I made my stand perfectly clear on the tidelands long before that--long before that.

[9.] Q. Mr. President, do you still have hope for a peaceful settlement in Korea ?

THE PRESIDENT. I do.

[10.] Q. Mr. President, I wonder if I could ask--if I can use a rather rough phrase--do you plan to give anybody hell on your trip to Milwaukee and back? ²

THE PRESIDENT. You will just have to find that out as we go along. I never have done that, views to the contrary notwithstanding. [Laughter]

²See Items 240-242,

[11.] Q. Mr. President, is there any kind of a secret plan--any kind of plan--for ending the Korean war?

THE PRESIDENT. There is not. All the cards are on the table, and published in the newspapers every day in toto.

[12.] Q. Mr. President, a Senate committee today reported that our buildup of aircraft--military aircraft--has been slow, and has been bungled. Do you have any comment Or--

THE PRESIDENT. I haven't read the report, and I can't comment on it.

[13.] Q. Mr. President, are you going to make some whistlestop talks on the way to and from Milwaukee ?

THE PRESIDENT. You will be notified of that in time. Everything will be in order.

[14.] Q. Well, one other question. Have you heard that Colonel McCormick ³ bolted the Republican Party? Do you think--

³Col. Robert R. McCormick, editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune.

THE PRESIDENT. Yes, indeed. I want to give that all the encouragement possible. [Laughter] He is trying to pull an 1852 on us, when the Whig Party went out of business.

Q. How are you going to encourage that?

THE PRESIDENT. I think it's a good thing for the Republican Party to have a few things stirred up in it. It helps the Democrats. That's what I am interested in. [Laughter]

Q. Mr. President, do you think the Republican Party will meet the same fate as the Whigs after 1952 ?

THE PRESIDENT. I can't make any prophecies. I never pretended to be a prophet, or a pollster, either. But I can guess pretty well.

Q. They ran a general a couple of times--

THE PRESIDENT. What's that?

Q. I just observed they ran a general a couple of times, and it didn't work out so well.

THE PRESIDENT. I don't make any prophecies on political affairs. I have been at it too long. I have been in elective public office for practically 30 years, and have had nearly every office from the county to the State and the Nation. And never have had one that I really wanted, and never had one that I let them take away from me, so I think that's a pretty good record.

Q. We didn't hear the first question over here, sir.

THE PRESIDENT. It was just a comment, there wasn't any question. [Laughter[

[ 15.] Q. Mr. President, getting back to the Korean question, can you give some indication--

THE PRESIDENT. There will be no more comment on Korea. You needn't ask me any more questions on it.

Q. You wouldn't say on what basis--

THE PRESIDENT. I make no comment--no comment. I have said what I think, and that's enough. [Pause] Are you running out of soap ?

[16.] Q. Mr. President, could I ask-in the past you have publicly held out hope for the people behind the Iron Curtain that it would be rolled back--

THE PRESIDENT. No comment.

Q. Is there anything we have overlooked, Mr. President ?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't believe there is. If I could think of anything, why I would give it to you.

Reporter. Thank you, sir.