National Affairs: Tick, Tock

The shift occurred last week without the faintest clank in the clockwork. Handsome, curly-haired Clark Clifford would bow out as special counsel to the President. And 40-year-old Charles Murphy, a poker-faced North Carolinian, would bow in. The White House was generally saddened at Clifford's departure. "It's a terrible loss," said a Truman intimate. "Charlie Murphy is a hard plugger but he lacks Clifford's flair and imagination. The rest of us will just have to try and supply Charlie with what he lacks." But otherwise the mechanism of Harry Truman's efficient Little Cabinet just...

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