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

by David McCullough

  May 28, 1953

  Dear Mr. President,

  The well known envelope with your name in the corner and your handwriting on it lying on our hall table always quickens my heart. Yesterday’s letter was no exception. It was a delight in itself and because it brought the good news, which I shall treat as confidential until I see it released, that you will be here in the week of June 22 and that I shall see you. You must let me know when you will arrive so that I can have again the joy of meeting you as you step off the train. Will Mrs. Truman come with you?

  Alice and I are overjoyed to do anything which will make your visit more enjoyable. We should love to have you stay with us, being emboldened by the knowledge that you do not like air conditioning which we do not have. But we can also understand that you will wish to see many people and that the anonymity of a hotel might be more useful for you and your callers. If so, perhaps Mrs. Truman might wish to escape from your meetings to our house. We can arrange a dinner either at P Street or in the country. Let us know at your convenience and we shall do the rest. Most of all we must have some talk.

  What you say about the Great General is frighteningly true. I had a letter from a friend who writes: “I am anxious and worried increasingly from day to day as that fumbling silence in the White House seeps out over the country like a cold fog over a river bed where no stream runs.” Ike’s abdication has given us that Congressional government, directionless and feeble, which de Tocqueville feared would result from the Constitution. And it comes at the very time when your policy of building strength and unity would have paid great dividends as the Russians ran into the period of weakness and division which the succession to Stalin inevitably created. You remember that we used to say that in a tight pinch we could generally rely on some fool play of the Russians to pull us through. Now that is being exactly reversed. They now have, as invaluable allies, division, weakness and folly. As an example of the latter Bob Taft’s latest thinking aloud should get a special prize. It gives one doubt as to his state of mental responsibility.

  And it is not only Congressional government, which must always fail because it cannot provide an executive, but Congressional government by the most ignorant, irresponsible and anarchistic elements—anarchistic because their result, if not their aim, is to destroy government and popular confidence in it.

  I think that you are quite right that you and I are very likely to be in for another period of attack and vilification. This is also Jim Webb’s opinion based upon the belief that Taft will turn McCarthy loose on us sufficiently before the 1954 election to provide distraction, to revive suspicion of the democrats and to get sufficient right wing republicans to free the administration from the need for democratic support and to give Taft the kind of Republican majority which would insist on a policy which Taft would control, and which would make Ike the captive of the right wing. But as you say we have won many fights in the past and need not fear others in the future. It is, none the less, a distasteful waste of time and effort.

  As to the book, I shall, of course, be delighted to help in any way you think I can be useful. Call on me whenever you think best.

  Lister Hill called me this morning to ask me to meet with a group of Democratic senators to talk about foreign policy on June 8. Unfortunately I have to be in New Haven on that day but said that I would be available at almost any other time. He will let me know. I think the time may be coming when they should keep the record clear that the Administration’s words and its acts are not going along the same track, and that the conduct of foreign policy is not a mere matter of words.

  I was amused this morning to read the man “who spells Lip with two p’s” tell the world how successful were the policies of the past four years. He can’t remember who the people were who did these things. The lady you refer to was a fabulous creature. It used to disgust me to see how people who should have known better used to fawn and prey upon her at the same time.

  Alice sends her love to Mrs. Truman. We are looking forward to seeing, I hope, both of you very soon.

  Most sincerely,

  Dean

  Charles S. Murphy was Truman’s special counsel during the latter years of his presidency. The library luncheons Truman mentions were fund-raising events for his presidential library, which was still in the planning stage.

  June 8, 1953

  Dear Dean:

  I have been quite some time answering your letter and this is not to be considered an answer to it, but merely to inform you of what developments are.

  It looks now as if Mrs. Truman and I will drive to Washington. Will probably arrive there on the 22nd and will be there the 23rd, 24th and 25th. Charlie Murphy tells me that arrangements have been made for me to see everybody and I am certainly anxious to have a chance to sit down and talk with you on the situation as it is.

  Mrs. Truman and I certainly appreciate your invitation to come to the house but when the staff boys found out I was coming they seem to have filled up every day with something for me to do and I have had little or no control of it. I am enclosing copy of the schedule they have made out for me.

  I have to go to Philadelphia on the 26th and New York on the 27th. I am having a Library luncheon in Philadelphia on the 26th and a Library luncheon in New York on the 29th. Averell says he wants to have a luncheon for some Democrats in New York on either the 30th of June or the first of July—then I must start back home.

  We will stop at the Mayflower in Washington and the Waldorf in New York.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry S Truman

  That letter sounds like hell when I read it—but I’ll make it look and sound better when I see you. I’m still helpless without an appointment sec.

  On June 19, 1953, Truman and Mrs. Truman set off by car for Washington, D.C., and New York. They soon learned that a former President could not easily stay incognito while pumping gas, eating at roadside restaurants, and staying in motels. Truman enjoyed being in Washington again, seeing Acheson and other former advisers, and feeling for a few moments that he once more had a role in shaping world events. “It seemed like a dream to relive such an experience,” he later reflected. “For one solid week, the illusion of those other days in Washington was maintained perfectly.”

  Truman met with Acheson and Averell Harriman about a foreign-policy speech he was planning to make, which he wanted to be important without appearing partisan. His wish to have a bipartisan foreign policy, and his belief that he and others should support the President on matters of foreign policy, was not so strongly felt by Acheson. “Packing of the Tariff Commission” refers to the Republican effort to put trade protectionists on the commission. Senator Walter F. George of Georgia was the senior Democratic member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. “Bad election results in Italy” were the strong Communist Party showings in parliamentary elections, where Italian prime minister Alcide De Gasperi was forced to resign following losses of his Christian Democratic Party in 1953. The MSA was the Mutual Security Agency, which supervised foreign aid programs. “Luce” was Clare Boothe Luce, a member of Congress, wife of the founder of Time magazine, and recently appointed as ambassador to Italy. Konrad Adenauer was chancellor of West Germany. Repatriation of prisoners of war was a major issue in negotiations to reach an armistice agreement to end fighting in Korea, which ended in a stalemate that still obtains.

  June 23, 1953

  MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION

  Averell Harriman and I had a meeting for an hour or more with President Truman at the Mayflower Hotel this morning.

  The President led off by reading us a speech on national defense which he was planning to make before The Reserve Officers Association in Philadelphia on Friday night. After reading the speech, he asked us to criticize it from two points of view:

  Was this a proper speech for him to make at this time? He did not wish to attack the President. He did not wish to get involved in partisan politics. He felt strongly that matters were drifting and that a most s
erious situation was developing, and he felt that the weakening of the defense program at this time was both a most serious aspect of the matter and one on which he could properly speak without getting involved in partisan politics.

  Averell and I told him that on the first point we thought that the speech was good, was on a high plane, and should be made.

  We then made a series of specific suggestions. We thought that the speech went too far in giving the impression that the Truman foreign policy was in fact being carried out; whereas what seemed to be happening was that the same words were being used but that action was being so weak and confused as to impair the policy itself. We suggested that this might be handled by praising the continuity in the policy, but saying that policy consisted in more than mere assertion; that it required on the one hand strong and difficult action and on the other, consistent and unified negotiation; that Mr. Truman knew very well the difficulties in these fields and that he was prepared to support the President and that he hoped everyone else would when the President asserted his authority in the field of foreign affairs, which must be preserved, and when he took the essential actions which were necessary to put the policies into effect.

  The other changes were along the lines of not giving the impression that the President expected an attack upon us or our allies and therefore advised strong defense measures; but that strong defense measures were necessary to keep others from taking actions which might inevitably lead to most dangerous situations and possibly to hostilities.

  We then turned to discussion of broader matters. I reported that Lyndon Johnson had told me that he could maintain a very strong group in the Senate to oppose the packing of the Tariff Commission and that this might get to the point of voting against a conference report on the Trade Agreements Act, which had this packing provision in it. Lyndon wondered whether this would be a dangerous action since the Democrats might be accused of defeating the bill. My advice had been that the bill with a packed Commission, together with peril point and other provisions, was worse than no bill, a view with which he said Senator George concurred. I thought that people could understand the Commission packing proposal better than they could complicated fiscal provisions and that it was well to make a fight on this issue. The President strongly agreed.

  We discussed trends in Europe. Averell expressed the view that the bad election results in Italy had in his opinion a close connection with the confusion in American foreign policy leadership and with the division between the United States and its Allies. He spoke of a so-called “Crawford Report” of an MSA group which had criticized the Italians, the Luce appointment at this critical moment, and our bickerings with the British. He thought all of this could easily have made the difference in the few thousand votes which prevented De Gasperi from having a strong parliamentary majority. He said that he was fearful that a continuation of the same weakness, together with the uncertainties which a Big Four meeting would inject into European affairs just at the time of a German election, might result in Adenauer’s defeat, and that this would put us in a most precarious position.

  We also discussed the Korean situation, and at the President’s request I explained the similarity between the present Prisoners of War provisions and the December UN Resolution and said that I did not think that the present armistice terms were subject to a just criticism. The President agreed.

  He had other matters which he wished to discuss with us, but our time had expired and many other callers were waiting.

  Truman’s former staff gave a dinner in his honor, at which Acheson delivered a moving tribute.

  June 23, 1953

  Loyalty … is not something which is understood solely by considering those who give it. It requires an understanding of him who inspires it. The finest loyalty is not apt to be inspired by a man unless he inspires both respect and affection. Respect comes for many reasons. It is enough here to say that it springs from the fundamental purposes of a man’s life and from his methods of achieving them, his manner of conducting himself in his relations with others. President Truman’s fundamental purpose and burning passion has been to serve his country and his fellow citizens. This devoted love of the United States has been the only rival which Mrs. Truman has had. It has never been obscured or deflected by thought of himself, by personal ambition, or desire for position. What he has wanted for the United States is what every decent citizen has wanted for his own family, his own neighbors, his own community and country. It has not been to have it big or rich or powerful for these ends themselves. It has not been to use its power to dictate either to its own people or to other people.… He has sought in every way to give full scope for ability, energy, and initiative to create abundance beyond anything we have thought possible. But he has sought to do more. He has sought to make a kind and compassionate country whose institutions would truly reflect, both at home and abroad, the kind and compassionate nature of its people. He has sought to keep opportunity open to all and to mold political and economic life so that the weak and unfortunate are not trampled and forgotten, and so that all who honestly strive to do the best they can may fairly share in the abundance which this country creates. These are purposes which excite the respect and enthusiasm of all who have been fortunate enough to work with him.

  Acheson reflects on the meaning of Stalin’s death for the United States and its allies. Oscar Chapman was Truman’s Secretary of the Interior during the latter years of his presidency. The Washington Post article he mentions is titled “Writer Finds Mighty Russia Starting to Burst at Seams.” Charles “Chip” Bohlen, the preeminent expert on the Soviet Union in Truman’s State Department, was at this time ambassador to the Soviet Union. Lavrentiy Beria, chief of security and the NKVD, the secret police, under Stalin, became first deputy prime minister after Stalin’s death. A member of the Politburo, he was Stalin’s much-feared enforcer. The reference is to his sudden downfall, when he was accused of treason at a Politburo meeting, arrested on the spot, and taken away and shot. The book that Acheson mentions, Journey for Our Time: The Russian Journals of the Marquis de Custine, is the 1839 journal of a French traveler in Russia who generalizes about Russian society and the Russian character in a manner similar to Alexis de Tocqueville’s generalizations about Americans.

  The reference to “Stevenson” is to Adlai Stevenson, Democratic nominee for President in 1952, former governor of Illinois.

  July 21, 1953

  Dear Mr. President:

  I am most grateful for the last Cabinet picture, which came to me from you. It brings back the most poignant memories.

  All of us here are still talking of your visit. I see the boys from time to time when we meet to discuss Library affairs and last week I had a long and most pleasant luncheon and talk with Oscar Chapman. He is a sound man and most loyal one.

  In case you have not seen it, I am enclosing a clipping from last Sunday’s Washington Post. The story by Eddie Gilmore, who, as you know, has just come out of Moscow with his Russian wife, gives his reflection on the attitudes in Russia since the death of Stalin. I am doubly impressed with them because they accord with many of Chip Bohlen’s thoughts.

  It is important, I think, not to over-estimate or under-estimate the change which Stalin’s death has produced. It does not in any way mean, in my judgment, that the USSR will be any less of a totalitarian, Communist, police state. There will not be any lessening of the danger in the world if the West is foolish enough to weaken itself and make aggression seem the road to profit with little or no risk.

  What Stalin did to the Russia of Lenin was to impose upon it a personal, oriental despotism, in which the whims, fears, and ideas of one man and a small coterie greatly enlarged the field for intrigue and the uncertainty of life for everybody from the highest officials to the man in the street. As both Bohlen and Gilmore say, there was almost an audible sigh of relief when Uncle Joe died, and a great yearning for what was nostalgically thought of as “the good old days of Lenin” (which had become somewhat rosy
-tinted in retrospect), in which there was plenty of dictatorship and ruthlessness, but in which the government was run by an oligarchy, the head of which had great power but was not deified. This tended toward committee government and greater scope for discussion and greater need for carrying some sort of acquiescence in what was done.

  It is Chip’s guess—and only a guess—that it was Beria’s (the super cop’s) passion for intrigue which made him unable to accept the new movement and got him into trouble. The fact that he could be dealt with as he was and that a man who had been in high position for twenty years could be denounced universally as a scoundrel from the start is both very Russian (see the book called A Journey for Our Time) and was evidence that authoritarianism has not appreciably declined.

  It may be that the Russian leaders will have to make greater concessions to the Soviet and satellite people. If this is so, they will want a period of relaxation in foreign affairs. And if this in turn is so, we may be faced with proposals in regard to Germany and perhaps even Korea and Indochina which may alter some of the factors—i.e., the openness of Russian hostility and willingness to use force against weakness—which have strengthened the allied effort.

  But it would be a great mistake, I believe, to think that the essence of the problem is changed. That essence, which influenced the thoughts which you and I have held for so long—that essence is that it isn’t merely the imminent threat of aggression from the Soviet movement which causes instability and the danger of war, but the capacity for successful aggression whenever the mood or the desire to engage in it exists. Therefore, our policy was to create strength by binding ourselves and our allies both economically and militarily. It is essential to continue that policy.