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This week the Brownell revelation continued to produce news as ex-Diplomat Braden said he did indeed get his copy of the first FBI report. While he recalled no references to White in the report, Braden said: "I darn well took care that anyone mentioned . . . was not in my office. The White part would have been up to the Secretary of the Treasury and the President . . . There were a flock of Communists in the Government then, and my guess is that there are today."
Braden remembered seeing Alger Hiss's name in the report. He added an item of interest: "All that made a deep impression on me. Subsequently, I had a run-in with Hiss over Panama bases, and I could see how he was playing the Communist game."
Then came former Secretary Byrnes with a circumstantial story flatly contradicting Truman. Byrnes said he read the report on White and asked the President what would be done about it. Truman said he had read the report. "I asked him the status of Mr. White," Byrnes reported. "He said it was still pending in the Senate. I told him ... I thought he should . . . withdraw the nomination. The President had a member of his staff telephone Mr. Leslie Biffle, Secretary of the Senate . . . Mr. Biffle stated that the nomination had been favorably acted on that afternoon."
Byrnes said he suggested that the President ask a Senator to move to reconsider the confirmation of White. "He did not think well of that suggestion," said Byrnes.