“There is nothing like that”: PP, HST, September 30, 1948, 650.
“Now, whatever you do”: Ibid., October 1, 1948, 664.
“The early morning haze”: Quoted in Goulden, The Best Years 1945–1950, 399.
“We made about a hundred and forty”: HST to MJT, October 5, 1948, HSTL.
“classic unities of politics”: Redding, Inside the Democratic Party, 202.
“Another hell of a day”: HST Diary, September 14, 1948, Off the Record, 149.
selections from Dewey speeches: Goulden, 400.
HST campaign movie: Redding, 254.
“He paused dramatically”: Barkley, That Reminds Me, 204.
“If we could only get Stalin”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 215.
“every possible precaution”: Ibid., 216.
“There is much confusion”: Ayers Diary, October 6–7, 1948, HSTL.
“He got up and went out”: Daniels, 29.
“If Harry Truman would just”: Goulden, 414.
Dewey with blind drawn: Smith, 536.
“I grew up on a farm”: PP, HST, October 11, 1948, 737.
If HST called Bess the Boss; Truman, Bess W. Truman, 330.
“If you don’t want to go”: PP, HST, October 11, 1948, 736–37.
Willard, Ohio, stop: Willard Times; Joseph Dush, author’s interview; materials supplied by Harlene Staptf Palkuti.
“I have had the most wonderful”: PP, HST, October 11, 1948, 740.
“I have lived a long time”: Ibid., 743, 747.
“And there it was!”: Clifford, author’s interview.
“So I walked in”: Ibid.
“I was with Truman”: Douglas, In the Fullness of Time, 138.
“I just wonder tonight”: PP, HST, October 12, 1948, 760.
“Now, I call on all liberals”: Ibid., October 13, 1948, 774.
“a lot of surprised pollsters”: Time, October 25, 1948.
“I think he’s doing pretty well”: Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 215.
“The only way to handle Truman”: Patterson, Mr. Republican. A Biography of Robert A. Taft, 424–25.
“That’s the first lunatic”: Time, October 25, 1948.
Boston Post editorial: October 27, 1948.
“If you’re winning”: Clifford, author’s interview.
“Strain seemed to make him”: Daniels, 361.
“He was not putting on”: Elsey, author’s interview, and Oral History, HSTL.
“For years afterward”: Clifford, Oral History, HSTL.
“We’ve got them on the run”: HST to MJT, October 20, 1948, HSTL.
“The airlift will be continued”: Tusa, 245.
“Say you don’t look so good!”: PP, HST, October 23, 1948, 839.
“The newspapers had convinced them”: Douglas, 138.
attack on Dewey: Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 235.
“An element of desperation”: Clifford, author’s interview.
“They have scattered reckless abuse”: Smith, 536.
“The confetti, ticker-tape”: The New York Times, October 29, 1948.
“There is one place”: Quoted in Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 237.
“Such a weak and vacillating”: Lash, Eleanor: The Years Alone, 153.
“There never has been a campaign”: The New York Times, November 1, 1948.
“I became President”: PP, HST, October 30, 1948, 934.
“pullet poll”: Life, November 15, 1948.
“Were it not for all”: Ayers Diary, November 1, 1948, HSTL.
“We all, of course, stayed awake”: Gerard McAnn, author’s interview.
Maloney and his men: Smith, 40.
“We waited and waited”: Sue Gentry, author’s interview.
“We couldn’t believe it”: Ibid.
“What a night”: Truman, Souvenir, 242.
“And all of a sudden”: Jim Rowley, author’s interview.
“his first case of nerves”: Letter from Jerome K. Walsh to Morris J. Ernst, undated, HSTL.
“He just seemed the same old”: Lyman Field, author’s interview.
“He displayed neither tension”: Letter from Jerome K. Walsh to Morris J. Ernst, undated, HSTL.
“Thank you, thank you”: Time, November 8, 1948.
Bankhead telegram: Goulden, 421.
“I think the mistake was”: Clifford, author’s interview.
“shook the bones”: Baltimore Sun, November 7, 1948.
“The farm vote switched”: Thomas Dewey to Henry Luce, undated, L. C.
“You’ve got to give the little man”: Vandenberg, Private Papers, 460.
Taft comment: Steinberg, 332.
Republican Policy Committee Report: December 17, 1948, HSTL.
“Labor Did It”: Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 255.
“The bear got us”: Smith, 543.
“Far from costing Dewey”: Quoted in Phillips, 250–51.
“I couldn’t have been more wrong”: Life, November 15, 1948.
“What’s the matter with that fellow”: The New York Times, November 28, 1948.
“I kept reading”: Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 87.
“But when voting time came”: Ibid.
“the common man’s man”: Life, November 15, 1948.
“It seemed to have been”: Donovan, 438.
“There was personal humiliation”: New Republic, November 15, 1948.
“There has been a danger”: Ayers Diary, November 4, 1948, HSTL.
Luce memo: November 11, 1948, Time-Warner archives.
“His personality was against him”: Henry Luce memorandum, November 5, 1948, Ibid.
“I think the press”: T. S. Matthews memorandum to Henry Luce, November 4, 1948, Ibid.
“Of course, we did not intentionally”: J. J. Thorndike, Jr., memorandum to Henry Luce, November 5, 1948, Ibid.
90 percent of the credit: Hardeman and Bacon, 342.
“You have put over”: George C. Marshall to HST, November 4, 1948, HSTL.
“I think that Harry Truman grew”: Ross, “How Truman Did It.”
“I think Dewey’s whole campaign”: Clifford, author’s interview.
“no desire to crow”: HST to the Washington Post, November 6, 1948, HSTL.
Part Five
15. Iron Man
“Clearly he was conscious”: Washington Evening Star, January 20, 1949.
“his day of days”: Truman, Souvenir, 255.
“It is the President’s desire”: Seale, The President’s House, Vol. II, 1027.
“I have the job”: Washington Post, January 20, 1949; Time, January 31, 1949.
State of the Union message: PP, HST, January 5, 1949, 1.
H. V. Kaltenborn impersonation: Ibid., January 19, 1949, 110.
“I was not in any way elated”: Ibid.
“Wonderful, wonderful”: Washington Post, January 21, 1949.
Battery D reunion: Washington Evening Star, January 20, 1949.
prayer service: Washington Post, January 21, 1949.
inaugural address: PP, HST, January 20, 1949, 112–16.
“How strange”: Washington Evening Star, January 20, 1949.
“The clear sunlight”: The New York Times, January 21, 1949.
“At the reviewing stand”: J. B. West, author’s interview.
“There never was a country”: Payne, Report on America, p. 3.
“The parade was the most fun”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 448.
“the fellow who was having”: Washington Post, January 22, 1949.
“It can almost be stated”: Bohlen, Witness to History, 284.
“fifty percent better”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 527.
“He looks more relaxed”: Ibid., 463–64.
“He was great down in Key West!”: James Rowley, Jr., author’s interview.
“The President is as close to being”: Time, May 16, 1949.
“He won’t take hold”: Lilienthal Journals, Vol. II, 386.
“No commentator”: T
ime, March 7, 1949.
HST fair with Forrestal: Forrestal Diaries, 551.
“The best boss I have ever known”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 345.
“a man who, while he reflects”: Forrestal Diaries, 529.
“the mess we are in”: Eisenhower Diaries, 152–53.
his “baffled” look: Washington Post, January 21, 1949.
Forrestal was insane: Pearson, Diaries, 1949–1959, 42.
“a very sick man”: Krock, Memoirs, 253–57.
Secret Service Report: March 31, 1949, HSTL.
“out of his mind”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 506.
Bess was “terribly shaken”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 346.
25,000 Pentagon employees: Time, June 6, 1949.
“Unwittingly”: Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 503.
“in high good humor”: Time, April 25, 1949.
Cardinal Spellman: Goldman, The Crucial Decade—and After, 130–31.
“Hysteria finally died down”: PP, HST, June 16, 1949, 294.
“The military situation”: Acheson, Present at the Creation, 305.
morning press conference: PP, HST, August 4, 1949, 408.
“The unfortunate but inescapable”: Acheson, 303.
“his general’s stars”: Time, August 22, 1949.
“I do these people a courtesy”: Dunar, The Truman Scandals and the Politics of Morality, 70.
“an expression of friendship”: Time, September 12, 1949.
Was it true, asked McCarthy: Ibid.
“Ross and I”: Ayers Diary, August 12, 1949, HSTL.
“After all I am”: Abel, The Truman Scandals, 42–43.
“I think that Mr. Truman”: Barkley, That Reminds Me, 212.
When Vaughan offered to resign: Dunar, 64.
“a whole box of trouble”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 569.
“as if I frequently found him”: Ibid.
“The President was reading a copy”: Ibid., 570–71.
“I believe the American people”: PP, HST, September 23, 1949, 485.
“We keep saying”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 577.
“this grim thing”: Ibid., 584.
“We can never tell”: HST to EWT, June 29, 1949, in Ferrell, ed., Off the Record, 158.
“Never in my wildest dreams”: HST to EN, September 8, 1949, ibid., 163–64.
rats in the White House: Floyd Boring and Rex Scouten, author’s interviews.
“Very discreet”: West, with Kotz, Upstairs at the White House, 111.
“Had dinner by myself”: HST Diary, November 1, 1949, Off the Record, 168–69.
“a fine man”: HST to Jonathan Daniels, February 26, 1950, unsent, ibid., 174.
“It was a great thing”: Dean Acheson, Oral History, HSTL.
Acheson descriptions: Time, February 28, 1949; The New Yorker, November 12 and 19, 1949; The New York Times, October 13, 1971; Clark Clifford and George Elsey, author’s interviews.
“You owe it to Truman”: Isaacson and Thomas, The Wise Men, 547.
“a peculiar organization”: HST to David H. Morgan, January 28, 1952, Off the Record, 235.
“At lunch at the Capitol”: Acheson, 107.
“You know all of us”: HST to EN, September 24, 1950, Off the Record, 194.
“deeply loving and tender nature”: Sevareid, Conversations with Eric Sevareid, 73.
“Well, this is the kind of person”: Ibid.
“It was good of you to see us off”: HST to Dean Acheson, November 28, 1949, HSTL.
“And then he was so fair”: Sevareid, 74.
“He was not afraid of the competition”: Acheson, 732–33.
“not pretending to be better”: McLellan, Dean Acheson, 19.
“Today you hear much talk”: Ibid., 173–74.
“Acheson is a gentleman”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 565.
“I told Kennan”: McLellan, 176.
“How can you persuade”: Isaacson and Thomas, 487.
“The day will come”: Time, January 23, 1950.
“Today, by the grace of God”: PP, HST, January 4, 1950, 3.
“I should like to make it clear”: Acheson, 360.
“I think anyone who has known”: Ibid.
“This newspaper has felt”: New York Herald-Tribune, January 27, 1950.
“wonderful about it”: Acheson, 360.
“I look at that fellow”: Quoted in Goldman, 125.
“blow them off the face of the earth”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 585.
“Like a patient”: Time, January 30, 1950.
an “atmosphere of excitement”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 628–29.
“eloquently and forcefully”: Acheson, 349.
“We must protect the President”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 630.
he felt he must express: Ibid., 632.
“Can the Russians?”: Quoted in Donovan, Tumultuous Years, 156.
“It is part of my responsibility”: PP, HST, January 31, 1950, 138.
“I hope I was wrong”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 633–34.
“General annihiliation beckons”: Quoted in Goldman, 137.
“How much are we going”: Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, 507.
“The air was so charged”: Block, The Herblock Book, 144.
205 “known communists”: Reeves, Life and Times of Joe McCarthy, 224, 237.
“When this pompous diplomat”: Bernstein and Matusow, eds., The Truman Administration, 407.
“I will not turn my back”: Washington Post, June 25, 1950.
“keep talking and if one case”: Reeves, 263.
“top Russian espionage agent”: Time, April 3, 1950.
“In an age of atomic energy”: Krock, In the Nation: 1932–1966, 145–46.
“One of the happiest sessions”: Lilienthal, Journals, Vol. II, 635.
“You see everybody”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 351.
“What has made me so jittery”: Ibid.
“a ballyhoo artist”: Donovan, 166.
plunged to 37 percent: Time, April 24, 1950.
Little White House press conference: PP, HST, March 30, 1950, 232–38.
Federal Bar Association speech: Ibid, April 24, 1950, 269.
“I think our friend”: Quoted in Donovan, 170.
Maragaret Chase Smith: Acheson, 365.
the “lure in power”: HST Diary, April 16, 1950, Off the Record, 177.
“I am not a candidate”: Ibid.
NSC-68: Acheson, 374.
“bludgeon the mass mind”: Ibid.
“with us for a long, long time”: PP, HST, May 9, 1950, 335.
“a grand visit”: HST to Stanley Woodward, June 24, 1950, Off the Record, 184.
“We would not build”: PP, HST, June 24, 1950.
nation’s worst air disaster: The New York Times, June 25, 1950.
“There are lots of places”: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 25, 1950.
Dean Acheson call: Memoirs, Vol. II, 332.
“My first reaction”: Ibid.
“It would appear”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 334.
“Dad took it”: Truman, Souvenir, 275.
departure so swift: Memoirs, Vol. II, 332.
Bess looking as she had the night FDR died: The New York Times, June 26, 1950.
“By God, I am going to”: Quoted in Donovan, 197.
“I remembered how”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 332–33
Rusk had seen no likelihood of war: Rusk, As I Saw It, 161.
Blair House meeting: Memoirs, Vol. II, 333.
dinner meeting: Smith, “Why We Went to War in Korea,” Saturday Evening Post, November 11, 1950.
a “darkening report”: Acheson, 406.
“a dagger pointed at the heart”: Rusk, 162.
“We must draw the line”: Bradley and Blair, 534–35.
“Underlying these discussions”: Ibid., 535.
“He pulled all the conferees together”: The New York Times, June 28, 1950.
“I thought we were still holding”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 335.
“the complete, almost unspoken”: Ibid., 334.
“so as not to give him too much”: Bradley and Blair, 536.
“It was our idea”: Donovan, 199.
“as Hermann Goering”: Jenkins, Truman, 164.
“Our estimate is that a complete collapse”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 337.
adding “not yet”: Department of State Memorandum for the Secretary, June 30, 1950, HSTL.
“We had no war plan”: Bradley and Blair, 539.
“Everything I have done”: Phillips, The Truman Presidency, 289.
“Too little, too late”: Washington Post, June 27, 1950.
“The attack upon Korea”: PP, HST, June 27, 1950, 492.
“Although the President”: Alsop, “Why Has Washington Gone Crazy?”, Saturday Evening Post, July 29, 1950.
“These are days”: Washington Post, June 28, 1950.
“We’ll have a dozen Koreas”: Eisenhower Diaries, 175.
“You may be a whiskey guzzling poker playing”: Harry Abel to HST, June 27, 1950, HSTL.
“I have lived and worked”: Time, July 10, 1950.
“We are not at war”: PP, HST, June 29, 1950, 504.
“The only assurance for holding”: MacArthur, Reminiscences, 334.
“Must be careful not to cause”: HST Diary, June 30, 1950, Off the Record, 185.
“Now, your job as President”: Sevareid, 74.
“Memo to Dean Acheson”: Acheson, 415.
16. Commander in Chief
“There was nothing passive”: Elsey, “Memoir: Some White House Recollections, 1942–1953,” Diplomatic History, Summer 1988.
“This is the Greece”: Quoted in Phillips, The Truman Presidency, 297.
“walk with the weary man’s”: Time, July 10, 1950.
Bradley meeting with HST: Time, August 21, 1950.
“The size of the attack”: PP, HST, July 19, 1950, 538.
as if a few troops of Boy Scouts: Ridgway, The Korean War, 17.
“Guys, sweat soaked”: Knox, The Korean War, Pusan to Chosin, 71.
“What a place to die”: New York Herald-Tribune, July 6, 1950.
Acheson, however, disagreed: Acheson, Present at the Creation, 414.
“Later when Robert Taft”: Heller, The Truman White House, 13.
HST said he would “back out”: Memoirs, Vol. II, 340.
her father’s anguish: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 357.
telegrams and letters to White House: White House Correspondence File, HSTL.
“The influence of Louis Johnson”: Joseph Alsop, author’s interview.
July 14 meeting: Acheson, 421.
Truman Page 143