Dean Acheson shakes hands with General Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 6, 1951, as Harry Truman and Secretary of Defense George Marshall look on. Eisenhower is departing for Europe to survey his Atlantic Pact forces.
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Even though Truman and Acheson felt that America’s former strong position in the world, which they had passed on to the new President, was being dissipated, and their criticism of Eisenhower and his advisers, particularly his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, was often harsh, they styled themselves with mock self-deception as “nonpartisan” onlookers of the national scene. Truman enjoyed writing Acheson an occasional “spasm”—an unrestrained outburst—when particularly incensed. Acheson always loved receiving these reminders of his colorful old boss from White House days.
Truman was deeply involved in writing his memoirs by mid-1954. He asked Acheson for help in recovering from memory and from the documentary record the story of the work they had done together in shaping a postwar foreign policy. Acheson traveled to Kansas City in February 1955 to give interviews to Truman’s research assistants and to help Truman in other ways. He liked recalling for the interviewers the momentous days of Truman’s presidency.
In June 1954, Truman had a gallbladder operation and a bad reaction to an antibiotic, from which it took him months to recover.
In April 1955, Truman traveled to Washington to testify before Congress about the United Nations Charter and to attend a testimonial dinner for House Speaker Sam Rayburn. Although he accepted the role of elder statesman when appearing before Congress, he relaxed at the Rayburn dinner and unleashed a little raw political rhetoric. During this trip he also got together with Acheson for lunch at Acheson’s home.
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Despite being an ardent student of history, Truman is having trouble researching and writing about his own presidency. He mentions in this letter a number of people from his administration and the major World War II conferences, except the one he attended at Potsdam, Germany. “Byrnes book on [Yalta]” probably refers to James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1947). Truman is upset that the Eisenhower administration is adopting a part of his administration’s agricultural policy—the Brannan Plan, named for his Secretary of Agriculture—and a part of his national health-care proposal.
January 28, 1954
Dear Dean:
I have been working on the opening chapter of my purported memoirs. I have tried to place myself back into the position I was in on April 12, 1945. I have read letters to my mother and sister, to my brother and to my cousins. I have read telegrams to and from Churchill and Roosevelt, to and from Stalin and Roosevelt. I’ve read memos I made of visits to the White House from April 12th back to July, 1944. I’ve read Ike’s, Leahy’s, Churchill’s, Grew’s, Cordell Hull’s books. Memos from Hopkins, Stimson, Asst. & Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson, reports from Marshall, Eisenhower, King, Bradley. Communiqués of Tehran, Cairo, Casablanca, Quebec, Yalta, Byrnes book on it, etc., etc., ad lib[itum], and still I am living today and cussing the budget (Gen. Motors Budget), wondering at the deceit and misrepresentation in the handling of security risks, the adoption of the Brannan Plan for wool—wool of all things, accepting a corner of my health plan.
So you see the past has always interested me for use in the present and I’m bored to death with what I did and didn’t do nine years ago.
But Andrew Johnson, James Madison, even old Rutherford B. Hayes I’m extremely interested in as I am King Henry IV of France, Margaret of Navarre, Charles V, Philip II of Spain, and Charlie’s Aunt Margaret.
Wish to goodness I’d decided to spend my so called retirement putting Louis XIII, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu and five tubs of gold together instead of writing about me and my mistakes. Anyway I made no mistake in my Great Secretary of State.
Hope you’re not too bored with this explosion but I had to blow off to you, and you, therefore, are the fall guy. My best to Mrs. Acheson and all the family.
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson expresses unsentimental views on the importance of power, and balances of power, in world affairs. “Wallace and Hurley” are Henry A. Wallace, Vice President of United States (1941–45), and Patrick J. Hurley, Secretary of War (1929–33), personal representative of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on various missions during World War II, and U.S. ambassador to China (1944–45). The “Berlin fiasco” Acheson refers to is the failure of a recent meeting in Berlin of the foreign ministers of the four occupying powers in Germany to reach any agreement regarding the unification of Germany. The so-called New Look in American foreign policy, which Acheson derides, was announced in a speech by Secretary of State Dulles on January 12, 1954. It was based on “a great capacity to retaliate” with atomic weapons. The EDC is the European Defense Community, a plan, never ratified, to create a single military organization composed of forces from the continental-European NATO member countries, including, most important, France and Germany.
February 5, 1954
Dear Mr. President,
What a joy your letter brought to Alice and me! I took it home and read it to her. Right at the start we stopped at “Charlie’s Aunt Margaret.” I, in my ignorance, claimed that it was a general expression for anyone not involved in your memoirs. Alice said, Not at all—that you knew, and when you said his Aunt Margaret, you meant it.
So down came the Britannica and, sure enough, there she was—the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian and Charlie’s aunt all right. I have been trying her out on some of my high brow friends, and their degree of error is very comforting to me.
From the whole letter we could picture you full of energy and eager to get your hands on the work of building for the future with all your resources of knowledge of the past and understanding of the present. Whenever you want to blow off steam, we claim priority on being blowee, as the lawyers would say.
I know how bored you get in concentrating upon your own actions years ago. In a way I have been doing the same thing in these group discussions at Princeton and I do find that one can only do about so much a day—to do too much at a time gives me a strange dreamlike sensation of living in two periods almost at once.
As I look back over your administrations I do not see much to regret in any of the great decisions, but do see many, many times when I am amazed at the boldness, courage and insight of decisions. Comparing those years with the present, I am amazed too, by the way in which we assumed that vigorous leadership was just normal and how in the face of the most awful brawls with the hill you made the Congress do things which the present crowd would not dream of attempting.
The problems which tended to defy solution came, I think, from an erroneous decision which you inherited, and from another which you were swept—almost forced—into making or agreeing to in 1945.
The inherited error was the total destruction of Japanese and German military power and, in the case of Germany, of any German state at all. This completely withdrew all local containing power on both sides of Russia. Our own great power might have acted in large part as a substitute if we had not dispersed that in 1945–6.
Power is at the root of most relationships—by no means the only factor, but one of vast importance. A balance of power has proved the best international sheriff we have ever had. Many of our troubles—or perhaps better to say, many troubles—came from the dissolution of our power and the destruction of any balance capable of restraining the Russians from acts which weakened the West greatly, although we did deter them from direct attack on us or Europe. This is an interesting field to speculate about. For instance, how much did Stalin change his plans about China and Korea when, to what must have been his utter amazement, our army, navy and air force simply melted away. Crooked as he was, I think his talks with Wallace and Hurley must be read in the light of our power at the time he was talking—not that he was sincerely adopting a line of action on which any one could or should rely, but I doubt whether he believed that we would permit him to adopt any other course and then we had the power to make our will effective without the necessity of using the power.
These thoughts I write during a day spent without food or water having my insides X-rayed. This leads to contemplation but not to powerful flights of imagination. I hope this is to be the wind-up of almost a year of trying to get rid of some amoebae that I collected somewhere probably in Africa or South America.
When this Berlin fiasco is over—and it seems to be following the exact pattern of the Paris meeting of 1949—some attention ought to be given to the “new look,” that precious intangible—“the initiative”, which, believe it or not, is exercised by “retaliation”, etc., etc. This is in reality the policy we had to follow before you began the rearmament in 1950—and at a time when we had the monopoly of the atomic bomb.
I should think it unwise to raise the matter strongly while Berlin is still going. Partly not to attack a man who is representing us abroad, and partly because Dulles may well be crawling out of this speech now if he really hopes to get the French and Italians to ratify the E.D.C. Also I am not sure that people’s minds generally would be as open to an analysis by you or me, as they would to some one who would not be charged with responding to defend their own work against direct action. If Stevenson would do it and stay on the line he would get a real audience and then Senators and Congressmen could pick it up. Sam Rayburn would be an ideal person to do it.
Our trip to Antigua this January, although shorter, was in some ways more fun than last year. We felt better and we had our daughter Jane Brown from Milwaukee with us, who is a pretty good vacation just in herself. We had a great time swimming, eating, laughing and drinking some good rum together. Everyone returned brown and happy.
Our deepest affection to you and Mrs. Truman. We hope her hand has recovered and that all is well. I wish I were seeing you in N.Y. tonight.
Most sincerely,
Dean
In 1954 Eugene Meyer bought Robert R. “Bertie” McCormick’s Washington Times-Herald and merged it with the Washington Post. “Snyder” is John W. Snyder, Secretary of the Treasury. The Tenth Inter-American Conference, held in Caracas, Venezuela, was in progress at this time. Sullivan & Cromwell is the New York City law firm where John Foster Dulles was a partner before he became Secretary of State. “Puck’s exclamation” in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
St. Patrick’s Day, 1954
Dear Dean:
Well, here you are due for another explosion. I’ve read your good letter of February 5th time and time again. It gave me a lift and as a result I’ve become more philosophical about my situation. Maybe I should go on a fast as you had to! Hope they caught that bug.
I was thinking of history and government when I wrote you before and I still spend time thinking about both. Our fatal instinct has not been eliminated by science and invention. We, as individuals, haven’t caught up physically or ethically with the atomic age. Will we?
Let’s hope our grandchildren do catch up. That’s a hypothetical statement on my part but not on yours.
Can you imagine old man Dulles trying to make Berlin and Caracas great and statesmanlike victories? Wish old Ben Franklin were alive. He’d give John Foster the Poor Richard treatment—and that is what he needs.
Ike’s rich-man-tax-bill speech was a jim dandy for the Democrats. You see what political and legislative inexperience can do for an amateur—a general! Until he learns how to fight with Congress and beat them to the punch, what chances he had, to take all the fire out of the dragon by tax reductions, foreign affairs. But he let the snolly-gosters tell him what to do. And I have to keep my mouth shut and use all the effort I have to keep from exploding publicly—hence you are the victim.
The tone of my mail has changed completely. It still comes in by the bushel but there’s hardly a mean one in two hundred and it has been as high as five in one hundred. Most of the mean ones quote Bertie McCormick’s editorials and cartoons. How in the world are you and I to survive without the Times-Herald in Washington? Somebody will have to give us hell or we’ll be off the front page for good.
What pleases me most [is] that the alibiers for Ike are having one hell of a time keeping the policies you, Snyder and the former President put into operation under wraps. They can’t play both sides of the street much longer.
What did you think of Caracas? Did we help or hurt ourselves?—Or did Sullivan and Cromwell win a victory for the United Fruit Company and the Bolivian Tin Trust? How has Guatemala been able to keep its monetary unit at par with the dollar when no other country but Canada has? I’m not so sure that dollar diplomacy hasn’t come back into its own.
Please tell Mrs. Acheson that there are a lot of girls in the history books who’ve been overlooked along with Margaret of Austria, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Justinian’s Empress to name a couple. We hear a lot of Elizabeth I, Catherine of Russia, Isabella of Spain, and Cleo of Egypt and the Medici. I like to read of them because they made Puck’s exclamation in Midsummer Night’s Dream so true. Hope you’re well entirely. The Boss and I will see you we hope about May 4th.
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson enclosed with this letter an article about the New Look foreign policy to be published on March 28, 1954, critical of Secretary of State Dulles. It is titled “ ‘Instant Retaliation’: The Debate Continued,” regarding the Dulles policy of arming Taiwan against China and encouraging rebellion in Soviet-occupied Europe. “Mr. Hull” is Cordell Hull, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of State from 1933 to 1944.
March 26, 1954
Dear Mr. President,
This is only an interim reply to your good letter which delighted me and made me feel that we had had a good talk. I am looking forward to a real one in May.
The enclosed is my only departure from the quiet and happy obscurity of our private life. I became too worked up over the fraud of the New Look to be quiet any longer. This piece does not deal in personalities or quibbling over words but tries to lay out the skeleton of our international situation so that the reader can see what we are talking about and what we must talk about. These facts of life can’t be made to disappear by slick talk. Dulles may fool the people by the unleashing of Chiang, the liberation of the East Europeans, and the new look—all bare faced frauds—but he can’t fool the fates. The mills grind on.
Poor Mr. Hull. I have just learned of Mrs. Hull’s death and go to her funeral tomorrow. How the old man can go on I don’t see. He depended on her for everything.
Our most affectionate greetings to you and Mrs. Truman.
Most sincerely,
Dean
Acheson sent Truman a two-page memorandum, dated April 7, 1954, about agreements between the United States and the United Kingdom on the use of the atomic bomb. Truman presumably needed this information for his memoirs.
Truman visited Washington in May 1954, had dinner with the Achesons, and spoke, on May 10, to the National Press Club. His theme was the need for a bipartisan foreign policy or at least a clearly defined foreign policy. This letter includes a “spasm.” Truman is worried that the Eisenhower administration wants to intervene militarily in Indochina. France had just been decisively defeated by the Viet Minh communists at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Arthur W. Radford was a U.S. Navy Admiral and Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet during World War II and at the outbreak of the Korean War. General Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific during World War II, was in charge of U.N. forces helping South Korea during the Korean War. Admiral Forrest Sherman was Chief of Naval Operations from 1949 until his death in 1951.
May 28, 1954
Dear Dean:
Now that the smoke has cleared away somewhat you are in for another spasm. To start with, your dinner was quite the most enjoyable event to Mrs. Truman and me, of the whole visit.
Our conversations with Gen. Marshall gave me a great kick—and by the way, he sent me a grand memo on China which with your White Paper makes a complete and factual record of what took place.
I’ve been working about seventeen hours a day on the book, the mail and the customers who come to see me. We are going over the Potsdam Conference and some of the happenings are fantastic to say the least. On the second day there was an argument about Franco and the German Fleet’s disposal. I finally became exasperated and told Churchill and Stalin that I hadn’t come to Berlin to try Franco although I thought no more of him than Stalin did. If we’d come to Berlin to run a police court, I’d go back home because I had plenty to do there.
When my outburst was translated to Stalin, he roared with laughter and suggested we talk of Poland or some other internationally tough subject. I’d forgotten the incident but Ben Cohen recorded and Jim Blair, now Lieutenant Governor of Missouri, was in to see me and repeated the story to me as I’ve set it down here. Jim was a Lt. Col. in civil government in Italy—I guess it was military government, at the time. I’d sent for him to come to Potsdam and offered him a ride home with me. He refused the ride because he could go home sooner on orders. When Jim arrived at the Little White House, I was having a conference with all the high military—five star generals and admirals, not one there with less than three stars. I invited Jim in and introduced him to Marshall, Leahy, Eisenhower, King, Patton and the rest and while that was going on I told him that I’d just appointed his pet political enemy to a job back in Missouri. He stopped and ripped out a paragraph of swear words (no one has a better vocabulary) and wound up by saying “for God’s sake Senator what in hell did you do that for.” The high brass almost fainted. I knew what Jim would do and I told him that good lie so he’d blow his top.
In the campaign of 1940 the Missouri politicians had a breakfast for Henry Wallace in St. Louis at which I was present. Our candidate for Governor at that time was Larry McDaniel, now dead. Larry lost the election because he told off color stories from the platform. He was to ride from St. Louis to Jefferson City with Wallace, and Wallace’s secretary cautioned him about his demeanor with Wallace. Larry had nothing to talk about when his stories were shut off so he slept all the way to the Missouri capital. After the luncheon they went on to Kansas City for a dinner. Jim Blair rode from Jefferson City to Kansas City in the front seat and regaled Wallace by damning Republicans and his personal Democratic enemies and telling Wallace a dozen dirty stories. When they arrived and were getting out of the car Henry turned to Larry McDaniel and said “Who did you say that fellow is? He’s the most interesting man I’ve met on this trip.” Larry was fit to be tied because he thought he knew more and better stories than Jim did—without the swear words.
Now look what I’ve done—got off on a side issue instead of what I started to write you about. I believe the reaction to the trip east was good, thanks to the help and good advice I received from you and the boys. The McCarthy side show is causing a lot of shame to our Republican friends. Even the old Saturday Evening Post with its 1896 political background and philosophy “has enough.”
I’m worried about our world situation. We are losing all our friends, the smart but inexperienced boys at the White House are upsetting NATO and throwing our military strength away. Yet they seem to want to intervene in Indo-China. Radford is a MacArthur policy man and always was. That was why I wouldn’t make him Chief of Naval Operations when Sherman was appointed. Let me know how you feel on this subject please.
My best to Mrs. Acheson.
Sincerely,
Harry
The “first class disaster” at Hanoi is the dénouement of the war of liberation against the French in Indochina, leading to the creation of independent Vietnam.
June 16, 1954
Dear Mr. President,
Some day I must meet Jim Blair, get some of his stories and particularly get him to talk about you. That I think ought to be good and would come in handy the next time you offer me into bondage as an advisor to Foster Dulles. Not that he doesn’t need a whole company of them, he most certainly does. But his trouble is that he won’t listen to those he has already.
You are quite right to be worried about the world situation. It does not seem possible that a spendthrift crew could dissipate their inheritance as this Administration has done. In eighteen months we have gone from a position of acknowledged, gladly accepted and successful leadership to a position of impotent sulking while our alliances—and, indeed, some of our friends—disintegrate. And the trouble centers right where you said it did in your press club speech—in the White House. The other day one of my Republican friends said to me:—
“I want to apologize to someone and you’ll have to do. I just didn’t realize how much we had when we really had a President.”
The next few months can really be bad. If things go on as they are now going and we have no plans or leadership, and if about October the French have a first class disaster at Hanoi with large scale local desertion of local troops and the rest of the army pinned to the beaches at Haiphong, and Congress campaigning—then what? Ted White has a first class article on Indo-China in the last Reporter which is worth your reading.
Even at this late hour it would be possible to work out a policy designed to regroup, hold, and reconstruct. But it requires some basic decisions and a real show down to determine who is boss in the present Administration. The decisions are (1) whether our Alliances are or are not the foundation of our policies, if so they have got to be restored, particularly our understanding with the British, and (2) what is our purpose in South East Asia. Is it to save it, or as much as possible, from Communism? Or is it to try to destroy with arms the regime in China. If it is the latter—or rather unless we make it clear that it is not the latter, we shall get no help, our alliances will further disintegrate, and if we try it alone we may blunder into World War III. This, I think, is the heart of the matter and our people are getting very badly confused. “New Looks”—which are not new and look about as far as an ostrich with its head in the sand—, “United Fronts” without knowing with whom or about what we want to be united, intervention, alone one day, and the next only on conditions as long as a life insurance contract & involving no American boy anywhere on his own feet—these shifts, twists and turns have people groggy. And the grog is that prohibition hooch which makes some people go crazy and blinds others.
In the meantime we have added another grandson—my son David’s—to the roster. He came into the world sooner than he was supposed to—either because he didn’t know what he was getting into, or because he thought he could vote this fall.
We are so happy that you enjoyed the evening with us. It was a great one for us. Our warmest greetings to Mrs. Truman and yourself.
Sincerely,
Dean
On the evening of June 18, 1954, while waiting backstage to appear as himself in the musical Call Me Madam, Truman suffered a violent seizure and was taken to the hospital, where his gallbladder and appendix were removed. Acheson provides a whimsical diagnosis for the cause of Truman’s difficulties. Dr. Wallace H. Graham was Truman’s personal physician during and after his presidency. “A certain general” is the occupant of the White House, President Eisenhower.
June 21, 1954
Dear Mr. President,
Country bumpkins like Alice and I did not know of your illness, I think happily, until we knew also that you were sitting up perkily and doing well. It is a mean operation you had and will take you quite a while to be really your old self. I doubt whether anyone knows whether you will be a good patient, probably not, because you don’t know what it is to be ill. If Mrs. Truman needs any help—which I also doubt—all she has to do is to call a special Cabinet meeting and we shall all be there prepared for once to lay down the law.
When papers tell us that you had a gangrenous gall bladder, I was at once prepared to tell Doc Graham how you got it. It comes from reading the newspapers. No one can escape some malady from this cause. With me it has taken the form of an attack of gout, probably from a suppressed desire to kick some one or more person or persons unnamed but not hard to identify.
For your convalescence I have asked the book shop to send you Cecil Woodham-Smith’s The Reason Why, a really superb account of the Sebastopol campaign. When you get acquainted with Lords Raglan, Cardigan and Lucan you will be reminded of a certain general we both know. It will take your mind off the present and give your secretions a chance to adjust.
Our most affectionate greetings go to Mrs. Truman and to you. Get well quickly but get active slowly. You will be all the more powerful for the rest and quiet.
Most sincerely,
Dean
Truman suffered an allergic reaction to an antibiotic following his operation.
June 27, 1954
Dear Mr. Acheson—
Harry deeply appreciated your thoughtful telegram and one morning when I came in I found him reading the book you so generously sent him, Thank you loads and loads.
We are still remembering the delightful evening in your home—it was one of the very happiest we had while we were there.
We are really having a battle now to whip this wretched terramycin and I am definitely worried.
Sincerely,
Bess
[Postscript by Bess Truman:] Am in one of those [word indecipherable] writing stages again but not much use telling you that!
Rose Conway was Truman’s personal secretary and administrative assistant from 1945 to 1972.
June 30, 1954
Dear Mrs. Truman:
It was very good of you in the midst of your worry and vast load of messages to write me. Since Sunday the reports have given us some comfort, as did my talk with Rose Conway. I hope your anxiety is lessened. It is touching the way so many people—elevator boys, our cook, taxi drivers, people on the street—keep asking me about the President. He is deeply loved—even by the Press. We are earnestly hoping that from now on all goes well.
Mr. Churchill, whom I saw yesterday, asked most warmly about him and said that he would like to fly out to Kansas City before going home. But Mr. Truman’s recent set back made that seem a bad idea. The old gentleman is in good shape and felt that his trip here has been very necessary and successful. Eden was also looking very well indeed.
Please, under no circumstances, answer this note. It merely carries an extra greeting and word to you both.
Most sincerely,
Dean Acheson
Acheson refers to Joseph M. Jones, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, 1946–48. Jones published The Fifteen Weeks (February 11–June 5, 1947) in early 1955. Main Duck Island in Lake Ontario was Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’s favorite vacation retreat.
September 21, 1954
Dear Mr. President:
… I am delighted to hear from Charlie Murphy that you are improving daily. I hope that you will take it easy and not be drawn into making a lot of speeches in the campaign. You like to do this, but it really takes a good deal more out of you than you think, and this seems to be one year when you can let some other Democrats take the burden.
A man named Joseph Jones has talked to Dave Lloyd and has written or will write to you asking permission to look at some of your files for the first half of 1947 and, if you have time, talk with you briefly. The latter you need not feel any obligation to do unless you happen to feel like it at the time. But I do hope that you will both let Joe look at the files he has in mind and ask Bill Hillman and the others to be a little cooperative with him, since they can help him greatly and he can help not only them but the whole cause.
Joe is writing a book called Fifteen Weeks, in which he is developing the thesis that in the time from the end of February, 1947, when the British Ambassador notified you that the British were withdrawing from Greece and Turkey, and the middle of June, you had made the most far reaching decision in foreign policy which laid the foundation for everything which has been done since. Joe worked for me at the time. He is a professional writer, an economist, and can do the job well. I do hope that you can let him get a look at the material which he needs.
I trust that the check arrived in time for you to buy the property fronting on the Library site. The obligation of the highway commission to take it off the Library hands looks a little tenuous from this distance, but we are counting on you to save the day.
There are two cracks of my son’s which I must pass on to you. He says that Christian Dior has brought great trouble on the Administration. First he designed the New Look, and the Administration designed a foreign policy after it. Now he comes out with the flat bust and so does the Administration. His other observation is that there really is a basis for a deal with the Communists. We will give them Duck Island and they will give us Formosa.
Our warmest greeting to you and Mrs. Truman.
Sincerely yours,
Dean
This is Truman’s first substantive letter to Acheson since the onset of his illness in mid-June. He refers to Acheson’s article in the March 28, 1954 New York Times and to one in the autumn 1954 Yale Review titled “The Responsibility for Decision in Foreign Policy.” He mentions the only speech he made during the 1954 campaign.
October 14, 1954
Dear Dean:
I am very sorry to be so long telling you how much I am in your debt for letters, for the article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and for the Yale Review piece on Responsibility for Decision in Foreign Policy.
You’ve no idea how heart warming it is to this still controversial former President to have the people who actually knew the motivating facts, tell what those facts were. No one knew the travail we went through in those years from Apr. 12, 1945 to Jan. 20, 1953 as did you, Gen. Marshall, John Snyder and Charlie Brannan. As you know those decisions had to be made and as you also know they were based on the facts presented by the most reliable men a President ever had to give him the facts.
Dean, I’ve had a hell of a time since June 19th. Went to our outdoor theater in Swope Park to see Call Me Madam which I’ve never seen (and don’t want to) and didn’t see that Friday night. A pain overtook me which I couldn’t stop with all the will power I could exercise and the “Boss” drove me home. It is fifteen miles and I thought we’d never arrive. Wallie Graham was in the back yard and went upstairs with me. Saturday was a blank. I guess he gave me knockout drops. Went to the hospital Saturday night and after some consultation Doc told me that the white corpuscles were increasing at the rate of a 1000 an hour and that a little butchering would be necessary. I wrote a codicil to my will and went out—I mean out.
Well, Doc did a fine job and gave me a fancy hem stitched sewing up. They gave me about five or ten gallons of antibiotics by sticking needles in veins. But they just couldn’t kill me. Only when I was seasick on the Zeppelin coming home from France in 1919 did I feel worse.
You know so many flowers came to the hospital that I supplied every customer from the basement to the seventh floor. In addition to that five or six bushels, a hundred thousand cards and letters came asking me to get well. I just had to accommodate ’em.
Bess says I’m worse than a Bridge Club Lady—talk about my operation and bore people to death. That’s what you get for being my good friend. I was very sorry about the Jones affair. But he was not very courteous and I’m afraid of breaking my contract, so I told him to wait until the manuscript is in the publisher’s hands on my book and then we’d go on from there.
I’m only making one political speech and for me it’s on a very high plane. I can see your grin on that one. It will be broadcast at 9:30 P.M. our time on the American Network—no television thank goodness.
On Nov. 6 we are having a Library dinner here and do you know believe it or not they’ve sold 387 tickets at $100.00 a piece and no invitations are out yet. The room only holds 600 and they say that you won’t be able to get ’em in. Now what about that prophet in his home town?
If you and Mrs. Acheson will come out I’ll furnish you tickets and free room and board at our house. Anyway I want to put you on the witness stand for the book if you come. Marshall, Snyder, and Charlie Brannan and Oscar Chapman have all been through the ordeal and not one has been indicted for perjury—so surely the greatest lawyer of them all should [not] be afraid of a Truman Grand Jury! Dean, I am anxious to talk with you about the main theme of the book because I have the utmost confidence in your judgment.
My best to Mrs. Acheson—Alice.
Answer this in person Nov 6!
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
Truman’s lingering convalescence from his operation in June prevented him from taking a substantial part in the 1954 election season. He did no campaigning and made only one speech, at a Midwest Democratic Rally held in Kansas City on October 16, which was carried on national radio. Truman began the speech by saying that some had advised him that, after eight years as President, he should now be an elder statesman “on a high and mighty plane and say nothing except the nicest things,” that he “speak softly and not in what they call the whistle-stop technique.” Truman couldn’t take this advice. “The whistle-stop technique,” he said, “is the very heart of American political debate and political frankness in this free country. Again tonight I intend to be myself and speak plainly on the issues.” For half an hour, he attacked the Republicans in his plain-speaking style. “I cannot see where there is any leadership among the Republicans to deal with the great needs of this country,” he insisted. “On the contrary, what I do see is a hopeless drifting and a gradual surrender to selfish interests at home.” Once or twice he found his typed speech too tepid and decided to say something stronger. The typed copy read, “I have not tried to single out all the mistakes that have been made—the list is very long.” Truman, not satisfied, wrote in, “It would take all night and all day tomorrow to list them.” Again, where the speech talks about economic problems brought on by the Republicans, Truman adds: “If the Republicans had controlled the government for the 20 years after 1932 you’d have no job, no farm, no business to lose in 1951.”
Acheson listened to Truman’s radio address. Philip Jessup was Truman’s delegate to the United Nations in 1951.
October 19, 1954
Dear Mr. President,
It was a great joy to see the familiar handwriting again and to hear once more on Saturday night the well remembered voice. Phil Jessup, Alice, and I listened to you together. You came through very well indeed. We were all so excited and delighted that we all had another drink which we did not need. Alice said that just to hear your strong healthy straightforward talk regardless of the arguments, after these studio trained swoon boys, made her sure that everything was all right somehow or other. We all agreed and I know a great host of listeners did also.
I am sorry that we could not have helped with the text but somewhere the signals got mixed up. David and I wrote a thirty minute speech in which we had some pretty good touches. Then David got word to cut it to 12 minutes. So the good touches went out. But you spoke for a full half hour and timed it beautifully.
It was fine, but that is enough for this campaign. You must take it easy for a while longer.
Contrary to Mrs. Truman’s prediction your report on your illness was most eagerly read. I had known from her letter that you had been very ill indeed and that for a while it was touch and go. Your account has made it vivid and brought home how lucky we all were that your number was not up. I’m glad too that you had a chance to see the deep affection which the country has for you. At one time I thought that we would have to go to New York to comfort the editor of the Times who was almost in a state of collapse.
Please don’t worry about the Joe Jones affair. He managed it very badly and although he is a good man and will do a good book for your administration he is not tactful or courteous and does get excited. Dave and I should have paved the way with a careful explanation of what he wanted so that you could have considered it carefully and in advance. I do not think that he would have led to any trouble on the contract—which could not be risked at all. There is really only one fact which he needs to ascertain and should be shown in a document which General Marshall and I brought to you and you approved on February 26, 1947. He does not need to quote it at all. Perhaps some time you and I can talk about it.
This brings me to the sad fact that, although Alice and I would dearly love to do so, we cannot accept your most welcome invitation to be with you on November 6th. I have to speak at Cambridge, Mass., on the 4th, attend a Yale Corporation meeting at New Haven on the 5th and 6th and argue a case in the Supreme Court on the 8th. But I hope that this does not rule us out forever and that you and Mrs. Truman will let us come later on at some time when you have an open date. Probably I will not be much use on the book but it would be great fun to talk it over with you, and the greatest joy to see you both.
Bob and Adele Lovett will be here with us this weekend and we shall talk a great deal of you as we did when we stayed with them last summer. Both of them were ill last winter and spring (Adele had her gall bladder out) but they are fine now. Bob finds private life as dull as I do—and, I suspect, you do, too. It has its compensations but they are not in the field of absorbing interest.
All our children are flourishing. David has presented us—or rather his wife has—with a fifth grandchild. Time marches on! What I hear and read of Margaret is full of happiness and success in her work.
With most affectionate greetings to Mrs. Truman and yourself.
Most sincerely,
Dean
Truman is looking forward to getting Acheson’s critique of the draft of his memoirs. The book Truman refers to, Civilization and Foreign Policy (1955), is by State Department official Louis J. Halle, Jr.
January 11, 1955
Dear Dean:
You were right about Louis Halle’s book, if I may pose in my stuffed shirt capacity as a “judge.”
That inscription to me and the Introduction by you would make it a great book for me if nothing else were between the covers. But I have certainly enjoyed reading it.
You know, Dean, I think you and I will live to see what we tried to do appreciated for what it is. Not many who have had our positions lived to see what they’d done appreciated.
I hope you and Alice, if she’ll allow me to call her by the first name, had a grand holiday season and I hope 1955 brings you everything you want. Bess and I had a happy time because “Miss Skinny” was at home. You know I called her “skinny well fed” as she grew up because I didn’t have a boy. But I wouldn’t trade her for a house full of boys although I always wanted a couple and another girl. It didn’t happen and I’m amply compensated!
We are going great guns on the book. I hope you and Alice can come out and spend a few days with us so I can put you under the cross examination with no “objections” allowed.
The damned thing is turning out much better than I thought it would but I need your opinion badly.
My best to you, Mrs. Acheson and all your family. Say hello to the gang.
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson’s comment about Milwaukee refers to the fact that Senator Joseph McCarthy represented that district of Wisconsin. Acheson refers to political commentator Walter Lippmann’s book Essays in the Public Philosophy (1955), also published under the titleThe Public Philosophy.
January 20, 1955
Dear Mr. President,
I am so glad that you liked the Halle book. It seemed to me really first class, laying out, as it did, the problems we faced both abroad and from the very nature of the American public, what the choices were and what the right choice was and is. I wish everyone could and would read it, including Mr. John Foster Dulles.
Alice and I are off tonight for Pittsburgh where I speak on Friday—not on public matters—to the Pennsylvania Bar Association. Its members ought to be a fine lot of McKinley conservatives if the term “Philadelphia lawyer” describes them. But I am to talk on legal subjects. I am fooling them by reminiscing about the old Supreme Court and when I went to work for Justice Brandeis thirty-six years ago. If the speech gets printed I’ll send you a copy.
From Pittsburgh we go on to Milwaukee to see our daughter, Jane, whose place I have never been to. While we were in office Milwaukee did not seem the most ideal spot in which to relax. We shall be there over the weekend. Then Alice goes on to Michigan to get her nephew married and I come home.
We would love to come to Kansas City to see you and Mrs. Truman. Our last opportunity in November ran into all sorts of Court and college engagements. So you name the most convenient time for you and we will bend our lives to suit. It would be better for us if it could be after the middle of February and not the weekend of the 25th, 26th and 27th when we have guests on our hands. My engagements in the office are so flexible and light that I can arrange to get away at almost any time. The week of Feb. 7–12 I am spending at Yale where I have taken on a heavy schedule of lectures and seminars for undergraduate and graduate students. The two weeks before I had better spend on preparation, but if sometime in those weeks were much better for you please let me know. And whenever we come do not let us be a burden on Mrs. Truman. You will know how to avoid that and our earnest desire [is] that it should be avoided.
Walter Lippmann has a new book out in which he makes the amazing discovery that the weakness of the democracies today comes from encroachments on the executive power, by legislative bodies pandering to an ignorant and volatile public swayed by mass media of communication. If he had known this and used his power—which isn’t much but something—to support the executive when we really had one instead of joining the chorus of misinformation, I could read him with more patience. One of the editors of a great weekly told me the other day that the feather bed which the whole press and radio, TV, etc. put under this administration was quite unbelievable. He said that if we had done one quarter of the fool and other things which this crowd has our great free press would have gone utterly crazy with denunciation. Perhaps some day the populace will see that the king has no clothes on.
Our most affectionate greetings to you both.
As ever,
Dean
Truman suggests the Muehlebach Hotel’s Presidential Suite as a place where Acheson might stay when he comes to Kansas City. During Truman’s presidency the suite served as his headquarters when he and his staff came to town. Barney Allis was the hotel’s owner.
January 25, 1955
Dear Dean:
As usual your good letter gave me a lift. When I hear from you I always feel better.
I am anxious for you to come out and discuss parts of the book. If you and Mrs. Acheson (Alice) can come out Feb. 16th and stay with us the rest of the week or as long as you feel you can we’ll be delighted and I’ll make you believe you had a real “one man grand jury” session!
We’d love to have you and Alice stay with us or if you prefer “great eastern” style I’ll have Barney Allis put you in the Presidential Suite at the Muehlebach Hotel.
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
Walter George was the senior senator from Georgia, often supportive of the Eisenhower administration, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from January 1955 to January 1957. Acheson feels that the administration is being played for fools by Chiang Kai-shek.
January 31, 1955
Dear Mr. President,
I shall set my plans for Kansas City Wednesday, February 16th, with great joy. I ought to get back here by Saturday, February 19th. Alice would love to come, but is doubtful whether she can. She has just been away for ten days during which the cook has collapsed with various ailments. So that department is in disorder. Then next week she has to be away again with me. So she is breathless at the moment and unable to be clear about the future. She wants you to know that she would love to see you and her beloved Mrs. Truman.
I should, of course, love to stay with you and have no longing for the Muehlebach’s Presidential elegance, which I know. But above all I do not want to bother Mrs. Truman by adding to household cares.
Until the 16th! What a magnificent mess these people are making of the Far East. And our Democrats are not very bright, particularly Walter George who gets committed when he doesn’t know the play.
Yours,
Dean
February 4, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
This is just a note to you before I leave for a week at New Haven, to tell you our plans for coming to you.
As Alice has written Mrs. Truman, to her great joy she has gotten things straightened out so that she will be able to come with me. We are planning to arrive at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday, February 16, via TWA, Flight No. 1. And we have gotten reservations to return on a TWA Flight which leaves Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m.
If these plans can be changed in any way to be more convenient to you, we shall do it as soon as you tell us how. Miss Evans will take care of everything here while I am away.
We are looking forward to our visit like children to the holidays. Alice saw Margaret yesterday and reports that she was (1) very well and gay, and (2) prettier than ever. She gave her consent to our visit.
Most warmly,
Dean
February 5, 1955
Dear Dean:
I was pleased no end when yours of Jan. 31 came. Margaret saw Mrs. Acheson at the reception and told us that both of you were coming. I’m glad you’d rather stay at our small town residence than at the Presidential Suite of Barney Allis’ hotel.
I’m so anxious for your comments on what I say about Korea, MacArthur and the Employee Security Program that I’d do most anything to get them. Let me know your time of arrival on the 16th so I can meet you. I have no Secret Service, no Intelligence Service. So you’ll have to tell me.
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
February 9, 1955
HONORABLE DEAN ACHESON
YOUR TIMING IS PERFECTLY ALL RIGHT. MRS. TRUMAN AND I WILL BE LOOKING FOR YOU AND MRS. ACHESON TO ARRIVE AT TWELVE EIGHTEEN FEBRUARY SIXTEENTH. WE ARE EXCEEDINGLY HAPPY.
HARRY S TRUMAN
February 19, 1955
THE HON AND MRS HARRY S TRUMAN
SAFELY HOME WITH THE HAPPIEST MEMORIES AND DEEPEST GRATITUDE FOR THE BEST VISIT EVER
AFFECTIONATELY
ALICE AND DEAN
Truman met the Achesons at the Kansas City airport and drove them to a luncheon at the Muehlebach Hotel, where they gave a press conference. Among the luncheon guests were the small staff who were assisting Truman with his memoirs. Much of Acheson’s time during the next three days was spent giving interviews to Truman’s three main associates on the memoir project—journalist William Hillman, advertising executive David Noyes, and University of Kansas professor and chief writer Francis Heller.
February 21, 1955
Dear Mrs. Truman,
What a glorious visit you gave us! We delighted in every minute of it. Even when the three man grand jury had me under examination I was reliving days which were the best and fullest I have ever lived. It started with the very first moment when we came out of the plane and saw you and the President and Margaret waiting for us at the bottom of the steps. That nearly did us in. But I think the greatest joy came in seeing you three all so well and so happy, in your own home, and surrounded by the affectionate devotion of your own community. It was so right and sound and inspiring. It made us feel all over again the strength and grandeur of the fabric of this America of ours.
And what luck for us that Margaret was at home with you at just this time. Not only because she is the greatest fun in her own right, but because, too, the Trumans reach their highest form in trio. Each one eggs on and complements the other two. If she had not been home I should never have seen—and participated in—the overpowering of the President’s curiosity by the new guitar.
We came home refreshed and happy with new memories to add to the volumes that we have of you—the evening at home, the evening in the railway car, the evening at the ballet. During the drives with the President—whose prowess behind the wheel I slandered shamelessly last May—we had more concentrated talk about events and people than we could have packed into a whole year of our Monday and Thursday meetings.
It was great happiness for us. I only hope that as we took off into the rain, which stopped a little East of Chicago and is catching up with us now, we did not leave you exhausted by your kindness to us.
My newspaper friends say that under the President’s expansive influence the Kansas City press got more out of me in a few minutes than my friends here have been able to get in two years. The morning mail brings demands for a TV interview.
We are grateful and happy. These are the messages which go to you from us.
Most affectionately,
Dean
Truman is looking forward to his next meeting with Acheson in Washington in April, at a testimonial dinner for House Speaker Sam Rayburn.
March 7, 1955
Dear Dean:
I haven’t yet fully believed that grand visit of yours and Alice’s really took place. It was just too good to be an actual fact—but it was and how happy it made Bess, Margaret and me.
Bess has a letter, later than yours, from Alice about a luncheon or a dinner at your house while we are in Washington for Sam Rayburn’s dinner. If Sunday luncheon after church (the Boss wants to go to church) will suit you that will be all right for us. Then we can go to the station and catch the train for home as we did on another occasion.
You’ve no idea how much good and what a life saver you did and gave to me. When I see you we’ll go into detail. You’ll probably have another spasm at length from me soon.
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
Acheson recalls in a telegram the so-called Truman Doctrine speech to Congress. The President had decided to provide economic assistance to Greece and Turkey, because Greece was pressed by communist elements and Turkey by the Soviet Union.
“I believe that it must be the policy of the United States,” President Truman told the Congress on March 12, 1947, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.”
March 12, 1955
Telegram for Harry S Truman, Independence MO
EIGHT YEARS AGO YOU ANNOUNCED A GREAT AND GALLANT DECISION
IT WAS ONE OF THE TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY TODAY YOU AND IT LOOK BETTER THAN EVER
OUR LOVE
DEAN
Truman has been asked by Senator Walter F. George to testify on April 18 before the committee about proposed revisions to the United Nations Charter.
March 29, 1955
Dear Dean,
I am enclosing for you a copy of a letter from Walter George, together with a copy of my reply to him and a copy of the note which I have sent to Dr. Wilcox.
I shall appreciate it most highly if you will make some suggestions to me as to what sort of statement I should make to the committee on Foreign Relations.
I am perfectly willing to appear because I want to show the country that when an appearance is in the public’s interest and for a real purpose I am more than happy to appear.
We are looking forward to a grand time with you and Mrs. Acheson.
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
You are due for a hell of a long hand letter one of these days!
Acheson worries that Republican senators on the Committee on Foreign Relations may ask Truman questions about difficult current foreign-policy problems when he appears before the committee. William F. Knowland was a Republican senator from California.
March 31, 1955
Dear Mr. President,
I shall try to be helpful about the U.N. Testimony when I get back here from a journey to New Haven and Albany which starts tomorrow and runs until Wednesday.
I am sorry you got let in for this, because Knowland and Co. may try to get you into Formosa and a lot of things and there isn’t much that one can or should say about U.N. Charter revision now. But we shall do our best and hope the Committee can’t meet on the 18th after all. We can have some talk about it when you are here.
All is set for a big welcome for you and Mrs. Truman here and in no spot is it more eagerly expected than at 2805 P St. I also look forward to the letter, but save that for a time when we shall not have you yourself.
Our warmest greetings.
Most sincerely,
Dean
Truman arrived in Washington, D.C., on April 15 and attended a formal dinner in his honor that night. The next day he lunched with members of his Cabinet and White House staff and attended a formal dinner in honor of Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. At that dinner he lashed out at the Eisenhower administration: “This administration has been playing partisan politics with our security,” he said in his strongest whistle-stop style; “this administration has been playing partisan politics with our foreign policy, this administration has been playing partisan politics with our Civil Service, this administration has been playing special privilege partisan politics with our nation’s resources. I regret to say that we have not seen such cynical political behavior in any administration since the early twenties.” The Chicago Sun-Times the next day ran the headline, in their largest font, TRUMAN OPENS FIRE ON IKE AS DEMOCRATS EYE 1956. A former member of Truman’s Cabinet who heard the speech, Wilson W. Wyatt, wrote to Truman, “Now that you have led the way I hope that all of our Democratic speakers will be willing to tell the simple Anglo-Saxon truth about the Eisenhower myth.” The day after the Rayburn dinner, April 17, Truman and Acheson shared a private dinner at 2805 P Street, and the next morning, Truman testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about the importance of the United Nations.
Truman refers to Republican Senator Homer E. Capehart of Indiana and Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, Truman’s Vice President (1949–53), who had been reelected to the Senate in 1954.
April 20, 1955
Dean:
What a time we had in the capital of the United States! The Boss says she had the best time she’s had in years. Your luncheon was the highlight even if you did make me cry. You know I’m a damned sentimentalist but I hate to show it!
That appearance before the Foreign Relations Committee was something to write home about. Thanks to your good advice I don’t believe I made any major errors. The attitude of the private citizen respectfully appearing before the august high committee of the Senate of the United States seemed to please them. Even the Republicans asked friendly questions, including Knowland but for one. Only Capehart tried to be a smart-aleck and Barkley said he got his tail in a crack and that it was still there when the Committee quit business.
All of them paid tribute of the highest order to the statement. I am eternally indebted to you for your help, criticisms and suggestions.
Now I’m feeling much better after exploding at the Rayburn dinner. Of course I’ll catch hell for that and be right in my element. I don’t want to be an “elder statesman” politician. I like being a nose buster and an ass kicker much better and reserve my serious statements for committees and schools. But I had a grand time, only not enough time, with you.
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson regrets that he will not be present at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Harry S. Truman Library on May 8, Truman’s birthday.
April 29, 1955
Dear Mr. President,
Your notes and Mrs. Truman’s brought joy to Alice and me. We had such a glorious time at our Sunday lunch for you that it was doubly satisfying to know that you did too. I had not intended that my words to you should be anything but gay, like the occasion. But it is too hard for me to speak about you without going beneath the surface where emotions and affections run deep. I must discipline myself more strictly.
Your testimony on the U.N. went very well indeed. I was too full of worries about it and should have known that you would take care of yourself perfectly. It was particularly good coming before Mr. Hoover’s and drawing a comparison. Poor Mr. Hoover! His latest idea of giving the parcel post back to the express company was the perfect expression of his attitude.
For your birthday we send all good wishes. Our especial wish for you—long years of health and happiness—seems to be in fair way of being granted already. I have never seen you so well and so blooming with happy vigor. I wrote a good friend the other day that none of us here were able to keep up with you on this last visit. You left us convinced that you not only enjoyed jet assistance on the take-off, but that after the take-off it continues from your own self-generated power. This suggests, as I remember the plans for the library, that there may be a duplication in them. One room is called “power plant” and another marked President Truman’s office. Perhaps these two should be put together.
Alice and I hoped that we could arrange our commitments so as to be with you on the eighth of May to celebrate your birthday and to see you put that gold plated spade into the ground to start the library. Even if it is gold plated you will still call the spade a spade and use it as such. Please leave something for the bulldozers. Our own plans, as they so often do, have become entangled again with Yale where I am committed to speak. But our disappointment is mitigated by selfish considerations. We shall look forward to another visit to Independence when we can have you more to ourselves without the competition of great events. But you will know that both of us will be thinking of you and talking to you on this day to which you have looked forward so long.
With our heartiest congratulations on breaking ground for the Library and our most affectionate greeting to you on your birthday and to “the boss” for preserving you from the last one to this one, a great feat.
Most sincerely,
Dean