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As in all kitchen cabinets and brain trusts, the membership in Harry Truman's gang shifts and changes. Long forgotten are burly, apple-cheeked Hugh Fulton who talked too much, and Omaha insurance man Ed McKim, who served with Harry Truman in the field artillery but was deemed dated for modern Washington. Wrinkled old Admiral Leahy no longer sees the President regularly. Even National Chairman Bob Hannegan has had to take a seat somewhat to the rear.
The top power now rests in four men, some of them brand-new to high councils of any kind, in and out of government. They are the men who currently have Harry Truman's ear on all domestic matters, and some foreign; the men with whom he consults almost daily behind the Executive Office's closed doors. They are a college professor, a lawyer, a banker, and George himself.
The Professor. John Roy Steelman, the professor, was born on an Arkansas farm 46 years ago. He went to war, returned and worked his way through college, got a master's degree in sociology, became professor of sociology at Alabama College. He was called to Washington by Frances Perkins to serve as a labor conciliator. Now, as the boss of OWMR, he sits over the whole national economy—a regular fellow and a friend of all.
The Lawyer. Clark McAdams Clifford, the lawyer, comes from St. Louis, where he was "pretty well irresistible to juries." Handsome, young (39) Clark Clifford was commissioned a lieutenant (j.g.) in the Navy. He never went to sea, but he wound up two years later as naval aide to the President and a four-stripe captain, a feat which ordinarily takes Annapolis graduates around 20 years. Six weeks ago he became the President's special counsel, the job vacated by shrewd, veteran judge & lawyer Sam Rosenman. Everyone agrees that Clark Clifford, who is "perfectly devoted" to Harry Truman, has a way with Harry Truman as he has with juries.
The Banker. John Wesley Snyder, the banker, was RFC loan administrator in St. Louis, where he applied himself to becoming a better banker and a more learned man. He got his reward in 1940 when Jesse Jones called him to Washington to become executive vice president of the Defense Plant Corp. He left after a row with Jones, went back to St. Louis and the vice presidency of the First National Bank. Then one day his friend Harry Truman telephoned him that Franklin Roosevelt had just died. "John," said a shaky Harry Truman, "you'll have to come up here right now."
John Snyder, 50, plump, white-faced and shy with strangers, has been with his friend ever since. Now, a little appalled, he finds himself Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and, according to his careful friends, just "an all-round good fellow."
And George. Washington has never seen anything quite like George Allen, who was born in Booneville, Miss, in 1896, who practiced law, wangled himself a commission in the Army in World War I, wangled a job in the hotel business, wangled an appointment as District Commissioner of Washington, D.C., and bounced up one day at the elbow of the President.