Dean Acheson and Harry Truman with Winston Churchill aboard the presidential yacht, the U.S.S. Williamsburg, during Churchill’s brief visit to Washington on January 5, 1952. Also pictured is Sir Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary.
4
By the fall of 1955, with the presidential election about a year away, both Truman and Acheson were getting involved in politics. Acheson found himself thrust into the role of Democratic Party spokesman, largely because of the considerable success of his bookA Democrat Looks at His Party, an excerpt from which was published in the press in September.
Aside from politics, many subjects found their way into the letters between the two men. Margaret Truman married in April 1956, and the Trumans traveled to Europe during most of May and June. Truman was awarded an honorary degree from Oxford University during that time. Acheson wrote a draft of an important address that Truman gave in London.
Acheson asked Truman to allow State Department historians to see Truman’s papers relating to the Potsdam Conference, where Truman had met with Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, and Joseph Stalin in July 1945. Truman wanted to grant Acheson’s request, but he was, then and for the rest of his life, very reluctant to let anyone see what he regarded as his most sensitive White House papers.
· · ·
August 21, 1955
Dear Mr. President,
You sent us off with a real start. As soon as we reached our cabin we found the warm note from you and the flowers from Mrs. Truman and you which have kept us company all the way to the Irish coast. You gave us a warm glow of happiness.
You and Mrs. Truman must do this soon. And when you do, take one of these slow boats in the off season where you can poke along in comfort, have plenty of elbow room and find comparatively few autograph seekers and no jazzy life at all. Alice and I have never had such rest even on the beach at Antigua.
On my way through New York I found Harpers enthusiastic about my little book. It will come out about the middle of November under the title A Democrat Looks at His Party. It gives my ideas about the problems of our day and why the old Party is the only one equipped to deal with them. You will have your own specially inscribed copy.
Our most affectionate greetings to you and Mrs. Truman.
Most sincerely,
Dean
While visiting former adviser and now New York Governor Averell Harriman in Albany, New York, Truman made a statement to the press praising Harriman’s qualifications for the presidency and distancing himself from the 1952 Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson.
October 14, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
I was glad to see the Truman family reunited on the front page of the New York Times a few days ago. You all looked very well and very happy to be together again.
In your own phrase, you certainly “stirred the animals up” with the press conference in Albany. People can no longer complain that the pre-campaign period will be dull or cut-and-dried. I just hope that our boys don’t get into a throat-cutting competition and am counting on you to not let the rivalry go to lethal consequences.
I have had [a] telephone call and a letter from Arnold Heeney, the Canadian Ambassador, enclosing a copy of his letter to you of October 13 and his letter to the New York Times of October 12. These are the letters in which he refers to installment twelve of your Memoirs published in the New York Times of October 7, in which you refer to Canada as one of the countries whose soldiers were equipped by lend-lease means during World War II. This, of course, was an inadvertence which I should have caught and regret very much that I did not. I told the Ambassador that you were counting on me to pick up things like this and that to my great sorrow I failed you on this occasion. He is not at all worried about it; but, since the Canadians are, as you know, hypersensitive, he is anxious that this be corrected when the Memoirs are published in book form. I told him that you would be most insistent upon having errors corrected and that I was sure that this one would be in the definitive text. I don’t think there is anything that you need do about it now, except assure him directly that this is the case.
The advance copies of my own book should be coming along in the next week. I shall send you one as soon as I can get my hands on it.
Alice joins me in the most affectionate greetings to you and Mrs. Truman.
Sincerely yours,
Dean
Truman mentions his daughter Margaret’s debut hosting of a radio show in New York.
October 17, 1955
Dear Dean:
I certainly appreciated your letter of the fourteenth. It was my intention to stir up the animals when I went to New York, and I believe I succeeded.
Margaret and the “Boss” and I had the time of our lives together in New York. I tried my best to bring Margaret home with us, but her new contract was to start right away. She’ll be on the air four hours a day with her own show. Beat that if you can!
I hope that you and Alice are in the best of health and that everything is going as it should with you. The only thing we missed on our trip east was an opportunity to see you in Washington.
The error concerning Lend-Lease to Canada was found and corrected in the book galleys but was missed in the New York Times proofs. I am very sorry about it, and I will appreciate you telling the Ambassador that it was an unintentional slip.
I have found several errors in the book. It seems that no matter how closely you read and re-read and edit a publication of this kind, errors are bound to slip in. For instance, I had Sam Rayburn presiding at Roosevelt’s first meeting with Congress after his return from Yalta when, actually, it was John McCormack. All these will be corrected in the next edition. After you have had a chance to calm the Canadian Ambassador down, I will write him a letter of explanation.
I am most happy that you helped me with the editing; it gives me a wonderful chance to be a buck-passer.
Sincerely yours,
Harry Truman
[Handwritten postscript:] What’s this I hear about A Democrat Looks at His Party? I must see that.
A prepublication excerpt from Acheson’s book had appeared in Harper’s Magazine in November 1955. The article and the book helped make Acheson a Democratic Party spokesman in the upcoming presidential campaign.
Ivan Miller’s letter, which Truman mentions, invited Acheson to speak on December 7 at a dinner sponsored by the Cleveland Bar Association. Edward Hayes wrote Truman to ask his help in persuading Acheson to accept the invitation. Truman agreed to “go to work” on Acheson.
October 18, 1955
Dear Dean:
I am enclosing a copy of a letter I received from Edward J. Hayes. He also sent me a copy of that letter Ivan L. Miller wrote to you.
When I was in Cleveland for the library dinner, his organization was well represented at our meeting. I was asked by half a dozen people to urge you to be the speaker at their meeting in December.
As you know, I only want you to use your own judgment, but I believe you could do the country and the Democratic Party a lot of good if you found it possible to accept the invitation. As the fellow on radio says, “That’s one man’s opinion.”
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
Acheson sent Truman a copy of his new book, with an inscription on the inside front cover which read, “To Harry S. Truman, The first of living Democrats who will rank with the greatest of them all.”
November 9, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
I was delighted to be able to pass along to the Canadian Ambassador the information contained in your last letter that the error about lend-lease to Canada was found and corrected in the book galleys, although it was missed in the New York Times prints. He is most understanding and most happy that this is the case. He would appreciate a line from you so that he can officially report to Canada that you yourself told him that you had already found the error and were quick to correct it. It will make a good impression in Canada all around.
You ask me about A Democrat Looks at His Party. You remember that some time ago I told you that I was working on a book and this is it. The week before last I sent off to you a copy of it with a word from me to you in the front. When you find a few hours in your busy life to relax, I think you will find some amusement, some interest, and perhaps some subjects for future talks in the book.
A chapter from it was published in this month’s Harper’s and seems to have stirred the Republican press into ecstasies of rage. I have editorials from the two Richmond papers which quite lost the power of coherent statement in their fury. If one chapter raises the Republican blood pressure to this extent, we may win the next election through the collapse of our opponents.
I believe that Dave Lloyd is working out a chance for me to see you next month, to which I am looking forward.
With warmest greetings to Mrs. Truman and yourself from Alice and me.
As ever,
Dean
Truman has some harsh words for “intellectual prostitutes,” including conservative journalists Raymond Moley, Frank R. Kent, David Lawrence, George E. Sokolsky, and Westbrook Pegler. Speaking in New Orleans in early November, Truman said he thought Southern Democrats who voted Republican in 1952 would return to their party in 1956, and he praised both Adlai Stevenson and Averell Harriman, saying he would not run himself. “Our old Snollygoster” is John Foster Dulles.
November 10, 1955
Dear Dean:
I have just finished reading your book on why you are a Democrat. It is the best treatise on politics, the why and wherefore of parties, and what a man ought to do when he comes to select his party, that I have ever read. And Dean, I’ve read a lot of them. The review of Elmer Davis in the Saturday Review says what I would say if I had the words and ability to put them together. I’m so glad you wrote the book that I can’t really express my feeling adequately on it.
My spasm seems to have stirred up the animals to some extent. Between us I’m sure we’ll leave a record that the so called analytical boys will have a hell of a time doing their analytical sob sister stuff. You’ve no idea what a kick I’ve had from the intellectual prostitutes, Moley, Kent, Dave Lawrence, Sokolsky, Pegler and the rest. I’ve always been of the opinion that a street whore who sold her body to make a living is far and away above an intellectual who sells his brain and ability to put words together logically for the same sort of a fee.
The Boss and I took a ride to New Orleans last week and what a grand time we had. Our train arrived at Alexandria, La. at 6:30 A.M. and there on the platform was Mrs. John Overton, her two daughters, a nephew and several other members of her family. We had a grand visit and Mrs. O. gave us a lot of homemade pralines. How good they were!
When we landed in New Orleans they mobbed us—with kindness of course. It was like wading in the Gulf at Key West only it was people to wade through.
I preached a sermon that night to 2000 Jews from all parts of the country, went to Biloxi on Sunday to see a couple of old people who took care of Margie in 1933, 35 and 38 when she was having throat and heart trouble. It was a grand visit.
But Dean what do you think of our old Snollygoster now “Mr. Dull, Duller, Dulles”? He’s lost us our friends in South America by trying to put Sullivan & Cromwell again in control of tin in Bolivia and copper in Chile. He fixed the eastern Mediterranean so that his friend Dewey can bleed Turkey for what the Turkish Ambassador should do and he has given Egypt and East Germany to Molotov. I don’t know what he’s doing in Spain but there’s some fee for somebody when he deals with that lousy totalitarian Franco.
An old lady in the Edgewater Gulf Hotel where Bess & I had lunch came up for an autograph and said she didn’t like to quarrel with God but he’d been a little slow in giving Ike a heart attack but it might yet save the country! Looks from yesterday’s elections that a lot of people are worried.
My best to Alice.
Sincerely,
Harry
That inscription you wrote in the copy of your book is too good to be true!
November 21, 1955
Dear Dean:
I wrote you a longhand letter commenting on your good book and this is in answer to yours of the ninth. I am sending a letter to the Canadian Ambassador along the line you suggest.
I don’t know when I have read a book I appreciated more and got more of a kick out of than A Democrat Looks at His Party. I read the Harper’s chapter after I had read the book and it really did impress me. Harper’s also had a good review on my spasm.
Dave [Lloyd] tells me that he is working out a program so we will get together in the not too distant future.
I am enclosing for you a copy of the letter I have written to the Canadian Ambassador.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
The “new publication” mentioned here is William F. Buckley’s National Review. Acheson makes an early observation of what would become a remarkable rise in esteem for Truman among the American people in the years following the difficult last period of his presidency. President Eisenhower had suffered a massive heart attack on September 24, 1955, and Acheson assumes here that he will not run for re-election in 1956. (However, the President not only ran for re-election, but won, and therefore Acheson’s predictions were moot, and their hopes for a Democratic victory were dashed.)
November 23, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
You were very good to write me so warmly about A Democrat Looks at His Party. If you, with all your knowledge of and experience in politics, think what I have written about the political scene is good, I am very happy indeed.
I am pleased and excited at the reception which it has had. The reviews have been for the most part enthusiastic, though I, of course, expected and have received sarcastic criticism from such reviewers as John Chamberlain in the Wall Street Journal. I am told that our friend Senator McCarthy is going to review it for a new publication put out by Buckley. When asked what he thought about the book, he is said to have replied, “Hell! Of course, I wouldn’t read it.”
The article taken from the book, which appeared in the November Harper’s produced quite a barrage of criticism. In a way I think it was a mistake to publish one small part of it without the argument which built up to that part and the discussion that followed it. However, the publisher does not think so. He tells me that it is selling well.
The reception of your own book must have pleased you. It certainly did me. One of the nicest and most thoughtful reviews is the one in the November Harper’s in which they deal with Oppie Oppenheimer’s book [The Open Mind] and your book together, using his to discuss the conception of style in science and yours to illustrate style in politics. It seems to me far more thoughtful than any I have seen. I am looking forward to the second volume, which I, of course, read in manuscript, before you put the finishing touches on it.
In connection with the publication of my book there was the inevitable barrage of requests for appearances on television and radio. I insisted that these be cut down to two—one on the Dave Garroway show on NBC; the other on the Bill Leonard show on CBS. I thought that I had an understanding with both men that I would not go into personalities and discuss candidates for the Democratic nomination in ’56. However, Bill Leonard departed from this and asked me what I thought of Adlai’s announcement of his candidacy. I thought of—who was it?—Mark Twain’s? admonition that it was better to tell the truth because it was then easier to remember what you said. So I said that I had been for Adlai in ’52, had reiterated the view that he was the best candidate when asked in ’53, ’54, and so far in ’55, and I saw no reason for doubting that view now. I was sorry to be asked this, not because I have the slightest reluctance in saying what I think, but because, under the present circumstances, I thought it might unnecessarily wound Averell, to whom I am devoted. However, I am sure that he is broad enough and experienced enough to know that he cannot be involved in politics and harbor resentment for those who honestly believe that somebody else is a better candidate.
You know far more about these things than I do, but it would seem to me that Averell’s greatest usefulness now lies, not in the possibility that he will be nominated and elected, but in the effect that he can have on Adlai, keeping him pointed up close to the wind and not letting him fall off with phrases like “the relentless pursuit of peace.” With Eisenhower out of the picture, as I suppose he is, I should look with undisguised horror at any of the present Republican candidates being in the White House. ([Earl] Warren, I exclude, because he is a man of honor and of his word, and I believe would not accept the nomination whether drafted or not.) In that case a Democratic victory seems to me of the greatest importance to the welfare of the country, and Adlai seems to me the best person to achieve it. How do you feel about all of this?
The visit which you and Mrs. Truman paid to New Orleans sounds delightful, and I know that your hearts were touched by the reception you describe. I think that every day and every year the affection of the American people for you rises. You typify for them—and rightly—the healthy-minded, direct, generous, courageous, friendly person, who is Mr. American for them.
Dave Lloyd seems to be having a terrible time in getting the Library meeting set up in Kansas City. As I understand it, various meetings are now to take place over the 19th, 20th, and 21st of December. I have, unfortunately, been deeply committed here for the evening of the 19th, and so cannot arrive until the 20th, but Dave says that this is quite all right. I had hoped that I was going to be able to see you and talk with you in the week of December 6. Let’s now hope that it is only postponed for a couple of weeks.
Let me end up this rambling letter with an episode which illustrates my cold and frigid manner, which has been so often described in the press. Last Thursday morning I was walking east on 38th Street in New York from a friend’s house to the air terminal and was not quite sure that the terminal was on 38th Street. On Third Avenue there were four or five men with picks and shovels digging up a broken place in the pavement, surrounded by the yellow barricades with “Men Working” which give them a little island of safety. I stopped there and asked one of them whether I was on the right street for the air terminal. One of them looked up from his work, beamed broadly, and said, “For the love of God, if it ain’t Dean Acheson. I seen you on the Dave Garroway show on television yesterday morning.” At that point they all threw down their tools, shook hands with me, and we discussed for five minutes the prospects of a Democratic victory in 1956. None of them seemed to be dismayed by the cold exterior.
Alice sends her most affectionate greetings to you and Mrs. Truman, as do I.
Sincerely,
Dean
Truman was ill for a few days and unable to attend the memorial service of one of his best friends, his old haberdashery partner Eddie Jacobson. Truman’s doctor called his ailment an “intestinal illness.” Acheson once again asks Truman to allow historians from the State Department to see his documents relating to the Potsdam Conference for use in preparing a volume in the series Foreign Relations of the United States. Truman did eventually permit the historians to see the documents, but he remained very reluctant to permit access to his White House office file and some related papers, and kept them in his personal custody until he died.
December 8, 1955
Dear Mr. President,
Alice and I were distressed to read of your illness after the Pacific coast trip. Your malady was one on which I am the world’s greatest expert, having learned the hard way. And so Dr. Acheson says that you have been doing too much, what with politics and the library, and that you ought to cut down on this travel of yours. Of course, you will agree with this advice, and then go right on doing the same thing. The only hope is Mrs. Truman. Shall I bring her a baseball bat when I come out.
A few days ago I had a call from a man suffering badly from frustration—Dr. [G. Bernard] Noble of the Historical Division of the State Department, a good man. You were the cause of his frustration. He showed me a letter from you last spring saying that you would take up his request to look at some of the Potsdam papers when the book was out of the way; then a recent one saying that you would get to it when the library was finished and the papers installed. Poor Dr. Noble! He said sadly that he wasn’t even staying in the same place. He was going backwards. We had a long talk in which I said that I would intercede for him when I saw you in late December to the extent of urging you to let him, with Grover’s men [one of the archivists who were working on Truman’s papers] and anyone else—say Hiller [sic; probably William Hillman]—you wanted to supervise, look at certain specified papers which were not personal and private but governmental in nature—communications with foreign governments, etc. Some of the ones he once listed have since appeared in your book, others he has had available in Adm. Leahy’s papers. I think this is fair and right. He doubts whether the Potsdam volume will be out for years as the British do not propose to be treated again as they were in the Yalta papers—a trick of our friend Foster’s which bounced back on him. Noble will give me a new list of documents before I come out and I hope you can find a few minutes to talk with me about it.
I was honored and pleased beyond words to join you last Sunday on the N.Y. Times best seller list.
Most affectionately and sincerely,
Dean
Responding to Acheson’s letter of November 23, Truman mentions the passing of his close friend John Caskie Collet and the pleasures of being a “lightfoot” Baptist. He also writes about some generous gifts in kind to his library, now under construction. Wilmer Waller was the treasurer and Basil O’Connor the president of Harry S. Truman Library, Inc., which raised the money that built the Truman Library.
December 9, 1955
Dear Dean:
I more than appreciated your good letter. The last paragraph was out of this world. I knew very well that it was all there, just as the workmen in the street found it. I pride myself on being a judge of the hearts of men, and I know I had yours in the right category.
Your book is really the best essay on the Democratic Party that has ever been written. I keep one copy on my office desk and another on the table where I work at home. When I get to thinking about some of the things our fellow Democrats are doing, I open up your book and read a paragraph or two. It puts me back in the right groove.
I had a very sad duty to perform yesterday. Judge Collet died, and his family asked me to say a few words about him from the pulpit of the church to which he belonged. He and I are members of the “lightfoot” Baptist fraternity. We do not like to have a harness around us to prevent our doing what we want to do. I think you are somewhat familiar with that facet of my character. As you know, Roger Williams organized the Baptists in Providence, Rhode Island, because he could not get along with the Puritans. He later found that he could not get along with his new group either and had to try something else. Caskie and I are in that same class.
I received a copy of Clement Attlee’s review of my book which appeared in the London Times. It is simply out of this world. In fact, the reviews in England are even better than those in this country, and your treatise on the Democratic Party has received the same sort of treatment. It is a great satisfaction when these birds have to eat crow because of the both of us, although I never gave a crow dinner to anyone and don’t expect to.
I am looking forward to a most pleasant visit here on the 19th and 20th of this month. I believe everything is in order, and I hope that you will find it that way. I am very anxious for you and Waller and Doc O’Connor to become acquainted with the contractor and builder. He is one of the finest men I have ever known, and he refused any compensation for the operation. The same thing is true of the contracting plumber. He is Eddie Jacobson’s brother and the biggest operator in the business in this part of the country. Besides the fact that there will be no compensation whatever to his company, he has also made five or six contributions to the library fund. The electrical work is also being done on the same basis.
It seems that we will receive something over two hundred thousand dollars from the West Coast trip to put us within a very short distance of our goal.
Please give my best to Alice and tell her I hope she will come to Kansas City with you. We’ll put you up, as before, in the second hand accommodations we have to offer.
Sincerely yours,
Harry
December 10, 1955
Dear Dean:
Just as I’d put an air mail letter down the chute in answer to yours, here comes this handwritten letter telling me you are an expert on upset insides! Well, you are an expert on many things including politics, foreign affairs and shoes and sealing wax and whether the sea is boiling hot and pigs have wings—but I didn’t know that you are familiar with the ramifications of 5000 feet of—should I say guts or intestines?
If I show your letter to the Boss she’ll say, “Of course, tell him to bring the baseball bat with spikes in the business end.” Maybe I won’t tell her but of course I will.
It’s too good to keep. I’m looking forward to a most pleasant session with you—bring Alice.
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson is still anxious to ensure that the historical records of the State Department are complete. Here he sends Truman a list of documents relating to the Potsdam Conference requested by the State Department historians. Acheson also writes about the problems caused by the Eisenhower administration’s consulting with only one Democratic senator on foreign-policy matters—Walter F. George of Georgia, chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan led Senate Republicans in bipartisan support of many of Truman’s most important foreign-policy initiatives. Wayne Grover, archivist of the United States, was very involved in establishing the Truman Library.
December 14, 1955
Dear Mr. President:
Your two letters arriving so close together whetted my appetite for the meeting which we were to have had next week and then only yesterday Dave Lloyd told me that the figures would not be ready and that we would have to postpone our meeting together until January.
I had intended, while in Kansas City, to go over with you Dr. Noble’s list of papers which he would like to see and photostat. Since this is being put off, I thought that we might get on with the matter by my sending them to you in this letter with a suggestion.
You will see that all of these papers are entirely official in their nature; so much so, that I am greatly surprised that copies of them do not exist in the files of our government. I think that it is quite understandable, natural, and proper that Dr. Noble should want to keep the official files complete by asking the opportunity to photostat these.
I do not want to cause you inconvenience at all, and most certainly I do not want to have him do that. Also you will want to be sure that these papers are properly handled and returned unharmed to their proper places in your files, and you do not want to give the time necessary or have Rose bothered with this task. It seems to me wholly possible that, if you will approve Dr. Noble’s photostating these papers, Dave Lloyd can then arrange through Dr. Grover that Grover’s men will find the papers, show them to Dr. Noble in their quarters in Kansas City, supervise the photostating, and return them to their proper place. Since all of these documents have to do with the period already covered by Volume I of the Memoirs, it would seem clear that no problems would arise in connection with your contract with Life.
Does this seem sensible to you, and if so, will you let Dave and me try to work it out?
On Monday afternoon I had a very fine call from Averell who spent an hour and a half with me prior to having dinner with Lyndon Johnson and some of his colleagues. I was impressing on Averell the need for Lyndon’s requiring real consultation with the Democrats instead of merely personal consultation with Walter George, as the result of which the Democrats in the Senate and House find themselves committed to courses of which they never heard anything. Averell called me this morning from Albany to say that he thought he had made some progress with this idea. I pointed out that Vandenberg never made any blind commitments for the Republican Party and, since Lyndon prides himself on being a shrewd Texas trader, he ought to do at least as well as Van. One of the great difficulties in the way of Democrats on the Hill at present is that they know nothing except what Dulles tells them, and this leaves them in pretty profound ignorance of the real issues.
I shall now look forward to January instead of December and store up matters to talk over with you. In the meantime I am preparing the baseball bat with spikes.
Faithfully yours,
Dean
The book Truman sent was the first volume of his memoirs, Year of Decisions.
December 20, 1955
Dear Dean:
I was completely and thoroughly disappointed when our visit was called off, but I am looking forward to the time when that architect gets things in shape.
I will be glad to do what I can with regard to the photostatic copies you mentioned. One problem is that these papers are going to be very difficult to work with, because they are scattered—some of them in the vault of the Federal Building at 9th [and] Walnut Streets in Kansas City, a few in the office, and the vast majority of them are in the archives file in the basement of the Memorial Building in Independence.
If Dr. Noble will come out here the first part of January some time, I will be happy to cooperate with him the best I can along the lines you suggest.
Again, I am just as sorry as I can be that you are not here.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
[Handwritten postscript:] My best to Alice. Sent you a book today.
December 27, 1955
Dear Dean:
The “Boss” and I certainly did appreciate those beautiful gladioli which you and Alice sent us for Christmas. We placed them right under Winston Churchill’s picture of Marrakech, so that everyone who came in could see them. I hope you and Alice had a wonderful Christmas.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
At the end of December 1955, Truman sent Acheson another “spasm” as a kind of New Year’s present. This spasm was directed at the “prostitutes of the mind” who filled the press with lies and menaced free government.
December 29, 1955
Dear Dean:
Well, I have the urge to give some of these lying, paid prostitutes of the mind a little hell, and rather than speak out publicly, you are the victim. Old man Webster, who is purported to have written a collection of words with derivations and definitions, says that: Prostitute: 1. To submit to promiscuous lewdness for hire. 2. To denote to base or unworthy purposes; as to prostitute one’s talents. Prostituted; now, chiefly denoted to base purposes or ends; corrupt.
The same source (from old man Webster) gives this definition of prostitution: 1. Act or practice of prostituting; as, the prostitution of one’s abilities. Dean, that’s the end of Mr. Webster’s dissertation on the oldest profession in the world, and as you see it is not confined to the occupant of a bawdy house.
We have men, in this day and age, who are prostitutes of the mind. They sell their ability to write articles for sale, which will be so worded as to mislead people who read them as news. These articles or columns are most astute and plausible and unless the reader knows the facts are most misleading.
These men are prostitutes of the mind—they write what they do not believe for sale. Mr. Webster has clearly defined them for what they are. In my opinion they are much worse and much more dangerous than the street walking whore who sells her body for the relief of a man whose penis is troubling him.
Prostitutes of the mind have been the great menace to free government since freedom of speech and freedom of the press was first inaugurated.
Presidents and the members of their Cabinets and their staff members have been slandered and misrepresented since George Washington. When the press is friendly to an administration the opposition has been lied about and treated to the excrescence of paid prostitutes of the mind.
A prostitute of the mind is a much worse criminal in my opinion than a thief or a robber. You know old man Shakespeare said:
“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash,
’tis something, nothing; …
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.”
Prostitutes of the mind are skillful purveyors of character assassination and the theft of good names of public men and private citizens too. They are the lowest form of thief & criminal.
Well, I don’t have to name them. You know ’em too.
Hope you and Alice had a grand Christmas. We were sorely disappointed when you didn’t come out.
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
Acheson is delighted with Truman’s December 29 “spasm.” Herblock is political cartoonist Herbert Lawrence Block. Acheson uses “HP2x” to characterize misleading statements to the public from President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles.
January 3, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
It was a great idea you had to make that speech—the one in your letter of December 29th—in a letter to me and not to the great American public, about to go into a New Year’s binge full of what Herblock calls the new secret ingredient HP2x (Hocus Pocus twice multiplied). The new Truman doctrine of intellectual prostitution is great stuff, but it is best to start with a few of the faithful first and let the word spread. The man in the street is so conditioned to intellectual prostitution that an old fashioned fellow who tells the truth every once in a while is sure to be charged with unnatural practices. We are so used to—in another of Herb’s prize expressions—“genuine simulated prosperity” that just an ordinary fair break looks like poverty now. So I win by all this, and get one of the best H.S.T. letters yet produced. The only trouble is I can only pass on the doctrine in a highly expurgated edition which loses a good deal of the pungent outrage flowing off your pen.
What, I wonder, was it that caused that incandescent moment? There are a lot of candidates for the crown of Queen of the intellectual prostitutes, but most of them are too much fat old madams to arouse passion—Walter Lippmann, Arthur Krock, even Pegler and Sokolsky. Who in the world was it who set you off into such a fine rage that it glowed even through old man Webster’s definition? Whoever it was I am grateful to him. Whenever he gets your “Missouri” really boiling again, reach for a pen and begin “Dear Dean.” Your letters are at the top of my best seller list.
And your own best seller, the Memoirs in that superb edition and with the most moving and generous inscription, delighted us both beyond words. That was a real present for the archives. Alice and I are immensely grateful to you. Thinking about all that those years meant, seeing your writing, and reading your letter, made me wish that you would forget these things called years and run the show once again before it all goes completely to hell in a hack. The Presidency today is not even visible. It is as intangible as an odor which some call a perfume; and others, a smell. The best 1956 imaginable to you and Mrs. Truman.
As ever,
Dean
Acheson had participated in officially inviting Truman to attend a dinner given each year in Washington by the Alfalfa Club, a select organization whose only purpose was to hold an annual dinner in late January. The club allegedly got its name because the alfalfa plant is perpetually thirsty and will do anything for a drink. Truman’s “doldrums” stemmed from his ongoing dislike for Eisenhower and Dulles.
January 19, 1956
Dear Dean:
What a wonderful letter you sent me in reply to my letter on mental prostitutes!
You’ll come to a conclusion some day that I’m only fishing for those grand communications—and you’ll be more than half right too. You’ve no idea how much you contribute to keeping [me] out of the doldrums and keeping me from literally exploding when I read the sugar on Ike and about the decisiveness of the Snollygoster who is now Secretary of State, author of Foreign Policy since U.S. Grant and the Savior of you and me. Well, to hell with all that—I wonder if Bobby Burns had John Foster in mind when he said a “man’s a man for a’ that.” Reckon he did?
But what caused this effusion[?] I have a card inviting me to cocktails at 6 o’clock prior to the Alfalfa Club Dinner at the Statler on Saturday evening Jan. 21, 1956! That card is in the name of a personal friend of mine, one Dean G. Acheson, Edward Burling, Jr., with whom I’m not well acquainted, and John Lord O’Brian of whom I think most highly.
Now what stumps me is that I’d be willing to risk my front seat in Beelzebub’s domain against a jet flying machine that not one of those gentlemen knows where Alfalfa came from, what it is used for, how deep the roots go and what they do for the soil: nor do they know the principal use of the seed, nor do they know how many crops per year are harvested and which one is the seed crop.
I’m of the opinion that these three excellent gentlemen think that Alfalfa is the basic commodity in either Scotch or Bourbon Whiskey! Anyway I wish I could be there.
My best to Alice.
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
Acheson refers to an upcoming trip to Kansas City, where he will visit Truman and meet, in his capacity as vice president of the Harry S. Truman Library, with the members of the building committee, to discuss progress building the library. Mr. Rabinowitch’s letter discussed leaks from the so-called Acheson-Lilienthal Report of 1946, which had made recommendations to Truman about the international control of atomic energy.
February 9, 1956
Dear Mr. President:
I am looking forward to Monday and seeing you. I hope the meeting will take place as planned.
In the meantime I am sending you, in the thought that you might be interested in seeing it, a letter from the editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mr. Rabinowitch, and of my reply to him.
Alice joins me in the most affectionate greetings to you and Mrs. Truman.
Most sincerely,
Dean
Acheson wasn’t able to stay at Truman’s home while he was in Kansas City, and stayed instead in the Presidential Suite on the eleventh floor of the Muehlebach Hotel, which Truman and his staff had apparently called the “penthouse” when they stayed there during Truman’s presidency. The three people Truman fired during his presidency were Douglas MacArthur, James F. Byrnes, and Harold L. Ickes, and in a famous meeting shortly after he became President he spoke very bluntly to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
February 21, 1956
Dear Dean:
Well, you are sunk again! I don’t know when I’ve been so down in the mouth as I was when you were here. Vietta, the old cook and general factotum who has been with us since 1922 and who tried to show the White House cooks how to make pies, biscuits and other things good to eat, was down with a flu bug and the “Boss” had been having arthritis pains in hands and knees—so you were treated like a stepchild coming home to see his family.
I hope you’ll forgive me. That’s what I was thinking when I came up to the Muehlebach penthouse. So if I appeared absent minded you’ll know why. Things seem to be in the groove since you were here and the Library is an assured fact now. I’m glad we did it.
The present occupant of the White House seems really to have repented—Homburg Hats, Formosa Straits, Korea visit, Egyptian Arms, Saudi Arabia, etc., etc., ad lib. But Dean I’m not sure that election year repentance will get him into Heaven or Hell which ever title you think is the correct one for the great white jail at 1600 Connecticut Ave.
The National Committee of the Democratic Party I’m sure is of the opinion that “moderation” is the word. Maybe I’d [have] been much better off if I hadn’t told Molotov, MacArthur, Byrnes, Ickes and Ike where the track ended and it was time to get off.
Maybe I’d better go to Europe and speak softly and bow and scrape in tails, tux and preacher coats. What about it.
My best to Alice and to you and yours.
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
“Stanley and Shirley” are Mrs. and Mrs. Stanley Woodward, who would accompany Truman on a two-month trip to Europe that began on his birthday, May 8. Woodward had been State Department chief of protocol and ambassador to Canada during the Truman administration. Acheson still thinks Eisenhower may not run for re-election. Christian Herter was at this time governor of Massachusetts. He would succeed John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State in 1959. Herter and Nixon were thought to be Republican moderates, compared with the right-wing isolationists of that time.
February 23, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
As I told you in Kansas City, I had a delightful time on my visit. And our talk on Tuesday afternoon will remain with me for a long time. We have seldom had such a quiet, private and uninterrupted chance to “jaw”—as old Judge Holmes used to say. It was great fun and you must not feel that I expect or want to be entertained when I come out. It is joy enough to see you and put all our thoughts on the table. And as for the missed dinner by reason of Vietta’s excessive social life while you were East, I understood and sympathized with her and you.
Last Saturday we had a good evening with Margaret. She was very pretty and full of ginger. Her radio program, she told us, she is going to stop because it is so dull. This is a sure sign that she is getting too successful for words. I prescribe a few weeks in a law office to get her in the mood where even the commercials sound exciting. Stanley and Shirley were there full of eagerness for their trip with you this May and June. I don’t believe for a minute that this is going to turn you into a socialite, as you suggest, and know that when you get back we shall have the devil’s own time getting a halter on you.
Adlai called me Sunday evening saying that he was being pressed to make some more statements on Israel and segregation. I urged him not to do so. Here are two matters which extreme talk can only make even more insoluble. The sensible people, and there are some, connected with Israel, the Arabs, the Southern Whites and the negroes are made to appear traitors when the field is left to the extremists. The press people here are all convinced that Ike’s decision to run has already been made and is only delayed in coming out by (1) his wish to appear to be forced to run and (2) by the battle between the anti-Nixon forces who are pushing Herter, and Nixon and the right wing. However, I am not ready yet to hedge my bet that he won’t run.
In all the exchanges over the memoirs no one has put you second best yet. That’s pretty good going. I wish you had hit MacArthur harder. He never was a great soldier!
Faithfully yours,
Dean
Truman reports that his daughter, Margaret, is going to be married. Her fiancé was E. Clifton Daniel, a New York Times journalist. Jonathan Daniels was a newsman and White House Press Secretary.
March 26, 1956
Dear Dean:
Well, here you are a victim again. Margie has put one over on me and got herself engaged to a news man! He strikes me as a very nice fellow and if Margaret wants him I’ll be satisfied. He seems to be very highly thought of in newspaper circles and particularly the N.Y. Times people.
The young lady told us about it just a week or two before the announcement and swore us to secrecy. In fact, she made me hang up while she told her mother. Did your daughter do you that way? I was forbidden to tell my brother and sister. Like a couple of amateurs they went to North Carolina to see his mother and father (nice people by the way) and then had dinner with Jonathan Daniels, of all people, hoping to keep a secret! The next day they called Daddy and wanted to know what to do. Well, Dad announced the engagement the next morning without a chance to tell his friends. Again, did your daughter do that?
Well, we’ve had at least two thousand letters and telegrams and she’s had twice as many—serves her right. As every old man who has a daughter feels, I’m worried and hope things will work out all right. Can’t you give me some consolation?
Sincerely,
Harry
Mary and Dave are Acheson’s daughter and son.
March 27, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
Consolation is just what I can give. In the first place about Margaret’s choice. She has always had good judgment and has shown it again here. Alice and I had dinner with them here on her birthday—just a year before we [had] celebrated it in Independence with you—I was completely captivated by Clifton Daniel. He has charm and sense and lots of ability. On the way home I told Alice that there was romance in the wind and that I was all for it. She somewhat acidly remarked that I had so monopolized Mr. Daniel that she hadn’t been able to get any idea of Margaret’s view of him, and that I was getting to be an old matchmaker. This only made my triumph all the sweeter when the announcement came. I stick by my guns and am sure that the man Margaret has chosen is first class and just the one for her. Marriage is the greatest of all gambles. But character helps and my bets are all on the success of this venture.
Now as to the behavior of daughters and the position of the father of the bride. Daughters, I have found, take this business of marriage into their own hands and do as they please. So do sons—or perhaps some one else’s daughter decides for them. I explained most lucidly to Mary and Dave that they should wait until the end of the war to get married. So they got married at once. All in all, the father of the bride is a pitiable creature. No one bothers with him at all. He is always in the way—a sort of backward child—humored but not participating in the big decisions. His only comforter is a bottle of good bourbon. Have you plenty on hand?
At any rate all this will take your mind off politics which seem to me royally mixed up—at least on our side. One thing I don’t understand. Some of the wise men say—and I hear you quoted to this effect—that the desirable thing is to have an open convention where the nomination can be worked out. But why isn’t this a pretty sure road to getting some one whom nobody trusts? The only real possibilities—good possibilities—seem to be Adlai and Averell. Adlai, if nominated, would seem to have the better chance to win—though not a very good chance. Averell, if nominated and defeated, might, as the Governor of the most important Democratic state, be able to maintain a vigorous party committed to liberal principles through the difficult years until 1960. But by then he might be rather old for another try—and not realize it. At any rate, isn’t that about the choice? And wouldn’t it be rather good to have it made before rather than attempt it in the confusion of the convention? If you ask me, made by whom? I don’t know. What I need from you is some political education. This is a fair exchange for consolation.
Alice sends her love to Mrs. Truman and to you. Her exhibition in New York has been—at the half-way mark—a great success. She has sold nine pictures. The latest purchaser, Mrs. Herbert Lehman.
Affectionately and sincerely,
Dean
On April 21, 1956, Margaret Truman and E. Clifton Daniel were married at Trinity Episcopal Church in Independence, Missouri—the same church where Harry and Bess Truman had been married thirty-seven years before. It does not appear that the Achesons attended the wedding.
Stanley Woodward urged Acheson to provide material for Truman’s speech to the Pilgrims Society in London on June 21.
May 3, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
Stanley asked me, as your agent, to make some suggestions for your speech to the Pilgrims in London. It has been done and is enclosed. I talked over the general nature of the speech with David and Charles. We agreed on the general approach here used. I am alone responsible for the execution.
I am rushing to get this off so that you and David can look at it together.
As ever,
Dean
Acheson writes to Truman in New York City, where the Trumans would soon board ship for Europe. The two books were Harold Sinclair’s The Horse Soldiers, a Civil War story about a Union raid behind Confederate lines during the Battle of Vicksburg, and L. E. Jones’s A Victorian Boyhood, a reminiscence of Victorian England. May 8 was Truman’s birthday.
May 9, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
The 8th eluded me. So birthday greetings go off to you today a little late but no less warm for all that. We send, also,—Alice and I—every wish for a wonderful trip. Do not let people impose on your good nature to go to dreary functions and make speeches to every kind of group. Mrs. Truman is the perfect answer to all these requests. This is her trip and you just can’t do any of these unwanted things as you have a date with her. And a mighty good one it is, too—both answer and date.
Our affection goes with you, as do a couple of books we are sending to the ship. They are good ship-board reading and won’t immerse you in problems. Please give our warmest greetings to Margaret and her nice husband.
Most sincerely,
Dean
Harry and Bess Truman, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Woodward, departed for Europe on the liner United States on Truman’s seventy-second birthday, May 8. Their seven-week grand tour took them to France, Italy, Austria, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and England. Crowds of admiring and curious people greeted Truman everywhere; reporters followed him; he had an audience with the Pope; he visited all the great monuments, historical sites, and museums along the way; in England, he received from Oxford University an honorary doctorate, met with Winston Churchill at his country home, had lunch with Queen Elizabeth, and delivered the speech Acheson wrote for him for the Pilgrims Society meeting. The Trumans sailed for home on June 28. Their grand tour of Europe was the best vacation of their lives.
Acheson had plunged into presidential politics. The Democratic National Convention was only about a month away. In this letter he comments on Stevenson’s and Harriman’s candidacies.
July 15, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
The trip was clearly a great success. One could see that you were having the time of your life and it was a fair inference from this that Mrs. Truman was, too. We have not seen the Woodwards but, when they get back, shall look forward to all the details. Oxford and the Pilgrims dinner seem to have been a great success. In fact, even The Washington Star, under the delightful alliteration “Harricum Heads Home,” said that you both were the best ambassadors we have. I hope you have not been tired out by all your experiences.
We are spending a quiet summer. In fact for the next two days it will be excessively quiet for me since I am having a check up to see why some of my machinery doesn’t work better than it does. But some work goes on, too. I have been working with a group here to get up some suggestions on a foreign policy plank for the platform committee. In a day or two I shall send you the latest draft for your comments.
Averell was here last Friday and seemed in good health and spirits, though inclined to believe that during his time in the hospital Adlai had gotten a bandwagon started. I like Averell’s fighting attitude and his good knowledge and judgment about foreign affairs. It seems to me that he is deceived about his chances by the talk of some of the politicos. He wants you to come out for him privately now on the theory that this would stop a pure bandwagon performance and allow a more deliberate consideration and choice. I told him that I thought you were wise in remaining neutral at this time in order to be effective later if the necessity arose in a deadlock. I recognize that this at the moment helped Adlai more then Averell, but I thought one who produced a deadlock, rather than resolved one, was assuming quite a responsibility.
Alice and the children and grandchildren are all fortunately well. We send you and Mrs. Truman affectionate greetings and a warm welcome home
Most sincerely,
Dean
P.S. One of my principal purposes in starting this letter was to send you my thanks for the handsome and inscribed copy of Volume Two of your memoirs. I am most grateful and appreciative. It will be preserved and treasured in its place of Honor.
Sherman Adams was Eisenhower’s chief executive assistant.
July 20, 1956
Dear Dean:
Your letter of the 17th [sic] was as highly appreciated as your letters always are. I was afraid I’d let you down at Oxford but apparently I didn’t.
Our trip was fantastic. At the ship going and coming we were treated as if we still lived at 1600 Penna. Ave! At LaHarve [Le Havre], Paris, Rome, Naples, Assisi, Venice, Vicenza, Salzburg, Munich, Bonn, the Loire Valley, Brussels, The Hague, Amsterdam, Harlem, London, Oxford, Chartwell, 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Southampton we were overwhelmed with kindness.
Paris, on our arrival from the ship on the way to Rome, they mobbed us. There were 2000 people at the station and only four police, two gendarmes, and one security officer. The Boss and Mrs. Woodward were squeezed out and almost mashed. I had to send a policeman for them. Rome same way, same experience.
We went to the Greek temple area at Paestum and the ladies’ hair dos were as now and so were they in Pompeii. My sympathies were with the slaves of the time, most of whom knew more than did their owners.
Back in Rome we looked over some of the art of Michelangelo. His David, about which there are ravings, is not a Jew at all. He is not circumcised!
At Assisi the old priest who ran me upstairs and down, with a sprained ankle, kept asking me what St. Francis had done for me and I told him nothing but give me a sore throat and a stomach ache in his town of San Francisco. Questions stopped after that.
In Venice, we had a very highly educated young lady who took us through St. Mark’s Cathedral [Basilica] and when I asked her where the Venetian Doges had stolen this article and that she was very much embarrassed. When I’d ask her which Doge authorized the great painting in the palace she could not tell me. She knew all about the artists and I was somewhat familiar with the men who made the artists possible—She wasn’t but I didn’t tell her!
At Vicenza we saw the first covered theater and an old bird put on a show for us by conversation. Margie had been there and signed the book and a program that I signed under her name and explained that I am Margaret’s pop. It surprised the caretaker! It was the same all around the trip but it was a happy experience!
With the heads of State, Kings, Generals, Presidents, Princes and Foreign Ministers, I had some most interesting conversations, as I did with cooks, waiters, taxi drivers, little merchants and farmers. Dean, I’m sure they like us and if we had a Secretary of State and a President they’d love us as they did in the past.
In New York some fellow made the remark that it would be a terrible thing if Ike died and Nixon became President. The man he was talking to said he thought it would be worse if Sherman Adams died and Ike became President. I heard some more like that I’ll have to hold and tell you later.
My best to Alice and all the family. Glad they are well. Hope that internal machine of yours becomes O.K. Hope to see you soon.
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson congratulates Truman on his August 17 speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, in which Truman expressed support for his former adviser Averell Harriman for the presidential nomination and publicly criticized Adlai Stevenson, saying, “He lacks the kind of fighting spirit that we need to win.…” When the convention gave the nomination to Stevenson on the first ballot, Truman quickly and effusively supported him, saying, “Governor Stevenson is a real fighter, and I ought to know.… He’s given some of us here a pretty good licking.”
August 21, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
We were proud of you Friday evening. You ate your crow graciously and with high good humor. It did a lot to restore an atmosphere of unity and confidence. The reality of unity is, I fear, a little further away. It depends on a real change in Averell’s attitude. Publicly he, too, was gracious and good tempered, but that is not his state of mind, as you know better than I. For quite a while now he has been engaged in operation self-deception. It is going to be hard to wake up to the realities of life and the necessity of forcing on himself an attitude which will not be self-destructive. The most pathetic figure of the new deal was Al Smith, a magnificent figure eaten away by the leprosy of resentment and bitterness. I remember so well my father, after Mr. Roosevelt fired me in 1933, quoting St. Paul—“Think not on those things which are past, but on those which lie before us.” You more than anyone, in view of what you have done for him and suffered because of it, can point this out to him. I hope you will.
Averell said to me not long ago that Adlai could not carry New York. Nothing will contribute more to this result than Averell’s belief in it. Nothing will refresh and revive his own spirit more than to put all he has into proving his prediction wrong. I shall do my best to persuade him of all this; but you are the man who can do it.
If you want to read a delightful and most informative book get George Kennan’s volume just out, Russia Leaves the War. It shows the confusion in conducting foreign policy in World War II as almost a carbon copy of that in World War I. It also throws a flood of light on the causes of the bewildering contradictions in United States–Soviet relations.
Alice is delighted that she spotted the new necklace and gives Mrs. Truman a big hand on it. Stanley Woodward and I are lunching together next week when I shall hear all about the trip.
Our most affectionate greetings.
Most sincerely,
Dean
August 29, 1956
Dear Dean:
As usual you “set me up” if you understand a Missouri bowling term. I talked to Averell for a half hour—at his expense!—wrote Sam Rosenman and it looks as if things are moving in the right direction.
When I arrived in Chicago things were dead, no life, no nothing. I decided to wake them up. It worked. We obtained a platform that is the best we’ve had, forced the candidate to endorse the New Deal and I’m sure he’ll get around to the Fair Deal and you and me before he’s finished on November 5th, Monday before [the] election.
You are right as can be about Al Smith. If he’d known some history and some results of what happens to bad losers he’d have been in a better position to help Franklin.
I am going to do all I can to help win this election. How I wish I were ten years younger! But I ain’t, so there.
The professors of political science want me to talk to them in Washington on Sept. 7th and I may do it if you think I can do any good toward teaching the next generation what they have and what to do to keep it.
I’ve been reading a book about the ten years from ’45 to ’55. It builds up the small things and overlooks the big ones. Maybe that’s history. If it is we must do what we can to leave facts to off set it.
Just got stuck with a speech to the Political Science Association in Washington September 7, 1956. You know I can’t say “No” so it is understood. We’ll see you then.
My best to Alice—the Boss joins me—and to you.
Sincerely,
Harry
Sam is Sam Rosenman, the highly respected assistant and speechwriter for President Roosevelt.
September 1, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
What good news about your talk with Averell and letter to Sam. I am sure both will do a lot of good.
Alice and I are very sad that we are going to be away just when you will be in Washington. We leave on Tuesday, Sept. 4, for a visit with our daughter, Jane, in Martha’s Vineyard and friends on the way to and from. What bad luck! I am glad you will speak to the professors. They were kind enough to ask me, also, but I have been working on briefs all summer and just had to get away. This note is merely to bring you and Mrs. Truman our regret and affection. I shall write a proper one later on.
Sincerely,
Dean