Harry Truman sits in a limousine with Dean Acheson in Washington, D.C., on December 28, 1951, upon the President’s return after spending the Christmas holiday in Independence, Missouri.
3
In June and July 1955, when Truman’s deadline for submitting his memoirs to his publisher was drawing near, he asked Acheson to review the second draft of the work—1,775 pages bound in four thick books, two books for each of the two memoir volumes. The first volume would be titled 1945: Year of Decisions and the second volume Years of Trial and Hope, 1946–1952. Acheson set energetically to work, scribbling corrections, changes, additions, and comments within the text and in the margins, and he drew his ideas together in six letters totaling forty-five pages of typescript. The annotated manuscript and letters together constitute a sometimes shockingly blunt critique. Truman, though, expressed gratitude for “the ideal help I’ve had in the form of an intellectually honest Secretary of State.” Truman considered every suggestion Acheson made, adding his own marginal comments on the annotated drafts. He then turned over the manuscript and Acheson’s letters to his assistants to make revisions in response to Acheson’s comments.
Truman’s first memoir volume, 1945: Year of Decisions, covered his early life, his political career before becoming President, and the first year of his presidency.
June 7, 1955
Dear Dean:
I am sending you the draft of the First Volume of the book I have been trying to write. There is a preface that goes with it but I have not yet prepared it.
The book will be in two Volumes and will be called “Memoirs” by Harry S. Truman. The First Volume will be called “Year of Decisions,” and the Second “Years of Trial and Hope.”
This is next to the final draft but it will have to be back in my hands in time to make any corrections suggested so that I can get it off by June 30th. After June 30th, Life and Doubleday will be reading for corrections so that in that period there will be another opportunity to correct any errors. There will also be a chance to correct galleys and final proof.
I hope you will not be overwhelmed by my request that you go through this Volume very carefully and make any suggestions you feel should be made. Do not spare my feelings in the matter. What I am trying to do, as you know, is tell the truth and the facts in a manner that people can understand and in my own language.
The Second Volume will be sent along in a couple of weeks after I return from Portland, Oregon, but it will not be published until February or March of next year.
Sincerely,
Harry S. Truman
“My best to Alice.”
In this letter Acheson’s penchant for accuracy and honesty of exposition is cleverly coupled with tactful arguments for the revisions. He comments on Truman’s account of, among other things, his first days as President, his early life, his service in the Senate, his selection as vice-presidential candidate in 1944, his termination of lend-lease, and President Roosevelt’s “Supreme Court packing proposal” of 1937. Truman gave this letter to his chief writer, Francis Heller, who marked it to indicate revisions in the memoirs manuscript in response to Acheson’s comments.
June 21, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
I have read with great interest the first of the two manuscript volumes which you sent me, containing pages 1 through 442. I think it is a fine job. It gives the reader a real feeling of the kind of man you are and it holds his attention.
As a general observation, which may be useful when you come to editing and cutting down, the material is more interesting and gripping when you are talking about your own life and your ideas than it is when you are giving lists of callers at the White House and the activities of the Truman Committee which do not reveal much about you as a man. I know these latter things are necessary, but I think they can be shortened and I will make specific suggestions as we go along. Now for specific and sometimes minor points:
Page 6, line 1. Bishop Atwood was the former Episcopal Bishop of Arizona and not of Washington. [Truman staff marginalia: “corrected.”]
Page 8, line 11. Do you really doubt that FDR made any major political decision without consulting Mrs. Roosevelt? As you say later on, I think, she was useful to him in getting, through her, impressions of public opinion; but my guess would be that he did not consult her much or rely on her judgment in making decisions. [Truman staff marginalia: “same comment made by SIR (Samuel I. Rosenman)—slight change made in wording.”]
Page 8, last line. Couldn’t you put stars instead of the word “Wisconsin”? Certainly Senator [Alexander] Wiley [R., Arizona] is and was a windy senator, but he stood by us pretty well, and I think this reference would unnecessarily hurt him. [Truman staff marginalia: “recommend be done.”]
Page 9, line 7. I make the same suggestion about your reference to [Senator Pat] McCarran [D., Nevada], but for different reasons. I just don’t think it accomplishes much to leave the reference specifically identified. [Truman staff marginalia: “should be done.”]
Page 14, line 9. Shouldn’t it be “There are bound to be some changes,” etc.? [Truman staff marginalia: “corrected.”]
Page 36, last paragraph. You say that during your meeting with Byrnes on April 13, “I had told Byrnes that I was thinking of appointing him Secretary of State after the San Francisco Conference.” This raises two questions. One is that, although I looked for it later on, I never found any point where you actually asked him to be Secretary of State. The second is that one wonders why you told him you were thinking of making him an offer rather than either making it or not speaking of it until you were ready to make the offer. I seem to recall that you told me once that you actually made the offer to him on the train coming back from the Roosevelt funeral. (Please read here the post script to this letter.) [Truman staff marginalia: “except for the point made in the final sentence of this paragraph (which check w/HST) this requires no correction. I have checked p. 535 and see no inconsistencies.”]
Page 37, middle of the page. You say, “I felt it my duty to choose without delay a Secretary of State with proper qualifications.” Wouldn’t it be better to add to the end of the sentence, “to succeed, if necessary, to the Presidency”? Otherwise, it seems like quite a crack at poor Ed Stettinius [Secretary of State from 1944 to 1945]. [Truman staff marginalia: “this insertion has been made.”]
Page 45, two lines from the bottom. You refer to Blair House as the official guest house “for heads of state.” A small matter—but shouldn’t one say “foreign dignitaries”? [Truman staff marginalia: “correction made.”]
Page 47. The inclusion of this conversation with John Snyder and Jesse Jones [Secretary of Commerce under President Roosevelt] seems to me rather pointless. John is being modest about his qualifications, but he says he might be “accused of being a Jesse Jones man.” Why, the reader wonders, is that the subject of accusation? I would suggest merely recording that you talked with John, offered him the position and that he accepted it.
As a matter of English, in the middle of the page, shouldn’t it be “I don’t think you ought to appoint me to that job,” rather than “for that job”? [Truman staff marginalia: “this change made.”]
Page 59, last sentence. This one-sentence reference to the press, I think, should come out. If you are going to attack some section of the press, it has to be done more fully and with some more proof and power. This one sentence seems to me weak and sounds a little querulous.
Page 68. In the middle of the page Sam Rayburn says, “Just a minute, Harry.” I seem to recollect at some earlier page, after you had become President, somebody else called you “Harry.” This I don’t like, and I don’t like to see you quote it as though it were of no moment. Why not just leave out the “Harry”? [Truman staff marginalia: “This is a matter of record—should stay as is—”]
Page 114, line 3. You use the cliché, “striped pants boys in the State Department.” I should like to see you change this to “people in the State Department,” not merely because the phrase is tiresome, but because it gives quite a wrong impression of the tremendous support which you gave to the career service and for which they will be forever grateful.
Page 147e. This page is very confusing, as undoubtedly the transcript of the conversation was. From the middle of the page down, Churchill is reading a telegram which he proposes to send. This is not at all clear from the text, and the confusion is not clarified until one comes to the bottom of 174f. Here the same telegram is read again. I think that some editing would be useful here to keep the reader on the track. [Truman staff marginalia: “suggest a footnote on 147 to remind reader that this is exact transcript—with asterisk for names not understood and some garbles. Addition (made) of interior quotes helps this→”]
Page 147g. At the end of the first paragraph, the word “oration” with a question mark appears obviously to be a garble. I wonder if editing couldn’t make the real meaning clearer?
Page 150. Are you correct about Frances Perkins’s title? I always thought she was called “Miss Perkins” or “Mrs. Wilson.” [Truman staff marginalia: “checked and correction made.”]
Page 151, line 2. The name of the eating place on 17th Street is the Allies’ Inn. [Truman staff marginalia: “checked and correction made.”]
Page 151, last paragraph. You refer here to three agencies which you did not want cut down “because of their importance in the prevention of inflation.” Two of these are the Petroleum Administration for War and the Foreign Economic Administration. I did not understand that these two had anything to do with the prevention of inflation.
Page 153, line 7. You speak of apprehension “that the isolationist spirit might again break out into the open.” Is this the phrase that you want? It would seem to be a good idea to get it into the open. Weren’t you apprehensive rather that the isolationist spirit might again become an important political factor?
Page 154, second paragraph. You refer to Harold Smith’s report of our bad administration of relief in Italy. It isn’t at all clear what Harold was talking about; whether this was relief distributed by Military Government or UNRRA; nor is it clear what the British were doing which seemed undesirable. Furthermore, you say that you accepted this “as probably an accurate report” and asked the State Department to correct the situation. I don’t think you ever did accept a secondhand report as probably accurate. Finally, although it may be that the State Department had some control over the situation, I cannot quite see now what it could be. These two paragraphs, on page 154 and the top of 155, seem to me most obscure, and I suggest their elimination.
Page 158, middle of page. Will Clayton at this time was Assistant Secretary of State, not Under Secretary. [Truman staff marginalia: “checked and corrected.”]
The progress of the narrative up to Chapter 8 has followed the method of taking the reader with you through each appointment and through the various documents laid before you in the days immediately following your assumption of the Presidential office. Up to Chapter 8 I think this has served as a useful method. It makes real to the reader the exact nature of the responsibilities which suddenly devolved upon you. No general description would convey this the way your hour-to-hour and visitor-by-visitor method has done. But I think this method can be overdone and I think that beginning with Chapter 8 it is overdone. It starts out with the problem of Germany and McCloy’s report. On page 164, we get into specific callers again. And so it continues. I would suggest in editing Chapter 8 that it be made the dividing line and that you no longer give us a detailed list of callers but dwell on the main problems with which you had to deal.
Chapters 9 and 10 about your early life are well done and most interesting.
Page 229 and 236. On both pages you use exactly the same words in describing Carl Hayden as “one of the hardest working and ablest men in the Senate.” [Truman staff marginalia: “correction made.”]
Chapter 11, which deals with your first term in the Senate, is interesting at the beginning and at the end. But there are about ten pages in the middle which I think should be approached from a different point of view.
These are pages 238 to 248, which deal with the various votes you cast. In these pages you have short paragraphs dealing with the views you held on matters, many of which are of the greatest historical importance. These comments give an impression of a man quite contrary to what you are. They are brusque, didactic, and in one instance, which I shall specify, superficial. I should like to see these pages reorganized so that you concentrate on two or three important measures, giving your own feelings in more than a short paragraph about them; and, as for the rest, saying that your general point of view can be gathered from the measures for which you voted and against which you voted, and then merely enumerating each. I urge this, not merely from the point of view of reader interest, but so that you will not give what I think is quite a wrong impression about yourself.
One of these measures you discuss in eight lines on page 245. This is the Supreme Court packing proposal of 1937. The discussion of it seems to me so inadequate as to be almost irrelevant. You list the different numerical relationships [Truman staff notation: “relationships” crossed out and “memberships” substituted] of the Court throughout the years, say that you saw no reason why it should not be increased in 1937, making reference to the new Court building, and suggesting that you thought that [the purpose of] the whole bill was to get enough judges to keep the Court’s work up to date.
This does not do justice to you but does you grave injustice, and I think will do you harm. The Court proposals of 1937 had nothing to do with appointing enough justices to do the Court’s work. They were directed toward reversing the current majority and changing the current interpretation—which I believe was wrong—of the commerce clause and the Fifth Amendment, which interpretation has since been changed. The proposal did not purport to do this openly and frankly but through a most cynical subterfuge. This attack on the Court and the counter-attack on the President, I think, damaged both irreparably. It was a tragic episode; made even more tragic by the lack of necessity; for within four years, time had given the President the majority which the Congress denied him. There were grounds on which legislators might honorably, though I think mistakenly, support the proposals—grounds based upon action both taken and threatened in England to reduce the power of the House of Lords. But all of these involved a grave constitutional crisis, as grave a crisis as was involved in General MacArthur’s challenge to your authority in 1951.
The paragraph on page 245 gives the impression, which I know is erroneous, that you were wholly unaware of any of these considerations, and that the whole question was that, having built a large court house, we should have more judges. I do not think that it is necessary or desirable for you to re-argue the Court proposals, and I would strongly urge that you do not, but merely list your vote along with the others to show that which, so far as the history of your life is concerned, is the important thing; that is, the loyalty with which you stood by President Roosevelt. I know that you will not be offended by the frankness with which I have written. I do it because of the grave injustice, as I have already said, which this paragraph does you.
Page 249, line 2. The discussion of your opposition to the $500,000,000 cut, I do not think, enlightens the reader, nor do I think you will want to leave in the ad hominem reference to Harry Byrd. If my suggestions above of merely listing the bills is a useful one, this would not be necessary.
Page 260. Your story about Jim Wade is a good one, but I ask you to reconsider the last sentence, that adds to it that later on, when you were President, you made Jim Wade Collector of Customs in St. Louis. This is the only reference you make in the volume which I have read about minor appointments. It would give the uninformed reader the quite unjustified impression that political patronage and the reward of political supporters was your major consideration in making appointments. This, of course, is not true. When you compare the impression which this leaves with your discussion on page 262 of your concern about special interests, inside influence, etc., there is a very sharp contrast. I suggest you drop the last sentence on page 260. [Truman staff marginalia: “done.”]
Page 268–269. Can’t the material from the middle of page 268 through the first full paragraph of page 269 be greatly compressed? The recitation of these formal appearances slows the narrative and delays your getting into the major work of the Truman Committee.
Pages 260–300. These pages cover a discussion of the Truman Committee’s work. I think that these pages need editing, both to shorten them and to concentrate them on the main achievements of the Committee and to correct some erroneous impressions which they leave. Wouldn’t it be well to start out with a better orientation of your approach and that of the Committee? This might be done by bringing out more fully than you do your tribute to the great part played by the industrial organization and power of the United States in winning the war and to the vast majority of patriotic industrialists, both those who stayed with their factories and those who came to Washington, who transformed American industry for war production. It could be brought out that this produced, inevitably, confusion and duplication and waste, and that the Committee’s purpose was to help in overcoming these quite inevitable evils as quickly as possible. Since you have to talk about errors and mistakes which were made, you have to avoid giving the impression that everyone except the Committee and its staff was stupid or venal. Of course, you do not mean to give this impression, but it emerges, and I think could be easily remedied by having your staff go over these pages with a red pencil.
Page 302. In the second paragraph, I think the specific reference to [Senator Owen] Brewster and [Senator Arthur] Vandenberg should be removed or elaborated and proved. Couldn’t this sentence be altered to say that, whenever any member of the Committee showed signs of yielding to the temptation of bringing Congress into control of the conduct of the war, you were able by private talks to get the work of the Committee back on the rails without any crisis arising?
Page 307. Here you are again talking about your votes. Again I suggest the same treatment discussed above of listing them for the purpose of indicating your general point of view. For instance, in the paragraph toward the bottom of the page, where you discuss a bill of 1941 exempting taxes on income from state and city bonds, I do not think that the analogy to federal bonds is relevant in this discussion. The question is whether the federal sovereignty can tax the bonds, or indeed the salaries or other property, of the various state sovereignties, or vice versa.
Page 312. I suggest leaving out the last sentence of the second paragraph. In the preceding sentence you record that FDR has asked Frank Walker [Democratic National Committee Chair from 1943 to 1944] to notify Byrnes of his decision that he wanted you as Vice President. You then say, “I believe, therefore, that Byrnes knew that the President had named me at the time he called me in Independence and asked me to nominate him at the convention.” The narrative does not need this sentence, and I think that it makes a specific and unnecessarily bitter accusation against Byrnes. If Frank Walker had notified him, then he knew, if Frank Walker had not done so, perhaps he didn’t know. Is it necessary for you to take a position?
Page 314. Is my memory correct that you once told me that after the telephone talk with President Roosevelt you then had a talk with Jimmy Byrnes and told him what the President had required of you. If this is so, it is an important fact which should be included. But I can easily be wrong about this.
Page 324, 5th line. In the fifth line you refer to the President functioning as “Commander-in-Chief of the United States.” I think ill-disposed persons might have some fun with this reference. Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution says, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”
Page 327. Has your reference to “Mussolini’s puppet Socialist Republic” been checked?
Page 328. At the bottom of the page you refer again to the Himmler proposal, which is discussed in a good deal of detail on pages 147(d) and (e).
Page 342 and 343. This is very good, and exactly the sort of exposition of your own wisdom and views which I hope to see more of in the next volume.
Page 345 et seq. I suppose that this narrative of your discussion with Churchill about the differences of opinion as to the course of American military advance after the collapse of the German Armies has been carefully checked with Churchill’s last volume. As I recall it, he makes quite a point of this, and I only suggest it to be sure that nothing has been overlooked.
Page 371. In talking about the decision to curtail lend-lease presented to you by [Leo T.] Crowley and [Joseph C.] Grew, is it necessary or excessively honest [Truman staff annotation: “ly” crossed out, “y” added to “honest,” thus “excessive honesty”] for you to say in the last sentence of the second paragraph, “I reached for my pen, and without reading the document, I signed it.”? I suppose the answer turns on whether Crowley and Grew had already fully explained to you the contents of the document. If they had done so, and I am sure that they would do so honestly, then is it necessary to say that you did not read the document? Perhaps the real heart of the matter lies not in not reading the document, but in not taking more time for reflection and for discussion with others, who might have presented different views. If I am right about this, I think you could quite properly leave out the phrase, “without reading the document.”
On the rest of this page and on the next page or two you give the impression that the real impact of your decision was on the Russians, and that if more time had been taken it would not appear as if somebody had been deliberately snubbed. It seems to me that the real impact of this was on the British, and that a great many of their later financial troubles came from the very severe foreign exchange pressure which the curtailing of lend-lease placed upon them at a time when they were unable to revive their exports. I think it would be wise to reconsider this and perhaps rewrite these pages from that point of view. So far as the Russians were concerned, I think the trouble was merely a matter of appearances. So far as the British were concerned, it went to the very heart of their economic life.
Page 396. In the middle of the page please eliminate the words “native governments” and substitute “national governments.” These people resent the word “native.”
Page 400. Is the third paragraph about Churchill’s motives correct or necessary. I do not remember the situation, but from the preceding narrative it does not necessarily appear that he was motivated in the least by the desire to maintain British influence. It seems rather that he was urging that action should be taken in the Adriatic before the situation got out of hand. The narrative seems to me somewhat better without this paragraph in.
All of these pages of criticism must give you the impression that my whole attitude is critical. This it most certainly is not. I think the book is good, interesting, and, as I said before, will give vast numbers of people an understanding of you which they could not have in any other way. I have necessarily directed myself to things that seem to need change.
I am now at work on the second volume. I find much less to comment on, and shall hope to get something off to you about it by the end of the week.
With warm regards.
Most sincerely,
Dean
P.S. Since writing the above, I have come across two matters in the second volume which relate to the first one.
First, I note that on page 530 in listing the Cabinet you refer to Miss Frances Perkins, which supports my theory as to her proper title.
Second, on page 535 you mention the appointment of Jimmy Byrnes. In the third paragraph of that page, talking about it, I think what you say is inconsistent with what you say on page 36 of the first volume. Page 535 seems to support my recollection set forth above regarding what you told me. I think you will want to read these two pages together and bring them into harmony.
Acheson continues his critique of Year of Decisions, the first volume of Truman’s memoirs. His reference to “the second volume” indicates the second bound portion of the Year of Decisions manuscript.
June 24, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
I have now read the second volume through Chapter 28, that is, through page 758. I am getting off this letter to you today so that you will have most of my comments on the two volumes well before June 30th. In fact, on the second volume I have very few comments. It is most interesting and well put together.
On this volume the main concern which you might have is one on which I can not be of any help. This is whether you have taken into account the other material in the field, such as the books of Byrnes, Churchill, and Eisenhower, as well as the voluminous documents which you yourself have and many of which you quote.
Page 487. You begin again the discussion about the withdrawal of our troops to their zone of occupation and the difference of opinion with Churchill which arose about this. A good many of the telegrams on this subject appear in the first volume of the manuscript, which I have now returned to you. I think you will find these on page 345 and the following pages. Without the first volume before me, I cannot recall whether there is a sound reason for dividing the discussion and the documents in this way. Might it not be better to bring all of the earlier discussion into Chapter 19?
The discussion in Chapter 19 then proceeds to the settlement or lack of settlement of our rights in Berlin and thus involves, although it does not discuss, the reasons and responsibility for the nebulous situation which resulted, and which later somewhat obscured the legal questions involved in the blockade of Berlin. It may be that this question of who should have done what and when about our rights of access to Berlin is still up in the air where perhaps it has to remain. At any rate I did not get any new, clearer ideas about this from your narrative in Chapter 19. I think to the reader of this narrative Churchill seems to come off best. He appears to have sensed the need for maintaining our forward positions and of [for] delaying the fulfillment of our obligation to retire to the zone of occupation until the Russians had fulfilled their obligations and made satisfactory arrangements. Our position impresses the reader as being somewhat rigid—that is, we had agreed to retire and, therefore, we were going to retire—without full consideration of the necessity for reciprocal fulfillment of obligations on the other side. I have no suggestions to make about this, because I do not know enough about the facts. From Marshall’s telegram on page 501 it looks as though Eisenhower did about what he was directed to do. But again I do not know. I merely think that this should be noted and perhaps carefully reviewed by your staff and you.
My remaining comments are few and minor.
Page 532. Here you recount your first meetings with Miss Perkins at the time you were presiding judge of the Jackson County Court. I think you have already done this at about page 150 of the first volume.
Page 538. You say that today “there are nine members of the Cabinet.” Isn’t it true that the addition of Health, Education and Welfare brings the number to ten?
Page 539. It seems to me that the second paragraph on this page rather over-simplifies your relations with Cabinet members and gives the impression that “everything” was put on the table at Cabinet meetings. Your main point on this page is the difference between your practice and that of President Roosevelt, and this is very true indeed. But I think it might be well to expand this paragraph, to make the reader aware that many important questions were thrashed out at meetings of less than the full Cabinet; for instance, in the reprint of my Yale Review article of October which I sent to you, in discussing the NSC, I point out that this is not an operating agency with powers of decision, but is merely a meeting of the President with certain selected members of the Cabinet whose functions relate more particularly to national security. This same method of discussing matters with selected members was frequently employed by you.
One outstanding example, which you will undoubtedly come to later, was in the relief of General MacArthur, where you selected Marshall, Harriman, Bradley, and me for that discussion. The fact remains, as you well bring out, that in all these cases the decision is the decision of the President, the Cabinet officers acting merely as advisers.
Page 561. On the third line from the bottom, in referring to the people with you at the table at Potsdam, you mention “Davies.” I suggest that you identify him as Joseph Davies, the former Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Page 712. In the last half of the last sentence of the second paragraph, you say “and the American people, their President included, wanted nothing more in that summer of 1945, than to end the fighting and bring the boys back home.” This seems to me an unfortunate sentence. You do not mean it literally. As this whole part of the book brings out, there were things which you wanted more than to end the fighting and to bring the boys back home. These were to end the fighting under proper conditions and to do your best to bring about a stable and just peace. Might it be better to say “and the American people, their President included, were unwilling to engage in new military operations unless the national interests of the United States clearly demanded them”?
These are all the suggestions which I have up to Chapter 30. I shall finish the volume over the weekend and write you on Monday as to whether or not I have any further suggestions.
Let me say again how much I like this second volume. All involved have done a very fine job indeed in writing it.
With warm regards.
Sincerely yours,
Dean
Acheson concludes his critique of the second portion of Year of Decisions. At the end of this letter he congratulates Truman on his June 24 speech at a commemorative session of the United Nations at the Opera House in San Francisco, where the United Nations Charter had been signed ten years earlier. “The United Nation,” Truman said, “is a beacon of hope to a world that has no choice but to live together or to die together.”
June 27, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
Over the weekend I finished the second manuscript volume of your book and continued to think that it is a very good job indeed. My comments are very few and only one of them seems to have any real importance.
Page 776. The last paragraph at the bottom of the page. Wouldn’t it be better to eliminate the first two sentences of this paragraph and begin with the third sentence, starting “Winston Churchill had on several occasions, etc.”? The first two sentences say that part of the British economic difficulties came from the fact that they had come to depend on lend-lease and that it was a very painful operation to sever this tie. The British had come to depend on American economic assistance because they had to. The war had cut off their exports which were their principal earning power. If Britain were to play her essential role in the Grand Alliance, she would have to have assistance until she could reconvert from war to civilian production and regain her export markets. As you point out, the British loan was a recognition of this and the Marshall Plan later on was an even greater one. The two sentences which I criticize give the impression that the British found it more convenient to live on our help and that it was painful to them to cut it off. I think that it was really more painful to receive it than to cut it off, and these observations have nothing to do with the story which the remainder of the paragraph and the following pages bring out.
Page 785, second paragraph, last two sentences. Here again, wouldn’t it be better to eliminate these two sentences and join the first sentence of this paragraph with the last paragraph on the page? The first of these two sentences is not very clear, because I do not know just what you mean by the sterling area resuming “trade on a multilateral basis.” The sterling area was conducting trade within the area on a multilateral basis. The difficulty arose in trade between the sterling area and the dollar area. Here the sterling area had to limit dollar purchases to the most important items and this, of course, resulted in discriminations. The dollar loan eased this situation but did not eliminate it, as the last sentence in the paragraph seems to suggest. In fact there were specific provisions in the loan agreement which permitted the continuance of discrimination under certain circumstances. It is true, and I think the last paragraph brings this out, that the dollar loan was intended to ease the situation and to enable the British to move gradually towards its total elimination, a condition at which they have not yet arrived.
Page 798. This page raises a delicate situation, which I mention with hesitation, but I know you will not take offense. Any autobiography necessitates the continual use of the first person pronoun. It is worth some ingenuity to reduce the occurrence of this, and through a large part of the book it isn’t noticeable at all. This page, however, brings the problem out rather forcibly. The pronoun occurs eleven times on this one page. I mention this not for this page alone but in order that you might have it in mind when you have a final review of the whole manuscript for style.
Page 808. On line four the Brookings Institution is referred to as the Brookings Institute.
Page 898–902. These pages contain the crucial part of the crisis with Jimmy Byrnes over the Moscow Conference. At the bottom of page 898 you refer to the substance of the errors which Byrnes had committed at Moscow, and this begins with Rumania and Bulgaria. “We had agreed,” you say, “to sit down with Rumania and Bulgaria to write peace treaties,” whereas they had violated all decent standards about elections. Again you say, “Yet Byrnes had agreed to let the Russians have their way about peace settlements with these nations.” Later on you mention his failure to take a vigorous attitude in regard to Iran.
Now it seems to me that in regard to Rumania and Bulgaria you are not on very strong ground and that it may be well to leave that with the reference which occurs in your contemporaneous letter and not mention Rumania and Bulgaria as a count in the indictment on pages 898–899. I say this because your complaints against Jimmy Byrnes seem to me to be proved and to be strong when you talk about his failure to keep you advised, resulting in the troubles with Vandenberg and the misunderstanding of what he was doing on atomic energy. They also seem to me strong when you talk about Iran. But the record on Rumania and Bulgaria is not so good. In the first place, it does not seem fair to say that Jimmy had agreed to let the Russians have their way. The Communique establishes a Council of Ministers on which Harriman was to sit, to provide for free elections, civil liberties, and matters of that sort; and the recognition and peace treaties were to come after that. Of course, the Russians did not live up to their agreements, but nevertheless on February 5, 1946, the Government sent a note setting up the substance and procedure for the Council of Ministers (which is reported in Department of State Bulletin, XIV, page 256) and on February 15 we recognized the Rumanian Government, as appears on page 298 of the same volume. Later on notes of protest were sent. While I have not looked up a record on Bulgaria, I imagine it was about the same. So far as the peace treaties were concerned, the Moscow Agreement merely said you would write the peace treaties, not what they should contain.
So I think, with this record of action taken in February, presumably under your direction, Jimmy Byrnes, who is both able and consistent, can tear your account to pieces on this particular item. With this in mind, the paragraph beginning on page 898 and the following paragraph on page 899 should be revised, eliminating Bulgaria and Rumania and making more of Iran and the embarrassments caused to you in connection with atomic energy by your complete lack of information from Moscow.
My congratulations on the book. I hope it isn’t taking too much out of you. Surely, if you need a little more time for polishing, the Life people after they see the text should be so pleased with it that they will be amenable.
I have heard from Charley [Murphy] and Dave [Lloyd] excellent reports about your reception and speech in San Francisco. It is wonderful that everything went so well and it must have made you very happy.
With affectionate regards.
Most sincerely yours,
Dean
Truman refers here to the actual second volume of his manuscript, Years of Trial and Hope.
June 30, 1955
Dear Dean:
I am eternally grateful to you for your comments on the manuscript which we have sent you.
I am sending you the second volume and while the turnover has been made corrections will be possible before the books are published so if you can take time out to get back to me as quickly as possible it will be a very great accommodation.
I am in debt to you eternally, as I said before, and you will have a long “sob sister letter” as soon as I can get around to it.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
Truman sends Acheson a copy of a letter he’d sent to Joseph Jones, former State Department official and author of The Fifteen Weeks. Despite earlier problems with Jones, Truman liked the book. “I have only one statement to make,” Truman wrote Jones, “and that is that you are entirely too kind to me.” He was pleased with Jones’s treatment in the book of Acheson and George Marshall—“two wonderful men.”
July 6, 1955
Dear Dean:
I am enclosing you a copy of a letter which I have written to Joseph M. Jones.
As soon as I can manage it, I will sit down and write you a long letter, which you are due to receive, and I hope, in spite of the fact that it may be too long, that you will read it.
Sincerely yours,
Harry
My best to Alice. You’ve no idea how you helped us.
His work on the manuscript finished, Truman celebrates with a few caustic remarks about Eisenhower and Dulles. But Truman still wanted Acheson’s review of the draft of the second volume of the memoirs. Wilmer Waller was treasurer of the Truman Library. “Foster” was President Benjamin Harrison’s Secretary of State, John W. Foster, who was also John Foster Dulles’s grandfather. Wayne Morse’s joke about General Grant was that Eisenhower was such a bad President he made Grant look good, Grant being the notoriously worst President in U.S. history because of venality and corruption in his administration.
July 9, 1955
Dear Dean:
I’m sitting here in this Shah carpeted office in the Federal Reserve Bank Building after finishing an answer to the last accumulated letter. Those letters piled up to three or four feet and they worried me no end and you know that I’m a hard one to worry.
The damned book or the cussed manuscript has been accepted by the contractor (Time, Inc.) and I’ve paid [Wilmer] Waller the note which you witnessed in the National Bank of Washington. Now I’ve employed Peat, Marwick and Mitchell to see that Brownell and Humphrey et al do not send me to Leavenworth or Atlanta. I sort of wish I’d let the history of the period lie dormant because when these two volumes of mine come out, Ike, Stevenson and several others are going into conniption fits and I’m going to Timbuktu or Bali. I really believe I’ll take Bali in spite of my seventy-one years!
I’m eternally grateful to you for your suggestions and corrections. In fact, never can I meet the obligation I owe you for recent actions and for what you did as Asst. Sec. of State, Acting Sec. of State and the greatest Secretary of State of them all. And, Dean, I know the history of every one of them from Jefferson in Washington’s cabinet to date. Even including an old man named Foster, who served nine months & five days with old Ben Harrison. His grandson is having a hard time living up to grandpa’s no reputation with another Ben! I fear that he’ll make a statesman out of old Dan Webster or Jim Buchanan. You know what Wayne Morse said on “Meet the Press” when asked Ike’s most outstanding accomplishment. He said Ike had made a great President out of General Grant. I’m in agreement on both propositions and can make a G.E.D. on either one. I’ve made up my mind to accept Lord Halifax’s invitation to Oxford.
So you’re elected for another U.N. suggestion. Wish you could have been in San Francisco. You’d have thought I’d been nominated by another Democratic Convention. They gave me an ovation when I came in, another one when introduced and wouldn’t quit when I came to the end of the speech. Dulles and Molotov held their hands behind their backs. Mrs. Henry Grady was watching both from the gallery. But Molly came to the U.N. reception for the foreign ministers for me—and Dulles didn’t! Lodge came to the reception but yawned every time he had to stand for me! What a show! I watched both Molly and Dully during the delivery but I couldn’t see ’em when they were supposed to stand. Spectators reported their actions.
I read Joe Jones galley proof. It is a dandy and I so wrote him. I told him he gave me too much house and you not enough. He really gave Hull and Byrnes their comeuppance!
You’ve stood enough. My best to Alice. Wish you both would come and see us again. That was a most pleasant occasion for the Boss & me.
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson begins his critique of the second volume of the memoirs, titled Years of Trial and Hope. The McMahon Act he refers to is the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which, among other things, forbade the sharing of atomic secrets with other nations and spurred the United Kingdom to develop its own atomic-energy program.
July 11, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
I received last week the first manuscript part of Volume II and this morning the second part. I am putting as much time as I can in on them, but other matters press on me and I am not as free as I should be for so large a task as over 800 typewritten pages. Could you let me know what the time schedule is? Whatever I do will have to be finished, I presume, before the 15th of August, when Alice and I go off for a month or six weeks visiting in Europe. Would it be useful for you if I send back, say, two hundred pages at a time with some suggestions noted on the manuscript and a covering letter? Or do you want me to wait until I have read through the whole second volume? For instance, in Chapter 1 of Volume II the “I” problem becomes rather acute. I have gone through making suggestions for solving this problem. I could continue doing this in other chapters, which would take a lot of time. Perhaps, with the suggestions I have made, someone in Kansas City could go through, adopting the same technique. What is your wish about this?
I also note in Volume II, Chapter 1, that on page 26 the story of our discussion with the British about cooperation in atomic energy breaks off right in the middle. Perhaps it is resumed later on. If so, I have not come to it. At any rate, it seems to me that at this point it should be carried at least to the point where the matter became more or less settled in accordance with the inhibitions placed upon us by the McMahon Act. This would involve the modus vivendi worked out by Bob Lovett about December ’47 or January ’48, the attempts to carry on cooperative exchanges within the McMahon Act, which broke down in 1948 or early 1949, and the final effort, which I think was in 1949, culminating in the Blair House meeting and the blow-up of the joint Congressional committee to get some amendment to the law to permit real cooperation. The result of our inability was to start the British on their present atomic energy work. Whether this is good or bad from the point of view of the total effort, I don’t know enough to say. It is certainly the direct result of the McMahon Act.
Something along this line should be introduced at the end of Chapter 1, which now leaves the whole matter hanging.
I also have a general comment about Chapter 2 and another about Chapter 3. Both of these chapters seem to me pretty heavy going and in neither case does the heavy going end up by rewarding the reader as much as it might.
For instance, in the last part of Chapter 2 there is a running account of the back and forth battle which you waged for price controls immediately after the war. In and of itself, no one cares much about this, and the text does not give the reader any reason why he should care. But, if it is true, as I think it is, that the greater part of the inflation arising out of World War II came in these postwar years and if it came in whole or in part as a result of your losing this battle with the Congress, then this story is very significant to the average reader, because it explains why his dollar is worth only from one-half to two-thirds of what it was before. I don’t know enough economics to know whether what I say is right or not. But, if it is right, this ought to go in at the beginning of the price control section to make the story much more significant than it now is. If what I say is not true, then this story is not very significant anyway, and it should be greatly cut.
Chapter 3 on the budget, I think, is too long and rambling. I haven’t any specific suggestions as yet and perhaps will not have, because this is not my cup of tea. Somehow I don’t think that a general exposition of budgetary principles adds a great deal to your autobiography. I merely raise a red flag about this chapter now.
I am so glad that you found my earlier comments on Volume I useful.
With warm regards.
Most sincerely,
Dean
Acheson continues his critique of the second volume of the memoirs. This is his most blunt and negative letter about Truman’s memoirs, in particular his comments about Truman’s account of the recognition of Israel. He rebuts Truman’s linkage of the Balfour Declaration, which stated the British government’s support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews, with the principle of self-determination as put forward by Woodrow Wilson. Acheson wanted Truman to eliminate this idea from his memoirs. Truman rejected this recommendation. “I discussed the nature of [Acheson’s] criticisms with the President this morning, July 21st,” Truman’s chief writer, Francis Heller, recorded, “and he confirmed once again his firm belief in the principle of self-determination and in his belief that the Balfour Declaration was a manifestation of this principle.” Heller thought Acheson’s comments reflected a “pro-Arab point of view.”
July 18, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
First of all, thank you very much indeed for your grand letter of July 9th [sic]. It took a little extra time getting to me, and for a rather interesting reason—the special delivery stamp. This short-circuited the Georgetown branch post office, which knew we were not at P Street and has been forwarding mail to the office. So your letter was dropped through the door of an empty house and stayed there for several days. That only increased our pleasure at its contents.
Secondly, the book I have finished the first manuscript volume of Volume II and am mailing it back to you today. In this volume I have written a host of suggestions onto the pages of the manuscript and will here only mention those that don’t lend themselves to this treatment or which need explanation.
The comments, outside the manuscript, on Chapters 1 and 2 are in my letter of July 11. They still seem sound to me. I have only one other minor one.
Page 8. Here there are three numbered paragraphs in your letter to Senator McMahon. These paragraphs are almost identical—the points made in them are identical—with the similar paragraphs on pages 5 and 6, in your memorandum to the Secretaries of War and Navy. A suggestion which you might wish to consider is eliminating the three numbered paragraphs on page 8 and inserting a note reading as follows: “(The letter then set forth in the same order the three points made in the foregoing memorandum to the Secretaries of War and Navy, in approximately the same language. It then continued:)”
Chapter 3. I wish that this could be cut, but don’t feel qualified to try. 22 pages is too much for this material. Much of it seems elementary and does not sustain the reader’s interest. For my own taste the explanation of what a budget is, the procedures, the importance of it, etc., could come out. How you got your special interest as a hobby, almost, is interesting and the actual results of your budgets, important. Couldn’t it be reduced by, say, seven pages and still say everything needful?
Specific suggestions:
Pp. 50–51. The marked sentences I would leave out. It raises the whole question of corruption, influence, mink coats, etc., and contributes nothing. As for “experts” being in charge of law and finance, the Department of Justice was the weakest spot in the Democratic administrations for twenty years, and my guess is that it was under Bob Hannegan in the Bureau of Internal Revenue, that so much of the monkey business, for which you paid later on, got its start. The sentences marked ask for trouble without settling it.
P. 62, first paragraph. I just don’t understand what is meant by this. Other readers may be in the same fix.
P. 69, bottom. This is a puzzling explanation. The Treasury furnished the money to the R.F.C. [Reconstruction Finance Corporation]. If it competed with banks, so did the Treasury regardless of where the R.F.C. was located on the chart of organization. The idea of R.F.C. loans was that it did not compete with the banks because it made loans which were needed but which banks would not and could not risk.
P. 93, bottom. I don’t think this is right. The effect a policy is likely to have is an inherent part in devising and recommending the policy. The C.I.A. is not the Presidential adviser on the effects of policies. This is the State Department. The illustration does not illustrate; it confuses. It ought to come out, leaving the exposition solely on Intelligence.
Pp. 95 and 97–98. The paragraphs are duplicates. The later one can well come out. Anything not in the earlier one can be there.
Pp. 104 and 113. Was the final meeting with Marshall re China on December 14 or 15? My recollection is the latter and the letter handed to him is dated December 15.
There is a story that after this meeting Marshall stayed behind when we had gone and asked you whether his instructions meant that when the chips were down we were for Chiang and would support him, and, so the story goes, you said, “Yes.” Is this true? If so, it is of some significance, possibly that he thought the written instructions were equivocal. Marshall never mentioned this to me, and I only heard the story a year ago from Herbert Feis. Where he got it, I don’t know.
Somewhere in the chapter on China, perhaps on page 103, where you say, “China appeared now to be headed for more trouble,” it might be helpful and revealing to the reader to bring in General Wedemeyer’s recommendations made in November 1945—shortly after V-J Day. They are, I believe, printed in full in the China White Paper and are summarized on pages 8, 9, and 10 of my little pamphlet, which you have, “American Policy Toward China,” dated June 4, 1951. These bring out very clearly the limitations and conditions of the Generalissimo’s capabilities. It was his failure to realize these which brought about his downfall; and when General Wedemeyer states them, we really have the opposition speaking.
On page 116 I have made some notes on the manuscript which I expand here. The first paragraph is a puzzling one as it is written. The fighting in China was clearly the result of the political differences. To say that Marshall’s view of his mission was to bring the fighting to an end and yet avoid political matters is a non sequitur. Wasn’t his view rather that his best chance of effectiveness was to restrict his mediation to those matters which could be said to have a military aspect? The truce was one of these, so was the vital politico-military question of how the military forces in a united China should be organized; what their size should be, and what should be the Nationalist Communist ratio. This was highly political and went to the very root of power. I think it would be well to spell out the substance of his suggestion here, since it was a most important one. If adopted, it would have carried out vast reduction in men under arms, would have created a military power five-sixths Nationalist in composition, the command of which would have been in a government headed by Chiang Kai-shek. These talks were great and delicate ones, and I believe that General Marshall felt that all of his good will would be used up in accomplishing this and that his best chance for agreement on other political measures was, not through mediation, but through encouraging the two major parties and the independent parties to compromise.
The last paragraph on page 116 also bothers me. It raises the question whether Marshall agreed with the Communist appraisal of the situation. My guess is that he did not because, if he did, he was playing into their hands.
My worry would be eliminated if the middle of it read: “And it was his impression that the Communists were more ready to take their chances in a struggle conducted in the political arena than were the Nationalists. The Nationalists so it seemed to Marshall, appeared to be determined to pursue a policy of force which he believed would be their undoing.”
Chapter 7. Pages 148–149. The first paragraph and the first sentence of the second bother me. In the first place, are you sure of the facts? Was such a message sent to Stalin? If it was, and since you quote other important messages, I think you should quote this one. If you do not have the message, do you know that it was sent and, if so, what it said? Unless your anecdote about the message can be supported one hundred percent by documents, I strongly urge leaving it out. It gives an impression of impetuous and not too well considered judgment. Would we really have moved into Iran and, if so, with what? What would the United Nations have said, and how would this square with your support of the UN? What would our allies have said? Furthermore, was Stalin a man to respond to messages of this sort? I should not have thought so. Please reconsider this paragraph.
At the bottom of page 148 and on page 149, you jump from Iran directly into the delivery of the message to Congress on Greece and Turkey on March 12, 1947. As a literary device, this seems to me a mistake. It gives the impression of a two-gun man in the White House shooting with both hands in all directions at the same time. You tell Stalin off at the top of the page. You are on the rostrum of the House, intervening in Greece and Turkey, without any explanation at the bottom of the page. Things didn’t happen that way and you didn’t decide things that way. I think these paragraphs, as indicated in the manuscript, should come out, and you should go along more calmly with the development of the Greek-Turkish story. Perhaps the transition could be something like this: “It was not long before the same issue was presented to us again in the same part of the world.” And then pick up the story at the bottom of page 149.
Page 151. In the middle of the page you mention the Turkish request for advice when they received the notice from the Soviets on the Straits, and say, “I instructed Acheson to inform the Turks, etc.” Again this does not do you justice. It sounds as though you read the telegram and barked out the orders without more ado. It was in fact far more complicated, and an example of the very thorough governmental administration which you conducted. The whole story is spelled out in Joe Jones’s galley proof. What you did was to direct State, War, and Navy to study the matter. This was done smoothly and quickly and resulted in a unanimous recommendation which was brought to you at a meeting where the Secretaries of the three departments and the Chiefs of Staff were all present. General Eisenhower was Chief of Staff. It was all thoroughly discussed with you. I remember your pulling the big map out of your desk drawer and entering in a most impressive way into the discussion of the strategy of power in the Middle East. You approved the recommendation. We then coordinated our views with our allies and ended up with a strong position, which was communicated to the Turks. At the same time they received similar views and support from the British and French. This is a much more impressive story than what appears on page 151.
Page 155, last sentence of next to last paragraph. You say that the British note on Greece and Turkey stated that they would take all their troops out of Greece. My rather clear recollection is that this is not right. I think again you will find this discussed in Joe Jones’s galleys. My recollection is that the note was silent on this point and that Marshall took it up personally and orally with the Ambassador, who reported that the British were planning to take their troops out as soon as this could be conveniently done and that, after some talk back and forth, we got them to delay it for a considerable space of time.
Page 189, first paragraph. This discussion of the currency problem does not seem right, and this is important, because the currency problem was pretty close to being the heart of the Berlin issue at the outset. In other words, although the Russians undoubtedly had embarked upon a program of making our occupation of Berlin difficult by harassments, it was the introduction of our currency into West Berlin which really produced action on their part. You give the impression that the row arose because the Russians were counterfeiting our money and did not want to stop. It may be that the trouble over the plates continued until 1948, but it was my recollection that we had stopped that some time before by changing the plates. I think that the real difficulty was much deeper. The reformed West German currency was good currency; the Eastmark was not. Since the Eastmark would not be legal tender in West Berlin, everybody wanted the good currency, which was ours; and this was producing difficulty for the Russians, both in East Berlin and in East Germany. The blockade was their first response to this economic threat. After it had started, I think their ideas grew and they began to see the possibility that the blockade might get us out of Berlin altogether. But the beginning of it was economic and I do not think this has been adequately explained at the point noted.
Page 191. For the reasons given immediately above, your explanation of the reason for the blockade of Berlin seem to me incorrect. Again you oversimplify. I think the Russians blundered into the blockade, rather than choosing it as their counter-attack.
Page 201, bottom. It is a small point, but as I recall it, [Howard] Kingsbury Smith had written out the questions which Stalin answered, or questions something like them, quite a while before and had left them with the Foreign Office. I do not think that the interview was by telegram. The practice which I have suggested would, of course, have been a good one with the Communists, since, by it, they always had questions on hand which they could answer when it suited them to do so. I assume that, if they changed a question a little, the favored correspondent would not complain.
The paragraph beginning at the bottom of page 202 condenses some protracted negotiations, and I think condenses them incorrectly. As I recall it, one of the principal items in the reply by [Jacob A.] Malik [Soviet representative to the United Nations at the time of the Berlin crisis, 1948–49] was that the West should call off its actions to create the West German Government. I can look this up if you want me to, but I remember my conferences and standing very firm on this issue.
Chapter 10. I shall restrict comments on this chapter, because I never was enthusiastic about the policy and, therefore, am not a sympathetic critic. Some things, however, seem clearly wrong.
Page 206. You say that the Balfour declaration has always seemed to you to go hand-in-hand with the noble principles of Woodrow Wilson, especially with the principle of self-determination. It seems to me that if there was one principle in the world which was absolutely and directly violated by the Balfour Declaration and the resulting policy it was the principle of self-determination. Self-determination, I believe, would entitle the Arabs living in Palestine to decide whether they wanted to be inundated by Jews. Instead, what was done was to bring the Jews in over the objections of the Arabs. However noble the policy may have been, it certainly was not one justified by self-determination. The whole sentence, which I have noted, could be profitably eliminated.
Page 208, next to last paragraph. Here self-determination crops up again. Isn’t it enough that commonsense and fairness required that the Arabs, as well as the Jews, should be consulted, without [b]ringing in self-determination?
In the last paragraph on this page and several times thereafter you say that you believed the solution in Palestine should be reached peaceably. Looking at this from the point of view opposed to yours, the statement has a sanctimonious ring. Of course you wanted the solution to be peaceably reached, but you insisted that the solution should be the immigration of Jews. This was what the Arabs were not prepared to accept peaceably. Therefore, what you are saying is that you thought the Arabs should surrender rather than fight for what they regarded as their country. I think you can make a good enough argument for your case without this sort of assistance. Therefore, I am for eliminating your hopes for peaceable solutions of an issue where the line of policy precluded it.
Page 242. On this page, again, we have American policy designed to bring about by peaceful means the establishment of the promised Jewish homeland. This occurs in the second paragraph and it occurs in the next to last paragraph. The next to last paragraph really shocks me, and I hope it can be eliminated. You say the simple fact is that our policy was an American policy. The reason that it was an American policy was that it was aimed at a peaceful elimination of a world trouble spot. Really this seems to me to go too far. Advocacy is one thing, but this is not advocacy. Would this policy, which you say was American policy, have been ours if there were no Jews in the United States? Please leave out these instances when you protest too much.
Page 254. The last sentence of the first paragraph I hope you will take out. I know the officers who worked on the Palestine question and can honestly say that I do not think that they were anti-Semitic. They were irritated just as you say you were, at the Zionist pressure tactics and blew up about this from time to time. A part of the pressure was to insinuate that those who advised contrary to Zionist wishes were anti-Semitic. But it seems unfair to them to add the great weight of your authority to the charge.
Chapter XIII. Here, Mr. President, I shall try your patience and good nature. The part up to and through page 277 should—I strongly urge—be wholly re-written. To me it does not ring true at all. The very opening words are all wrong—“If I had consulted my personal impulse … I should have made plans to leave the White House at the end of my first term.” This is not the fighting man that we all loved and love and who led the damnedest knock-down and drag-out in political history. The first thirteen pages do not impress the reader as Harry Truman speaking but as someone writing what Horatio Alger might have said under the circumstances.
I don’t believe your “impulse”—what one of my partners calls your “gut reaction”—was concerned with F.D.R.’s unfinished business, or the danger from reaction, or the state of world affairs. These were, of course, the important background. 1948 was not 1924. But all of these intellectual considerations were applicable also in 1952, when your decision was different.
The truth seems to be nearer this: Your first term was brought about by the accident of death. You had never sought the job, you didn’t want it. You hadn’t been elected to it. But you had it and you tackled it as hard and conscientiously as you tackled everything. After a brief honeymoon, the tough boys wrote you off as of no account. They flouted your policies and began to reverse FDR’s as hard as they could. They won the Congress in 1946. They overrode your vetoes. The press belittled you. The pollsters said you hadn’t a chance. Many of your own party went back on you. Reaction seemed to them to be in full swing. It was all personified in the 80th Congress.
You have never run from a fight in your life. You knew damn well that the everyday American believed in what FDR and you had stood for. Your Dutch, or Irish, or Missouri was up. You believed Americans would respond to fighting leadership and to the facts stated simply and powerfully. If the tough boys wanted a fight—and they didn’t even believe there would be one—you would give them the goll-darndest fight they had ever had. You might get licked—you didn’t think so, but you might—but, if you did, the other guys would go to the Inaugural Ball with the biggest pair of shiners seen around these parts since Old Hickory put away his shillelagh.
This sounds like you and like the truth. What has been written does not. It is too rational, too reluctant, too pious. The “I never struck a blow except in defense of a woman” sort of thing. And the historical business on pages 268, 269, seems dragged in. You would have fought in ’48 as no President ever had before.
Much of the stuff on the later pages about the press, Congress, etc., is usable and good, but in a more fiery setting. However, the statement on page 277 that your trip was not meant to be political; but nonpartisan; you were not even a candidate, will seem to the reader insincere. Even in professional parlance, it squeaks by on the narrowest and most technical definition of “political.” You were not on a lecture tour and you were running in the way in which at this stage a shrewd candidate had to run.
Please put away the club you have out for me and rewrite these pages.
If you do, then the latter part of the chapter about the impending splits in the party by which you lost your right and left wings can be pointed up to their important and great significance. They were infinitely more courageous decisions for a man who was going to pay the price for them and who wanted passionately to win, than they would have been for a retiring President or for a man who had no realization of their political consequences. It took cold nerve to do what you did, as you show later on by the fact that Ohio had the deciding votes.
Chapter XIV. There are minor notes on the manuscript.
Pages 292–29L as marked. I would omit this. Almost everyone has become familiar with the workings of national conventions through television. These pages slow the story.
Pages 294–5. 295–6. I strongly urge the omission of these conversations with Douglas, instead merely stating that you made him the offers and that, after considering them, he decided to remain on the Court. It is bad for the Court and for you to have reported this sort of back and forth between a President and a Justice. It will offend many people—it gives me a shudder—and it does no good.
Pages 298–326. Here again I am going to step on your toes. These pages ought to come out. I do not think they are good either as a literary device by which you review your predecessors, or on the merits. And they slow up the story.
As a literary device they strain credulity. It may be that with a critically important speech to make from notes only, you did not think about it, but reviewed in detail the fortunes of every President of the United States. I am sure no one will believe it. Every few pages you have to reassert the improbable fact that you did (pp. 298, 304, 308, 309, 310, 317, 319, 323, 325). The effect is forced, like someone trying to entertain [at] a dinner when the guest speaker is late or the hour for radio has not arrived.
On the merits, the material is open to the criticism that there is very little of your own views and opinions, which a reader would want to know, and a good deal of elementary history—that Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention, etc.,—which everyone knows. Nor does all of this historical review lead anywhere; no conclusions emerge. The reader feels stuck on the fly paper for thirty pages.
My suggestion is this: Take these pages out of the book. They don’t belong here at all. Save them, and later on, when your income tax is not so much of a problem, do them over into articles—“Harry Truman Sizes Up His Predecessors.” This would take a little more work than you [have] done on these thirty pages, but ought to make at least three good articles for which you should be well paid.
Don’t give the customers too much in this book—which is about you and not your predecessors.
Pages 342–357. The Vinson “Mission” to Russia. [Truman had planned to send Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson to Moscow as his personal emissary to Stalin to break the deadlock over Berlin, but the mission was halted.] These pages do not—to this reader—come off. They seem disingenuous, not wholly frank, unconvincing.
The theme is that the Vinson mission had nothing to do with politics, was a good idea as foreign policy, and was spoiled by misunderstanding. Is this supportable?
In the first place, no one will believe that it had nothing to do with politics. If, in fact, it did, why be ashamed of it? The present meeting at the summit had everything to do with politics. Winston proposed it on May 11, 1953, as an answer to the Labor Party’s charges of war mongering. He completely spiked their guns by his speech, and the Conservatives probably won the election by ensuring that it would take place.
If Wallace’s attacks were giving liberals and middle-of-the-roaders the idea that you would not negotiate, a gesture to prove them wrong would have been perfectly proper politics.
So why defend ground which is nearly indefensible and unnecessary to defend?
Second, as to the mission, I did not understand it at the time, and the account does not help me. The issue in the autumn of 1948 between the Russians and us was Berlin. What was Fred [Vinson] to do about that and what effect would the proposal of the mission have upon the firmness of our position? Not a word is said about Berlin. The “big” issue you speak of on pages 341–4, 347 is control of atomic energy. That was a pretty sick issue by that time.
The analogy of Lord Reading has, to be sure, one similarity—he was Chief Justice of England. But England was not blockading U.S. forces, and the problems between the two countries were susceptible to method in a way which was not true of USA-USSR relations. I don’t think an analogy helps when it suggests more differences than similarities.
Finally, in this text your relations with Marshall on the proposal are not clear. On page 350 you were going to talk with him on “Monday morning before we do anything further.” But on Sunday you reached agreement with Vinson, alerted the networks and Lovett. Then came a leak. On page 351, “I had another talk with Secretary Marshall and found him upset over the misrepresentations by other delegates of the purpose of the mission.”
One wonders what happened at the first talk and what he thought of the mission apart from misrepresentations.
Might it not be better to cut the whole story down to cover very briefly your purpose (which must I think have taken Berlin into the picture), the political situation, Fred’s willingness to go, Marshall’s concern, your very proper consideration for that and the abandonment of the idea—say less than half the length it now is?
Page 358. I have suggested a way out of the mixed metaphor of the “ground swell in the grass roots.”
Page 362. At the very top of the page, as indicated, the meaning of the sentence is not apparent. How small states get an “equal voice” I don’t understand; nor, how the electoral system “saves a lot of trouble” in “abnormal” situations. If this is useful here, it ought to be cleared up.
Pages 379–381. Point 4 is presented in these pages as a capital investment program. But on pages 383, 384, 386, 390, and 393, both the discussion and the appropriations asked for and given concern a technical assistance program. The capital asked for was small, except in India at the end, and was to build pilot or demonstration plants.
Page 380. I suggest eliminating the part about colonialism. Point 4 was not an attack on colonialism and did not operate in colonial areas. What you say on pages 380–1 will only cause hard feelings.
These are a lot of tough criticisms, not calculated to endear the critic. But they call attention to what seem to me to be errors which will harm you. The story except for Chapter III and part of Chapter II is a fine one and holds the reader.
I have almost finished the last volume, pages 396–858, and will start a letter in a day or two.
Most warmly and faithfully,
Dean
P.S. This letter though begun on the 18th is finished and mailed today July 20. D.
Although Truman had already turned over the memoir manuscript to his publisher, he tells Acheson he can still make changes on the galleys. He looks forward to receiving Acheson’s comments on the final part of the second volume.
July 19, 1955
Dear Dean:
I found your letter of the 11th on my desk when I returned from Chicago and I certainly do appreciate very much your generosity in helping me polish up this second volume.
I am hoping that if there are any errors of fact you will point them out, and if my recollection of the meaning of the facts at the time they took place has gone askew I know you will set me straight.
I am going over the second volume as carefully as I can but I had to make the turnover on June 30th. We will still have time to make corrections on the galley proofs.
If it is convenient to you to send in the installments of 200 pages, or groups of chapters, that will be very satisfactory to me.
I sincerely hope that you and Mrs. Acheson have the grandest time in the world on that European trip. I’ll be in touch with you right along.
It is almost as much satisfaction to get this Time contract behind me as it was to get out of the White House and I want to say if it had not been for the help which you and John Snyder, and one or two others, gave me I don’t believe I would ever have been able to get it done. Of course, Bill Hillman and Dave Noyes really did a yeoman’s job on putting this material together.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
You are just too good and too patient.
July 25, 1955
THE HONORABLE HARRY S TRUMAN
AM SENDING YOU TOMORROW A LONG LETTER WITH SUGGESTIONS WHICH I HOPE YOU CAN CONSIDER THE LAST 400 PAGES OF MANUSCRIPT, WHICH I AM ALSO MAILING TO YOU
DEAN ACHESON
Acheson’s comments on the last part of Truman’s second volume of memoirs deal with General MacArthur’s deployments in the Korean War, in violation of orders, which brought in the Chinese intervention and greatly damaged the Truman administration’s standing in public opinion. The “Wake Island meeting” refers to a flight Truman made to Wake Island, in the mid-Pacific, to meet with General MacArthur about the conduct of the Korean War.
July 25, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
I have now finished reading your manuscript and return the last volume with my suggestions.
This manuscript flows along more smoothly than the last one and is most interesting. I congratulate you on it. For your generous references to me, I am profoundly grateful.
My comments are divided into two groups:—minor and stylistic suggestions; and, suggestions going to substance.
The former do not require comment and appear as interlineations on pages 396, 401, 402, 403, 405, 414, 417, 418, 421, 425, 435, 438, 478, 479, 488, 489, 492, 494, 496, 510, 512, 515, 516, 521, 524, 529, 547, 576, 579, 591, 607, 626, 683, 684, 685, 688, 693, 696, 697, 698, 699, 700, 701, 703, 704, 712, 713, 714, 720, 721, 776, 794, 820 (Edward VIII killed that phrase), 821 (unnecessary and meaningless sentence), 828, 838, 841–2 (in the last sentence on the page running over something is left out).
Suggestions dealing with substance:
P. 406. The second paragraph as written seems to contradict the first paragraph. I have made on the page a guess as to what Bevin said.
The last paragraph, as it runs over on 407, can well be cut. It sounds like one of Bob Lovett’s more involved efforts and really says nothing. The same is true of the rather trifling and desultory discussion reported on p. 408. What really happened appears at the bottom of 408.
P. 415. It is often and erroneously said that under our constitution the nation cannot commit itself in advance to go to war under specified circumstances. Unless Mr. Bricker changes things, the U.S.A. has in foreign affairs all the powers of sovereignty and can bind itself in any way it chooses. [Senator John W. Bricker sponsored the Bricker amendment limiting treaty power.] The changes indicated save this point without raising the argument.
P. 451. Question: Isn’t the reference to parities being forced down inconsistent with what you have said above about the Brannan Plan? For the first time, the Brannan Plan became clear to me in your explanation. But this sentence mixed me up again.
P. 470. I suggest that in view of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Peters case [Peters v. Hobby, 1955] you leave these two paragraphs out. The Court decided that under your order the Loyalty Review Board had authority only to review an appeal by the employee. It would be a mistake to cause any new confusion as to what the order provided.
P. 487. The slogans indicated do not seem to me to be “similar” to the others which appealed to intolerance. Shouldn’t they come out?
P. 497. I don’t understand the last sentence on the page. Shouldn’t the sentence read: “How else could you have known that it should not be brought before your Committee unless you saw it and formed your own judgment?” And yet do you mean to imply that in all such cases chairmen of committees should see secret papers? Perhaps the best course is to leave out your reply.
P. 513. Is this classified information? It may now be public knowledge; but I cannot recall reading anywhere the method by which we learn about atomic explosions in Russia.
P. 514. I would leave this out. There is evidence that the Russians are pretty good in scientific development.
P. 525, top. Was the first test thermonuclear shot in March 1951? I had thought that it was still unproven until the November 1952 test.
Pp. 554–557. Blair House meeting on Korea, June 25, 1950. The best account of “Why We Went to War in Korea,” is in the Saturday Evening Post of November 10, 1951, by Beverly Smith. He wrote it after, by your orders, he had seen all our notes and papers. You should read it and then revise these pages which are skimpy on the greatest story of the 1949–1953 Administration and sometimes not altogether accurate.
To begin with, method—which was one of your strong points—is wholly left out of your story. It was this: Louis Johnson [Secretary of Defense, 1949–50] and Bradley were away, flying back from Tokyo on that Saturday night. Over the phone you told me to get together with the Service Secretaries and the Chiefs of Staff and get working parties started getting recommendations for you when you got back. These obviously could not be cleared with Louis and Brad and so the first order of business after I reported on the state of affairs was to lay out the recommendations for discussion. They formed the framework of the whole evening. It was not, as would seem on page 556, a series of off-the-cuff, disjointed observations.
One other preliminary observation. You did not permit any discussion until dinner was served and over and the Blair House staff had withdrawn. Then you asked me to report on the situation and recommendations. This I did first before anyone made any observations.
The situation report is what you have up to the top of 556. Then I reported the following recommendation for immediate action:
1) That MacArthur should evacuate Americans from Korea—the dependents of the Military Mission, etc.—and, in order to do so, should keep open the Kimpo and other airports, repelling all hostile attacks thereon. In doing this, his air forces should stay south of the 38th Parallel.
2) MacArthur should be instructed to get ammunition and supplies to the Korean army by airdrop and otherwise. [Truman staff marginalia: “That the Seventh Fleet should be ordered into the Formosa Strait to prevent the conflict spreading in that area.”]
3) The Seventh Fleet should be ordered from Cavite north at once. We should make a statement that the fleet would repel any attack on Formosa and that no attack should be made from Formosa on the mainland. (At this point you interrupted to say that you agreed that the fleet should be ordered north at once, but that you would sleep on the statements until the fleet was in position. You expressed no opinion on them on the merits.)
4) The situation was not clear enough to make any further recommendations that night.
After this report you asked each person in turn to state his agreement or disagreement and any views he might have in addition. Two things stand out in this discussion. One was the complete, almost unspoken acceptance on the part of everyone that whatever had to be done to meet this aggression had to be done. There was no suggestion from anyone that either the United Nations or the United States could back away from it. This was the test of all the talk of the last five years of collective security. The other point which stands out in my mind from the discussion was the difference in view of what might be called for. Vandenberg and [Admiral Forrest] Sherman thought that air and naval aid might be enough. [General J. Lawton] Collins [army chief of staff, 1949–53] (and I think Bradley) were clear that if the Korean army was really broken, ground forces would be necessary. But no one could tell what the state of the Korean army really was on Sunday night. Whatever the service estimates might be everyone recognized the situation as serious in the extreme.
After listening to the discussion, you directed that orders be issued carrying out the recommendations as modified by you.
Louis Johnson has said that he and I had a debate on Formosa that night; he for protecting it, I against. That is completely untrue.
P. 559. Throughout Monday the situation in Korea deteriorated rapidly. You called another meeting at Blair House Monday night. The same persons were present, except that Assistant Secretary of State [Elbert G.] Mathews took Rusk’s place and Secretary of Navy [Francis P.] Matthews was not present. The decisions taken that night were announced by you the next day, Tuesday, June 27th. The draft was prepared by me and adopted by you with minor changes. They were:
1) U.S. air and sea forces to give Korean force cover and support.
2) Seventh Fleet would neutralize Formosa.
3) Our forces in the Philippines would be strengthened.
4) Aid would be accelerated to Indo-China.
5) Senator [Warren] Austin [U.S. ambassador to the U.N., 1946–53] was to report all this to the U.N.
Meanwhile the Security Council of the U.N. met again and adopted the Resolution (on June 27th) calling on all members of the U.N. to give assistance to South Korea. That morning you met with the Congressional group.
P. 564. On Thursday (our time) MacArthur made an air reconnaissance of Korea and during the night on the wire with Collins asked for permission to move in a regimental combat team as the beginning of a two division force since the Korean army had dissolved. Permission was given, and later general agreement with your action was voiced by the NSC and a meeting of Congressional personnel.
The clear skeleton of this story of progressive decisions as events called for them does not come out clearly in these pages which are interspersed with too much conversation about who said what. The important thing is to get the bones in—because they are glorious bones—and let the conversational flesh come along afterward. [Truman marginalia: “Correct as hell is hot.”]
Pp. 581–588. Harriman’s Memorandum of his talks with MacArthur.
The inclusion of this memorandum raises serious questions. [Truman staff marginalia: “HST says go ahead.”]
First. This should not be published without W.A.H.’s consent—and he should know the dangers to him as pointed out below. The literary rights in this memo belong to the writer and not the receiver. While you might have published it for governmental purposes while in office, you now have no official right to do so. [Truman marginalia: “Correct.”]
Second. The memo will bring attacks and recriminations on W.A.H., who is in active politics and will want to run for Governor, or President, or to be Secretary of State some day. The memo, particularly the part of p. 583 which makes such a fool of MacArthur, will arouse his friends. [General Matthew] Ridgway and [General Lauris] Norstad will be drawn into the row to say whether things were or were not said. Then on page 585 MacArthur “thought it might be a good idea to let him [Chiang] land [on the mainland] and get rid of him that way.” This will be furiously denied. [Truman marginalia: “Will it?”]
Then Averell says, “I explained in great detail why Chiang was a liability,” etc. Dewey can ring the changes on this to Averell’s great embarrassment. [Truman marginalia: “Can he?”]
I think it very bad business to print the memorandum. You can go through it and say that Harriman, who kept notes of his talk with MacArthur, told you that _________ and then paraphrase those portions of the memo which relate to the real point, which is that Averell explained the policy to MacArthur who said that he would, of course, loyally support it. [Truman marginalia: “Let’s look and see if this may be right.”]
P. 590. Your description of the meeting is not as I recall it. My notes of it are: “When we came into his office the President had in his hands some yellow sheets of newsticker paper. He told us to sit down. He was obviously angry. He read aloud to us the whole MacArthur letter, his voice getting harsher as he read. He said that this letter had been sent by MacArthur to the Veterans of Foreign Wars over the open telegraph; it was now on the AP ticker. He didn’t see how this could be done without somebody in the U.S. government knowing about it. He was going to ask each one of us in this room whether we had anything to do with it, whether they knew anything about it or were in any way whatever involved in it. He pointed at each person in turn around the room. Each answered, ‘No, sir.’
“By the time the President got through it was a pretty thoroughly intimidated group. He turned to Louis Johnson and said, ‘I want this letter withdrawn. I want you to send an order to MacArthur to withdraw this letter. That is an order from me. Do you understand that?’
“Louis said, ‘Yes, sir, I do.’ The President said ‘Go and do it. That’s all.’ Everyone went out and disappeared very fast.”
Pp. 599–600. This is a very important and critical point in your relations with MacArthur. There is more to the matter of orders violated than you make clear—as I recall it. But my recollection and notes should be checked against the papers you have.
I was in New York on September 28, at the U.N. You sent for me to return to Washington. I got there that evening. The next day, Friday, September 29, after a cabinet meeting, General Marshall and I went to Blair House to lunch with you. When lunch was over and the luncheon things cleared away, an officer came in with a large map on which were the troop dispositions. General Marshall explained the military situation. He said the North Korean army was dissolving. The question was what orders should MacArthur be given. He told us of a tentative order sent by the Joint Chiefs to MacArthur for comment on, I think, the 27th. He now laid it before the President. The idea, as I recall it, was that MacArthur by amphibious and other operations would occupy, fortify, and hold the line Pyongyang-Wansan, running southwest to northeast across Korea. North of that line only Korean troops might operate.
This was discussed by the three of us. All the points which later became important were considered; i.e., as we might move north of this line, our supply line and air support would become longer and more difficult, the enemy’s easier and shorter. The danger of Chinese intervention would increase. We came nearer to the Soviet border which would involve greater risks. The President concluded,—General Marshall and I were in complete agreement—that MacArthur should stand on the line mentioned and not go further north with U.N. troops—only Korean units might be used for policing and pacification if that proved possible.
I do not have and cannot find in the hearings before the Joint Congressional Committee the directives of September 27 and September 30, although they are discussed and certain portions of them are quoted in the Hearings before the committee by General Collins on pages 1216, 1230, and 1239. I believe that my recollection of what they contain is correct, but it would be most important to have this verified. They came up a month later, as I point out below, when on October 25 the Joint Chiefs protested against the general advance order which MacArthur had issued without consultation with them on October 24. This is a very important matter, because it was this advance, which, according to my recollection, was contrary to his directives, which brought about the disaster in North Korea. I think it now seems plain that, if MacArthur had kept his army where he was told to keep it, in a strongly fortified position, it would not have been disorganized and routed by the Chinese intervention.
Then following the Wake Island meeting: on October 15th MacArthur told HST that 60,000 men could not possibly get across the Yalu.
On October 24, 1950, without consultation with Washington and contrary to the order of September 30, MacArthur ordered a general advance of all his armies to the north. His dispositions were amazing in view of the possibility of Chinese intervention. The 8th Army and 10th Corps were separated. Then the 8th Army was divided into four or five separate columns out of touch with one another. The 10th Corps was divided into three widely separated forces.
On October 25th the Joint Chiefs protested against this departure from the September 30th order. MacArthur replied that “military necessity” required his actions; that he did not read the September 30 telegram as an order but as advice; and that the Wake Island conference had covered the situation.
The Joint Chiefs and Marshall fumed, saw the danger involved, but, in view of the tradition since Grant of the authority of a theater commander, were not willing to order MacArthur back to the September 30 line. They thought they were too far away. (There was also MacArthur’s prestige.)
Now this was a critical point in history. The defeat of the U.S. forces in Korea in December was an incalculable defeat to U.S. foreign policy and destroyed the Truman Administration. If we had had Ridgway in command this would not have happened.
The extraordinary stupidity of MacArthur’s action is shown by chronology. This divided, seven pronged advance was ordered by MacArthur on October 24.
October 26, first Chinese prisoners taken.
November 4th, MacArthur reports Chinese intervention distinct possibility in an intelligence appreciation.
November 5th, in special communiqué to U.N. MacArthur says North Korean forces have collapsed and “the most offensive act of international lawlessness ever known in history” has occurred in Chinese intervention in power into Korea.
November 6th, MacArthur in special report to U.N. complains of Chinese intervention. This was debated in the U.N. on November 7th and 8th. (But the advance north continued.) We in State were almost wild by this time because in our meetings at the Pentagon no one could explain what MacArthur was thinking of.
By this time, unknown to him, MacArthur had over 100,000 Chinese in his rear. See S.L.A. Marshall, The River and the Gauntlet.
November 8th. The vote to put Chinese intervention on the U.N. Security Council agenda was 10 to 1, Malik voting no. The Red Chinese were invited to appear and rejected invitation on November 11.
Meanwhile we met frantically at the Pentagon and with you—November 2, November 6, twice, November 13, November 14, November 17, November 29, December 1, December 2, December 3, December 4, etc.
November 21. 7th ROK [Republic of Korea] division reached Yalu.
November 21. MacArthur flew to Korea and announced on November 24, general assault which would end the war.
By November 28–29–30, 8th Army and 10th Corps were in headlong retreat. This was the worst defeat of U.S. forces since Bull Run. The generalship was even more stupid.
MacArthur’s true nature was never plainer than in defeat. He first lost his head and the game was up, and then started to blame his government for his own assininity.
December 1st, MacArthur replied to a telegram from U.S. News & World Report that the limitations imposed on him were an enormous handicap, unprecedented in military history. On [the] same day he telegraphed Arthur Krock speaking of odds unprecedented in history.
December 6th. President sent his directive to submit statements.
December 11th, MacArthur made a statement that UN command was in fine shape having carried out “tactical withdrawals.”
You have this in the text of his telegrams on (a) extending the war and (b) being unable to defend Korea and Japan.
Collins and Vandenberg went to Korea and Ridgway took over in place of [General Walton H.] Walker. By January 17 the situation had improved.
While we were approaching the 38th Parallel for the second time and discussing policy with our allies, MacArthur, I think in February, issued a statement that from a military standpoint we must materially reduce the existing superiority of our Chinese Communist enemy engaging with impunity in undeclared war against us, with the unprecedented military advantage of sanctuary protection for his military potential against our counterattack upon Chinese soil, before we can seriously consider conducting major operations north of that geographic line. This was open defiance again of the Government’s position.
On March 7th, he said: “Vital decisions have yet to be made—decisions far beyond the scope of the authority vested in me as the military commander, decisions which are neither solely political nor solely military, but which must provide on the highest international levels an answer to the obscurities which so becloud the unsolved problems raised by Red China’s undeclared war in Korea.”
In other words: war against China.
Then came the episode of the President’s proposed statement and MacArthur’s interference. (Your text, page 722.)
Another order to MacArthur to make no statements.
He immediately made one to the effect that he had ordered the army to cross the parallel at will. This brought violent reaction from Nehru and others.
Then the letter to Martin, released April 5th. At the same time the Daily Telegraph published an interview with the British General H. G. Martin, who quoted MacArthur to the same effect.
Senator Ferguson proposed that a congressional committee go to Tokyo to learn from MacArthur his views on how war should be conducted. Smith of New Jersey supported him.
P. 738, et seq. I have made some notes on the margin of your account of the meetings preceding MacArthur’s relief. The following is an account put together last year by Averell and me from our notes and recollections.
Pursuant to messages received from you on the afternoon of Thursday, April 5, there met with you in your study from 11:30 to 12:30 Friday morning, April 6, following the Cabinet meeting, General Marshall, General Bradley, Harriman, and myself. We discussed the question for an hour, and it was apparent that everyone took the most serious possible view of the situation. It was apparent that General Marshall had not come to a conclusion and wished to reflect further; also that General Bradley would have to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I believed that General MacArthur should be relieved, but thought that it was essential that you should act, if possible, with the unanimous advice of your military advisors—General Marshall, General Bradley, and the Joint Chiefs. Therefore, at this meeting, I analyzed the situation, without stating any other conclusion than that it should be thought over very carefully because it was a matter of the utmost seriousness. Harriman argued very strongly for the relief of MacArthur.
The next morning, Saturday, April 7, at 8:50 a.m., the same group met for a short further meeting with you in your office. At that time you requested General Marshall and General Bradley to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and be prepared on Monday to make a final recommendation to you. On Sunday, the 8th of April, you sent for me to come to Blair House, discussed the matter briefly with me, and told me that you had consulted Snyder and, I think, Vinson. You said that you would be prepared to act on Monday when Marshall and Bradley made their report.
We met in your office at nine o’clock on Monday morning—Marshall, Bradley, Harriman, and I. Bradley reported that the Joint Chiefs had met with him on Sunday, and it was his and their unanimous judgment that MacArthur should be relieved. General Marshall said that he had come to this conclusion. I said that I agreed entirely, and Harriman re-affirmed his opinion of Friday, to the same effect. You said that your own conclusion was the same and you directed General Bradley to prepare the orders and confer with me, since the office of Supreme Commander, Allied Powers, was also involved. The same group returned to your office at 3:15 on Monday afternoon, April 10, with drafted orders, which you signed. It was decided that the notification of these orders should be given to General MacArthur through [Frank] Pace [Jr., Secretary of the Army, 1950–53], who was then in Korea, we thought at 8th Army Headquarters. You directed me to send the orders with a message also prepared, to Pace, through [John J.] Muccio, directing him to go to Tokyo at once and convey the orders. Our message was delayed in reaching Pace, both through mechanical difficulties in transmission and because Pace was not at Headquarters but was at the front with Ridgway. About ten o’clock Monday night I was informed that, due to this delay and to the fact that Bradley had reported the rumor of a leak, you had thought it best to send the message also by direct Army wire to MacArthur. I was then instructed to, and did, inform Congressional leaders and also got Dulles to come to my house, telling him of what had occurred and asking him to go to Japan to assure the Yoshida Government that the change in commander would not in any way affect our policy of pushing the Japanese Peace Treaty to a speedy conclusion. This Dulles agreed to do.
This is the story according to the best recollection of Harriman and myself. I think it important that you should have it because it differs in some respects from the account which appears in your manuscript. Both Harriman and I were convinced then and now that your mind had already been made up, but it seemed to us then and now that you acted very wisely in not expressing your opinion to anyone until you had the views of all, which happily turned out to be unanimous. This proved to be a very strong point in the hearings which later occurred before the joint Congressional committee which investigated the MacArthur relief.
Pp. 629–630. Suggest cutting out the paragraph at the bottom of the page. It is very speculative. I doubt whether there was a master plan there. We also tend to attribute too much of this to the Russians.
I have not made detailed notes on your manuscript of the MacArthur story. It would help it a lot to pull it into sharper focus along the lines of my outline. Emerson said to Holmes after reading his critical essay on Plato—“If you strike at a king, you must kill him.” MacArthur can be shot right through the heart. I do not believe this text does it.
[Truman marginalia: “Something to that. Let’s shoot him. God knows he should be!”]
P. 658. Verbal change.
P. 666. The statement attributed to me is quite contrary to what I have said. Wasn’t it, rather, that, if while we were so heavily engaged in Korea we permitted Formosa to be attacked and fall, we would raise the gravest dangers in Japan and the Philippines which were the bases from which our operations were being conducted and upon which our whole Pacific position rested? [Truman marginalia: “This is true.”]
Pp. 721 and 722. Verbal.
Pp. 737–8. I would omit this which seems to me untrue.
Pp. 738–40. Please see my notes above on MacArthur’s relief.
P. 677, 2nd line. This specific reference will embarrass Attlee and should come out.
P. 686. You never can support the charge that MacArthur wanted war. His argument is that there would have been no war. You can win on the charge that he was willing to risk war when it was neither necessary nor warranted to do so.
P. 689. These two sentences I would leave out. The first is garbled. The second seems very strange to me. I thought our Kansas line was about the strongest position in Korea. These southerly lines were so impractical anyway that even reference to them will give the idea that you or Bradley were contemplating them.
P. 719. Please cut out marked paragraph. MacArthur’s generalship in Korea was awful and his leadership worse. Have you read S.L.A. Marshall’s The River and the Gauntlet? Don’t go down in history as authority for this dreadful endorsement. [Truman marginalia: “Let’s look. I’m in doubt.”]
See also comments noted on pp. 744, 751, 755. Are these instructions declassified? Is it necessary to print them?
Pp. 763–4. I suggest cutting the marked paragraphs and substituting the short suggested conclusion. These paragraphs add nothing to the story already told. Furthermore, the word “unthinkable” drives me wild. If something is unthinkable it is unwritable too, or ought to be. Unthinkable is a new kind of superlative which has been downgraded to mean that almost everyone has already thought the unthinkable thoughts. My favorite sentence would be “to implement the over-all, unthinkable picture.”
P. 786. Isn’t it poor taste to designate your own lawyers as “distinguished” men while your opponents’ are “high powered corporation lawyers”? They were all lawyers and like Senators, they are all “distinguished” or “eminent.” Let’s stick to tradition.
P. 792. This should come out. The sound rule is, never argue with the court that decides against you. It impresses no one. You have made all the arguments in the foregoing pages. This hurt you much more than it does the court.
P. 797, 1st paragraph. The first sentence is not correct. It would be if rewritten: “The off-shore oil and mineral resources from 1ow watermark to the three mile limit fall, as the Supreme Court has held, within the full ‘dominion’ and ‘power’ of the United States Government. From the three mile limit to the end of the continental shelf it is the policy of the United States Government, in the words of a proclamation which I signed on September 28, 1945, that they are ‘appertaining to the United States, subject to its jurisdiction and control.’ ”
I would also eliminate the paragraph at the bottom of the page. The claims of Texas and Louisiana vary from time to time. But the point is not that federal control is the only logical position. The other positions are logical enough, if that matters at all. The point is the federal control is the right answer.
P. 810. The marked sentence is a bad one. It is wrong for a man on the court to have further ambitions. It is Douglas’s curse. If Hughes “used” the Court, that is no reason why Fred [Vinson] should. But Hughes didn’t. In his case it was a draft, as it would not have been in Fred’s.
In view of the fact that Fred’s heart we now know was in poor shape in 1952, I would leave out the last sentence on this page. It sounds a little as though you were callous about his survival and you have already expressed your opinion of his qualifications.
P. 822. I would leave out this paragraph. In the first place, I don’t think that the phrase, “The mess in Washington,” was Adlai’s at all. So he did not waste his gift for phrasing. He quoted the other fellow’s question in answering it. This may have been a mistake. But it was like the attack on you for the “red herring” sentence which was not yours but your questioner’s.
In the second place, it may or may not have been a mistake for any candidate not an incumbent President to say that if there were any corruption around he would be twice as much against it as the other fellow. The alternative was to deny that there was any and get on the defensive at once.
This paragraph doesn’t sound well coming from you. In fact, I would be just as happy, indeed more so, without any discussion of Adlai’s mistakes.
P. 829. The sentence at the top of the page has no verb. This sentence and the next paragraph I would regard as really saying nothing, but leaving a disparaging atmosphere about Ike which is a little small. If you leave the paragraph, “in the first instance,” etc., in, the last sentence needs something. Is that cloak worn by all politicians, including you, or only bad politicians? I am for cutting the whole business out.
These suggestions were written under great pressure for time and are not very tactfully put. I hope that they won’t offend you. The book is a fine job. It ought to be sound as a bell on every point, and is on most of them. My points are intended to raise a few points which I hope you can consider when you go over the galleys, though this may be difficult. I did not realize that you were so far along until your last letter. When my work was nearly done. So I send it along anyway.
Our most affectionate greetings.
Most sincerely,
Dean
Truman expresses gratitude for Acheson’s comments on his memoirs, especially those pointing out errors.
August 12, 1955
Dear Dean:
It was a great treat to me to talk with you the other day. To learn that my mysterious $5,000 Library contributor is a friend of yours made the contribution twice as valuable to me.
I am still reading proof and correcting errors and misstatements. It is certainly surprising what can creep into a simply common sense statement of what is supposed to be fact. Someone who doesn’t know his Scripture has quoted old man Job as saying, “Oh! that mine enemy would write a book.” Job didn’t say it in his book, but it’s a good quotation anyway. I’ve been told or read it somewhere that Herodotus said that “the man, the event and what happened hardly ever arrived at the same place at the same time, but a good historian would take care of that.”
Well, I guess that’s a good idea but I’ve tried to avoid it in my effort, thanks to the ideal help I’ve had in the form of an intellectually honest Secretary of State. There have been some others too who have said plainly and bluntly that my memory is at fault. And, Dean, I like it. There’s nothing worse for a man’s character than friends who tell him always how good he is.
May you and Alice have a wonderful trip. I hope Bess and I may have the good luck to see you when you return.
Most sincerely,
Harry
The Achesons left for a lengthy vacation in Europe, stretching over two months, sometime in August.