TRUMAN HITS AT EISENHOWER

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26855, 7 October 1952, Page 7

TRUMAN HITS AT EISENHOWER

Record On Berlin And Korea

NEW YORK, October 5. President Truman has accused the Republican Presidential candidate, General Eisenhower, of being partly to blame for the Korean war and the Soviet blockade of Berlin. Mr Truman accused General Eisenhower of abusing the trust placed in him a general by “pouring out a wave of filth and falsehoods” against the foreign policy of the Democratic Administration. Mr Truman said that in 1947 the Joint Chiefs of Staff were asked whether, from the point of view of United States military security, American roops should be kept in Korea. He said that the Joint Chiefs nf Staff, including General Eisenhower, had “advised that we had little strategic interest in maintaining our troops there, and that we could well use ♦hose troops elsewhere.”

Mr Truman said he thought that the decision had been right, but he added: “It is wrong for the Republican candidate to attack the decision now without telling the people that he was at least partly responsible for it.” Mr Truman said that General Eisenhower had been “even more deeply involved” in the Berlin case. In 1945 he had proposed to Mr Stalin that the United States should be given free access to Berlin simultaneously with the withdrawal of United States troops from the Soviet zone. The arrangements were to be worked out by the military leaders in the field, and General Eisenhower had been “informed of his responsibility to work them out.” Mr Truman said that General Eisenhower had delegated the job to General Lucius Clay, who had received only oral assurance from the Russians and, as a result “our right of access was never firmly established.” General Clay admitted his mistake in a book he had written. “But his commanding officer should, I think, step up and share some of the blame. The responsibility to arrange free access to Berlin lay squarely on that commanding officer.” In New York General Clay, now active in Generaj Eisenhower’s election campaign, said last night that he accepted full responsibility for the episode, and he added that the Republican candidate had nothing directly to do with it. He said that if a mistake had been made in obtaining only oral assurance from the Russians “I was the fellow who made it.”