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George showed his usefulness in a dozen different ways. Through some inadvertence Candidate Truman was scheduled to appear at conflicting C.I.O and A.F.L. rallies in Detroit. George fixed that, made everyone happy. He went along on the gruelling, transcontinental Truman campaign trip, smoothed over Truman blunders. He kept the candidate amused, became his fast friend, saw him elected.
Then one day in April, 1945, when he was on vacation, Washington called him long distance to tell him that Roosevelt had died. George flew east. Harry Truman's amanuensis Matt Connelly met him and exclaimed: "Good God, George. We've got three speeches to write. We have to go before Congress tomorrow."
George jumped in to help write the speeches which the 32nd President of the U.S. delivered to a shocked nation the next day.
George threw himself into other chores: appointments, arrangements, first moves. Fat, fast and reassuring, he was the new President's mainstay. He knew more about many presidential duties than did Harry Truman.
Things settled down but there were still plenty of chores to be done, and a lot of wires to be pulled. George managed the ticklish task of easing Secretary of State Ed Stettinius out to make room for Jimmy Byrnes. There was muttering around Washington over George's unofficial status.
Mr. Truman made him special presidential representative to study the liquidating of war agencies. Liquidating jobs was more in George's line, some Washington figures like Democratic Chairman Bob Hannegan suspected.
George's phone in the White House would ring. Matt Connelly would inquire: "You think that fellow we were talking about this morning is all right to appoint?" Afternoons, George and Harry Vaughan and Harry Truman splashed around together in the White House swimming pool.
In January, 1946, a grateful Harry Truman nominated George to be a director in RFC.
RFC had grown to be the nation's most powerful bank, a financial monstrosity with a "resource potential" of more than $14 billion which it could lend to states, municipalities, private banks, private businessmen, private citizens. In a 12-story building on Vermont Ave., amidst chromium and marble, in a magnificent air-cooled hush preside the giants who control this enterprise—the five directors. Harry Truman thought George should he one of them.
Some of George's critics thought this was going a bit too far—and they also thought George might never get the job. In almost the same breath, Harry Truman had nominated three other cronies—Jake Vardaman, Stu Symington and Ed Pauley—for top Government jobs, and the public howled. Ed Pauley subsequently had to withdraw after some dissection by a Senate committee; but George, as usual, was equal to the occasion.