Letter from Harry S. Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt

uno February 2, 1946 - Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: I appreciated very much your good letter of January twelfth, which just now reached me. I think you are doing a wonderful job with the United Nations. I really believe it has gotten off to a good start and, I am sure, its future is now assured. Regarding your suggestion to General Eisenhower, since your letter was written he has enunciated a definite policy on the return and discharge of the remaining arned forces. Secretary Patterson has just returned from a tour around the World and expects to go on the radio with an explanation of the program. I think that will clear the matter up completely. or course, it is a most difficult matter to discharge five and one-half million mon in five months and not have some injustices. All together the army and navy have discharged seven and one-half million soldiers and sailors since May first - a record unequaled in the history of the world. It has been done in a fairly orderly manner and with every effort possible for justice to the soldier and sailor. There was no way in the world to make a fair discharge system except on the point systen. In World War 1 the arny was demobilized by Divisions. Two year men and three month mon were discharged at the sane time - that program could not be followed in this demobilization. Another very great difficulty has been the deuobilizing of experienced officers and non-commissioned officers, leaving us with an arny of four million, at least hall of it untrained, with practically now officers and non- commissioned officers. To are now preparing to send home all the nen in the Philipgines, all those in the Near East, all those in India, and all those in Great Britain by the first of July this year, provided we can dispose of surplus property in those areas. The occupation forces of Germany and Japan will each require about a quarter of a million men, and we will require at least a quarter of a million at hone to maintain and service those abroad. I hope by June 30, 1947 to have the whole progran completed.