The Accidental President
Page 46
“I thought Wheeler”: Harry S. Truman to Bess W. Truman, August 10, 1940, FBPAP:FCF, box 11, Truman Papers.
“fateful,” for it was: Truman, Harry S. Truman, p. 138.
“I am introducing”: Harry S. Truman, speech on the Senate floor, Congressional Record, February 10, 1940.
“Guns, planes, ships”: Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Great Arsenal of Democracy,” American Rhetoric: The Top 100 Speeches, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrarsenalofdemocracy.html.
“probably signifies the entry”: Truman, Congressional Record, February 10, 1940.
“aircraft factories in San Diego”: Ibid.
“Come in,” Truman said: Oral history interview, Matthew J. Connelly, pp. 2–3, Truman Library.
“a big fat fellow”: Daniels, Man of Independence, p. 224.
“a man who could look”: Oral history interview, Wilbur D. Sparks, p. 106, Truman Library.
“There is no substitute”: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: 1945; Year of Decisions (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1955), p. 168.
“If our plans for military”: “Billions Waste on Arms Charged,” Chicago Tribune, August 15, 1941.
“Hugh was a brilliant”: Oral history interview, Robert L. Irvin, p. 39, Truman Library.
“It was very widely seized”: Connelly oral history, p. 21.
“This is Roy Webb”: Truman’s account of his day on December 7, 1941, from H. S. Truman to Mary Ethel Noland, December 14, 1941, Mary Ethel Noland Papers, box 1, Truman Library. Dialogue is from “How the President Remembers Pearl Harbor,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1951.
“Vice President . . . Mr. Speaker”: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Day of Infamy speech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bmYwEFWLI.g.
“To thousands”: “Truman Report Wins Author Popularity,” Washington Post, March 8, 1942.
“My committee has had”: Truman, Harry S. Truman, p. 144.
“He’s so damn afraid”: H. S. Truman to B. W. Truman, December 21, 1941, FBPAP:FCF, box 12.
“He had tremendous personal”: Irvin oral history, p. 59.
“had served as watchdog”: “Billion-Dollar Watchdog,” Time, March 8, 1943.
Chapter 11
“beating too fast”: Physician notes, April 19, 1943, Truman Papers, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/militarypersonnelfile/display/index.php?documentid=RG407nlhst-359&documentVersion=both.
126/86: Ibid.
“He works under a great deal”: Ibid.
“I just always had”: Oral history interview, Shirley Key Hehmeyer, p. 29, Truman Library.
“Dad has been through”: Bess W. Truman to Margaret Truman, n.d., Bess W. Truman Papers, box 88, Truman Library.
“Something’s going on”: Oral history interview, Matthew J. Connelly, p. 75, Truman Library.
SECRETARY OF WAR: “Hello”: Transcript from Henry Lewis Stimson Papers, microfilm roll 127, Yale University Library.
“the lunatic fringe”: Thomas H. Ferrell, Choosing Truman: The Democratic Convention of 1944 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), p. 33.
only one in fifty Democratic voters: “Wallace Gets 4–1 Indorsement [sic] in Gallup Poll,” Boston Globe, July 19, 1944.
“You are not nominating”: Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 237.
“Truman will nominate”: Tom Connally, as told to Alfred Steinberg, My Name Is Tom Connally (New York: Thomas W. Crowell, 1954), p. 268.
“the ‘White House’ has decided”: Allen Drury, A Senate Journal: 1943–1945 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 210.
“in charge of that war”: Ferrell, Choosing Truman, p. 7.
“I hardly know Truman”: Ibid.
“Now, Bob”: Conversation according to Edwin Pauley, who was in the room, oral history interview, Edwin W. Pauley, p. 20, Truman Library.
“Boys, I guess it’s Truman”: Ferrell, Choosing Truman, p. 102, footnote 28.
“Truman just dropped into”: Jonathan Daniels, “How Truman Got to Be President,” Look, August 1, 1950.
“Roosevelt was ducking”: Pauley oral history, p. 23.
“Harry,” said Hannegan: Daniels, “How Truman Got to Be President.”
“I’m looking at the other”: Ferrell, Choosing Truman, p. 53.
“What are you doing”: Oral history interview, Tom L. Evans, p. 434, Truman Library.
“Well, I don’t want to drag”: Ibid., pp. 335–35a.
“Dear Bob [Hannegan]”: Ferrell, Choosing Truman, p. 81.
“I have been associated with”: “Wallace Left to Delegates by Roosevelt,” New York Times, July 18, 1944.
The Washington Post was saying: Ibid.
Wallace was “out”: “Capital Sees Wallace ‘Out’ as Nominee,” Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1944.
“prominently in the advance”: “Wallace Left to Delegates.”
“Frank, go all out”: Ferrell, Presidential Leadership: From Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman (Columbia: University of Missouri Press), p. 124.
Chapter 12
“In the room was a number”: Oral history interview, Tom L. Evans, p. 355, Truman Library.
“Whenever Roosevelt used”: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: 1945; Year of Decisions (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1955), p. 192.
“Bob,” Roosevelt said: Ibid.
“Well, I just think”: Evans oral history, p. 356.
“I’ll do it”: Ibid.
“I’ve just told the president”: Ibid.
“one who is endowed”: Democratic National Convention newsreel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfbUYkLm67k.
“You seem to be”: Conversation from “President Favors Truman, Douglas,” New York Times, July 21, 1944.
“We want Wallace!”: DNC newsreel.
“To say the place became”: Oral history interview, Edwin W. Pauley, p. 30, Truman Library.
“bedlam broke out”: Oral history interview, Neale Roach, p. 24, Truman Library online.
“Stop that organ!”: Ibid., p. 25.
“By the authority”: Pauley oral history, p. 33.
“high pitch of excitement”: “Second Place Race Sets Session Afire,” New York Times, July 22, 1944.
HITLER EXECUTES PLOTTERS!: “Hitler Executes Plotters!” Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1944.
“extemporaneously”: “Second Place Race.”
“all the qualities”: Ibid.
“I reveled in the pandemonium”: Margaret Truman, Bess W. Truman (New York: Macmillan, 1986), p. 230.
“Mother was barely able”: Ibid.
“There being 1,176”: DNC newsreel.
“Will the next Vice President”: Thomas H. Ferrell, Choosing Truman: The Democratic Convention of 1944 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), p. 89.
“By golly,” he said: Ibid.
“help shorten the war”: DNC newsreel.
“I don’t know what else”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: William Morrow, 1973), p. 182.
“We were blinded”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, p. 231.
“Are we going to have to”: Ibid.
“Few people can hate”: Allen Drury, A Senate Journal: 1943–1945 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 219.
“How does it feel”: Conversation from “Truman Campaign Up to President,” New York Times, July 22, 1944.
“I never have and I never”: “Bess Truman Leaves Politics to Her Husband,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 22, 1944.
Chapter 13
“It was obvious sincerity”: Oral history interview, Walter Hehmeyer, p. 84, Truman Library.
“This is the kind of man”: Ibid.
“the Missouri Compromise”: Drew Pearson, “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” July 28, 1944, Washington Post.
“He is no great campaigner”: “Missouri Compromise,” Christian Science Monitor, July 22, 1944.
“Poor Harry Truman”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Touchstone, 1993), p. 320.
“I would rather have”: “Mrs. Truman
, 91, Wanted Son to Stay in Senate,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 22, 1944.
“He did not want it”: “Truman’s Mother Prefers Son in Senate Post,” Atlanta Constitution, July 22, 1944.
“You’d have thought I was”: Harry S. Truman to Bess W. Truman, August 18, 1944, FBPAP:FCF, box 14, Truman Papers.
“One of us has to stay”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: William Morrow, 1973), p. 186.
“the flash light newspaper”: Harry S. Truman to Margaret Truman, August 18, 1944, reprinted in ibid., pp. 184–85.
“You know,” Truman said: Oral history interview, Harry H. Vaughan, p. 77, Truman Library.
“What do I know about politics?”: Oral history interview, Matthew Connelly, p. 102, Truman Library.
“Nobody knew whether or not”: Oral history interview, Edward D. McKim, p. 117, Truman Library.
“His voice is good but”: Allen Drury, A Senate Journal: 1943–1945 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 246.
“one of the most amazing”: “Truman’s Story That of Average American Citizen,” Boston Daily Globe, July 23, 1944.
“There will be no time”: “Truman Tells Voters to Shun Inexperience,” Washington Post, September 1, 1944.
“Payroll Bess”: “Bess Truman Is Dead at 97,” New York Times, October 18, 1982.
“Meet Truman, Pendergast’s”: “Meet Truman, Pendergast’s Oiler of Roads,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 13, 1944.
“Truman Reign in County”: “Truman Reign in County an Epic of Waste,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 14, 1944.
“Jonathan was worried”: George E. Allen, Presidents Who Have Known Me (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 145.
“It shook the whole universe”: Oral history interview, Tom L. Evans, p. 412, Truman Library.
“We are unalterably opposed”: Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 126.
“Ask yourself if you want”: “Truman Welcomed by His Home Town,” New York Times, November 5, 1944.
“Everybody around here”: “Truman Plays Paderewski as Missouri Slips,” Boston Daily Globe, November 8, 1944.
“Wow,” Truman said: Ibid.
“[Truman] told me that the last”: Oral history interview, Harry Easley, pp. 98–99, Truman Library.
“Hon. Harry S. Truman”: Franklin D. Roosevelt to Truman, November 8, 1944, PPF:6337, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY.
The Marine Band played: “Program of the Ceremonies Attending the Inauguration,” Alonzo Fields Papers, box 1, Truman Library.
“We have learned to be”: “Roosevelt’s Inaugural Address Text,” Washington Post, January 21, 1945.
“I suddenly found myself”: Truman, Harry S. Truman, p. 195.
“Jimmy, I can’t take this”: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt; The Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 573.
“Now you behave yourself”: “Truman Memoirs: Part 3,” Life, October 10, 1955.
“I’ve got some bad news”: Conversation from oral history interview, Matthew J. Connelly, p. 117, Truman Library.
“Do the suicides mean”: “Timeline: The War in the Pacific,” on website for Victory in the Pacific, WGBH American Experience, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/victory/%3Fflavour%3Dmobile.
“We now have ample proof”: Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977), p. 12.
“He never regarded the new”: Oral history interview, Thomas C. Blaisdell, p. 63, Truman Library.
“I was custodian”: William M. Rigdon, White House Sailor (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), p. 183.
“The second office”: Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (New York: Random House, 2013), p. 305.
Chapter 14
“Come on in, Tony”: Truman, President’s Memorandum, April 13, 1945, Eben A. Ayers Papers, box 10, Truman Library. Also: “Truman Says He’ll Miss Visits by ‘Buddies,’” Washington Post, April 14, 1945.
“You know, if I could”: “Truman Says He’ll Miss Visits.”
“My,” Truman said, smiling: “Party Lines Yield as New President Consults Leaders,” Atlanta Constitution, April 14, 1945.
“No, nothing beyond what”: Ibid.
“Men stood mob-thick”: Jonathan Daniels, Frontier on the Potomac (New York: Macmillan, 1946), p. 25.
“It was an amazing day”: Oral history interview, Jonathan Daniels, p. 58, Truman Library.
“as if he were testing”: Jonathan Daniels, The Man of Independence (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1971), p. 27.
“They were confused”: Oral history interview, Matthew J. Connelly, p. 127, Truman Library.
“I had no idea”: Oral history interview, Eben A. Ayers, p. 10, Truman Library.
“I was frightened to death”: Oral history interview, Reathel Odum, p. 44, Truman Library.
“Well, Mr. President,” McKim said, “it doesn’t”: Conversation from oral history interview, Edward D. McKim, p. 125, Truman Library.
“No man ever came”: “The Task of President Truman,” Los Angeles Times, April 14, 1945.
“almost superhuman task”: “President Truman,” Wall Street Journal, April 13, 1945.
“Riding to work this morning”: Diary of Arthur Vandenberg, excerpted in Arthur Vandenberg, Jr., ed., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), p. 167.
“No Alexander, or Caesar”: “Remarks of Mr. Justice Jackson,” April 13, 1945, PPF, box 8, Truman Papers.
he latest War Department figures: “U.S. Army Casualties,” “U.S. Navy Casualties” [includes Marines and Coast Guard], April 14, 1945, figures as of March 31, 1945, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers, microfilm reel 112, Yale University Library.
“Every single man, woman, and child”: Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Great Arsenal of Democracy,” “American Rhetoric: The Top 100 Speeches, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrarsenalofdemocracy.html.
In one factory, situated: Much of this paragraph from A. J. Baime, The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).
“the country of machines”: Ibid., p. 257.
“I have seen a great many”: Ed Cray, General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (New York: Cooper Square, 2000), foreword.
“One cannot yet see”: Henry H. Adams, Witness to Power: The Life of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1985), p. 280.
“Take as long as you want”: The Diaries of Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., 1943–1946, eds. Thomas M. Campbell and George C. Herring (New York: New Viewpoints, 1975), p. 317.
“I have decided that”: Ibid.
“Do you wish me to take”: Ibid., p. 318.
“They were brief”: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: 1945; Year of Decisions (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1955), p. 17.
“favorable”: Diary of Henry L. Stimson, April 13, 1945, Henry Lewis Stimson Papers, Yale University Library.
“bush leaguer”: Adams, Witness to Power, p. 282.
“I want you to do the same”: Conversation from William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950), pp. 347–48.
At exactly 12:15 p.m.: Presidential Movement Logs, box 1, Records of the U.S. Secret Service, Truman Library.
“Biffle’s Tavern”: Description of this meeting in Truman, President’s Memorandum, April 13, 1945.
“It shattered all tradition”: Vandenberg, Private Papers, p. 167.
“It means that the days”: Ibid.
“[A] president who didn’t have”: Harry S. Truman, Speech on Presidential Power, May 8, 1954, printed in The Power of the Presidency: Concepts and Controve
rsy, ed. Robert S. Hirschfield (New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine Transaction, 2012), p. 118.
“Our swan song”: Vandenberg, Private Papers, p. 167.
“I am coming and prepare for it”: Truman, President’s Memorandum, April 13, 1945.
“terrible job”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Touchstone, 1993), p. 353.
“I’m not big enough”: Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977), p. 15.
“Well, isn’t this nice”: Conversation from Allen Drury, A Senate Journal: 1943–1945 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 413.
“We had called him Harry”: Oral history interview, Jack L. Bell, p. 34, Truman Library.
“I don’t know if any of you fellows”: “President Asks Aid, Prayers from Nation,” Daily Boston Globe, April 14, 1945
“If newspapermen ever pray”: “New President’s First Day on Job Is Crowded One,” Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1945
“If I can be of service”: Francis X. Winters, Remember Hiroshima: Was It Just? (London: Taylor & Francis/Ashgate, 2009), p. 173.
“everything under the sun”: Truman, President’s Memorandum, April 13, 1945.
“practically jumped down”: Margaret Truman, Harry S. Truman (New York: William Morrow, 1973), p. 218.
“With great solemnity”: Truman, Memoirs, p. 11.
“the bomb might well put us”: Ibid., p. 87.
“deteriorated”: Campbell and Herring, Diaries of Edward R. Stettinius, p. 318.
“I had not met Truman”: Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History: 1929–1969 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), p. 212.
“For the Soviets,” Bohlen: Ibid., p. 188.
“He gave me the impression”: Description of this meeting in Truman, President’s Memorandum, April 13, 1945. Quotes from Campbell and Herring, Diaries of Edward R. Stettinius, p. 318.
“In speaking of President Roosevelt”: W. Averell Harriman to Harry S. Truman, April 13, 1945, SMOF:MRF, box 1, Truman Papers.
“There are . . . urgent problems”: Harry S. Truman to Winston S. Churchill, April 13, 1945, SMOF:MRF, box 2, Truman Papers.
Chapter 15
“We have an army”: Diary of Margaret Truman, April 13, 1945, Margaret Truman Papers, box 13, Truman Library.