Affection and Trust: The Personal Correspondence of Harry S. Truman and Dean Acheson, 1953-1971

by David McCullough

  “Foster” is John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State. Eisenhower promised during the campaign that he would bring an end to the Korean War, and Acheson is worried about how he will go about keeping that pledge. Acheson was probably concerned that anxiety for peace might prompt Eisenhower to make unwarranted concessions to North Korea.

  The clipping enclosed with this letter is probably Robert Waithman’s article, “The Lion Hearted: A Salute and Farewell,” News Chronicle, January 17, 1953, which says this: “As for Dean Acheson, a man of scholarship and grace, he was venomously abused by some of his countrymen: he was the object of the cruelest campaign of vilification in modern American memory. We shall remember him in the earlier days, when his irony and eloquence established a wonderful bond between him and the State Department correspondents; and in the later days, when under ferocious and unreasoned political assault he retired into himself, still patient and more resolute than ever, but with the sunlight gone. In these days one after another of the Democratic Party men fell silent, fearing to defend Acheson. But not Mr. Truman. Never once did he equivocate or withdraw an ounce of his support. And Mr. Acheson repaid him with a respect and devotion which it was a most moving thing to observe. A great play should be written, one of these days, around the story of the unblemished and fateful association of these wholly dissimilar men.”

  April 6, 1953

  Dear Mr. President,

  Your good letter reached me just before we started home from the West Indies and read of you starting off for your Pacific holiday. Averill came here for lunch last week and made us very homesick by his account of a day’s journey with you and Mrs. Truman and Margaret, on your way to the coast. We earnestly hope that Mrs. Truman’s hand, which she wrote Alice about and which Averill says was still bothering her, is better and on the mend.

  We are most eager to see all of you. I hear rumor to the effect that you might possibly be taking an apartment in N.Y. in connection with your work on the book, etc., and spend some time there off and on. This would be a great break for your eastern friends, but you will have to discipline us vigorously if you are to get a great deal of work done. It would, I should think, be useful to you to get a different point of view from time to time and see a lot of people without publicity.

  The enclosed clipping was written by a good Englishman and so impressed me that I wrote for a copy of it for you. I hope it will please you. He has gotten a view of you which I have seen so often and delight to think and talk about.

  Alice and I are loafing at the farm through April and then go back to the law again. I most earnestly hope that Foster and Ike do not appease the Chinese communists to get a truce in Korea. As you know so well, we could always have had a truce on their terms. This new offer does not seem very glamorous to me.

  Our most affectionate greetings to all the Trumans.

  As ever,

  Dean

  Truman started a tradition with this birthday telegram, sent on Acheson’s sixtieth birthday.

  April 11, 1953

  HONORABLE DEAN ACHESON

  CONGRATULATIONS ON ANOTHER MILESTONE. MRS. TRUMAN AND MARGARET JOIN ME IN BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

  HARRY S TRUMAN

  Acheson is upset over the misdeeds of the Eisenhower administration. He is concerned about the firing of his close State Department colleague Paul Nitze. He is also referring to Secretary Dulles’s practice of dismissing senior staff who had served in the Truman administration. The Wilson he refers to is Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson. Acheson encloses two articles, by Drew Pearson and John O’Donnell, who had once tormented the Truman administration but were now writing negatively about Eisenhower and his advisers.

  Acheson recalls Truman’s concern for his older daughter Mary, who suffered from tuberculosis. When Acheson was traveling on State Department business, Truman would call the hospital to get news of Mary and give Acheson daily reports.

  “The farm” was the Achesons’ farm, Harewood, in Sandy Spring, Maryland, just outside Washington, where they went frequently to escape the city. Mrs. Acheson, an accomplished artist, painted while her husband gardened, wrote letters, or made furniture.

  April 14, 1953

  Dear Mr. President:

  The message from you, Mrs. Truman, and Margaret, as I came around the bend into the seventh decade, touched me and delighted me more than I can ever tell you. It brought back all your kindness and thoughtfulness through so many years. Alice and I shall never forget how you and Mrs. Truman shared with us all our worries for Mary when she was so very ill in 1950.

  Well, I am a spry and very lazy lad of sixty summers. After nearly three months off, the very thought of work is repulsive to me. That is, work in an office. Out here on the farm Alice has me painting the porch furniture, plowing the garden, wheel barrowing manure for her roses, building a new wood fence and taking the grandchildren down to the next farm to see horses, cattle, pigs, and puppies. Aside from that I just lie around all day.

  I am also getting pretty steamed up about the way the pupils whom you had us teach so carefully are really fouling things up. Two samples are enclosed of men, who used to spend their time making our lives hard, now having a field day with our successors.

  So far it seems to me that the worst side of the whole thing has been the terrible retrogression which has taken place in the processes of government and in dealing with the personnel of government. Ike is presiding over something which is corruptive on a really grand scale.

  The folly of his supporting Senators and Congressmen who would cut his throat if elected one could put down to total lack of experience in politics and in government. But the studied appeasement of the Hill which is now going on at the expense of the best civil servants we have—certainly in State—is not only criminal but frightening in what it may mean regarding the quality of advice which the Secretary of State, and ultimately, the President, will receive. Just last week Dulles has separated Paul Nitze, the head of the State Policy Planning Staff, who did, as you remember, such fine work on that NSC series under which the rearmament took place and under which Ike himself operated in Europe. I understand that he is being sacrificed to the Hill demand that all who worked with me be changed or fired, and that he may be picked up again by Wilson in Defense.

  This seems to me plain cowardice and utter folly. Ike knows better than this. He would never tolerate it for the uniformed members of the armed services. But it is the established policy for all the civilian departments—the exact opposite of everything which you tried to and did bring about.

  This brings me to your book, as I long to see it. A book to show how good government is carried on at all levels from the county to the White House. And it is not the way things are being done now.

  But I should not disturb your vacation in the quarrelsome way. It is the first time I have blown up in months.

  Alice joins me in the most affectionate greetings to Mrs. Truman and Margaret and to yourself.

  Most sincerely,

  Dean

  Although Truman was relaxing on Coconut Island when he wrote this letter, he still worried about what a new former President of the United States should make of the rest of his life. “The ‘Boss’ ” is, in this letter and always in Truman’s correspondence, Mrs. Truman. “Gov. King” is Samuel Wilder King, the territorial governor of Hawaii. He was the delegate of Hawaii to the United States Congress when Truman was a senator, and Mrs. Truman apparently knew Mrs. King from this past time. The 74th Club was made up of congressional wives. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, soon to be named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was at this time high commissioner of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. “Old man Costello” is probably Frank Costello, a Democratic Party boss from New York City. “C in C” means “Commander in Chief.” William Seward was Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. “Mr. Republican” probably refers to Robert A. Taft, senior senator from Ohio.

  A
pril 18, 1953

  Dear Dean:

  Your letter was highly appreciated because it is a good letter and because it bolstered my ego! The “Boss” says I already have too much of that commodity and it needs no outside cultivation. Sometimes I’m not so sure.

  We’ve had a grand time here if you can call it a grand time to attain a bad case of Hawaiian fever. It is a worse disease than Mexican Mañana but not so bad as Potomac.

  Our first social affair was dinner with Gov. King last Thursday evening. It was a beautiful affair in two sections—the past sixties in the State dining room and the under thirties in the garden. You’ve been there and know what a lovely place it is. It is suffering from the same debility that affected the White House. The legislators won’t furnish the money to rebuild the house. Mrs. King says it will fall down some day. Termites are its trouble. I told her that you and I had trouble with termites in Congress and that Ike seemed to have more of them. She agreed. She and Mrs. T. were in the 74th Club, so we had no political trouble whatever.

  Had lunch with Adm. Radford Friday and reviewed the Marine Battalion and Air Force right across the bay from here Saturday morning. The old Marine Lt. Gen. gave me the 21 guns when I appeared. He’s from Alabama and his wife is the daughter of old man Costello, who was national committeeman from D.C. when F.D.R. was elected in 1932. I told them that 21 guns for a private in the citizen ranks was going pretty far. Reply was that they wished they had a civilian C in C now!

  What shall I do? Been going over a book on what former Presidents did in times past. Maybe I can get some ideas.

  Well, the end of the vacation is approaching all too fast but I’m anxious to see and talk to you and some of my other good friends. It looks as if Acheson will be appreciated much sooner than Seward was. I guess if the Fates had us by the hand maybe Ike and Snollygoster [a favorite Truman word, meaning an unprincipled, unscrupulous person] Dulles will help. I read a review of an article by Mr. Republican in Look. “Looks” as if he’s badly scared, if the review is correct. It makes me want to keep stiller than ever. We just don’t need to say a word. Events are taking care of things.

  I wish you and Mrs. Acheson were here. What a time we could have! I am hoping to see you not too long after I return so we can discuss things as “nonpartisan” onlookers. Won’t that be something.

  Bess and Margie join me in the best of everything to you and your family.

  Sincerely,

  Harry Truman

  Truman was upset about Eisenhower too. His and Acheson’s letters would often come back to the theme of Eisenhower’s poor leadership.

  April 24, 1953

  Dear Dean:

  I certainly did appreciate your letter of the 14th, very, very much. I am sure you do not feel a bit older by being sixty. You are not yet living on borrowed time; in one more year, I will start on that program.

  I know just how you feel about going back to work. I hate to see next Tuesday come, when we will be leaving this vacation Paradise.

  I am in complete agreement with you about the way our successors are acting. I do not see how it is possible to get things in such a mess as they have succeeded in doing in ninety days. It looks as if the President is giving all his prerogatives away and it will probably in the end appear to be just as well to have a British Legislative Government, although I do not think our country was cut out for that kind of a Government.

  I am going to try to arrange that forthcoming book of mine so that we can show what really makes good Government and why it is necessary to have a policy and a program and the nerve to try to put it into effect.

  I read the enclosed clippings with a lot of interest.

  Tell Mrs. Acheson not to work you too hard; I am afraid she will set a bad example and I, myself, will get into trouble.

  All of us join in the best of everything to you and Mrs. Acheson.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry S. Truman

  The reference to “McCarthy” is to Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, the author of periodic accusations of communist sympathy in the Truman State Department. Acheson mentions “the Yale board”—i.e., the Yale Corporation, the governing body of the university. “Mr. Republican” is again Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio. “Senator Bush of Connecticut” was Prescott Bush, father and grandfather of two Presidents.

  May 2, 1953

  Dear Mr. President:

  Just a note to welcome you home and to wish you the first of many, many free and happy birthdays. Free, because you will not [have] the terrible burdens and responsibilities which you have carried so long and so gallantly. Happy, because you can always know that you performed above and beyond the call of duty. The years before us will bring to all our American people an increasing realization of what they received from you in leadership and steadiness and a human understanding of all the thousands of problems which people in our country have to worry with every day. All of them in a real sense came into your study every day and unloaded these worries on your shoulders. And you picked up the problems and worked them out. You have great causes for peace of mind and spirit and confidence that you have done all in the evil day.

  I am delighted that the Hawaiian holiday was so good and restful for all three of you. Your two good letters of April 18th and 24th breathe all your gay spirits when you are rested and loaded for bear. It was a great joy to read and reread them. Your old Marine General who gave you the 21 gun is a man after my own heart. If he were in the State Department, they would probably retire him or send him to Addis Ababa. But the military have a stronger position for which we should be—and I am—grateful.

  Alice and I go back to work on Monday—when my address will be 701 Union Trust Building, Washington 4, D.C. We have just had a delightful visit from our Milwaukee daughter, Jane (Mrs. Dudley Brown), who keeps the flag flying in the heart of the McCarthy country and has all the flaming loyalties and prejudices which make a first class human being. She came on to get her batteries recharged, and we all had a great time in the process. She says that all her friends who voted for McCarthy are ashamed but still uneducated. So she returns to the fray with new vigor.

  I am most eager to see you and get your views and guidance. My next week-end (May 8, 9, 10) I spend at New Haven, where I have taken up again my duties on the Yale board—along with Mr. Republican and Senator Bush of Connecticut, and fortunately some others. Whenever you are ready for some talk I shall be glad to be available. It is easy to get to New York should you be coming on. It is not a problem to get to Kansas City should you wish to see me there. I am quite sure that you will have lots of work to occupy you when you get home again. But when the time comes that I can be of any use, you have only to tell me when and where.

  Alice asks me to get a report from you about Mrs. Truman’s hand. She has worried about it and hopes that the Pacific vacation has been what was needed. She and I send our most affectionate greetings to Mrs. Truman, Margaret and to you.

  Again the best of all birthdays.

  Most warmly,

  Dean

  Truman shares some thoughts about the development of historical understanding. “Our great General” is President Eisenhower. Joe Brown is probably a Kansas City friend with whom Truman sometimes had lunch at the exclusive, and mostly Republican, Kansas City Club. The “All Slops” and “the man who spells Lipp with two p’s” are columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop and Walter Lippmann. Truman also makes some unguarded comments about notorious Washington socialite Evelyn Walsh McLean, and about prominent journalist Dorothy Thompson. “His boy” could be John Eisenhower, General Eisenhower’s son.

  May 25, 1953

  Dear Dean:

  I have been doing some long range thinking and studying about the future, wondering what the effect of the misrepresentation of facts will be on the history of things.

  Evidently you and I have the pathological liars worried. I’ve seen some Soviet propaganda sheets charging you with certain high crimes and misdemeanors and ch
arging me with murder, rape and arson, all of which has been approved by certain Senate and House Committees.

  Our great General, whom you, Roosevelt and I built up to the skies, is about to come down with a dull thud and the apologentia must have a noise to muffle that thud. You and I are the most likely victims. Well, we’ve licked them time and again and we’ll do it for history.

  I saw Joe Brown yesterday and he said he’d had a fine visit with you. He is a great admirer of yours.

  I’m about to get started on the book. Wish I hadn’t signed a contract! I’m getting Mexican or Hawaiian or something lazy in the head. But since this job needs to be done I might as well do it. I expect to stick strictly to the facts and to outline my views on free government gained from experience.

  I hope I can do it. May I call on you from time to time for verification of various controversial points?

  It looks as if the All Slops and the man who spells Lipp with two p’s are in some mental misery. The only man who’s been substantially right all the time is Tom Stokes. Did you ever hear Evelyn Walsh McLain’s [sic] comment on Dorothy Thompson? She said Dorothy was the only woman she knew who could menstruate in public and get away with it and did! What a gal Evelyn was. She called the boss one night about 12 o’clock and told her all about Ike’s feminine affairs in Europe and said she’d sent his boy over to straighten Ike out. But such language. Captain Billy Hayes never had a vocabulary like that!

  The vacation did us all a lot of good and made me lazy as hell. I am coming to Washington the week of June 22 and will hope to see you.

  Mrs. T. joins me in the best there is to you and Mrs. Acheson. (She hasn’t read this letter!)

  Sincerely,

  Harry Truman

  Acheson finds much to worry about. “Ike’s abdication” refers to Truman’s and Acheson’s feeling that Eisenhower did not have a firm hand on the country’s helm. “Bob Taft” is Republican Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio. James E. Webb was director of the Bureau of the Budget and Undersecretary of State during the Truman Administration, and J. Lister Hill was a senator from Alabama.