• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

He held his hands in the air, as if measuring an imaginary fish. Then he chopped them down to drive home his point.

“There can be no doctrine more dangerous than the notion that we cannot afford to defend ourselves. And no doctrine quite so foolish, either….

“The greatest danger period of the ‘cold war’ is not necessarily behind us, as some seem to think. We may be in our greatest danger period now, or it may be ahead of us. Nobody on this side of the Iron Curtain knows what is going on in the minds of the men in the Kremlin….

“Big talk does not impress the rulers of the Soviet empire…. What impresses them are planes, and divisions, and ships….

“We must be strongly armed, now and as far ahead as we can see. If the Soviets are genuinely interested in real settlements, we must be able to negotiate from strength. If they are tempted to make war, we must be able to deter them by our strength. And if they should attack, we must be able to beat them back, by strength. No matter what way lies ahead, the essential thing is always strength….

“I think that those who talk about our defense program being too big may be letting their pocketbooks obscure their judgment. It is only natural to wish that we didn’t have to tax ourselves so much for defense. This is perfectly human. We would all like lower taxes. But I warn you soberly and plainly: Do not be misled by the desire for lower taxes into cutting corners on our national security.

“Increasing the risk of World War III means increasing the risk of atom bombs on our homes. Think about that hard and think about it often….

“The world depends upon us,” he said in conclusion. “Let us meet the challenge.” It was ten o’clock. The speech had lasted twenty-four minutes. The ovation it received lasted several more.

Truman returned to his seat and watched a performance by a choir from Naval Air Station Pensacola. At ten-thirty he returned to the private railcar at 30th Street Station and spent the night on board before proceeding to New York.

Like Harry, I took a train from Washington to Philadelphia. Unlike Harry, I didn’t ride in a private railcar loaned by the Pennsylvania Railroad (which ceased to exist in 1968). Instead, I was a passenger on the rolling stock of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. In other words, I took Amtrak. Coach class, of course.

It was June 26, 2008—the fifty-fifth anniversary of Harry’s speech at the Reserve Officers convention. From 30th Street Station, I took a subway to Center City (as downtown is called in Philadelphia) and walked to the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, the site of Harry’s speech. Opened in 1904, the Bellevue-Stratford is a nineteen-story beaux arts masterpiece. It was Philadelphia’s grandest hotel—until it made history of a most unpleasant kind.

In the summer of 1976, the American Legion held a convention at the hotel. More than two hundred people who attended it were stricken with a mysterious pneumonia-like malady. More than thirty eventually died of the illness, which was attributed to a bacterium in the hotel’s air-conditioning system. Researchers named the bacterium Legionellosis. The illness it causes has come to be known as Legionnaires’ disease.

If the best surprise in the lodging business is no surprise, then the worst is probably death. Naturally the outbreak had a deleterious effect on business, and the Bellevue-Stratford was forced to close by the end of that year. Since then it has been bought and sold, opened and closed, and remodeled and renamed many times. In its present incarnation it is known simply as the Bellevue. It is, in essence, an upscale mall. The once-ornate lobby has been subdivided into shops, including a Polo Ralph Lauren and a Tiffany. There’s also a Palm restaurant and the requisite Starbucks. The middle floors have been converted into office space. Only the very top floors still offer accommodations, in the form of a boutique hotel managed by the Hyatt chain.

One important aspect of the old Bellevue-Stratford