The emotional impact of Harry Truman's hurrah for Harriman had worn off, and it was time for the doughty old man to get down to the hard, cold business of politicking. His first serious move was to invite House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson to dinner in his Sheraton-Blackstone Hotel suite to enlist their aid for Ave. With high hopes that a convivial evening and some earnest talk would do the job, Truman produced a bottle of bourbon and, in the long-established spirit of Capitol Hill, proposed that the three "strike a blow for liberty."* But the...
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