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{
    "localId": "4708744",
    "label": "Letter from Harry S. Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt",
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    "id": "4708744",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Letter from Harry S. Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/4708744",
    "identifierLocal": "hst02-02-1946_01",
    "collections": [
        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
        "Personal Files"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "United Nations",
        "Patterson, Robert Porter, 1891-1952",
        "Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969",
        "Soldiers",
        "Reconstruction (1939-1951)"
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            "day": 2,
            "logicalDate": "1946-02-02",
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    "ocrText": "uno\nFebruary 2, 1946\n-\nDear Mrs. Roosevelt:\nI appreciated very much your good letter of January\ntwelfth, which just now reached me.\nI think you are doing a wonderful job with the United\nNations. I really believe it has gotten off to a good\nstart and, I am sure, its future is now assured.\nRegarding your suggestion to General Eisenhower, since\nyour letter was written he has enunciated a definite\npolicy on the return and discharge of the remaining\narned forces. Secretary Patterson has just returned\nfrom a tour around the World and expects to go on the\nradio with an explanation of the program. I think that\nwill clear the matter up completely. or course, it is\na most difficult matter to discharge five and one-half\nmillion mon in five months and not have some injustices.\nAll together the army and navy have discharged seven and\none-half million soldiers and sailors since May first -\na record unequaled in the history of the world. It has\nbeen done in a fairly orderly manner and with every effort\npossible for justice to the soldier and sailor. There\nwas no way in the world to make a fair discharge system\nexcept on the point systen. In World War 1 the arny was\ndemobilized by Divisions. Two year men and three month\nmon were discharged at the sane time - that program could\nnot be followed in this demobilization.\nAnother very great difficulty has been the deuobilizing\nof experienced officers and non-commissioned officers,\nleaving us with an arny of four million, at least hall\nof it untrained, with practically now officers and non-\ncommissioned officers.\nTo are now preparing to send home all the nen in the\nPhilipgines, all those in the Near East, all those in\nIndia, and all those in Great Britain by the first of July\nthis year, provided we can dispose of surplus property in\nthose areas. The occupation forces of Germany and Japan\nwill each require about a quarter of a million men, and we\nwill require at least a quarter of a million at hone to\nmaintain and service those abroad.\nI hope by June 30, 1947 to have the whole progran completed."
}