Harry and Bess Truman with Margaret Truman on November 18, 1953. Event is unknown.
5
Truman and Acheson did not write each other for almost three months, September through November 1956. Truman was busy campaigning coast to coast for Adlai Stevenson and other Democrats, and stopping for a time to see his daughter and grandson (born in 1957) whenever his itinerary took him to New York City. Acheson got pneumonia at the time of the presidential election. His wife wrote Mrs. Truman that she thought the election was responsible for the pneumonia. “He refuses to see any ray of light ahead anywhere,” Mrs. Acheson wrote.
When Truman and Acheson began writing again, their attention was fixed on a foreign-policy crisis in the Middle East regarding control of the Suez Canal and involving three American allies—the United Kingdom, France, and Israel, two of which were members of NATO. Acheson was highly critical of President Eisenhower’s response to the crisis, which put the United States in agreement with the Soviet Union. He was also displeased with Truman’s support for the President’s so-called Eisenhower Doctrine proposal to offer U.S. military assistance to countries in the Middle East facing armed communist aggression. Acheson wrote some harsh words to Truman, but, as always, the friendship withstood the momentary disagreement, even over an important matter.
A civil-rights crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, renewed Truman’s and Acheson’s conviction that what they saw as President Eisenhower’s weak leadership was damaging the U.S. position in the world. The two friends also wrote about the dedication of the Truman Library on July 6, 1957, and the cool message Eisenhower sent for the occasion. Their travels, lecture commitments, and too-infrequent meetings with each other always required some attention in their letters. They also wrote about the importance of combining their efforts to fight against a soft, pacific, trusting approach to foreign policy, as advocated by well-meaning but wrongheaded people such as Adlai Stevenson and George Kennan, and to fight for a foreign policy grounded in incisive understanding of national interests and power balances, and executed through a well-maintained alliance of free nations.
The speech Truman sends Acheson is actually drawn from Truman’s Inaugural Address, not the State of the Union Message of 1949. The speech puts forward, like the Inaugural Address, a “program for peace and freedom” and calls on the leaders of the new Democratic Congress to “come up with what it takes to assure peace, liberty and the welfare of all nations.” In this letter Truman also expresses worry about, among other things, the crisis in Egypt over the Suez Canal.
November 30, 1956
Dear Dean:
I sincerely hope that virus infection has left you and that you are well on the road to recovery.
I sent you a copy of the speech I made in St. Joseph night before last which undoubtedly went to your office. I am sending you another copy so you can contemplate it at home. Maybe it will contribute to your recovery—it is a paraphrase of the State of the Union Message of 1949 and it seems to me it is just as good now as it was then.
I have been terribly worried about the foreign situation as well as the domestic one and I am urging all the members of Congress, with whom I can get in touch, to come up with something because I don’t think there will be any leadership from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Tell Alice that Mrs. Truman joins me in best wishes to both of you.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
Truman writes a somber letter about U.S. foreign policy in the eastern-Mediterranean area. “This ignorant top notch man and Sullivan and Cromwell” refer to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and the New York City law firm for which Dulles had worked before becoming Secretary of State.
November 30, 1956
Dear Dean:
I dictated a political letter to you this morning about the national and international situation. You know I’m worried as you are about it. Never do I like to talk about what might have been. You know that old abolitionist John G. Whittier said in his Maud Muller poem “Of all sad words of tongue or pen / The saddest are these: ‘it might have been.’ ”
In my opinion the meanest of all words are “I told you so.” In 1948 I had the Secret Service take down the crow eating invitation on the Washington Post Building.
But had the man with power said No emphatically and then have stood by our friends and allies no eastern Mediterranean crisis would have arisen. [About three words are indecipherable] be a mentally and physically tired man and we’d have had a peaceful settlement of Greece, Israel, Egypt, and “Oil.” Well, here we are telling behind the Iron Curtain countries to rebel and then letting them be slaughtered!
What the hell can we do?
Tell me something to make me feel better. You and I did the right thing and this ignorant top notch man and Sullivan and Cromwell threw it out the window.
Get well and maybe something can be done.
My best to Alice and all the family.
Harry
Acheson writes a Trumanesque “spasm” on the “negation of leadership” in American foreign policy. Acheson was concerned that Eisenhower’s administration was not addressing the realities and challenges of U.S.-U.S.S.R. hostility, particularly regarding the future of Germany.
December 4, 1956
Dear Mr. President,
Alice had such a nice note from Mrs. Truman giving me her sympathy and cheer. Now I have two from you. I am already on the way out of this horrid imprisonment. The doctor says about a week more. It has been an awful bore.
One of my friends believes that his ills of the flesh are inflicted on him by a just and implacable old testament God in punishment for evil thoughts or words which he has entertained or expressed. I am afraid that even a month of pneumonia would not atone for the flood of invective which the events of the past month have evoked from me. They have encompassed not merely our sanctimonious and unutterably stupid rulers, but the press which misinforms us, and our complacent, ignorant and fat-headed, fat bellied fellow citizens who create the environment for this negation of leadership.
We cannot seem to understand that we are playing for keeps in a deadly serious operation in which there are no rules, no umpire, no prizes for good boys, no dunce caps for bad boys. In this game good intentions are not worth a damn; moral principles are traps; weakness and indecision are fatal. This is what Americans have been taught since they went to Christian Endeavor meetings cannot and must not happen—“the law of the jungle,” where the judgment of nature upon error is death.
And so we commit every error of every sort against nature. We make ourselves unworthy of the trust of our allies, we disregard their interests, we join with their and our enemies to weaken, humiliate and destroy them and our alliance with them. We believe for some incomprehensible reason that the U.N. is some disembodied moral force apart from ourselves. We are elated when it serves as the front for the combination of Russian and American power which crushes our allies. This is principle. We turn away when American desires running counter to Russian have no more effect than a peashooter on a tank.
I do not agree that your 1949 speech is appropriate today. Surely it is true and all that. But the truly false philosophy of 1956 is the American philosophy—by General Motors out of Eisenhower—two televisions in every pot, not a worry in a carload, live now and pay later—or leave to one’s children. The finest flower of democracy—thirty-five million Americans can’t be wrong—Or can they be.
As ever,
Dean
Truman continues the “spasm” against Eisenhower and Dulles. It’s not clear whom he means by “Kenetsy, Bully et al.,” but he is referring to the Suez crisis, when the United States took effective measures, some in the United Nations, to force Britain, France, and Israel to stop their invasion and withdraw their forces from Egypt. It was generally thought that Eisenhower’s position was the right one, but there was suspicion at the time that Dulles had encouraged the British-French move against Suez and only backed off when Khrushchev threatened to intervene, a suspicion that was strengthened by Harold Macmillan’s memoirs, in which he said as much.
December 7, 1956
Dear Dean,
You’ve no idea how very much I appreciated yours of the 4th. Never was anyone gifted with expression of the facts in clear and understandable English as are you.
Since Jan. 20, 1953, I have had mental spasms over what has and has not come from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. Apparently nothing can be done about it. Public communications, printed word, radio, television have all been joined in a cover up and distortion program to help a do nothing attitude from the head of the greatest free government in the world.
What can we do to meet a situation such as that? How can we meet a fake sanctimonious and counterfeit prayer approach to a situation of “force makes right”? As you say we are playing for keeps and there are no rules and no umpires, no dunce caps for Stalinists, no rewards for good relations. Only the iron fist with a hundred yard saber in it will be understood by Stalin’s successors.
Wonder what Nehru thinks now. What in hell was Ike thinking when he joined Kenetsy, Bully et al. in the U.N.[?] There can be no U.N. without guts and guns from us. Look, as if we have neither.
Get well and you and I can have a real get together and cuss everybody and settle everything—on paper and by words only.
Sincerely,
Harry
Truman praises Acheson for his statement a few days earlier before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs opposing Eisenhower’s request for congressional authority to offer U.S. military assistance to any country in the Middle East facing armed aggression by a communist power. “The more one studies this proposal,” Acheson had said, “the more vague, uncertain, and inadequate it appears as a statement of policy; and the more undesirable as an exercise of the legislative power of Congress.”
January 14, 1957
Dear Dean:
Dave Lloyd sent me a copy of your statement of Friday to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
In Missouri language, it is a humdinger. Wish I’d been present to hear it. They asked me to appear and I told them that the Boss had been unfortunate and had broken two bones in her left foot besides pulling a ligament loose, that our old black cook had a heart attack and that I am chief cook and bottle washer at 219 North Delaware—would the Committee let me send a statement.
Had a most courteous telegram from them saying they’d be delighted to have the statement. Now—I don’t know what to say. You’ve said it all.
But you know what, I’ll crib some of your stuff, some of Paul-Henri Spaak’s in the last quarterly of Foreign Affairs and some of my Greece and Turkey message of March 12, 1947, and a few other things, some of which I can’t use, and there it will be.
Damn it, I wish I could see you oftener. You always give me a lift.
Bess is in a cast and has to behave. You should try it on Alice. I have a couple of black women who come in all day about to be sure the Boss doesn’t fall again and I’ve cancelled my trip to Jefferson City, St. Louis and one or two other places so I can stay home nights. I wanted to see our Governor inaugurated today but can’t do it. It would be my first since 1932. My best to Alice and tell her to stay away from that cast.
Sincerely,
Harry
Acheson writes an unusually strong criticism of Truman’s North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA) article. Acheson was exasperated with Truman for undoing the considerable work Acheson had invested in a foreign-policy formulation that he had recently outlined while testifying before Congress. “If I were now a member of the United States Senate,” Truman’s article began, “I would support the request of the President for Congressional authorization to use the armed forces of the United States against any communist or communist-dominated aggressor in the Middle East.… Congress has no alternative but to go along with the President in this program to prevent the Russians from taking over the whole strategic Middle East.…”
January 15, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
I wish it were possible for us to coordinate our efforts a little better on foreign policy matters. Your article in last Sunday’s New York Times, the first of your North American Newspaper Alliance articles, has, I am afraid, cut a good deal of ground out from under an effort to put some sense into the Administration’s foreign policy and to put some fighting spirit into the Democrats.
Your article says that “Congress has no alternative but to go along with the President in this program.” If this is so, then I spent four useless hours before the Foreign Affairs Committee and a good many useless days of work in devising what I thought an excellent alternative, and one which was thoroughly in accord with steps which had been taken during your Administration.
The article says later on, “Now that the President proposes to adopt a clear-cut policy of action, we should do everything to back him up.” I do not think that, upon reflection, you will really regard this as a clear-cut policy. In fact, there is no policy about it at all, as I tried to show in the statement before the Committee, which David Lloyd sent to you.
Again, the article says that “We must at this stage accept the President’s assessment of what the situation is, for only the President is in possession of all the facts.” This seems to me a wholly artificial view to take. I don’t think we have to accept the President’s assessment; and I doubt very much that he is in possession of more facts than the rest of us here. Certainly he is not in possession of any more than Dulles told him about, and I would hesitate to rely on that source of information.
Finally, the article says, “The proposals made by the President, when approved by the Congress, will strengthen the position of the free world.” Again, I don’t think they will strengthen it at all. There are alternative courses of action which would strengthen it far more.
However, the main purpose of this note is not to stick on what has been done, but to urge that in the future we try to get together and not be at cross purposes. I had thought that we were in agreement when you were in Washington. Of course, I did not know that you were about to publish an article saying that you would, if you were a Senator, vote for a proposal which I was about to urge Congress to supplant with a better one.
I hope that Mrs. Truman is completely over all the pain and discomfort of her accident. Alice and I send our love to her and to you.
As ever,
Dean
Acheson likes the statement Truman sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs much better than the NANA article. The statement, while still saying that the Congress had no choice but to act in response to the President’s request, placed some of the blame for the Middle East problems on the Eisenhower administration and criticized the vague plan the President put before Congress. Truman advised Congress to provide some guidance to administration actions in the Middle East and watch the developing situation carefully. Archibald MacLeish served for a brief time with the State Department; he had also served as Librarian of Congress and was a noted poet and dramatist.
January 26, 1957
Dear Mr. President,
The New York Times brings me your statement given to the House Committee. Since I criticized the statements in your article, may I praise those before the Committee. You still go further than I would, but that is all a matter of judgment on which I could well be wrong. But the new statement helps in placing the blame where it should be and, in this way, destroying the new myth of Eisenhower’s infallibility. I thought Bill Fulbright’s statement was excellent from this point of view.
Alice and I have had a week of lovely sun here in Bob Lovett’s house. We have another week and then go on to Archie MacLeish in Antigua, B.W.I. I can get along very well without work.
Alice, who is painting, joins me in sending our affectionate greetings to Mrs. Truman and to you.
Sincerely,
Dean
Truman responds to Acheson’s highly critical January 15 letter as well as to the more positive January 26 letter. The “proper reaction” mentioned would be that the House committee, or at least the Democratic members, would endorse Acheson’s suggestions. “Mon Wallgren” is Senator Monrad Wallgren of Washington.
January 28, 1957
Dear Dean:
You certainly “took a load off my mind” with your good letter of Jan. 26th. Of course I want your views frankly on any subject at any time.
But I was somewhat flabbergasted when your formal letter, all beautifully typed, came on January 17th. I felt the same way I do when Miss Lizzie gives me hell for something I know nothing about. She’s still in plaster of paris half way to her knee and I have the advantage. I can run and she can’t catch me.
The final result of your statement to the Committee and mine has been a proper reaction that both of us are hoping may create a foreign policy. I am going to send you a copy of all the statements I’ve made in the last week or so and then if you want to give me further hell—do it—and I’ll continue to like it.
Mon Wallgren told me a story about a Swede in North Dakota who had been forced to leave Minnesota because of a mix-up with a lady. After he was established in N.D. he began going with Gina Olsen. One day she came to see him and told him she thought she was pregnant, that she would go see the doctor and let him know. Well, Olie walked the floor of his store, kicked himself and felt very badly. Gina came back and reported the doctor out. So they took a walk to discuss things. Going by the town water reservoir Gina said to Olie, “If dot Doctor tell me the worst tomorrow, I coming up here and jump in that pond.” Olie grabbed her in his arms and said, “Oh Gina you take a load off my mind.” Well you did it too.
My best to Alice and you in which Bess would join if I’d ask her.
Harry
Truman had recently suffered a bad fall on an icy walkway. Acheson’s reference to Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana may refer to the attachment of a so-called Mansfield Amendment to the Eisenhower Doctrine. This amendment, which was viewed as an indirect security guarantee to Israel, stated that preserving the independence and sovereignty of the Middle East nations was in the national interest of the United States.
February 12, 1957
Dear Mr. President,
Please stay right side up. We want your head unbowed but not bloody.
Your letter about Gina Olsen was a joy. I’m glad that I took a load off your mind. What a fine job Mike Mansfield did in his Senate speech.
This is only a line to send you and Mrs. Truman our love and to urge you both to keep your feet on the ground.
Sincerely,
Dean
We go home on Saturday.
Truman did not send this letter about the Potsdam Conference to Acheson. Instead, he incorporated its content into a longer letter dated April 8.
March 15, 1957
Dear Dean:
It was certainly a pleasure to talk with you about Potsdam and the Doctor who is interested in that phase of our foreign policy.
I hardly ever look back for the purpose of contemplating “what might have been.” Potsdam brings to mind “what might have been” had you been there instead of the Congressman, Senator, Supreme Court Justice, Presidential Assistant, Secretary of State, Governor of Secessionist South Carolina the Honorable James F. Byrnes!
At that time I trusted him implicitly—and he was then conniving [to] run the Presidency over my head! I had Joe Davies, at that time a Russophile as most of us were, Ed Pauley, the only hard boiled, hard hitting anti-Russian around except the tough old Admiral, Bill Leahy. Certainly things were presented because Russia had no program except to take over the free part of Europe, kill as many Germans as possible and fool the Western Alliance. Britain only wanted to control the Eastern Mediterranean, keep India, oil in Persia, the Suez Canal and whatever else was floating loose.
There was an innocent idealist at one corner of that Round Table who wanted free waterways, Danube-Rhine, Kiel Canal, Suez, Black Sea Straits, Panama all free, a restoration of Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Balkans, and a proper treatment of Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, free Philippines, Indonesia, Indo China, a Chinese Republic and a free Japan.
What a show that was! But a large number of agreements were reached in spite of the setup—only to be broken as soon as the unconscionable Russian Dictator returned to Moscow! And I liked the little son of a bitch. He was a good six inches shorter than I am and even Churchill was only three inches taller than Joe! Yet I was the little man in stature and intellect! So the Press said. Well, we’ll see.
Wish you’d been there. Tell your friend I’ll help him all I can. My best to Alice.
Sincerely,
H.S.T.
The article by Max Freedman (Manchester Guardian) titled “Lessons in How to Master a Crisis,” which Acheson encloses, contrasts the Truman Doctrine and the Eisenhower Doctrine. Eisenhower’s response to crisis compared with Truman’s is “shabby,” wrote Freedman. Truman was about two months away from becoming a grandfather when Acheson wrote this letter. Truman was, with very few exceptions, opposed to having anything named for him, and this applied to grandchildren too. Many things have been named for him anyway, especially in the Kansas City area. But not one of his four grandsons was given his name, with the exception that his first grandson’s name is Clifton Truman Daniel.
April 5, 1957
Dear Mr. President,
It was a sad disappointment to miss lunching with you last Tuesday but, as David told you, my brother-in-law’s funeral was that morning. Perhaps I shall see you in May. For my sins I am to be chairman of the Democratic dinner on May 4. The whole outlook would change if there should be the possibility of introducing you.
The enclosed piece by Max Freedman in the Manchester Guardian draws a contrast which you will be glad to see noted. You might want to put it with your Greek Turkish papers.
I hope all goes well with Margaret. What is this about your being adamant against having a grandchild named for you? Have you had an offer? I never had one, perhaps for the reasons you gave.
Warmest regards to Mrs. Truman and to you.
As ever,
Dean
This letter incorporates the one Truman wrote on March 15. Something may have still worried him about this letter, and he probably didn’t mail it for several days. Dick Stone is Richard Stone, Democratic senator from Florida; Donald Dawson had been a presidential aide; and Scott Lucas was a former Democratic senator from Illinois.
April 8, 1957
Dear Dean:
On March 15 I wrote you one of my long hand spasms after I’d talked to you about Potsdam and the Doctor who is interested in that phase of your foreign policy.
This morning your long hand letter came with the photostat of the piece from the Manchester Guardian. I immediately dictated a note to you telling you how I appreciated the enclosure and how much I regretted missing you in D.C. the day I was there.
Mrs. Truman’s youngest brother was taken to the hospital yesterday and, I’m told, may not go back home. So—I can understand exactly why we did not have that meeting at the noon day lunch with Charlie Murphy, Dave Lloyd, Senator Dick Stone and Don Dawson. Of course it was a disappointment—but we’ll try to alleviate that between us when the Boss and I come to the capital on May 3rd.
On May 2nd I’m lecturing the Student Body of N.Y. University on the President’s duties and prerogatives, as was done at M.I.T., Harvard Law School and Oklahoma A and M recently. What a lot of fun I had at those places. Been reading your book on the Congress. Between you and Woodrow Wilson I’m learning a lot—and hope to learn a lot more!
I hardly ever look back for the purpose of contemplating “what might have been.” Potsdam brings to mind “what might have been” had you been there instead of the Congressman, Senator, Supreme Court Justice, Presidential Assistant, Secretary of State, Governor of Secessionist South Carolina, the Honorable James F. Byrnes.
Makes me think of a [former Senator] Scott Lucas [D., Illinois] story about a trial in Illinois when Scott was on one side and an astute cross examiner was on the other. One of Scott’s witnesses was an old electioneer, who, of course, was addressed as Colonel. The astute cross examiner took him over and asked, “Mr. Jones just what does that Colonel in front of your name stand for?” The old Colonel said, “My friend, it is just like that Honorable in front of yours it don’t mean a damn thing.” Cross examination ended there.
Well, at Potsdam I trusted the “Honorable” Jimmy implicitly. He was then conniving to run the Presidency over my head just as old Seward tried it on Lincoln. Seward learned his lesson. “Hon.” Jimmy did not.
I had Joe Davies at that time, a Russophile as most of us were, Ed Pauley, the only hard boiled, hard hitting anti-Russian around except the tough old Admiral, Bill Leahy. Certain things were presented because Russia had no program but to take over free Europe, China and Korea, kill as many Germans, Poles and Lithuanians as possible and break up the Western Alliance. Britain only wanted to control the Eastern Mediterranean, keep India, oil in Persia, the Suez Canal and whatever else was floating loose, including control of the seas of the world!
There was a nice, innocent idealist (good definition for a diplomatic damn fool) in one corner of that Round Table who wanted free waterways, Rhine-Danube, Kiel Canal, Suez, Black Sea Straits, Panama, all free, a restoration of Germany, France, Italy, Poland, the Czechs, Romania, the Balkans, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Indonesia, Indo-China, a Chinese Republic, a Philippine Republic, and a free Japan. That damn fool wanted a free trade agreement between all the countries in the world and a full development of their resources for the benefit of the people in their various locations.
Well, what a show that was! In spite of the set up a great number of agreements were accomplished—only to be broken when the Dictator of all the Russians without a conscience returned to his home dunghill. And I liked the little son of a bitch—self made of course, no reflection on his mother. He was a good six inches shorter than I am and even the great Churchill was only three inches taller than that Russian.
But I was the little man there present in stature and intellect! At least that’s what our “free press” said.
Wish you’d been there. Tell your friend I’ll help him all I can. I’m looking forward to a grand visit with you on May 3rd, 4th and 5th.
My best to Alice. Wish I could have seen her picture exhibition.
Most sincerely,
Harry S. Truman
April 11, 1957
HONORABLE DEAN ACHESON
CONGRATULATIONS ON ANOTHER MILESTONE. I HOPE YOU HAVE MANY MORE OF THEM AND THAT ALICE DOESN’T THINK YOU ARE BECOMING CRANKY ON ACCOUNT OF AGE.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
Truman is responding to Acheson’s letter of April 5. He did eventually send the longhand letter he mentions (dated April 8; see above).
April 12, 1957
Dear Dean:
You don’t know how much I appreciated your note enclosing the photostat from The Manchester Guardian, which will be placed where you suggest.
The reason I couldn’t stay over in Washington was that I had to be back here to prepare a speech for Topeka, Kansas, for the celebration of the election of a Democratic Governor in Kansas. We had a most successful meeting and a lot of fun.
I wrote a longhand letter after I had talked to you about the Potsdam papers but I haven’t made up my mind to send it.
For your information, you are going to have an opportunity to introduce me at that May 4th meeting and Mrs. Truman will also be there. Even if I had decided not to come, when I found out you were going to preside nothing could keep me away.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
Acheson looks forward to seeing Truman during his upcoming trip to New York and Washington.
April 17, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
The last few days have delighted me by bringing your two letters and a telegram. Why should you have hesitated to send me the longhand one? It is one of the most delightful letters I have had from you and gives your reflections on most important events in an incomparable way.
I am looking forward to seeing you and Mrs. Truman and introducing you to the assembled Democrats.
We want very much to introduce you to another and much smaller assembly. My daughter Mary, in conjunction with her sister from New York and her brother from Washington are putting on a small party at Mary’s house on Sunday night, May 5, to celebrate Alice’s and my Fortieth Wedding Anniversary. It would give all of us the greatest joy if Mrs. Truman and yourself could come, even if only for a short time. She will have dinner and supper and people will stay on after. If you are not going back on Sunday, let me put in our claim on both of you now.
With warmest regards.
Sincerely,
Dean
Your birthday telegram gave us both a glow of pleasure. D.
April 23, 1957
Dear Dean:
I appreciated your letter of the 17th as I always appreciate any communication from you.
Our schedule calls for our arrival in Washington on May 3rd. We will be there the 4th and 5th but will have to leave on the B and 0 Diplomat at 9:30 on the evening of the 5th. You may count on our coming Sunday, but we will not be able to stay as long as we would like.
You are ahead of us in anniversaries by two years. The “Boss” and I will celebrate our 38th in June. Both you and I are very lucky in the partners we took for life.
Please give our best to Alice and all the rest of the family, and as soon as we get to Washington, we will work out a plan so that we can put in an appearance at Mary’s.
Sincerely yours,
Harry
Truman spoke to student groups at Columbia University and New York University on May 1 and 2, to a Democratic Party dinner in Washington on May 4. On May 5 he attended the party celebrating Dean and Alice Acheson’s fortieth wedding anniversary.
Michael is a son of Mary Acheson Bundy, Acheson’s younger daughter. Michael attended the Sunday-evening anniversary dinner.
May 7, 1957
Dear Mr. Truman,
Our warmest greetings on your birthday. I wish that I could be at the dinner your friends and neighbors are giving you and to which they kindly invited me. But we shall be thinking of you and Alice and I drink a toast.
You both gave everyone a great thrill on Sunday evening. Michael has not calmed down yet. Yesterday when Mary picked him up at school his first words were, “Boy, what a party that was!” He then went on to say that he was going to write a book about you. “And I have a title, too,” he added. Mary asked what it was. “The Best Natured American,” he said. So there is an endorsement for you to use with the boss when she gives you hell for wondering who lives in the White House now.
We all feel better for your visit and because you both looked so well.
As ever,
Dean
A few weeks after the 1956 presidential election, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) formed the Democratic Advisory Council (DAC), which was charged with formulating policy positions for the Democratic Party. DNC Chair Paul Butler asked Truman to ask Acheson to chair the DAC’s foreign-policy committee. Truman sends Acheson a telegram, and Acheson subsequently accepts the position.
May 27, 1957
HONORABLE DEAN ACHESON
THE NATIONAL CHAIRMAN CALLED ME ABOUT A FOREIGN POLICY PROGRAM FOR THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE. HE WANTS YOU TO HEAD THE ORGANIZATION. I HOPE YOU CAN DO IT. I WILL WRITE YOU AS SOON AS I HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO SIT DOWN.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
The Harry S. Truman Library was to be dedicated on July 6. Truman wants Acheson to be with him that day.
June 1, 1957
Dear Dean:
I am starting the first month of summer with a letter to you. I sent you a telegram on May 27th at the behest of Paul Butler. Maybe it isn’t worthy of any consideration. As you know from long experience some—maybe all—my aberrations need looking at very carefully.
That anniversary party your children gave you was quite the nicest one I’ve been to in all my checkered career. That young grandson of yours has a real political future. He has the public relations touch to start with. It is hard to cultivate if it isn’t a natural asset to begin with.
I’ve been doing more things I shouldn’t than ever before. A local keynote speech for local Democrats, a series of invitations to public officials and has been public officialites, an agreement to address the Police Chiefs of Missouri on the Bill of Rights, appearances here and there for no reason whatever but some friend and former supporter in hard times past asked me.
The “Boss” has about made up her mind to go in with some Independence people and run me for Mayor! And then charge admission to the City Hall to see the striped mule from Missouri. I think she’s ridiculing me, don’t you?
Anyway I’m having a hell of a time and a lot of fun. I expect to be knee deep in “Big Shots” July 6th and I want you and Alice to be here to help me out of what Huey Long would call a deep “More Ass.” It’s in the Congressional Record.
Be sure and come. I may tell some Ambassador or Senator “to go to hell” and you’ll have to keep him from going. As you know Stanley’s gone to the other side of the pond. I rather think he went because there’ll be too much protocol here on July 6th—or none at all!
Be sure and come. I won’t mix you in my difficulties, but I want you and Alice here.
You helped more than anyone to make things come out right.
Sincerely,
Harry S Truman
Acheson has in effect become the Democratic Party spokesman on foreign-policy issues. Paul Nitze was associated with the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and Milton Eisenhower, President Eisenhower’s brother, was president of Johns Hopkins University. An interview with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was broadcast on the CBS news program Face the Nation on June 2. Acheson portrays the interview as free propaganda for Khrushchev. The Soviet premier had bragged that the Soviet Union would soon outpace the United States in agricultural production and predicted, “Your grandchildren in America will live under socialism.” Most important, and potentially most damaging to American interests, he portrayed the Soviet Union as a peaceful nation that wished to end nuclear testing, end all trade restrictions throughout the world, and bring about the withdrawal of all Soviet and American troops from Europe. About ten million Americans saw or heard Khrushchev’s interview. In the P.S., he refers to the birth of Truman’s first grandson, Clifton Truman Daniel, on June 5.
June 5, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
There is no better way for me to start the summer than for you to start it by writing me—and you pleased us both mightily by what you said about the children’s party for us and about Michael. He is the only source of energy I know of which equals the atom. After he had spent a month with us while his parents went around the world Alice reports saying to me “Don’t you miss Michael?” and my exhausted reply, “Not yet.” I feel sure that if he ever landed in the White House no puzzled countryman would have to ask, “I wonder who lives there now?”
The boys finally twisted my arm until I agreed to be Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee appointed by your Advisory Committee, about which you telegraphed me. Charlie Murphy was eager to have me do it because, he said, the party was getting over the foolish attitude of backing away from the Truman administration and that I would help the reform by joining the Committee. What the Committee can do still puzzles me, but then if it doesn’t do anything it won’t do any harm, which for some Democrats these days is a big achievement. Paul Nitze has agreed to be Vice Chairman, which is fine and hard for him in view of the necessity of his School’s access to the State Dept. and the fact that the President of the University to which it belongs is Milton Eisenhower. So we shall see what can be done.
This recent flap about the Khrushchev interview is a good example of what I talked about once as “total diplomacy”—that the diplomacy of a democracy was not at all restricted to what the government did, including the disorderly performances of the Congress, but included the press, radio and television, the movies, churches, labor unions, business, women’s clubs, etc. Here comes C.B.S. blundering into the picture with three interviewers who act as though they had never finished the sixth grade and give Khrushchev more free propaganda—which he used admirably—than he could have obtained in a year. As I see it, he had only one point to make—which happened to be untrue but which he put over to the Queen’s taste—that the Russians were willing to “ban the bomb”, move out of Europe, get on with mutual travel and cultural exchanges, trade, etc., etc. but that the Americans seemed to be afraid to do so. Communism was, he said, bound to win and we knew it. So we remained frozen like frightened rabbits. All the early part of the interview where he flubbed around with the agricultural situation, about which he clearly knew little, gave the impression—and was intended to—of a simple, honest fellow doing the best he could with great problems. He gets the prize for 1957 and CBS gets the dunce cap—and probably a big boost in income.
I shall, of course, be with you on the sixth of July. Alice says she has “every hope of being with me.” I ask what that means to which she replies with exasperating calm that it is too early for her to say absolutely that she can come. So I shall make a plane reservation for her anyway and, if the temperature is under a hundred I think she’ll go.
I am doing a piece for a European magazine on NATO which I think you will like and will send along soon. Our most affectionate greetings to Mrs. Truman and to you.
As ever,
Dean
P.S. Since writing this the radio has told us that Margaret has given you the only gift remaining to make your happiness complete. Our warmest congratulations and every good wish to Margaret and the grandson. The poor father is always neglected on these occasions, so we include him, too. D.
Truman is upset about the impersonal message from Eisenhower which the Administrator of General Services had read during the Truman Library dedication ceremony. It was clear to Truman and others that Eisenhower still bore grudges against Truman, largely because of things said and done during the 1952 campaign. Frank McKinney is a former DNC Chair.
July 10, 1957
Dear Dean:
I’m very much perturbed because I think I treated you and Alice like step children last Saturday. I hope you know that would not happen intentionally. The sun, the day and everything went off much more happily than I hoped it would go.
I hope you were impressed with Ike’s telegram to the peepul! What in hell makes some of us tick? Maybe you and I could find out if they’d let us.
It has rained every day since the dedication. I am as happy as I can be that the sun did shine.
Frank McKinney was here. Dean, he has a boy, named for him, who wants to go to Yale. He’s late starting for entrance. Wish you’d get him in. He has a remarkable scholastic background as well as an acrobatic one—He won some world championships in Australia.
My effort for the study of Presidential papers seems to be working.
My best to Alice and to you.
Harry
Acheson is puzzled why a copy of the Milwaukee Journal for May 3, 1957, carrying an account of the Senate funeral services for Senator Joseph McCarthy, was put in the sealed container that would go in the Truman Library’s cornerstone. “That paper won’t go in the box …,” Truman told the press the day the outrage was discovered. “Someone just didn’t know what he was doing when he put that in there.” Actually, Truman had intended to include a copy of the Journal, a newspaper he admired. The copy the Journalstaff sent to Truman for the cornerstone was dated May 3 and happened to carry a headline about Joseph McCarthy, who had died the day before. Truman, meanwhile, had changed his mind at the last minute, deciding to include only local newspapers, but this decision was not conveyed to his assistant, so the Journal stayed on the list of items for the cornerstone. The big problem was not the McCarthy headline, but the fact that the list of items was read aloud to the crowd in front of the library on dedication day, and the Journalwas identified as the newspaper “with the headline ‘Senate Prepares Rites for McCarthy.’ ”
July 10, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
My curiosity cannot stand the strain another day. What is the true story of the Milwaukee Sentinel’s [sic] edition on McCarthy appearing on the list of contents for the cornerstone? I felt as I have at some weddings when the minister invites anyone so inclined to louse up the proceedings.
The dedication was a great occasion. I hope it gave you and Mrs. Truman some sense of the respect and affection which is felt for you both.
As ever,
Dean
P.S. Is the Fed. Res. Bank Bldg. address still official? D.
P.P.S. Your note has come since I finished this. Put all those worries about us out of your mind. We wouldn’t have missed the party. It never occurred to us that we were step-children. We are honest-to-God family and don’t have to be fussed over. What luck it was that the rain held off and what further luck to have some now. We are having a bad drought. For gardeners like Alice and me that is real trouble.
Frank spoke to me about his boy who certainly has all the qualifications. He said that he would give me further details. The trouble is that the boy waited until we have accepted a good many more than we can take—some always drop out. But the entrance authorities can’t tell until the returns are in. I shall do what I can. D.
Truman is pleased that legislation authorizing the Library of Congress to arrange and microfilm its large collection of presidential papers has passed in the House of Representatives. He had testified in its favor on June 21. The bill was signed into law on August 16. Truman loved history, studied it all his life, and was grateful for all it had given him. He wrote in his memoirs, “My debt to history is one which cannot be calculated.” He wanted historians to write objective accounts based on careful research in documentary resources, not on political bias. He believed some nineteenth-century historians, especially those from Whig New England, had presented unfairly negative accounts of such Presidents as Jefferson and Jackson.
July 16, 1957
Dear Dean:
You’ll never know how happy you made me feel when you wrote me that you and Alice had not been treated as “step children.”
It was a hell-of-a-day, and the reason for it was that there was an objective. Just had a letter from John McCormack informing me that the legislation authorizing the indexing and microfilming of Presidential papers has past! [sic]
If Hoover, those Republican Congressmen, Knowland and our Democrats had not been asked, it wouldn’t have happened. We’ve accomplished something that should have been done two generations ago.
I’ll send the telegram you suggest. Wish I could tell you all the maneuvers I’ve been making to place the history of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Departments in a position that young students can understand.
You know I’m no scholar in any line—but I do know that our history and the men who made it have been left in the lurch. The New England historians saw to that. Why so called Puritans find it so hard to stay with truth when it is against them. That is the reason I’m so interested in having all the facts as we know them available. Maybe I am a nut on the subject. If I am I hope you’ll bear with me.
Historians, those who edit news stories and even men who think they know facts, have to be studied and their errors put in the proper light.
I sent the wire day letter.
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
The Western World article Truman refers to was titled “A Vital Necessity for America and Europe.” Western World, which advertised itself as “the first bilingual transatlantic magazine,” was published in Brussels, Belgium, from May 1957 to March 1960. It was absorbed by the European Atlantic Review in January 1961. He actually read a condensed version that ran as a syndicated column, titled, “Is NATO a Lost Cause? Kill NATO and Doom Europe, Ex-Secretary Acheson Says.” Acheson argued against the point of view, recently put forward to former State Department colleague George F. Kennan, famed formulator of the Truman administration’s containment policy, that Germany should be neutralized and unified, and that the United States and the Soviet Union should both withdraw from Europe.
August 5, 1957
Dear Dean:
Your article from The Western World, of which I have just received a transcript, is a great one.
Whenever you put out something of this kind, it is always great, in my book.
Sincerely yours,
Harry S. Truman
Acheson asks Truman to write to certain congressmen in support of President Eisenhower’s budget request for the Development Loan Fund, which was the agency charged with what was called Point Four foreign aid to underdeveloped countries during Truman’s administration. Truman immediately did as Acheson asked. Albert Sidney Johnson Carnahan was a Democratic Representative from Missouri.
August 6, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
We must, I believe, strike another blow to help this incompetent administration by getting some obstreperous Democrats back on the reservation. The enclosed memorandum explains the situation which has arisen in the House concerning the proposed Development Loan Fund in the Mutual Security bill now before the Congress.
It would be most helpful if you would make a statement on the Fund after the Conferees have reported and before the bill comes to the House floor. This probably will be Thursday or Friday of this week. I have attached a draft for you to consider.
The statement might be made in reply to a request made by Speaker Rayburn, John McCormack, or Representative Carnahan, who handled the bill on the floor for the Foreign Affairs Committee and is a member of the Conferees and, presumably, will handle the Conference reports. Carnahan will give me a specific recommendation tomorrow which I shall pass along to you.
Your generous note about my article has just come. It has given me a real lift.
Sincerely,
Dean
Acheson writes Truman about legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil-rights legislation passed since Reconstruction. Congress had refused, despite Truman’s most ardent efforts, to pass civil-rights legislation during his administration. Truman was able to desegregate the armed forces and the government civil service through executive order.
August 14, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
Thank you very much for having sent the letter to Congressman Carnahan, with copies to Sam, Lyndon and John McCormack.
After I wrote you, as a result of Sam’s canvassing the field it was decided to strike out the loan authority altogether, and merely authorize appropriations for two years. All those concerned, therefore, thought that as this rather disappointing compromise would go through Congress without much help, they would not use your support now but would save it for what may be the very tough period when it comes to the actual appropriation itself. When the time comes they are to let me know and I shall get you on the telephone. The same letter can be used with some very minor changes toward the end of making it appropriate to the new situation. Everybody is most grateful for your willingness to help.
I think you will be interested in a copy of a letter to Lyndon which I wrote him today at his request. He and Sam have been having real difficulty with some of the Northern liberals, although I think most of them are now beginning to see the light. He wanted a letter which would express what I had been saying to him the other day, that the bill is not a mere compromise, not a second-rate article which has to be taken in lieu of something better, but is in reality a better bill than the one originally proposed. It will be a tragedy of the greatest order if well meaning but ignorant people are made the dupes of cynical politicians to destroy this really fine effort.
Alice is trying to get Clifton to come down this fall to speak to the Women’s National Democratic Club. To this end she is hoping to induce Margaret and Clifton to stay with us. I pointed out that this is a delightful idea but leaves out one member of the family of the greatest possible importance.
With warmest greetings.
As ever,
Dean
Truman asks Acheson whether he should accept an invitation to speak at Yale University, Acheson’s alma mater. The NANA article concerned the Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East.
August 21, 1957
Dear Dean:
I am enclosing you a copy of a letter I received from the Yale Political Union.
If you think it is a good thing, I will do my best to fit it into my schedule.
I am a little vague about the meaning of a “tri-partisan” debating society. “Bi-partisan” is, of course, within my scope of comprehension.
Your letter of the 14th was more than appreciated, and I read your message to Lyndon with the greatest interest. You told him exactly what he ought to hear.
I just happened to have a copy of my latest article for NANA which I will enclose. It covers the pending situation in the Near East, which, between you and me, I think we have lost.
Sincerely yours,
Harry
My best to Alice.
The new book that Acheson was working on was eventually titled Power and Diplomacy. He chides Truman for some too-simple argumentation in his recent NANA article. Truman, now as earlier, was more willing than Acheson to advise Congress to give the President the powers he was requesting to commit American forces to the Middle East.
August 28, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
Alice and I are off tomorrow for a vacation of three weeks visiting children and seeing friends—not that the children are not friends.
I am hastening this note in answer to yours of August 21st before we leave. My advice would be to pass up this invitation from the Yale Political Union. You have far more important things to do, and some day I want you to come to Yale for a stay of some days, under the auspices of the University itself and not of a particular under-graduate group.
The “tri-partisan” idea puzzled me too. However, my son, David, offers illumination. The Political Union did not exist in my day, but he seems to have been President of it in his. I gather from him that there are three parties in the Union, covering the spectrum—the Conservative, the Liberal, and the Labor parties. So I think that neither of us need feel—at any rate we won’t feel—that our intellectual powers are slipping because we did not know what the writer meant.
The letter to Lyndon, slightly recast to put it in the form of an article, will appear in The Reporter issue of September 5th (to go on sale August 29). In the next issue I have another article—a frivolous one, but I think you and Mrs. Truman will get a chuckle out of it.
Today I am in a state of exhaustion, having finished the first draft of my lectures at the Fletcher School, which will come out in book form in the spring. The title might be—but probably won’t be—“An American Looks at the World.” It is an attempt to survey the world situation as it is, the two opposed systems which are in process of formation, and what we are called upon to do economically, militarily, and politically, if the free world system is to be viable and defensible. It is quite a mouthful. When I get a revised clean draft, sometime in September, I shall send a copy on to you.
I have read with great interest your last article, which you were kind enough to send to me. It lays down some truths which need to be said and resaid. Its abbreviated form necessitated stating some things as absolute, which I hesitate to think are quite so clear.
Our love to Mrs. Truman.
Sincerely yours,
Dean
Truman mentions that he is still settling in to his new office at the Truman Library. He would report for work to that office essentially every day for nine years when he was not traveling or ill.
August 31, 1957
Dear Dean:
Your letter of the 28th was most highly appreciated, and just as soon as I can get straightened out in my new office, I will sit down and write you a real letter.
Thank you for that information on the “tri-partisan” situation. When something of that kind puzzles my Secretary of State, who is never puzzled by anything (except, perhaps, the supposititious inclusion of an issue of the Milwaukee Journal in the library cornerstone), my confusion no longer troubles me.
I will try to get copies of the September 5th and immediately following issue of the Reporter. I may ask the old man to send it to me all the time. I used to get it when it was first started and I was making contributions, but he cut me off when I had to stop.
I am looking forward with longing and tremendous interest to the publication of your series of Fletcher School lectures. I see no reason why you should not call it An American Looks at the World.
The Boss was highly pleased to have an opportunity to read your letter, and she joins me in the hope that you and Alice will have a wonderful vacation.
Sincerely yours,
Harry
Truman tells a story on himself that features Senators Rufus C. Holman of Oregon, Owen Brewster of Maine, and Monrad Wallgren of Washington. The “PBY” was a flying boat, “PB” standing for “patrol bomber.” Truman also bemoans the damage the United States is suffering internationally from Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus’s use of the National Guard to prevent nine African American students from attending Central High School in Little Rock.
October 7, 1957
Dear Dean:
I’ve been thinking about you and present developments. Just received an invitation to attend some lectures you are giving at Tufts U. in Medford, Mass., Oct. 23rd, 24th, 25th. Wish I could be present. Will you send me the lectures? I’ll read them and some day those back brain cells of mine may come up with a plagiarism!
I can’t be in Washington on the 19th and 20th. The daughter of Mrs. T’s favorite cousin is to be married that Saturday and we must be present.
You never in your life, I’m sure, have seen the like of invitations. Tomorrow I must go to Texas for Sam Rayburn’s library dedication: As you know he came to mine and so did you. One of my cousins made a colored picture of you out in front of our old house. It was a good one.
November 1st I’ve accepted a trip to Los Angeles to “draw” So[uthern] Cal[ifornia] Democrats to a $100 dinner for the purpose of raising funds to put that great Crackpot State in a corner where it has always belonged. I’m like Sen. Holman when he went to Attatuck [perhaps Adak, or another of the Aleutian Islands] with Mon Wallgren and Brewster on an investigation which I was making in Seattle. The three went in a PBY and were shot at by the Japs. Sen. Holman in his high pitched voice said to Mon—“Ain’t a man a damn fool to do this when he doesn’t have to?” Well, “Ain’t He.”
The Russians and Arkansas seem to have the Chief Executive, Mrs. Dulles and the country over a barrel propaganda wise. It sure beats hell how things happen.
Wish I could sit and talk with you for an hour or thirty minutes or even for five minutes. My morale would go up 100%. When will I get one of your good, uplifting letters?
My best to Alice. Hope you won’t throw this in the “Round File.”
Sincerely,
Harry Truman
The dedication of the Sam Rayburn Library in Bonham, Texas, which Truman attended, was on October 9, 1957. Thomas G. Corcoran (“Tommy the Cork”), an official during the Roosevelt administration, was at this time a Democratic Party operative. The “renegade Democrat” Acheson refers to was Secretary of the Treasury Robert B. Anderson. Acheson looks forward to presenting a foreign-policy statement to the Democratic Advisory Council later in the month. He worries that Eisenhower’s inattentive and ineffectual leadership, as demonstrated in the Little Rock crisis, could eventually cause the country to stumble into war. For the first time in this correspondence, Acheson seems truly concerned about the drift of foreign policy in the face of a serious worsening of foreign relationships.
October 8, 1957
Dear Mr. President,
Your good letter tells me that you are off to Sam Rayburn’s Library opening. Tom Corcoran asked me to go on a company plane, but I passed it up. Why did Sam have to get a renegade Democrat to be paired with you as a speaker? If he was going to have a Republican he might have had the real thing, as you did with Uncle Herbert Hoover.
I shall miss you at the Council meeting on the 19th but approve your choice of a wedding to a wake. For me it will be another Post week-end. At least my role of presenting the Foreign Policy statement will have the merit which John G. Johnson found in staying at the bar instead of accepting Cleveland’s offer of a place on the Supreme Court. “I would rather talk to the damned fools,” he said, “than listen to them.”
We have worked out a pretty good statement with some sense to it. But I suppose your brethren will want to clutter it up with a lot of words about peace, disarmament, Israel, Poland, etc., to produce the old futile attempt to appeal to nationality groups—like the 1956 platform.
We are, I think, getting in bad shape internationally. The combination of distrust of Dulles, our defense policy, which more and more rests on a relative nuclear position which we do not have and can never have, and no economic policy for the undeveloped countries is isolating us. It could easily pave the way for a quite unmanageable international situation.
This frightens me because of the lesson of Little Rock—a weak President who fiddles along ineffectually until a personal affront drives him to unexpectedly drastic action. A Little Rock with Moscow and the S.A.C. in the place of the paratroopers could blow us all apart.
My lectures try to get at the inwardness of our predicament and suggest lines of policy. Sometimes I am frankly over my head. But as I study I become increasingly depressed. The escape from Götterdämmerung will take vigor of mind and leadership which I do not see in either party, even on the distant horizon. And for three years it seems impossible to do anything at all. God rest ye merry gentlemen!
This is hardly a gay letter. But you are proof against depression.
Our warmest greetings to you and Mrs. Truman.
As ever,
Dean
Acheson discusses an invitation to Truman from a Yale University professor to speak to students and faculty. Acheson had written this professor in 1954 about Truman’s coming to Yale: “Mr. Truman is deeply interested in and very good with the young. His point of view is fresh, eager, confident.… He has learned the hard way, but he has learned a lot. He believes in his fellow man and he believes that with will and courage (and some intelligence) the future is manageable. This is good for undergraduates.… It is not what he says but what he is which is important to young men.… [He is someone who could] give our undergraduates more sense of what their lives are worth … than anyone I know.”
October 21, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
Some time ago you wrote me about an invitation you had from a student organization at Yale to speak there. I advised that you should not do this, but that if the University authorities should ask you I would most earnestly hope that you could go. During my last visit to New Haven President Griswold spoke to me most enthusiastically about your coming, and I have just had a talk over the telephone with Mr. Thomas G. Bergin, the Master of Timothy Dwight College, one of the under-graduate residential sections of the University, asking me whether you would consider coming for the inside of a week as what is known as a Chubb Fellow. I told him that I would immediately write you about it, preparing a way for his invitation which will follow soon upon my note.
Two years ago I went to Yale as a Chubb Fellow. It is an ideal way to meet and talk seriously with college students without getting into the big prepared lecture, which, unless one wishes to put it later into book form, is a trial and a nuisance.
The Chubb Fellow receives a pretty good honorarium and his travel expenses. He is given a suite in Timothy Dwight College—bedroom, bathroom, sitting room—he has his meals in the College and usually dines with the Master in the Master’s house. A schedule is arranged for him, which is entirely subject to his approval.
When I was there I met with the boys who live in Timothy Dwight after dinner one evening. There are about 250 of them. We met in the common room, and this is very informal. The boys sit on the floor and stand against the wall. I talked for about ten or fifteen minutes to start them off, and then had questions until the Master had to break it up. Another evening, after dinner, we met in the Fellows’ room with those members of the faculty who are attached to the college. We sat around with a drink in one hand and had a fine evening’s talk. During the day I met on occasions with somewhat smaller groups who were studying government or foreign affairs, often with foreign students, for informal discussion. Once or twice I went to the larger classroom and discussed the subject which the boys were studying. On one occasion it was the influence of Europe on America, which gave a fine chance to talk about ideas, good and bad, received in the colonial period, the effect of our long isolation during the peace of the nineteenth century, and our abrupt awakening to the facts of life in this century. You can do as much or as little as you like. The boys are eager for informal conversation, and I think you would feel, if you did it, that you had had a contact with the younger generation which will give you a good deal of satisfaction in return for the very great help which you will give them.
If you want to talk with me more about this when they write you, please do.
In the meantime, let me give you a laugh for the day. When the Advisory Council was discussing the statement on foreign affairs which you very helpfully approved, it was opposed by Mr. Adlai E. Stevenson, who said that it was far too restrained and thoughtful, that no part of it would be published, and that it had no voter appeal. He was ultimately overruled, and turned out to be slightly in error about its newspaper prominence. However, the last touch was furnished by the New York Times editorial this morning, which begins, “The Democratic Advisory Council, employing a style greatly influenced by one of its members, Adlai E. Stevenson …” I am waiting with some interest to see how adaptable Adlai’s mind really is. Perhaps in a few days he will imagine that he did write the statement, or I may get a note saying that his judgment is not infallible. Which side of the bet do you want to take?
With warmest regards.
Sincerely,
Dean
“Our friend the Governor” is Adlai Stevenson, whom Acheson playfully maligned in his letter of October 21.
October 29, 1957
Dear Dean:
Your letter of the 21st was most highly appreciated, and I hope that I can arrange a visit to Yale as a Chubb Fellow. After our correspondence on the subject, it seems to be the proper way to meet the situation. You will hear from me a little later on.
Never having been able to comprehend the attitudes of our friend the Governor, I cannot with certainty determine his reaction to the reception given your statement on foreign affairs. Painful prejudice, however, tempts me to believe that he might be willing to assume authorship.
Sincerely yours,
Harry Truman
Acheson reports on an attempt by John Foster Dulles to co-opt “our Peerless Leader”—Adlai Stevenson—into doing the Eisenhower administration’s bidding. Christian Herter was now Undersecretary of State, as well as a noted internationalist and former governor of Massachusetts.
November 1, 1957
An Eyes Only Message
Dear Mr. President:
You were very kind to telegraph the Fletcher School as you did. I deeply appreciated what you said about me, as, indeed, I always do. It caused no little comment, too, and for this reason. Ike had promised one of the Trustees of the School—his host on his last fishing trip to New England—that he would send a message. Word then came that he would not. The trustees at once got in touch with their former Governor, and an alleged friend of mine, Chris Herter, who agreed to oblige. He did. He sent a message praising the School and Will Clayton, but omitting reference to the lecturer. So, when your warm reference was read, there was both applause and well bred chuckles at Chris Herter’s awkward predicament. It seems to me that he is too much of a gentleman to have been a party to discourtesy of this sort without orders from above—he, also, has not enough backbone to disregard them.
(I now shift from office to house and a change of paper.)
Yesterday our Peerless Leader came to see me and later talked with me from New York. Since he is contemplating an act of unusual folly—even for him—I want you to know about it (how confidentially, I leave to you—the newspapers are already full of rumors). Dulles, he said, has asked him to come on, and had talked with him the previous evening. The Peerless Leader (P.L. to us) had with him when he saw me two pieces of paper. The first a copy of the Eisenhower-Macmillan press release on which Para. 5 had underlined three numbered “policies or purposes” according to the P.L. They were (1) that all of our allies who wish to should know more of the capabilities of security, which we had, in being and prospect, (2) a “greater opportunity should be provided to assure that this power will, in fact, be available in case of need for their common security” and (3) “that it will not be misused by any nation for purposes other than individual and collective self-defense, authorized (sic) by the Charter of the U.N.”
Also a sentence was underlined that we and the U.K. regard our possession of nuclear weapons as held in trust—(for purposes which I forget).
The other paper was a draft press release announcing that a Mr. X, which the P.L. reluctantly admitted was supposed to be none other than his peerless self, would become a special assistant to the President to devise and negotiate, internally and externally, policies to carry out the underlined policies (1), (2) and (3). The problem, it had been explained to him, was that for some reason our allies had lost confidence in our capacity and intentions. The P.L. was to be given the job of restoring their confidence in both.
He felt that he should do this—or something like it. What did I think?
I thought it was a prescription for suicide. He was to sell our allies confidence in statements which were lies, to dilute—if he could—the growing distrust of Dulles, at home and abroad (while the grounds for it would remain true); he would embrace, for himself and the Democratic Party, a false and fraudulent policy and one which was certain to fail; and he would assume for all of us, the responsibility of devising steps which would not be taken, and which, if taken, would fail. The failure of foreign policy would be deftly transferred from Dulles to Stevenson.
I said that Dulles was smarter than I had thought. (You and I were pikers in trying to get Dewey to go to London.) I added that the real task was to pressure this decadent outfit into new and vigorous steps to (1) step up both our nuclear and conventional forces and research, (2) to have a vigorous program of economic cooperation (i.e., export of capital goods) to countries ready for them and subsidy for some others, (3) political policies which would tie the Western hemisphere and Western Europe together—the others would have no choice but to follow, in their own interest. To join this administration in telling others that we had military power which we do not have, and a resolution which does not exist, was inexpressibly foolish and wrong. Talk about bi-partisanship was cheese for a silly mouse.
Of course, he didn’t like it. He is almost irresistibly drawn as a monkey to Kipling’s boa constrictor. He wants to lay down conditions, to make policy—without knowing that to do this in such a field requires the vast knowledge and help of departments of Government which are at sixes and sevens and to which he would have no access, or knowledge as to how to use it, if he had it.
I write you this long and dreary story because although I have given him pause, he is clearly an eager beaver advised by junior grade Machiavellis and may well end up as a sort of reincarnation of Walter George and/or Dick Richards—only dragging the party into complicity for failure and frustration.
I do not intend politeness to inhibit me from calling god-damned nonsense, at least, folly; and I hope you will be careful not to let the silken cord of bipartisan honey talk bind you.
Enough of this. You know my thoughts and blood pressure.
As ever,
Dean
Truman raises the topic of his middle initial about which he never seems to have fully made up his mind. Should the “S” have a period or not? The original December 5, 1957, letter is not in Acheson’s papers. Truman kept a carbon copy with, at the bottom, Truman’s printed signature stamp—which includes a period after the S.
December 5, 1957
Dear Dean:
With reference to the attached, do you know the word meaning an initial standing in a name but signifying no name itself, as the “S” in
Harry S. Truman
Truman hopes to join Acheson at Yale to deliver lectures. Acheson later called Truman and arranged that he come to Yale the following April.
December 18, 1957
Dear Dean:
I have been trying to get things arranged so I could be with you at Yale, and it seems to me that the dates which you set out, the second Friday and Saturday in February, that is the 14th and 15th of February, would be most satisfactory to me, if that is all right with you. I don’t want to be there unless you are there.
I hope you will write and tell me just exactly what I have to do. I have a couple of lectures which I have delivered around to the various schools on “Hysteria” and on powers and duties of the President of the United States as set out in the Constitution. I also have a lecture which I have delivered on the first Ten Amendments of the Constitution from the viewpoint of a layman not fully educated in the law. Do you think any one of these would be right and proper for us to use at the time you suggest. I’ll be glad to do everything I can to keep you from being embarrassed by this old retired farmer from Missouri.
You tell Alice that her picture has a place of honor in my reception room and as soon as I can get a plaque made for it to tell what it is, what it stands for and where it came from, it will be labeled so everybody who comes in here can see just what sort of a Secretary of State I had by proxy.
Sincerely yours,
Harry Truman
[Handwritten note by Dean Acheson:] Arranged by telephone for HST to arrive N.H. Apr 8 and leave for Washington Apr 11th.
Acheson reaches some witty conclusions regarding Truman’s middle “S.” Acheson seems to be making a point here of not putting a period after the S, both in his quotation of Truman’s letter of December 5 and in the address line at the bottom of the page. Acheson enclosed the December 11 memorandum from Elizabeth Finley with this letter.
December 20, 1957
Dear Mr. President:
In your letter to me of December 5, 1957, spurred by your incurable (thank God) curiosity, you asked me this question:
“Do you know the word meaning an initial standing in a name but signifying no name itself, as the ‘S’ in
Harry S Truman”?
You know, and so do I, how to get at a question of this sort. In my youth an advertisement used to say, “Ask the man who owns one.” So I asked the two people who might know—and, of course, they were women—Elizabeth Finley, the librarian of Covington and Burling [law firm], past-president of the law librarians of the country, and Helen Lally of the Supreme Court library. Their reports are enclosed.
The essence of the matter is that we are blind men, searching in a dark room for a black hat which isn’t there. The “S” in Harry S Truman (no period after “S”) does not “stand for anything.” Therefore, it cannot have a descriptive noun—“vacuum,” “nothing,” etc., are already pre-empted. But, more positively, it is something—not representatively, but absolutely. You are “S” (without a period) because it is your name. For instance, you appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (may God forgive you) whose name is “Tom.” Now “Tom” usually stands for “Thomas.” But not in this case. There it stands for nothing—absolutely nothing—except, of course, Tom himself, which may—who knows?—be the same thing.
So, you see, “S” is your middle name, not a symbol, not a letter standing for nothing, but an inseparable part of the moniker of one of the best men I have known in a largely misspent life. The same, for that matter, could be said of “Harry.”
“Harry” stirs all my deepest loyalties. The senior partner, who brought me up, was christened “J. Harry Covington”; and what a man he was! After years in Congress (he was one of the men who, in 1912 in Baltimore, brought about the nomination of Woodrow Wilson), he had a phrase which to me epitomizes the political obligation, perhaps among the most honorable obligations because resting on honor alone. He never said of an obligation—“I have to do it.” He always said, “I have it to do.” What a vast difference! In the first, one is coerced into action; in the other, a free man assumes an obligation, freely contracted.
This has a good deal to do with politics—about which you have always thought I knew nothing—in those reaches of it which fit men for government. There are some reaches which unfit them. Honor is a delicate and tricky concept. It does not mean standing by the unfit because of friendship. But it does mean standing by in time of trouble to see a fair deal, when the smart money is taking to the bushes. All of this I learned from the old judge, and relearned again from you in unforgettable days.
So I say that “S” is a good name as it stands, and I am for it. Should either of us have the good fortune to have another grandson, let’s agree to persuade his parents to a middle name of just plain “S” with no period, and no explanation.
Indeed, no explanation is possible, because it is the most truly international name. In 1200 B.C. it appeared in the Phoenician as a sort of wobbly “W”, but was, unhappily, pronounced sin. By 900, in the Cretan, it looked like a 3 and had become san, a great improvement. For the next 500 years the 3 was turned around. Then the Latins, Irish, and Saxons, for some odd reason, turned it into a “V.” Finally, the British, as they have so often done, got the thing straight in a wiggle, from right to left to right, but not until our colonial ancestors, Ben Franklin included, printed it half the time as an “f” to you and me.
That again is why I like “S” for you. It has had one hell of a tempestuous life.
As ever,
Dean
December 11, 1957
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. ACHESON
Despite diligent research, I have failed to turn up any word which means the use of a letter instead of a name. I even asked assistance from the Library of Congress to no avail. I did find that catalogers, faced with such a name, enter a foot note on the card saying “alternate pseudonym”, but that is because catalogers are a special breed. They cannot endure an initial standing alone.
However, in Mr. Truman’s case, I understand his parents christened him Harry S; the “S” was not something he added himself just because he did not like the looks of a two letter monogram on his handkerchiefs. Parents can name their child anything they please, and if they choose to name him X, then X is his name. I think S is Mr. Truman’s middle name, as defined by Webster, “the title by which any person or thing is known or designated.”
On the other hand it seems a pity to offer nothing to an ex-President. Why not make up a word? I suggest sic, meaning “so in christening.”
Elizabeth Finley