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By now the White House was in confusion. Cabinet members and heads of war agencies had arrived, grave and solemn-faced. Newsmen scurried about, buttonholing everyone; except for Steve Early, the White House secretariat had collapsed with grief. Shortly before 7 p.m. the Trumans, the Cabinet members and other bigwigs gathered in the green-walled Cabinet Room. Harry Truman, not quite at ease, sat down nervously in a brown leather chair. When Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone strode in, Harry Truman rose, clasped a Bible between his hands, stood stiffly underneath Seymour Thomas' portrait of Woodrow Wilson. The clock on the mantel stood at 7:08. It took just one minute for the oath to be administered, and Harry Truman, 60, the neat, slim, spectacled man from Missouri, became the 32nd man to be President of the U.S.† The ceremony over, he lifted the Bible to his lips.
First News. As the news of Harry Truman's first few hours as President came over the newswires and radio, the U.S. people, still thunderstruck by the massive fact of Franklin Roosevelt's death, took some reassurance in the firm way in which their new President had grasped the reins. They had further cause for reassurance the next day.
It was a busy day. Never a man to lie late abed, the new President was up at 6:30, breakfasted in his apartment with his old friend Hugh Fulton, the ex-Wall Street lawyer who had been counsel, investigator and workhorse for the Truman (now Mead) investigating committee (see below). At 9, President Truman was ready to go to the White House.
Getting into a White House Cadillac, he spied Associated Pressman Ernest B. Vaccaro, who had been assigned to watch the Truman apartment. "C'mon in, Tony," said the President. Tony hopped into the Presidential car. Driving down Connecticut Avenue, President Truman made it clear that he had no illusions about the immense difficulty of his job or about the greatness of the leader he followed. He was frightened, but he was also determined. "There have been few men in all history the equal of the man into whose shoes I am stepping. I pray God I can measure up to the task."
First Deeds. Then he plunged into work. The great mahogany desk in the oval study had been cleared of all of Franklin Roosevelt's crowding knickknacks. On it lay only a Bible, a thesaurus, and a leather-bound pictorial history of the U.S. In rapid order, President Truman had a 45-minute conference with Secretary of State Stettinius, then a 48-minute session with the war leaders: Generals Marshall, Vandegrift and the Air Forces' Barney M. Giles (subbing for "Hap" Arnold); Admiral King; Secretaries Stimson and Forrestal. At noon he broke his first precedent: he went up to Capitol Hill for lunch.
This gave an inkling of the kind of administration President Truman will conduct. Administration leaders were present, also such Republicans as Senators Vandenberg, Austin and White, House Minority Leader Joe Martin, and such longtime Roosevelt opponents as Montana's Burton Wheeler and Wisconsin's Bob La Follette.