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    "localId": "76837815",
    "label": "Introduction to Mr. President by William Hillman and Alfred Wagg",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Introduction to Mr. President by William Hillman and Alfred Wagg",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/76837815",
    "collections": [
        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
        "Longhand Notes Files"
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    "subjects": [
        "Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875"
    ],
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    "seq": 2,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
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    "ocrText": "Mr. President\nby WILLIAM HILLMAN\nwith exclusive photographs, 62 in color\nby ALFRED WAGG\nPRESIDENT TRUMAN said to me: \"I want the people to know the\nPresidency as I have experienced it and I want them to know me\nas I am.\"\nThis is the idea and the theme of this book.\nI am a reporter.\nThis book began when Mr. Truman granted me a series of\nspecial interviews during which he discussed the basic policies of\nhis administration against the background of his surprising and\nreflective knowledge of American and world history. As Mr. Tru-\nman answered my questions, a book of extraordinary significance\nemerged. The President made available to me all his diaries, his\nprivate papers and correspondence. With characteristic candor\nand directness, the President spoke out as no President ever has\nwhile in office.\nHistory makes its judgments looking backward. Mistakes are\ncorrected at leisure-retrospectively. Men and events that still en-\ndure in memory frequently look different to different generations.\nThe advent of communication with the speed of light, and the\nfierce insecurity of man, swiftly growing with his expanding knowl-\nedge, have generated a new force of spontaneous world opinion.\nThis force makes its own history: on the run, propelled by\npassions quickly touched and propaganda intruding as facts. Judg-\nments are swift in the making and actions are quick to follow and\ntoo often the facts are slow to catch up. This new force of spon-\ntaneous world opinion has an enormous influence on the function\nand the leverage of the Presidency of the United States.\nNever in history has any man been assigned the responsibilities\nthe President has today.\nPresent-day human needs and still ancient human wants and\nambitions, wherever men are, seem to be reaching out for attention\nby one man-whatever his constitutional limitations may be or\nhowever constructed he is in mind and spirit. There is no parallel\nfor the world's intrusion today on the man in the White House.\nHence, a close-up view of the President in action may prove useful\nto contemporary society. Since we are living in a kind of world\nwhere there is no precedent or parallel for some vital things, we"
}