THE PRESIDENCY: Birds & Budgets

It was a long, hard week for Harry Truman. Each morning he chatted and chaffed his way through ten appointments, and each afternoon he thrashed about, thigh deep, in the budget. Outside his oval office early in the week an unseasonably warm sun drenched the White House's south lawn. Inside, a hustling Truman was as busily in-season as a department-store clerk in the Christmas rush.

The budget was at the top of his work list. With Budget Director James E. Webb and Assistant Director Frank Pace Jr., he dug into his daily...

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